Since there was such a long gap in my postings, I have lots of photos I can share. I found these from a trip we took in 2021.
I wanted to go to this museum every time we saw it from Interstate 5.
You park at the bottom of the hill and take a trolley up to the museum. It’s organized and pleasant.
The grounds alone are worth seeing. It’s so pretty.
A view from the Villa, a separate part of the Getty estate museum that we visited the next day. You can see the ocean in the background.The Villa had antiquities. They were all interesting, but this one was my best photo. It is Sleeping Cupid from the Helenistic period, Roman, circa 1-100. This is one of my favorite periods because I happened to take an art history class on it in college.
Having lunch in the restaurant is nice because you can sit on the patio and look at the houses and hills.
In looking through the pictures, I just realized I have this! The end of Route 66, which I talked about in my Grand Canyon post a couple posts back, is here on Santa Monica pier. I had completely forgotten we stood on the end of the road.
I can’t claim to have done Route 66, but I did two parts of it quite by accident.
After finishing the camping and river rafting trip, we found a hotel room to be a welcome relief. We stayed at a Holiday Inn Express in Grand Canyon Village. It was a remarkably long drive to get from the end of the canyon back up to the national park, part of it along the famous Route 66. It’s just a straight road, but they have billboards from the fifties which are really cool. I’m glad we traveled on it. They had this wall at the lodge showing just how popular it has been for a long time.
Decorations on the wall of the Hualapai Lodge
We went out for pizza in Grand Canyon Village and then went on a jeep tour with about 8 other people. Our guide was quite the character. She lives on a huge piece of land where she trucks in her water from a town that’s pretty far away. She has big water tanks on the back of a pickup truck that she uses only for that. There is no water on the rim, it’s all brought in. The Native name for the area means Land of No Water. I asked her if she would get snowed-in during the winter and she said yes. Usually she can plow her road while it’s snowing, so it never gets too deep, but the winter before, it came down too fast, and she was snowed-in for two weeks. I enjoyed hearing how locals live.
She took us down a dirt road that ran along the edge of the national forest. There were two French men who were sad because they didn’t get a picture of this deer, and I worked out how to say in French that I had a picture and could give it to them. I couldn’t remember the verb for send but give worked. I emailed it to them. They were happy to get the picture and I was happy I could remember enough French to make myself understood.
She pointed out a trench that ran beside the train tracks and said they pump water through the trench to keep the wildlife alive. Nice.
We passed where they keep the burros who carry riders down into the canyon. She said that when you go to sign up they make you watch a video of what it’s like riding the narrow trails down, and 70 percent of people don’t sign up after that. Haha! I know to which group I would belong. I’m a little afraid of heights. I think the people who do the ride must lack that fear or can overcome it.
After we were through the forest, we arrived at the rim of the Grand Canyon. Wow. I really loved this perspective especially after having seen it from below. I think it was a good order for seeing the Grand Canyon.
As we were about to start this section of the tour, the two French men wandered away from the group, I couldn’t figure out how to get their attention. No one knew their names. She called out Viva La France! And they turned around, grinned and came back to the tour. We took these photos among many others.
We went to a different place for the sunset.
We saw more things in Arizona which I will share another time.
I woke up too early but decided to take advantage of the light and get out for some photos. The first one I took is my favorite.
Fiddler’s Cove
The sun was up, but we had fog to soften the light.
A curlew at Fiddler’s Cove
As I approached the village, signs informed me there was a special event, and I quickly discovered my ideas of where I would go would be thwarted. I was going to go take a picture of the bridge, but the roads were blocked. I parked where I could– this is always a nice bench to photograph.
This street is never empty like this!
There is no parking in Coronado Village at all…
…but since I was there so early, I was able to park for a few minutes to take pictures of the beach.
Coronado Beach with Point Loma in the backgroundThe Del Coronado and the towers
Someone defaced our beautiful benches. I marked out their message because that would just reward the behavior. I’m not impressed.
Bummer
I was impressed by people already out with their tents to see the parade much later today. It’s nice to see people making a big effort to enjoy the celebration.
