Stonehaven

One of the things I miss in Edinburgh is the sea. That may sound strange, as Edinburgh lies on a wide estuary, the Firth of Forth, and a short walk from our house brings us within sight and sound of its tidal reaches. But for all its whitecaps and wheeling seabirds it's a tame sea. The fields and hills of Fife lie just across the water.

By contrast from Stonehaven, to the south of Aberdeen, there is only the wide horizon of the North Sea.





Below, Stonehaven's setting on a sheltered bay.





Even in the town centre, the 'real' sea is always present. In the gap between the buildings below, a working ships of the North Sea is a counterpoint to land-based traffic.





Can you detect that I'm feeling homesick for the North?

Read What You Enjoy

"Never force yourself to read a book that you do not enjoy. There are so many good books in the world that it is foolish to waste time on one that does not give you pleasure and profit." Professor Atwood H. Townsend
I've finally gotten to the place where I can take Professor Townsend's advice. Last week I put down two library books that I just couldn't get into for whatever reason. Maybe I'll come back to them later or maybe not. They just didn't capture my attention right now, and that's okay. No guilt.

Santa Fe

Forecast for Friday was sunny and windy. Figured it was a good day to make my trip to Santa Fe. Original plans were to bring the bike. But with riding the 3 last day, I needed a day off the bike (my butt would thank me).

Drove over to the Rio Rancho/Journal station on the RailRunner. Found out that it was Albuquerque's "Bike to Work Day". Visited with folks from New Mexico Transportation Dept and BikeABQ (stationed at opposite ends of the parking lot). I talked with Steve of BikeABQ - who happens to be from Iowa! We are everywhere.

Uneventful train ride to Santa Fe. Stopped in at the Santa Fe Depot (today's photo) for information. Got suggestions of places to visit. Caught the free shuttle bus to The Plaza.

Did a walking tour of downtown Santa Fe. Visited the Georgia O'Keefe Museum. Walked around the Plaza. Stop at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis Assisi (did not go inside). Lunch at San Francisco Street Bar & Grill.

Now, time to walk off lunch. Walked over to San Miguel Mission and the oldest house in Santa Fe. (Passed on Loretto Chapel as I was there this Winter). Next stop was the Roundhouse (New Mexico State Capitol). Toured most of the capitol (that i could get to).

The Bataan Memorial was on the way back to the train. Stopped there. By now I was thirsty. Found The Junction, as sports bar & grill at the Railyard.

Visited with another patron of the bar. Found out that my train ticket was also good for travel in any of the Santa Fe buses. Word is there is the same situation in Albuquerque. Cheap travel (since my Senior rate for the train was $6). Train ticket prices go up Monday.

Train was packed part of the way - not surprising since i was on the 4:10 train on a Friday afternoon!. Was exhausted by the time i got back to the room. Spent some time processing the photos, but was too tired to blog and post on fb.

A Little Ladder

I bought this small ladder at a local thrift store without knowing what I was going to do with it. I figured you can always use a little ladder, right? The first thing I thought to do with it was to hang it on the kitchen ceiling with pots attached. Only thing wrong with that is... I have a ceiling fan in the middle of my kitchen ceiling. It wouldn't really look good in my 1940's style kitchen anyway.
Instead I put it in the library with magazines draped over the rungs. I like it for now. Anyone have another good idea on how to use it?

Down By The River Side

This week I've been taking every road I know that crosses the Ogeechee River trying to find a 'Kodak moment' for an exhibition coming up at the end of May that'll benefit a local organization called The RiverKeepers. They're dedicated to cleaning up our local river, and our art association wanted to draw attention to them and raise a little money in the process.

The above three are the best ones so far. Each person can submit up to three works of art for entry into the exhibition. If they sell, a portion of the proceeds will go to the RiverKeepers organization. I love entering these local contests! Wish me luck or good providence.

Woodland Star

The tiny flowers of woodland star, Lithophragma parviflorum.

Arches

It was really difficult to get going this morning. A couple times I tried getting up, just to nap. Guess I really needed the sleep.

