Have Tea… Will Travel

Summer is wide open skies, laps in our pool, riding on the back of our motorcycle, being with our babies, (who aren’t babies anymore) and enjoying time being still for a couple of months.

For a long, long time I always insisted I wasn’t a good traveler. There were many trips that gave me lots of evidence of this- from having a knack for being sick on any moving vehicles, to pulling a motorcycle trailer through the Ozarks one miserable day.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

But the hardest thing was how awful I always felt when I did travel. I always hurt, and got extremely fatigued, like I spent the entire day running all those miles instead of riding in the car or on the motorcycle. I hadn’t ridden on the back of our motorcycle for more than 1/2 an hour in almost 4 years. My hubs even talked about selling it and getting something smaller.

This year, after getting my Lupus diagnosis and finally, finally, finally proper treatment has been so wonderful. For the most part, my pain and exhaustion are gone. I still have flare-ups, and they can be brutal, but when everything is calm its magic.

We went on a longish ride the other day to start training for a long motorcycle trip this summer. The boys are going to ride out to Colorado but me and the wives are taking a car. When we get there though, we will be riding all over. I was ready to try again. I had missed sharing the road on the motorcycle with my husband. Sadly, our kids weren’t going on this trip.

We rode all day, taking breaks here and there to eat or rest and I had no pain and no exhaustion! Thankfully I wasn’t having a flare. It was fabulous! I told him I had NEVER felt that good on the bike. (Yes, I have been managing Lupus a very long time not knowing what was wrong with me- I just thought it was normal for me.)

So now Im excited about traveling again. Im playing and planning and making packing lists. Im thinking about how I will make tea and have tea on the road and how I can make art the same way.

On Plein Air Painting and Painting on the Road
Painting outside is communion with nature. It is a religious experience that cleanses the soul. I sit in awe and worshipful wonder of my God and his creation. Landscapes are the face of God’s creativity. Artists can be explorers, and were for a long time before the impressionists. My top studio travel tips are:

A smaller, but still functional setup is easier and more likely to be used than a regular one. I bought the Art Toolkit palette to try on this road trip. I repurposed an old Rickshaw Moleskine folio as the kit holder. (I cut the stitches on each end of where the zipper was sewn in to make it a lot roomier.) In it I have some very short Caran d Ache Supracolor pencils that I use the most, ballpoint pen, waterbrushes, Rosemary & Co travel rigger and dagger brushes, a high-quality paper towel, and mechanical pencils. My paper was a Magnani 1404 Toscana landscape watercolor block. My paints are mostly Winsor & Newton with a few Daniel Smith like Fuchsite genuine and Buff titanium.
Use wet or dry media for a variety of situations. Have a small setup for both. Bonus points if your colored pencils are water-soluble and can be used both ways. Caran d’ Ache Supracolor II are perfect and they are open stock so you can try a few before spending a lot!
Coloplast board (plastic corrugated signs such as for garage sales and political races) make an easy and cheap lap desk for in the car. Use bulldog clips to hold things in place.
Watertight containers for water- Nalgene works great. Water brushes are perfect to use if the jar of water is too messy, but I don’t like how the bristles behave.
Moleskine sketchbooks for dry media and watercolor books for wet media are perfect in the A4 size 5×8 1/4.”
Use dedicated bags (one for wet, one for dry) to hold your supplies to keep things organized.
If you are with a group of people they won’t want to stop while you paint (unless you are with other artists!). Be ok with taking pictures, focusing on what you want to paint and studying it as long as possible, and making your art later while riding in the car or at your hotel room.
If you are painting outside (en plein air) why not make your campaign civilized with comfy chairs, beautiful palettes, quality supplies, and lovely hot tea?
Lastly- Sea Bands have been a game-changer for my motion sickness. They are amazing and for the first time in my life I can do other things in the car besides having to look out the window!

Tea on the Road
Apart from stopping to build a fire and making tea in a can (a Billy) like the Aussies do, there can be a lot of civilization with tea on the road. Why not make you campaign civilized with tea?

Bring your own kettle, electric! (Be aware most travel kettles cannot be used with a car converter- they pull way to much electricity.) Hotel coffeemakers will not make good tea (it might have a coffee taste to it)! Most hotels with breakfast will have hot water that you can make tea with though.
Do bring your favorite china! Wrap it in a tea towel to pad it, it will come in handy. If it gets broken you can find another one on E-Bay. Tea tastes better out of a china cup. I don’t know why, it just does.
If you pre-make tea in your room you can keep it hot all day in a vacuum tumbler or a carafe, or thermos. Just don’t add the cream until you are ready to drink it or it could curdle.
Careful when drinking while in a moving vehicle, try to put yourself in a good place to enjoy it. If you can’t, just do the best you can.
Bagged tea is the easiest to use. Don’t ever feel bad about bags! There are lots of good teas that come in bags. My favorite is Harney & Sons- any of their Earl Greys!
Also very good for traveling are Land O’ Lakes Mini Moos- ultra heat pasteurized 1/2 and 1/2 pods that are shelf stable and individualized packs of honey. Neither need refrigeration and are less messy than dealing with full-sized containers! They are great in the car.
Be in the moment with your tea and enjoy it! Sharing is good too!