Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Good morning everyone,
Let’s start this week out right!
These are from early 2005. I waited for a snow day as that seemed most appropriate. I pretty much had the place to myself, only say one other small group.
My approach was from the north, with the Vietnam Memorial on the left and Lincoln Memorial on the right.
On The Road – emrys – Korean War Memorial, Washington, D.C.Post + Comments (17)
Good morning everyone,
This is a submission from Dec 20, so a while back, before all the ghastly, horrible fires. The life that’s been extinguished in Australia provokes in me such a profound well of sadness and horror. And dread – dread for things worse to come, and soon.
All we can do is make today and tomorrow better, we cannot do a thing about yesterday, and so there is hope, action, progress, setback, and adaptation in our eternally-renewing daily tomorrows. We cannot lose ourselves to grief for what we’ve lost, me must harness that since we can not afford to lose more ecosystems and species, anywhere, of any type. Life is limited, glorious, and its diversity worth preserving.
We have no choice but to keep on, but maybe we can all find some ways to be better on energy – paying the premium for renewable energy, going solar where appropriate, using hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and BEV vehicles. Moving our investments out of the oil and coal industries and into solar, wind, tidal, and other renewables.
And changing our purchasing behavior: buying water from other continents is bad, as is buying firewood, and so many other basic resources that are pissed or burned away in a jiffy and so are not worth spending so much energy moving so far, even if someone can make a profit doing it by externalizing and diluting the apparent costs and effects over time and area. These are two minor examples of the market providing cheap products that make no sense if you step back and take another look. Since we are in a consumer-driven economy, the consumer has power. Use it!
Have a great day and weekend, we’ll recommence Monday, same bat-time, same bat-channel.
Living in Melbourne, a trip to Tasmania is not too taxing but we’ve always flown in the past and hired a car while there.
This time, we decided to take our own car on the ferry, the Spirit of Tasmania, so that we could stock up with the island’s famous food and drink for the Christmas holidays.
After a night in the delightfully named Penguin, a drive along the North-West coast of Tasmania, this is a view of the small town of Boat Harbour.
On The Road – DaveInOz – Beautiful TasmaniaPost + Comments (23)
Good morning, everybody,
Today we return to DAW’s fantastic trip. I so want to hit these places. I need to spend some serious time in South America before I get too much older!
Next we went to Montevideo and then Buenos Aires. They’re close together. Both of them are on the same river with BA farther inland.
Montevideo was my favorite stop on this trip. I had no expectations. I’m not even sure I could have said it was in Uruguay, but it was charming. For one thing, it was easy. You walked off the ship, straight into town, whereas the other cities all had big, working ports that were far from anything.
In Buenos Aires, as in Montevideo, the guide talked a lot about soccer. I gather the first FIFA World Cup took place in Montevideo, though the guide moaned about how many games they’ve lost since then.
This is the Legislative Council building. The Uruguayan flag is the one on the left.
Good morning, everybody,
As we often do on Wednesdays, we marvel at Bill’s submissions. Thanks, as always!
These remind me a bit of in 2015, when there was a huge (for now, not for then!) flight of WWII aircraft down the Potomac, over downtown, and then away, to memorialize the 70th anniversary of VE Day. My mother and I held each other, goose pimples everywhere as plane after plane flew by in formation. Our vantage point near, but far above, the river and upstream from DC was ideal as they all flew right overhead. It was easy to imagine one’s self in WWII and hearing the throbbing of the bombers approaching and running to hide. I’ll see if any of my pics are acceptable and perhaps post sometime.
Ok, enough about me – without further ado, Bill:
I know it’s a bit late for the greeting, but we in the southland take New Year’s day very seriously. You’ve probably heard of the little parade they have in Pasadena and the football contest there as well, but we think of bombers, blimps and bowls(not the herb kind, but that’s legal here too). No matter how wild our New Year’s Eve festivities might have been, at about 8am on New Years Day we are greeted by the sound of a low flying jet courtesy of the United States Air Force. I’ve made a point of getting up before 8am and photographing this flying wing as it makes it’s final turn to line up for it’s flight over the crowds assembled to watch the bands and the flowers of the Rose Parade. What I never realized until this year is that there are 2 B-2 bombers in the sky above Glendale New Year’s morning. They also fly a backup bomber in case something goes wrong with the primary plane. After the bomber’s flight over Colorado Blvd., they(remember there are two of them) fly over the high desert and the San Gabriel mountains to await the flight over the Rose Bowl.
For the past several years, I’ve photographed the bombers as they flew over Glendale, but this year I decided to fire up the Prius and drive/hike up to a ridge overlooking the Rose Bowl(it’s about a mile from where I took some of the sunset pictures my last submission) to catch the return of the B-2 as it flew over the Rose Bowl. About 10 minutes prior the game time, you could see the two planes flying over the San Gabriels. At game time, one of the bombers began to descend into the Arroyo Seco canyon to make it’s path over the Rose Bowl.
