I like to explore and tell descriptive stories about places. I also make jewelry, music and mixed-media art.
Cold Moon, December 2024 As the final full moon rises before winter solstice on a cloudy night in the North american eastern woodlands, I look back through the past solar year and then to the path that lies ahead. Earlier this year, I decided to update the name of this blog to “Arianna’s Creative Travels” […]
Read More Creative Travels: observations of a cycleThis year, one of my travel goals has been to see the rhododendron in bloom. Through exploration and research, ecstasy was achieved; the blooms were awesome, and they inspired a beaded art necklace. June, 2024. The spring bloom period in the eastern woodlands finally reaches the Appalachian mountains. Gardens in the cloud forest create a […]
Read More Rhododendron flowers, a necklace, and prideJubilee Park, Ivanhoe, Virginia, mid-April 2024 Ivanhoe, the Fair now this is glamping true Revival, handling of the Serpentine embanked New (Kanawha) river The diva waters Still rush past this old railway, blast furnace and mine shaft left to history A fairground in the off-season, nearly empty Jubilee A small town that doesn’t need much […]
Read More Ivanhoe, the fair (a return)May, 2023, Afton and Waynesboro, VA INTERSECTIONS and PORTALS I’m standing at Rockfish Gap of the Blue Ridge, looking east as Interstate 64 descends toward the Virginia piedmont and Charlottesville. To the west, the highway drops in to the Shenandoah valley. Here the Blue Ridge Parkway meets Skyline Drive, to the south and north respectively, […]
Read More Rockfish Gap and Waynesboro, part 1: CROSSING and ARRIVALDecember 27, 2022 The winter storm blew through before Christmas, freezing pipes and ponds across the Atlantic coastal plain. After a few cold dim days, the temperatures rose and sky cleared up again. Necessary is a nature walk and a visit to a ruin, before returning to Hampton Roads and home tasks. The Neuse River, […]
Read More Milburnie falls and dam ruins on the NeuseOctober, 2022 There is a labyrinth set up at one of the neighboring camps. It’s a sunny, brisk day after night rains left water in our tents, which we had set up after a long, tiring drive the day before. I’m in a temporary ‘town,’ the Alchemy Burn gathering in Northwest Georgia, a pretty area of […]
Read More A traveling labyrinth in a tent town called AlchemySeptember 2022, Norfolk, Virginia It’s Autumn Equinox in the northern hemisphere of Earth, where the position of the sun makes the day and night equal in length, for a short time. Though it’s warm now on the Chesapeake Bay, fall is now upon us, and the changes in weather will come soon. For me, celebrating […]
Read More A Labyrinth for EquinoxCamping near Pungo, Virginia Beach, with my parents, loblolly pines stand over us, offering little shade in the bright, humid air. A small canal encircles the campground, connecting water to Muddy Creek and the shallow Back Bay. A mile or so from here, Grace White Sherwood lived, farmed, and probably swam, 300+ years ago. Grace’s story is famous in Hampton Roads, an herbalist and farmer in colonial Princess Anne County known as the “witch of Pungo” and the only* person convicted of witchcraft in Virginia, surviving her “ducking” trial by swimming to the shore.
Curvy 2-lane roads take us through floodplain and forest, with watery ditches on both sides. Occasionally there is a church, horse training center, or boat landing. Our campground, North Bayshore, is at the end of such a road, adjacent to the Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge. We rent a canoe from camp and float down the canal to Muddy Creek, in the Refuge. It would be very easy to slip out into the network of waterways and spend a day out there exploring…
If you like dinosaurs, this is a story for you! Mark Cline says we are experiencing the future right now. In an early morning hour near Natural Bridge, Virginia, I stand outside the Dinosaur Kingdom II, meeting the artist who created this attraction and many other fibrous sculptures and installations. Next to us, motors whir […]
Read More A Tail of Two Dinosaur Roadside Attractions (and the SLIGHTLY fibrous nature of time)
arianna's creative travels 