Decided to drive up to Arches National Park to scope out the park again. take some photos, re-orient myself (been 15 or more years since I was there). Since it was late morning on a Sunday, there were a lot of folks in the park. The most popular trailhead parking lots were full to the brim.

Stopped in at the Visitor's Center to inquire about places to shoot sunrise/sunset. Picked up some reading material while I was there. Took a good number of photos. Started processing the files.

When I got back to the motel, I was time for my bike ride. Aired up the tires on the road bike and lubed the chain. Plans were to head out of the motel and to ride North out of town.

For the first 2 miles I was on streets, highway shoulder, and bike path - up to Rt. 128. Crossed the road and rode up to the new pedestrian bridge over the Colorado River.

From this point, I was on the Moab Canyon Trail (Pathway). The trail climbs along US 191. The scenery (read rock formations) leaves you confused of the slope of the trail. At places, the trail looks like you are descending but you are still climbing. Yup, you climb so much that you think you are dropping when you are still climbing.

Made it up to the road entrance to Arches - about 5 miles. Recruited a couple of fellow cyclists to take my photo at the entrance (see above). It was lots of fun coasting down the canyon trail to Rt 128.

There, the road (UT 191)basically levels out until it drops down into Moab. As I rode into town, I was getting exhausted, Still had enough energy to pick up some souvenirs.

Back in the room, I transferred today's photos to the auxiliary laptop drive. Then time for food.

Not looking for riding the bike or a long walk to dinner. I had seen Woody's Tavern just a block from my motel. Not impressed with the service. The bartender was paying more attention to the football gane than her customer. Eventually she saw me. Good burger and seasoned waffle fried. Washed it down with an amber ale.

Most of today's photos have been processed. Will take some time to finish up and select those for posting on fb.

Happy Birthday

Today is my mother's birthday. You haven't heard a lot about my mother yet, but it's coming. My mother is a quiet steady engine that keeps this family well fed and motoring right along. She always turns out great meals except on her birthday which has become synonymous with going out for Chinese. When my mother cooks, she usually has a stick or two of butter at the ready. One of our family's favorite recipes is Greek chicken- like Yiya used to make. My non Greek mother is not particularly fond of this dish, but she patiently churns it out by request. As the saying goes in my family- first you take a chicken... then you bake it in a pan with tomato sauce; cook the macaroni, drain the noodles and add a stick of butter. Then you pour all that chicken dripping tomato sauce on top of those buttery noodles and.... I can't even stand to write about it, it's that good. Another specialty is fudge cake, not to mention Aunt Mary's Hot fudge sauce, and chocolate muffins, but don't get me started.
My mother was born here at the old Sibley Hospital which was on North Capitol Street. She weighed seven pounds, and was the first child born in the family. Her parents, Bernice and Roger Calvert had just gotten married the year before on Bernice's eighteenth birthday. They named my mother after her mother, Bernice Bailey, and so she became "BB" which morphed into the Bebe we know today. My grandmother wrote: "Baby's first ride was from the hospital in Dr. Molzahi's car. After that she had numbers of auto rides, street car rides, baby carriage rides, but I think she loves best of all to ride in daddy's arms."
Too sweet.
She was born a blond, and to this day, through the miracle of modern means, she has stayed a blonde. She is so beautiful that she became a model AFTER she raised three children and before she had one more. She is still a looker and still on the go, planning the next cruise as soon as this one is over. She even drags herself to exercise class and does Thanksgiving for forty of our closest relatives- all on my Dad's side. (That includes a turkey AND a ham and about 5,000 pounds of mashed potatoes)
So this is it- the one day a year she doesn't have to cook. I have to go round up the kids. We're off for Chinese somewhere in Rockville.
So Happy Birthday, MOM, and thanks.

Henry Miller on Light

The writer Henry Miller, who made his home in Big Sur, California, had this to say about light: "There are two magic hours of the day which I have only really come to know and wait for, bathe in, I might say, since living here. One is dawn, the other sunset. In both we have what I like to think of as 'the true light': the one cold, the other warm, but both creating an ambiance of super-reality, or the reality behind reality....Everything is brush and cones, umbrellas of light-the leaves, bought, stalks, trunks standing out separate and defined, as if etched by the Creator himself."
Since so many of my photographs are taken at these two magical times, I most assuredly agree with him. I love the warm nature of the slanted sunlight. It makes everything delineated and magical; sharper and softer at the same time.

In Which We Discover a New Doggie Park...

Cool place for da bags, eh?
And cool new park we've discovered!
How we do da swimmin' thing. I pick up the kong-on-a-rope and toss it to mom or dad or anyone who looks like they cans throw it good!
Temps are in the 70s and ground is slightly mucky, which is just perfecto fer me!
Okay ready!
Hey, c'mon! I'm ready!
Geez whiz, thought you'd never frow it!
Whoopee! After the Kong I go!
And then... return it!
Hmmmmnnnn... seems like there's a welcoming party...
But I can make my way through 'em all!

And RUN... to my dad... who will throw it again and again... I hope!
No way! Tomorrow? Uh uh... no way.

Early Morning Ride

The dog days of summer are upon us. The only reasonable time to ride is sunrise. This morning I was actually a little late for sunrise. There were some clouds, so I was still able to capture this image.
Photo was taken on E. Manawa Drive. Took 2 different bracketed exposure sets.
Did my 2 laps of Lake Manawa this morning, including the North shore park road. It makes a nice 7.5 miles loop and 15 mile ride. Done and heading to Panera for coffee about 8am.
Checked out the medallions in the pavement along E. Manawa Drive. The new trail is an extension of Veteran's Memorial Trail (trail along Hwy 92). Once the flood waters recede and Indian Creek Trail is open for riding, there will be a nice loop to ride almost entirely on bicycle trail.

Maturing

Continuing the whisky theme from my Christmas holiday. Under these frosty roofs lie hundreds of casks of whisky. These are some of the warehouses of Glenrothes distilllery. Thick stone walls, earth floors and slate roofs, and 15 years or so of unhurried maturing.
The white is all hoar frost - not a flake of snow in sight. And yes, the air was very definitely perfumed with whisky where I stopped to take this photo.

Flowering Trees for Gardening Gone Wild

Some amazing photographers have entered this month's Picture This Photo Contest at Gardening Gone Wild. My photos are seldom amazing but it's worth taking them as documentation and as memories, no matter their artistic value. I'm entering this photo because it shows all three forms of our Redbuds/Cercis canadensis in bloom last spring. I named my garden Circus~Cercis because of these trees:
(Please click to enlarge)
At left near the Pink Garden a Texas Redbud is getting established, waving arms to its cousin the Texas Whitebud across the drive in the sunny native and adapted bed that now fills the footprint where a huge ash once grew. Between them, way back in the shadows at the far end of the house you can see the dark leaves and deep pink flowers of the 'Forest Pansy' redbud, planted in fall ...
We're in deep drought here in Central Texas, and have already racked up more than 30 days over 100°F with all of August and September yet to come. I've been watering the trees, but sometimes the ground stays so warm and the nights are so hot that even good-sized trees just give up the fight to stay alive. With a little luck the three redbuds will make it through to live and bloom again.

Result!

It's exam results day in Scotland. 160,000 students receive their Advanced Highers, Highers, Intermediate, Standard Grade and Access results in the post today. These are the major school exams, used among other things for university entry.
Some 30,000 received their results by text yesterday, in error. The results are meant to come out on the same day by text, email and post, but those who had signed up to the text service were surprised to find a message with their results beeping on their phones yesterday afternoon. Cue much media sound and fury, even though the results themselves were accurate and no applicants were disadvanted in their university application by the phased release, because the universities already had all the results.
Among the early batch was my daughter, who received her Highers results. Below is a close-up of her certificate which arrived today. The Highers she sat this year are the first five in the list, and there then follow last year's results for the remaining eight grades.

Needless to say she's delighted, and so are we. Next up for her last year at school, Advanced Highers in History, Modern Studies and Music.