The B-2 bomber flies southeast over The Valley and makes a turn over Glendale to line up the Colorado Blvd in Pasadena to the east.
On The Road – 🐾BillinGlendaleCA – Happy New Year from Southern California.Post + Comments (16)
Good Morning, everyone,
Let’s get this week started!
We recently went on a three-month tour of a few places in Europe – Budapest (where we have lodgings with my wife’s father and use as a base camp for travels quite often), Ireland (a month of driving and airbnbs), Denmark and Sweden (public transit all the way, and again airbnbs). Economy travel, as much as travel can be – gained lots of insights into various countries’ grocery stores and did a lot of cooking and lunch-packing.
Ireland is one of my favorite places. The people are warm, friendly, and eager to be helpful. An example: we were on a typical countryside one-lane two-way road, and passed a scene I wanted to photograph. I pulled off to make a U turn, and the car behind me also pulled off – “Are you OK, need any help?” Told him thanks but we were OK. Made the U turn, and a walker on the road signaled me to roll down the window – “Take it slow, I’ll walk ahead and let you know when it’s clear around the bend.” We got back to the scene, and I turned into a driveway on the other side of the road. The home owner came out – “Pull up in here next to my car, you don’t want to stop that near the road”. I explained what we were up to – “That’s fine then, but take care and you might want to be be quick, from the look of the clouds it’s going to be bucketing soon”.
These pics are from Sligo, a cool and quirky town in the north of the Republic. A rainy day stroll.
On The Road – tomtofa – Rainy day in SligoPost + Comments (18)
One of the benefits of living in flyover country is that lots of interesting birds fly over as well. And some even spend time here. The most prominent winter visitors are hawks, specifically Red-tailed Hawks, which come in an astonishing variety of plumages. Here are a few, from last winter and this winter, to give you a taste of what you could see in Kansas or Oklahoma during the winter months.
And if you like these images, several more like them can be found in my 2020 calendar, The other is Hawks and Owls of Kansas at http://bit.ly/2OHjJVF. If raptors aren’t your cup of tea, you might like Iconic Birds of the World, with birds from Tanzania, Ecuador, Brazil, New Zealand & the good ol’ USA. at http://bit.ly/2qXi3i5
And if you want to see a bird image every day in your twitter feed, just follow me, Albatrossity, at https://twitter.com/DaveRintoul01
One of the keys to deciphering the plumages of Red-tailed Hawks is to first determine if the bird is an adult, or a youngster hatched last summer. Best clue is the yellow iris, seen well on this young bird of the eastern (borealis) subspecies.
On The Road – Albatrossity – Winter HawksPost + Comments (43)
Once my August tour left London, we visited various places in southern England. I’ve always been fascinated by the country homes and castles of England, and this set of pictures focuses on Windsor and Blenheim.
William the Conqueror chose the site of Windsor Castle, high above the river Thames and on the edge of a Saxon hunting ground. It was a day’s march from the Tower of London and intended to guard the western approaches to the capital.
You can take a virtual tour of the castle at
On The Road – Auntie Anne – Southern England – Windsor and BlenheimPost + Comments (17)
Good Morning, Everybody, I hope this finds us still all well as it’s just 21:25 right now as I prep this for Wednesday morning, so I have no idea of what’s happened since then. I hope nothing.
It’s never a bad idea to have a big bag of rice, one of beans/lentils, lots of appropriate spices and sugar, not to mention have some ways to collect, move, boil, filter, and store water. If things get bad, I fear losing the grid in places and figure having some non-spoiling basics like rice and beans is a good hedge for your family’s safety, no to mention the portability, health, and yum factors.
Now, let’s hope moderation and calm prevail, and let’s thank Bill for today’s timely submission. I mean it – thank you, this beauty and joy is so very needed.
Since my sunset picture from Leo Carrillo State Park was so well received, I thought I’d devote a whole submission to sunsets. OK, two of the pictures are not sunsets, but sunrises(the ringers). These were shot at the coast(Point Vicente and Leo Carrillo) as well as here in Glendale and at the Griffith Observatory.
While it was overcast onshore, the sun was able to peek though the clouds to cast a glow over the Pacific in this shot from Point Vincente in Palos Verdes.
On The Road – 🐾BillinGlendaleCA – Sunset(and a few ringers)!Post + Comments (28)
On a quite rainy night, a couple hundred people showed up in little Hillsborough, NC to rally for impeachment and removal of Donald Trump. We stood on the main thoroughfare, and hundreds of cars passed by and saw their fellow citizens standing up for the rule of law. A good number of honks in solidarity. It was good for my psyche to feel a bit of uplift and solidarity after so mush frustration and despair.
On The Road – AM in NC – Impeachment Rally: Hillsborough, NCPost + Comments (6)
Good Morning Everybody,
I hope this finds you well. Bad shit’s about, take care.
On a more positive note, let’s go –
A few months ago, I shared a few pictures of West Franklin Street here in Evansville and since they seemed to go over well, here’s an album with comments about each picture. Feel free to choose the best ones to share or just link the entire album.
