• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We can agree to disagree, but i’m right.

This blog goes to 11…

Yes we did.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

I don’t care how fun he is after a few whiskies. fuck that guy.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

We need fewer warriors in public service and more gardeners.

No one could have predicted…

Verified, but limited!

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Just a few bad apples.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Shocking, but not surprising

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Wetsuit optional.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

The revolution will be supervised.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

I’m only here for the duck photos.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Mobile Menu

  • Look Forward & Back
  • Balloon Juice 2021 Pet Calendar
  • Site Feedback
  • All 2020 Fundraising
  • I Voted!
  • Take Action: Things We Can Do
  • Team Claire, and Family
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • BJ PayPal Donations
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • Nature & Respite
  • Information As Power
  • COVID-19 Coronavirus
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • Nature & Respite
  • Look Forward & Back
On the Road: Special Post for Alain on Monday, and On the Road Going Forward

On The Road

You are here: Home / Archives for Photo Blogging / On The Road

On The Road – Steve from Mendocino – Shape Studies in Black and White 2 of 2

by WaterGirl|  March 25, 20215:00 am| 16 Comments

This post is in: On The Road, Photo Blogging

Steve from Mendocino

This set is all in the spirit of Brett Weston. Brett was one of four sons of Edward Weston. He and his brother Cole were both excellent photographers, but Brett stood out, and I’ve admired his work since the late 60’s. I bought a portfolio of 10 8X10 contact prints through Brett’s next door neighbor for $120 the set in a fancy portfolio. They currently hang on my office wall as inspiration.

I won’t title or comment on any of these since the content is easily identifiable with the exception of the third photo from the last, which is a stack of rusted steel plates.

Link to the first in this set, which was published in October.

On The Road - Steven - Shape Studies in Black and White 2 of 2 7

On The Road – Steve from Mendocino – Shape Studies in Black and White 2 of 2Post + Comments (16)

On The Road – 🐾BillinGlendaleCA – The Brand Family Cemetery (IRChrome)

by WaterGirl|  March 24, 20215:00 am| 13 Comments

This post is in: On The Road, Photo Blogging

🐾BillinGlendaleCA

Nikki the Cocker Spaniel was off at the doggie day spa so I took the opportunity to visit Brand Park and hike up the Brand Family Cemetery. I started off at the library, getting some shots of the front as well as looking out from a passageway on the right side of the library.

On my way over to the Japanese Garden/Gazebo/Doctor’s House, I passed the Lady of the Green Cross monument that dates back 100 years to a movement to preserve forest lands. The Japanese Garden was not open, so I shot photos of it, the gazebo and the Doctor’s House though the fence.

From there, the hike to the cemetery involves climbing a hill next to a debris dam. Debris dams are the first part of Southern California’s flood control. They trap, as the name implies, debris like boulders, trees and sediment that would otherwise clog up the flood control system downstream. These basins don’t contain much water at anytime during the year and the debris that they trap are cleaned out during the dry season.

On the way up to the crest of the dam, I spotted a California Quail walking along the side of the road. At the upstream end of the debris basin the road forks, to the right it continues up the Brand Motorway to the top of the Verdugo Mountains, to the left a wide trail heads to the Brand Family Cemetery narrowing to a one track trail heading up the canyon.

On The Road -  🐾BillinGlendaleCA - The Brand Family Cemetery (IRChrome) 7
Brand Park, Glendale, CAMarch 5, 2021

The Brand Library was Leslie Brand’s home and was donated to the City after his death becoming a library.

On The Road – 🐾BillinGlendaleCA – The Brand Family Cemetery (IRChrome)Post + Comments (13)

On The Road – way2blue – Logar valley (Logarska Dolina), Slovenia

by WaterGirl|  March 23, 20215:00 am| 14 Comments

This post is in: On The Road, Photo Blogging

way2blue

After Bovec, we drove east from the Julian Alps across the top of Slovenia to the Logar Valley (Logarska dolina), a glacial valley in the Kamnik-Savinja Alps along the border with Austria.  The Logar Valley is the middle of three glacial valleys which open to the southwest, and has been protected as a ‘landscape park’ since 1987.  The farm where we stayed is ‘grandfathered ‘ into the park.  In fact, the farm’s owner shifted careers from forester to conservationist.

