Day 4 (4/28/09)
Today was the first day on the trail since last Friday night. Although the sun was shinning it was quite cold. I didn’t really realize how cold until I turned north onto the trail. It actually worked out to my advantage because I only saw two other people on the trail. This gave me a lot of freedom to build and build I did. I hadn’t really planned on staying out to long but so much for planning. I was pleasantly surprised that others had done some building and even rebuilding of my sculptures for me. Somebody had even rebuilt a tie build which I think is a first. A friend, who had read my blog, e-mailed me about the “Inukshuks”, she had seen while biking through Canada, which are stone piles fashioned to look somewhat human with legs and arms and a head. So Connie, I have included my attempt at building an Inukshuk. It will definitely be something I will play around with in the future. Any one who questions the exercise part of this project should have been along tonight. By the time I was done shouldering around the ties for the first build, in spite of the cold, I was sweating harder I think then I ever have in the weight room, and having a lot more fun.

Day 3 (4/25/09)
We were hoping to go out this morning and do some building but when we got up the rain, which was supposed to come later in the day, was already here. Fortunately, we had gone out last evening to try out our freshly serviced bikes. It was great having them back and in great shape. We didn’t get a chance to do any building though, because it was muddy and I had on good shoes. We found many of the builds down but most of the main ones were still standing. We were so excited about going out and building today, maybe tomorrow. I consoled myself by starting a blog site about my misadventures. Unlike most Blogs, which are at least somewhat exciting and about exotic, stimulating places, this one will mostly take place in the twenty plus miles of bike trails that go past our town. Also, much to the dismay of my three English 110 teachers, I was never all that good a writing.
That being said, I am not sure why I am writing these or, for that matter why you are reading it? Perhaps you have tired of reading and writing “what’s on your mind” on Facebook”. At any rate ,enjoy.

Day 2 (4/19/09)
Oh the woe. Everything was destroyed. Even the tie builds which had made it through the winter were destroyed. Somebody had gone down the trail and systematically smashed every sculpture they came to. It had been no small task, since many, like “The Boat works” were quite substantial. At first, the shear devastation was hard to deal with, but after reconstructing a few and realizing that we could actually make them better this time around our spirits lifted. I still do not entirely understand why somebody would want to destroy our sculptures but I do understand that if you build in a public place it is others right to destroy them. There were a few people on the trail so we were not able to reconstruct all of the downed sculptures but we did the ones we could and built a couple of new ones. So far this spring we have been on foot because we are having our bikes serviced but we will get them this week. I can’t wait.

Dolmen Project Year Two
Confessions of a “Guerilla Artist”

Perhaps one has to be crazy, in light of all that we went through last year, to strike out once again building cairns and sculptures. However, we still need exercise and we still have the need to create. Our goal for the most part remains the same as last year which was primarily to put creation back into recreation. Now that more people know that it is us doing the building the element of concealment is probably not as important as it was in the past but it is still more fun to build in secrecy. I still like the idea of people going out on the trail and finding something there that wasn’t there the day before. By the end of the summer there were a lot more people building, but there were still more tearing them down. We still get a sense of excitement when we see a build done by others. Part of the reason we are continuing, I must admit, is just to not let the destroyers win. In my mind it is a battle between good and evil with the creators representing good. I realize not everybody sees it that way.
We went out a couple of times during winter just to see how things were fairing and to our surprise many cairns and sculptures lasted all winter.
Day 1 (4/12/09) Easter
What better way to celebrate Easter then with the rebirth of some cairns. The weather was beautiful and very few people were out to disturb us. It may seem a bit harsh to look at people as disturbances but when you want to build gorilla art they are. We were pleasantly surprised to find many structures still standing and a couple of builds done by others. One of my favorites was a heart formed out of wire near the beginning of the trail. We built a couple cairns behind it which I later named “Cairns in the hearts of others”. Because of the beautiful afternoon we did a lot of building including some new tie builds. One of the many highlights of the outing was a flyover by some sand hill cranes. I love the shear size of them. We have decided to try and concentrate on bigger builds in more remote places in an attempt to keep destruction to a minimum. In some cases the build are just starts and will be elaborated on later.