I apologize for posting this twice. If you saw the first one, I had a version problem and deleted the wrong one, so then I had to rewrite what I wanted to post. I’m learning the ropes again and things are a little different from what I remember. So here is the story I wanted to share, take two.
In 2023 we drove to Arizona for a great road trip and the sites and experiences of a lifetime. We did an overnight rafting trip with a tour in the Hualapai tribe part of the canyon. It was a challenge to do all this. We had to wear life jackets and do exactly what the guide said. Because there weren’t quite enough spots for everyone to paddle, a few of us would ride on the transport boat with the gear which was nice for relaxing and taking pictures. I started off that way because the first rapids were huge. Not quite ready for that, I was able to watch the action from a safe distance.
When I was on the action raft, right at the end of our run, the guide said, when I say paddle on the left, everyone paddle as hard as you can on the left side, otherwise we’ll hit “the wall.” The what?! Well, we all were ready, and we did exactly as he said. A rapid catapulted us toward a plume of water that was hitting the rock wall like an upright waterfall. Our efforts to avoid it failed, and we were drenched. It was so fun. I couldn’t photograph hitting the wall of water, but here’s an action sequence I pulled out of a video I took of the other group.
At the end of the day we all felt great about what we did and were ready to relax at camp.
The landscape at the campsite included dunes and these wispy trees.
At night it was nice and dark and we saw beautiful stars. There was a lunar eclipse, but our view was limited by the canyon, and we didn’t see that. It was still beautiful, as was watching the morning sun on the mountains.
The canyon walls are so steep. The rock changes constantly and on the second day the walls began to get lower.
These last shots were taken looking back at the canyon after floating out. It’s weird, it’s so huge, but then it ends and everything is flat.
It was a great experience, and the next day we went to the rim and did a sunset tour. I’ll post a few pictures of that next.
I’ve been to this park twice now. It’s very pretty. I used to think Northern California had a lock on the state’s beauty, but Southern California has a lot to offer. I’m glad we moved here and are getting to experience a completely different set of wonders.
This year we visited Torrey Pines in the middle of the day. The photos are not as dramatic as they would be with softer light. Still, I do like looking at them and hope you enjoy them too. They are richly saturated with the natural colors of the park and clear weather.
This photo is taken from the Torrey Pines Glider Port, not the park. You can get lunch here and watch the gliders. It’s breathtaking to see and even more so to do it, I’m sure!
The second group is from our previous visit in 2021. I used my Panasonic camera for these, and I find the photos more exciting. The fog provides a natural filter, and having a dedicated camera with a view finder makes it easier to set up shots.
The gliders viewed from the park. Glimpsing them is startling at first, and uplifting–almost like they take you flying with them. Humans playing at being birds. A contender for my favorite image.
My favorite image is the next one, so I played around with it in Snapseed.
I like the soft filter.Managed to recover the water…To which I added this filter. I like this second most or maybe the most. I chose it as the feature image, so I guess I like the color.
With the water recovered in the previous versions, I was able to get a black and white, which I wanted, but before I enhanced the image to recover the overexposed water, there was nothing behind the tree. I like this the most. It’s a trade-off for me because no color is a visual loss, but I like the emphasis on the shape of the tree that monochrome provides.
We were on the fence about doing a snorkel tour as it sounded hard, five hours out on the water. But there would be a picnic and we’d be getting in the water which would help with the heat that makes doing things in the tropics so difficult.
We booked through the hotel connected to the VRBO where we were staying. We had to get up at 5:30 to make sure we would be on time. Well we were a half hour late even though we left in plenty of time because we didn’t know where to park. But it was a small group and they waited for us and gave us instructions on where to park and find them. Their communication was great. (Boat Tours Tahiti.)
The first thing we saw were the small dolphins who play near the opening to the pass as they call it, the place where boats go out of the reef-protected area and into the ocean.
The dolphins spend the night in the lagoon and then head out to the ocean to hunt during the day.
We went through the pass and stopped, bobbing on the waves right next to the breakers. The other guest asked what we were looking at, and the host said “the beautiful waves.”