Good morning everyone,
We continue today with Wag’s submission. Have a great weekend, everyone!
Welcome to Part 2
After our fun day on Wilson Peak, we were looking forward to more high altitude fun. After a recovery night at a hotel in the town of Ridgway (and an excellent meal at the Colorado Boy Pub and Brewery), we drove to our next trailhead at Kilpacker Basin.
In the late afternoon od the 30th we hiked in about 3 miles up Kilpacker Basin and set up camp in a beautiful meadow. It was late in the summer, but here were still a few wildflowers to be found
On The Road – Wag – The Wilson Group, Part 2Post + Comments (41)
Good morning, all, I hope this finds you well in this new year.
Today we’re off to Newfoundland, wahoo!
I spent two weeks traveling around Newfoundland in August. It wasn’t a place I’d ever planned to visit, but I wasn’t up to the Arctic trip I originally had planned, and stumbled across this Road Scholar tour when I was looking around for something less strenuous and closer to home. It turned out to be a wonderful trip, not remotely a consolation prize, to a quirky, rugged and beautiful island, and I would love to go back.
Quidi Vidi (pronounced Kitty Viddy, or occasionally, Kwydah Vyda) is an old fishing village now part of St. John’s. The greenish building in the back is the Quidi Vidi Brewing Company, creator of much of the beer for sale on the island.
Good morning and Happy New Year!
We start with a special Wednesday submission from you-know-who!
And this where I break All The Rules…
As we started off in my last submission with my trip to Leo Carrillio State Park to photograph the Milky Way 3 years ago. While the photo was pleasing in many respects, it was a complete failure at capturing the Milky Way(you can see a bit of the galactic core, but that’s about it). Over the past couple of years I’ve searched for better locations and been mindful of the mistakes I made in the the photo that led my last submission to “On The Road”. I’ve been to the desert, the mountains and dark places along the coast to find the best place to capture the Milky Way on my cameras.
As the opportunity to capture the galactic core began to fade as Fall began, I headed again to Leo Carrillio State Park. Most of my journeys there that resulted in the photos here where not primarily to capture the Milky Way on my camera’s sensor, but for other photo ideas(sunsets, moon rises…). Yet, I did take my tripod and I did take pictures of the Milky Way before it made it’s early departure into the Pacific. Being that my primary motivation for the journey was not astrophotography, these shots sometimes violated “the rules” for shooting the Milky Way that I violated 3 years ago. I’ve included shots of the Milky Way with the Moon in the shot, the Milky Way in the full Moon, and the Milky Way at twilight. While many of these shots are drained of the color that you the viewer has seen in some of my other photos, I think they have a beauty in other ways.
As always, the photos for all of my submission to “On The Road” are available for purchase on my website: https://www.billinglendaleca.com/
I hear they make excellent holiday gifts!
If you like my work and want to support it on an ongoing basis I’ve set up a Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/billinglendaleca
I’m not sure if Alain is going to post “On The Road” for Christmas Day or New Year’s Day, so I’ll take this opportunity to thank you all for your support this year.
Just after sunset at Leo Carillio State Park.
The sun has just set behind Santa Cruz Island and casts a warm glow over Sequit Point.
On The Road – ?BillinGlendaleCA – Fall Milky WayPost + Comments (27)
Good Morning, Everyone!
This last day of 2019, we’re off to Brazil! What a treat, and there’s more coming next year.
Have a safe and enjoyable New Year, 2020 will be a hard slog to push these bastards out and to accommodate to what we don’t succeed in.
After we left Dakar, we sailed for four days across the Atlantic and landed in Recife, Brazil, where it was unbelievably hot. We did a walking tour there. The city has the oldest synagogue in the Americas, but I don’t seem to have taken a picture of it. Then we went to Rio, which has an absolutely gorgeous harbor. You sail past all these islands. It was foggy, which made it even lovelier, but also made it impossible to see the statue of Christ the Redeemer. (To be perfectly truthful, I think a giant statue of Jesus is tacky. YMMV).
The guide talked a lot about carnival, stressing it as central to their culture. This giant rooster is apparently a carnival symbol. Who knew?
On The Road – Dorothy A. Winsor – Brazil, Recife and Rio De JaneiroPost + Comments (18)
Good morning, everybody, I hope this finds you well.
Sorry about last week, each time I logged in, I had issues and often couldn’t even login, and with limited time, I focused on family and all the good stuff.
Looks like things are more stable, good!
Just a handful of pics from La Canada 10/9. Believe it or not we do get a kind of fall color even here in Los Angeles. But it’s usually in the beginning of December. For anyone interested, these pics are mostly from Viro Street (across from LCHigh School) by JPL. But there’s a decent amount of color throughout the San Gabriel Valley.
Fall Colors In SoCal
On The Road – UncleEbeneezer – “Fall” Color in SoCalPost + Comments (30)