On The Road - way2blue - LOGAR VALLEY (LOGARSKA DOLINA), SLOVENIA 7
LOGAR VALLEY

View of the valley and the farmhouse where we stayed, looking to the northeast.  The B&B was run by the daughter who had a degree in anthropology from the University of Ljubljana.  Her parents learned Russian in grade school whereas she’d learned English.  There’s so much history tucked away in these relatively remote areas—history of the locals rather than the history in books.  One grandfather fought with the Italians during WWI; the other grandfather fought with the Italians during WWII.  During WWII, the farm was a refuge for American and British intelligence officers.  When discovered by the Nazis, her grandparents were taken to a concentration camp (I’ve forgotten which one) and the farm burned down (there’s a plaque commemorating this posted on the barn).  Since they were caught toward the end of the war and since they were farmers, they were to farm, so survived the war and returned to rebuild their farm.

On The Road – way2blue – Logar valley (Logarska Dolina), SloveniaPost + Comments (14)

On The Road – Albatrossity – Brazil 2010

by WaterGirl|  March 22, 20215:00 am| 23 Comments

This post is in: On The Road, Photo Blogging

On the Road: Week of March 22  (5 am)
Albatrossity – Brazil 2010
way2blue – Logar valley (Logarska Dolina), Slovenia
🐾BillinGlendaleCA – The Brand Family Cemetery (IRChrome)
Steve from Mendocino – Shape Studies in Black and White 2/2
Mike in Oly – Waterfalls of Western Washington

🌺  And now, a treat from Albatrossity!  

Holy cow!  One of the perks of doing On the Road is that I get to pick the favorite photo that will show up on social media.  For this one, I thought “that’s the featured image!” no fewer than 4 times.  Wow.  ~WG

Albatrossity

Brazil is a country that is much in the news today, and usually for all the wrong reasons. Pandemic mismanagement, virus mutations, rainforest destruction, and a president whose behavior is making all of that worse. But it is a lovely country, and so I thought I should share some pics from the time I have spent there. I hope to go back someday; we had plans for summer 2021, but somehow that didn’t seem prudent when the time arrived). So for now, these pictures will have to suffice.

I was fortunate to accompany a university Study Abroad class to Brazil in 2010, 2011 and 2013. We visited several different parts of that large and diverse country, but every trip included some time in the Amazon rainforest, centered around the city of Manaus, the capitol of the state of Amazonas. The 2010 trip, in fact, was entirely in that region. Here are a few images from that year’s trip.

On The Road - Albatrossity - Brazil 2010 8
ManausMay 30, 2010

Manaus is located at the junction of two major rivers, the Rio Negro and the Solimões. The former is a warm tropical river, flowing from Colombia southward into the rainforest. It gets its name from the fact that it is a blackwater river, acidic and full of tannins leached from the leaves of the tropical forests through which it flows; the water is the color of weak tea, but otherwise very warm and clear. The Solimões, on the other hand, originates in the glacial melt of the high Andes. It is much cooler and full of sediments washed off those mountains. From Manaus you can take a boat trip to the Meeting of the Waters, where the cold sediment-filled Andean river meets the warm clear tropical river. These disparate waters flow side by side for many kilometers, barely mingling. Here is a shot of the river as we approached the Solimões from the Rio Negro branch.

On The Road – Albatrossity – Brazil 2010Post + Comments (23)

On The Road – way2blue – Bovec, Slovenia

by WaterGirl|  March 19, 20215:00 am| 23 Comments

This post is in: On The Road, Photo Blogging

way2blue

A friend mentioned he was planning a hiking trip in the Julian Alps of Slovenia. Hiking! So we decided to give the alps a look. At the start of our trip, we booked lodging in the town of Bovec on the Soča River, not even realizing the town was a bustling recreation center. Lots of kayakers, hikers, trekkers, bicyclists passing through… After checking in, we walked down to river and found a small bistro at a campground on the other side. Stopped in for a beer and the owner was thrilled to have American visitors (remember those days?). Though my husband kept asking locals their thoughts on Melania… On the walk back to town, we noticed a small cave with a photographic display. Commemorating the deaths of Italian WWI soldiers who had taken shelter there and died from poison gas.

