Holy Painting Pachyderms, Batman!

So today (and it is actually today this time :-D) is day #248 in the project, so I thought it was nice that I happened to be in Cassville, MO, and I'll probably be making a trip out Missouri highway 248 later on today.  That's the road you take to go to where my Grandma and Grandpa's house was (well, it's still there, it just looks a lot different, and there's someone else living there).   We lived there for a couple of years, from 1980 to 1983 when we first moved to Missouri from Virginia Beach, too.  It's always really great to run by there an look around at the "old homestead"; the site where my grandfather was born and raised with his 13 siblings.  Yep, there were 14 kids and, of course, both great-grandparents living in that one small house!  Wow!

When we got down here last night (after the Mexican-feast-and-mariachi-show extravaganza), Ma showed us all of her pictures from her recent trip to Thailand, which she took with a group from her church.  There were some amazing pictures - beautiful people, beautiful scenery, etc.  The thing that amazed me most, though, was a painting that she bought while she was there.  I noticed it as soon as I walked into the house, and I thought it was really good - somewhat abstract, but I like abstract a lot - prefer it, actually.

Then she told me who painted it.  Or should I say "what" painted it?  This beautiful painting of a bunch of red tulips was done by a freakin' elephant!  I couldn't believe it!  There are all of these elephants in Thailand that have been trained to paint pictures!  I know that these elephants are, in fact, trained to do these actions - they're not just being that creative and doing it on their own, but come on - just the mere fact that they have that kind of control over the brush is amazing to me!


Some are completely abstract, but with many of them you can tell exactly what they are, and they're phenomenal!  If I'd thought of it I would have snapped a shot of it to put on here - maybe I'll do that tomorrow.  In the meantime, though, here's a red stroke (which doesn't look anywhere near as good as Dumbo's red flowers!) for your enjoyment.  Now I'm off to take a drive!