Snowbird Season Three Comes to a Close
- Susan O'Hanlon
- May 5
- 10 min read
This is it, folks - the end of our Snowbird Season Three blog. We’re home and it feels good to be here! It’s been so wonderful to have you all along for the ride with us. Thank you for being part of our journey!
We last left you just after arriving at Cheraw State Park, a place I remembered fondly from Snowbird Season One. The campground and the park were as I remembered, and I’m so glad we spent our last restful week at this location! We had six glorious days to enjoy the natural beauty of Lake Juniper, walk along the park’s golf course, explore the cozy cabin loop tucked in the woods, and gaze out over the water from our lakefront campsite as we wound down from our travels and prepared ourselves to return home.
And, lest we break with tradition, that means I also had six evenings to watch the sun setting over one of the most beautiful lakes I’ve encountered on our travels. Each night, it seemed Mother Nature used a new palette to paint the sky in order to give me endless inspiration for my work in colored porcelain. My favorite scenes were the ones where the mirror-like surface of the lake reflected the trees and the colorful imagery from the clouds above.
The weather during our stay was wonderful! The dogwoods bloomed, and signs of the eternal spring we experienced as we made our way north were everywhere. We took long walks, enjoyed the fauna and wildlife (and some crazy insects!), spied turtles bathing in the sun, and unwittingly startling a giant heron hiding in the brushes beside the boardwalk. I was mesmerized as the heron lifted up from out of nowhere right in front of us. My reaction time after four months living the simple life was slow, and I didn’t get a photo to share with you all, so you’ll just have to take my word that it was a magnificent thing to behold!
I spent a few days creating new jewelry and another day photographing work right on the banks of the lake. I love when I’m able to work outside without the walls of my Screen Room “studio” to hide beautiful natural world all around me. Unlike the cane and pattern block building I’d been doing for most of our trip, jewelry making is one of those tasks I can set up and take down easily, so I took full advantage of both the weather and the view!
I’ve found this Foldio3 photo booth to be a great option for my product photos, be they pots or jewelry. It has both integrated and optional lighting (although I prefer natural light), folds up super compact, and fits perfectly in the storage compartment under one of our bunks. Unlike the soft-sided fabric photo booths I’ve used in the past, this one is substantial enough to withstand a moderate wind, which came in handy as the winds kicked up across the lake. Finally, all of my photos are done, and so begins the arduous task of creating the listings on my website and for my Etsy shop.
That same lake gifted me with a spectacular phenomenon on the morning of our departure, when I woke to a mist-shrouded lake and a front-row seat to watch the birth of a cloud. I saw this occur for the first time just two years prior at the same location, and the experience was just as awe inspiring the second time around!
From Cheraw State Park, we traveled north to James River State Park in Gladstone, VA. We love the Blue Ridge Mountain area of Virginia, and often travel to and from home via this region to avoid the traffic and monotony of the I-95 corridor. This was our first time at James River, so we only booked three nights. Our site was huge, the park was beautiful, and the hiking trails were plentiful! This is our kind of park, and we look forward to returning again.
We encountered a cemetery for the first time on our hiking expeditions in a state park. I’m not morbid, and I’m not even one to visit the final resting places of people I’ve known and loved in modern cemeteries, but there’s something about old cemeteries that has always drawn me to them. We saw two separate family plots on the park grounds; when time permits, I hope to be able to do a little research to find out how that came about. Until then, my imagination is busy creating a saga worthy of the Thornbirds about a family of means who lived, loved, suffered and rejoiced on these lands before dedicating the property to the state for public use. Maybe one day, I’ll put these characters floating through my subconscious to paper!
Our final stopover on the long drive home was at Codorus State Park in Hanover, PA. Once again, this was a campground we had not visited before, but we wanted a full hook-up site close to home where we could do all the necessary cleaning (and thoroughly clean out our tanks) before we park Maggie for the summer. We had just two nights at Codorus, arriving late and leaving early, so there was time for only one hike (sans camera) and lots of cleaning. This is another park we’ll return to, hopefully for a caregiving respite camping trip when the weather is a bit warmer and we can spend more time exploring the park.
Our last stop, of course, was our driveway, where Maggie snuggled right up next to the house while Bandit and Oakley enjoyed some (separate) off-leash time in their fenced-in back yard. A few late blooming daffodils in my gardens greeted me upon arrival. After unloading Maggie, relishing in my first barefoot shower since late December and sleeping in my uber comfy bed that we used to take with us in Irving but doesn’t fit in Maggie, we rejoiced in reunion visits with our kiddos in Philadelphia and visited my mom at my brother’s home in Delco.
Then (you guessed it!) I absconded to the studio to work with the projects inspired by our trip that I hope to have ready for the Chester County Studio Tour. Almost immediately, I fired the work I started on our journey to validate the colors on a scale larger than what I can fire in my microwave kiln: small tiles from each of my sunset blends, the lotus flower petals, the paper thin California Golden Poppy bowl I constructed in South Carolina (it survived the journey home!), a test poppy bowl in the Red Chieftan pattern, and several batches of new beads that are already mid-way through their journey through the tumbling process. These pre-glaze pieces will be glazed and re-fired, and their colors will be vibrant at a higher firing temperature.
The floating mosaic project I envisioned didn’t work out as I had hoped, so I’ve hit pause on that project and am banking the knowledge that I gleaned from my first attempt. I’ll re-visit it when I’m not under the gun as I was during this particular making frenzy.
My humble work in clay offers so many lessons that correlate to life; this experience was a gentle reminder that beauty lies not just in the finished piece, but in the journey that brings it to life. And clay work is a tricky business, one in which the finished product rarely matches the vision in the maker’s mind. This work requires us to accept what the kiln gods offer, or - as in this case - to accept that our process needs tweaking in order to achieve our vision. One of the first things I teach my students is to not become attached to a piece (or a concept) until it survives the final firing. So, after investing much time and effort in this piece, I was only able to let go when I accepted that this was just one part of my learning experience on a journey that (fingers crossed), will one day result in a striking new body of colored porcelain work that will uplift those who experience it with visions of Mother Nature’s beauty.
Yesterday morning, I closed the lid on the last bisque kiln to fire the work I’ve meticulously constructed from my canes and blends since we returned home: more poppy and lotus flower bowls, more sunset tiles, a large batch of beads, and a newly conceived “Good Vibes” series to inspire, motivate and calm you in the form of the pendants, bookmarks, bead chains and magnets they will become.
Unfortunately, I banged one of the lotus flower bowls as I was loading the kiln, so there will only be one of them available for the Chester County Studio Tour. That show takes place at our home and at 59 other studios throughout Chester County on the weekend of May 17 and 18. I’m pleased to host 4 other amazing artists at my studio; in total, there are 170 artists sharing their work on this year’s tour.
The Chester County Studio Tour is my absolute favorite show, because - for me - it’s all about sharing my passion for clay with others. I feel like most artists who participate on the tour feel the same - it’s low key, full of incredibly positive energy and completely free! We have live artist demos Saturday and Sunday at our location, and a free gift from my Tree of Gratitude for everyone just for stopping by. If you’re local, look for the directional signs and banners throughout the county, or visit www.countystudiotour.com to do a little advance planning. You’ll be amazed at the caliber of artistic talent throughout Chester County, and you may even find that a neighbor is sharing a side of themselves you never knew about. If you prefer a printed program, I have plenty of them at my house and will also be distributing them to many of my favorite local businesses later this week. Follow my page dedicated to the studio tour at @SusanOHanlonStudio on Instagram to see where you can get your catalog, or email me for details.
Yesterday, we finished assimilating the things we unpacked from Maggie and got my mom’s room ready for her return tomorrow. Over the next two weeks, I’ve got lots of studio tour related outings and projects for my mom to help me with as she acclimates back to our home. Don’t worry - these projects are not elder abuse, they’re therapy - occupational, physical and social. On Wednesday, we’ll be delivering tour program guide books to many of my favorite local businesses, and on Thursday we’ll be at the opening reception for The View show, where you can see one piece by almost every artist on the tour under one roof. Join us on Thursday from 5-7pm at the Chester County Art Association in West Chester. After the beads finish tumbling on Friday, I’ll recruit my mom to help me sort and pair them up so I can make some last-minute earrings, bracelets and pendants. I promise that she’ll love helping me to string the Good Vibes bead chains so much that she won’t even think of it as fine motor skills therapy. :-)
This week and next, while my mom is napping and into the wee hours of the night, I’ll be glazing, wire wrapping, packaging, and making work for pre-orders (thank you if you are among those who helped to sustain us financially during our trip by placing orders through my website; I’m on track to ship them by mid-June).
Returning home this year felt so much less abrupt than in prior years. After returning from our first Snowbird Season (only 64 days long), I felt disoriented for what seemed like ages. It took me weeks to consistently remember where I was in the morning, and echos seemed to bounce off the walls in our small home that somehow felt cavernous. Last year, we ended what would have been a 6-month trip prematurely after 5 months when my mom suffered her stroke; we drove and dove right into caregiving and rehabilitation, so I didn’t really register my feelings around that homecoming experience.
This year, I feel like we all settled back into the routines of our sticks and bricks home with minimal distress. Sure, I go to the wrong cabinet on occasion, Steve often makes a wrong turn on his way to the coffee pot in the morning, and we’ve both found ourselves having to consciously project our voices over a larger space as we communicate with each other. Maybe we’re getting better at transitioning from one place to another as we settle into this new phase of our journey through life together. Or maybe traveling has helped us to realize that home really is where your heart is; since our hearts are with each, we’re at home so long as we’re together.
Because I had an ambitious plan to accomplish quite of bit of complicated work in my studio this year as soon as we returned - and a very limited window of time to work with - I carefully constructed a “re-entry plan,” which is something I haven’t done before. Perhaps it was that careful planning (and the process of purposefully envisioning the work and our day-to-day life in each phase) that gave me the structure and discipline I needed to focus on my tasks in the studio while letting the transition to living in my sticks and bricks home take place quietly in the background.
Sure, our refrigerator seems empty (although it holds everything we had with us for our trip so I’m confident we won’t starve) and my veggie gardens aren’t planted (but we’re members of our beloved local Two Gander Farm organic CSA (so, again, we won’t starve), and I’m feeling comfortable with what I’ve accomplished and pleased with how the work I created during our trip helped me to expand my body of work.
And, unlike last year when we were immersed in helping my mom recover from her stroke through early December, this year I hope to have some help so I can set aside dedicated studio time to revisit my floating mosaic concept and explore more of the ideas inspired by our latest RV adventure. Our next trip is already planned and waiting in the driveway (so to speak), and we’re excited to share it all with you starting in October, 2025!
Until then, we hope you’ll be enjoying your own life journey, living wholly in each and every moment, and practice accepting (and yes, celebrating!) all the lessons that come up along the way. We wish you all well and can’t thank you enough for sharing your enthusiasm for our adventures and for tolerating my endless sunset photos. (Here’s just one more to sign off with, one of my favorite sunsets ever from our first trip to Cheraw State Park)
With much love,
Steve & Susan
Pictures are gorgeous, narrative excellent! Glad you’re home safe and sound.
glad you two had a good time. Love the pictures. How did you new tv hold up?