Category Archives: Travel

Posters as an answer

Cars, Travel, ,

My grandson, August, loves cars. I mean, he Really loves cars. I know the feeling; this blog started when Michele and I went to China and the impetus to our going the Shanghai Auto Show. As much as he loves cars, August is too young  to know the difference between, say, a Ferrari and a Aston Martin. Between a Ford Taurus and a Mercedes C Class. He does know the difference between a Ferrari and a firetruck – even a red one – but his main informer is still the movie Cars.

August’s mother, Samantha, thought it would be a nice generational bridge if August had atleast one of my car pictures on his wall. But, as I went through them, I could not find one that worked. None of them had any relationship with Augie. After all, what is a D-type Jaguar to him?  Then I got an email from Kirk Moore with the answer.

I had recommended the San Francisco Succulent & Cactus Society Show which he had gone by, camera in hand. The problem is that, while there are alot of nice plants, there are not very many big ones and they are all lined up on tables. Kirk’s solution was to come up with the poster shown above. Stealing, I hope, not copying, that idea -hey! Pablo Picasso started it, he said Bad artists copy. Good artists steal. – I made a poster for Augie. Now there is a tie-in.

 

 

 

 

A trip to the Exploratorium

Americana, Bay Area Walks, California, Travel, Uncategorized

Located at the Palace of Fine Arts on the site of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, the Exploratorium is one of San Francisco’s best entertainments. It has the added benifit of being in a building designed by architect Bernard Maybeck.  The Exploratorium  bills itself as a museum of science, art, and human perception but it is much more. It is a giant, interactive, toy for anybody who is even a little curious about the world we live in.

A couple of weeks ago, I went there with my grandkids.

When I was in the Army, in Korea, I read Herb Caen, a gossip columnists in the San Francisco Chrony that everybody read. Every time I got a letter, it would have several Caen columns. During that year, one of the things that he was promoting was the restoration of the Palace of Fine Arts which, by then, was the only building left from the world’s fair built to show San Francisco’s Phoenix-like comeback from the 1906 earthquake. Then, like now, I was interested in architecture, and then, like now, I loved Bernard Maybeck. I loved his take on classical architecture at the Palace of Fine Art and sent a couple of bucks to my mom to contribute to the cause. She thought that my contribution was mis-placed and sent the money somewhere else. I have blocked out where.

So I was very happy to see that the restoration took place without my money and, eventually, became the home of the Exploratorium. The Exploratorium, itself, was the brain child of Frank Oppenheimer. Frank was the brother of Robert Oppenheimer, considered the father of the Atomic bomb. In my book, Frank has left the better legacy.

I fell in love with the Exploratorium when I went there as a childless adult, then later, with my daughter Samantha, then my “little brother”, Edwin Peña, and, now, with my grandchildren. Charlotte and August.

 

Any kid, every kid, can find hundreds of fascinating experiments. So can any adult.

 

 

Northwestern Nevada: day three, bailing out

Americana, Camping, Travel, Uncategorized

On our last day, we woke with frost free sleeping bags. The wind was there, the flat light was there, but it was clearing down south and the sun was almost coming out from behind the clouds. That is how the post started and then after about two more hours of work, I hit Save Draft and everything but the pictures disappeared. Shit! I can’t believe it.

Here is the summery: We got up and the weather was bad with wind and clouds. We went for a walk and the weather got worse.  It even rained a few big drops. With the wind, the flat light, and, maybe, rain; we decided to go home early. I was still worried about the car so I took the highway south past the remains of Lake Winnemucka which had been drained in the early 20th century, stopping to take a picture of its old shoreline. I got home in time to watch the sun set over San Bruno Mountain. It was a fun trip and enjoyable to hang out with Peter. Check out Peter’s take on the trip here.

 

 

We bailed out.

 

 

Pickleball and Obama

Obama, Travel
my sister, Barb Heaney, is on the left with the silver medal
Henry Painter, center, won gold in men's singles

Sitting here at my parents house in Ireland, I learned that my sister, Barb, and her husband, Henry, won silver and gold metals in the SeaTac Spring Invitational Pickleball Tournament while images of Obama and the Queen’s recent visits here play on the TV. Watching the crowds cheer Obama say “Yes We Can” in Gaelic reminded me of the excitement during the election. He looked like he was having a great time as well.

Talking to people, Obama seems to have generated much more excitement than the Queen. When I asked one local resident if Obama was popular here in Ireland, he looked at me like that the the dumbest question he had heard and told me that he thought Obama was the most popular person in the world. It is great to be in a place where it is just assumed that Obama is popular.

In case you are wondering, Pickleball is a sport played on a badminton court with a ball similar to a whiffle ball. I knew Barb and Henry are international badminton champions but that they are also winners in this new sport is new to me. Congratulations to them both!

 

 

A trip to the mountains west of death Valley cont.

Americana, Cactus & Succulents, California, Camping, Death Valley, Photography, Travel, Uncategorized

After driving all day Thursday, we all slept in on Friday.

But it did not take very long before the sun got bright enough and hot enough to wake us. After a quickie breakfast, we packed up


and hurried over to the Eureka Sand Dunes.

The Eureka Dunes are not very large or famous but they are among the highest dunes in the United States at over 650 feet above the valley floor. They look smaller because they are framed by the striped limestone cliffs of the Last Chance Range that rise up 3000 to 4000 feet higher. Sand dunes are caused by wind blowing across the valley floor and picking up fine dust and sand; as the wind hits the higher mountains, it slows down, loses energy, and drops its heavy load. One thing that I find interesting is that the the individual grains of sand are constantly changing but the size and shape of the dunes do not.

As an aside, after getting home I realized that, with four people on our trip, I took alot less pictures than I usually do when I am only with Michele. Among things I didn’t take pictures of were the beauty of the sand dunes. Fortunately, Kirk Moore has some wonderful sand dune pictures over at his website. I highly recommend that you take a look. End aside.

By the time we got to the dunes, it was starting to warm up and the dunes were getting very bright. We hiked up about half way, maybe 350 to 400 feet, on sand that got looser and looser.

About the time that the day starting getting really hot,  heading towards triple digits. We got back in the truck and looked for shade. First it was back to the main road and then over the Last Chance Range into Death Valley itself. As we started over the last pass before Death Valley, we started seeing more plants in bloom. First the Beavertail Cactus, also known as the Pricklypear Cactus and probably known as some other names which is why people who like plants and go looking for them in the wild end up using the botanical name. In this case, Opuntia basilarus.  Just as we got to the pass overlooking upper Death Valley, we came across lots of clumps of Desert Aster, AKA Mojave Aster, or Aster mohavensis.

Then it was down into Death Valley, past Crankshaft Crossing, and on to Scotty’s Castle where we had lunch in the shade.