They were mesmerizing from that vantage point.
I was worried about meeting the sting rays, but the guide assured us they were friendly (because, as it turns out, he feeds them fish). We stood still in the water, and they swam around us and touched us if we let them. I didn’t, haha. When the ray saw me dodge away, he didn’t come closer. He looked right at me, and I swear we don’t realize how intelligent animals are. I didn’t know rays had big eyes. It was a really amazing wildlife encounter for my husband, who was not afraid. Animals go to him. His body language is calm and confident, and animals are attracted by that.
We saw a former aquarium where all the creatures escaped during a hurricane, had a picnic lunch and saw one turtle. Finally, I could snorkel. I’ve always found it uncomfortable, but it was very enjoyable in Tahiti. We saw many people out practicing for the big canoe (va’a) race that was coming up on the weekend. Dry season brings a lot of events and activities for the local Polynesians. I was happy to be able to get this photo. Being out on the water affords excellent photo ops.
All I have been using is my phone for snapshots, but now that I’m blogging again, I’ll take out the old SLR. Stay tuned!
My husband was going through my blog yesterday, and when he said it just stopped, I felt badly about it. For a variety of reasons, I went offline for a couple years. I am going to start again because I realize it is a contribution, and that’s something I want to make.
So we just returned from an incredible trip to Tahiti. In time I’ll cover the various aspects of our experiences on the two islands we visited.
Today I want to jump in with the flowers. We stayed at The Bora Bora Resort with a lot of honeymooners and people celebrating anniversaries (like us). It’s a very peaceful environment where we finally experienced the over-water bungalow. That in itself is very cool. The sea laps and splashes around the pillars providing constant watery surround sound and the waves are visible even at night in the giant coffee because they light them in soft glowing blue. It’s like being in a boat without the rocking.
The weather was mostly bad, but we did get out for some walks between storms. Possibly my favorite part of the resort was the gardens.
They have extensive lily ponds which are gorgeous. I’ve never seen a single lily pond before let alone ones that extend everywhere. Flowers are an integral part of the landscape design and indoor decor.
I’ve had the great good luck to spend time in this beautiful place and can share some photos with you. I hope they bring you a smile the way they did for me.
Carrowmore is old, 4,000 – 3,000 BC, but one of the tombs probably dates back to 5,400 to 4,600 BC. As part of the Neolithic Stone Age, we know people farmed, and we also know they had burial rituals.
This picture is a little out of focus, but it gives you an idea of what the experts think the burial rites might have been. There is evidence of pottery, tools, and bone rings from walrus tusks.
These are passage tombs. Here is a close up of the little figures showing a dramatization of what might have been their rituals. I always think of tombs being for old people, but of course infant mortality must have been high, and maybe their rituals helped them find some purpose in their loss.
The museum display humanizes the site before going out into the rain to look at rocks. The grass was long and soaked our sneakers at the start of a long day of driving and sight seeing. I’m so glad we did it though.
What are cold feet compared to seeing what people were doing five to seven thousand years ago?
Before we headed out to Carrowmore, we had made a quick stop at Lough Gill. It was pretty and peaceful, at least until a couple men showed up with barking dogs off-leash. Before that, I felt transported to my philosophical youth when Yeats’ poetry thrilled me so much. And I had my hand-knit wool sweater from the Aran Islands to keep me warm.
By the shore of Lough Gill, County Sligo, Ireland.
Reeds in the shallow waters of Lough Gill, near the Isle of Innisfree, immortalized by William Butler Yeats
I found the whole area mystical, and if I have one regret about the trip it’s that we didn’t spend three days in Sligo. Here’s a photo of the town, which was beautiful and had nice restaurants beside the river.
I want to go back, but I never will. Even though I was lucky to get to go once, it’s still strange to think I’ll never return. That is life; it is finite even for those of us who live in this time with our longer lifespans (compared to stone age lifespans). Even though we all like to say “Next time,” with a laugh, we all know there won’t be a next time. Travel is intense and fleeting.
I’m actually writing a novel about that among other things. Back to it!
Nicci Carrera 