On The Road - way2blue - Bovec, Slovenia 7
Bovec, Slovenia

View of the Julian Alps from the window of our flat—looking toward the northwest.

On The Road – way2blue – Bovec, SloveniaPost + Comments (23)

On The Road – Steve from Mendocino – Provence, France – Group 3/3 plus Venice

by WaterGirl|  March 18, 20215:00 am| 19 Comments

This post is in: On The Road, Photo Blogging

On The Road - Steve from Mendocino - Provence, France – Group 3/3 plus Venice 7

Aigues-Mortes is only vaguely in Provence (like being vaguely pregnant). Wiki lists it as 56 miles northwest of Marseilles. Nevertheless, it is very much of a southeastern feel and culture alongside Provence. It’s a picturesque as Carcassonne, without the crazy tourism, at least in the 70’s.

On The Road – Steve from Mendocino – Provence, France – Group 3/3 plus VenicePost + Comments (19)

On The Road – 🐾BillinGlendaleCA – O’Venice

by WaterGirl|  March 17, 20215:00 am| 19 Comments

This post is in: On The Road, Photo Blogging

🐾BillinGlendaleCA

I headed down to Venice for a group shoot to capture the sunset and some night shots of the ocean walk and the old buildings of Venice. Venice was built in the early 20th century with architecture and canals modeled after Venice Italy. By the 1930’s most of the original canals were filled in with only a small section remaining. The weather didn’t look promising for a good sunset, but we lucked out.

While we couldn’t see the Sun set into the Pacific, its fading light left a orange and red glow in the clouds to the west with the Venice Pier as a foreground. I walked up the ocean walk, capturing some of the colorful shops along the way to Windward Ave. where the old canals met the ocean. That’s now Venice’s main street with the famous “Venice” sign at Windward and Pacific, except it didn’t say just “Venice” this evening, it was “O’Venice”. Happy St. Patrick’s Day.

On The Road -  🐾BillinGlendaleCA - O'Venice 7
Venice, CAMarch 7, 2021

The Pier at sunset.

On The Road – 🐾BillinGlendaleCA – O’VenicePost + Comments (19)

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Go to page 4
  • Go to page 5
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 162
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Do Something!

Call Your Senators & Representatives
Directory of US Senators
Directory of US Representatives

Vaccine Venting (latest)
Vaccine Venting (all)

I Got the Shot (latest thread)
I Got the Shot! (all)

Take Your Shot – Explain the %

🎈Ways to Support Our Site

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal
Shop Amazon via this link to support Balloon Juice ⬇  

Recent Comments

  • Dan B on It’s the Policies, Stupid (Apr 13, 2021 @ 10:21pm)
  • Ksmiami on It’s the Policies, Stupid (Apr 13, 2021 @ 10:18pm)
  • Ruckus on Finally Pulling Out (Apr 13, 2021 @ 10:16pm)
  • sab on Finally Pulling Out (Apr 13, 2021 @ 10:15pm)
  • Jim, Foolish Literalist on Finally Pulling Out (Apr 13, 2021 @ 10:14pm)

Team Claire, and Family

Claire Updates
Claire is Home!

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year

Featuring

John Cole
Silverman on Security
COVID-19 Coronavirus
Medium Cool with BGinCHI
Furry Friends

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Submit Photos to On the Road
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Meetups: Proof of Life
2021 Pets of Balloon Juice Calendar

Culture: Books, Film, TV, Music, Games, Podcasts

Noir: Favorites in Film, Books, TV
Book Recommendations & Indy Recs
Mystery Recommendations
Netflix Favorites
Amazon Prime Favorites
Netflix Suggestions in July
Longmire & Netflix Suggestions

Twitter

John Cole’s Twitter

[custom-twitter-feeds]

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2021 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc