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Here and There…Now and Then |
Sunset
The sun was going down as I left work today and I wanted to get at least one photo of the colors in the sky. I found a place where I could see them, but it’s a little more industrial that I generally look for. Still, it’s not terrible. This is actually looking to the southeast, not the west, where there wasn’t actually a lot of color to be had. I stopped again a little further on and the foreground was better but there was less color at that point, so this is the best I got.
Bananagram Tiles
I bought a book from Ikea today. Sorry, the joke isn’t original but very few of them really are. I was looking around for something to photograph this evening and saw this Bananagrams set and thought I could use them to illustrate the joke. Not the funniest joke I’ve every told but certainly not the worst, either. Am I known for telling “dad jokes”? Yes, I suppose I am. It goes along with my “dad bod”, which I prefer to describe as a “father figure”.
Everlastings
I’ve published a photo of these everlastings (Xerochrysum bracteatum ‘Sundaze Golden Beauty’) before. See Wednesday, June 06, 2018. They aren’t quite as fresh as they were then, but if you can find another flower that looks this good after five months in your back garden, with birds, bugs, and the summer heat, I’ll be surprised. Yellow flowers seem to fool the computer in my camera (a Canon EOS 60D) and they come out with way too much blue. It’s easy enough to adjust them back to the original yellow but it’s a bit funny how strongly it wants them to be blue.
Jean and Cathy
We went to see Cathy’s best friend (and my good friend) Jean this evening. She wanted to take us out for Cathy’s upcoming birthday but instead I brought things and made panang curry, brown rice, and roasted cauliflower with caraway seeds. I don’t mind going out for a meal, of course, but it’s easier to visit in a home and I don’t mind cooking, especially something that I can make without too much thought. Jean gave Cathy a card (that she’s holding in this photo) and this ‘wonderful’ tray for eating in bed. The note on the tray says, “A Priceless Antique . . . from back in the day when being a troll was NOT a bad thing!”
Crab Apples
There are a pair of sweet gum trees (Liquidambar styraciflua) a little before I get to work and I stopped today to take pictures of their leaves. Sweet gum generally has some of the best fall color around but I think it’s just a little early so they weren’t as good as they have been in past years. I’ll probably check again in a while. Before I got back in my car and headed the rest of the way to work I took a few pictures of the crab apples nearby. I think they look pretty good against the blue of the sky.
Samovar Lamp and Ceramic Dog
a few of Dorothy’s friends are passing through the area and asked if they could spend the night here tomorrow night. Naturally we’re happy to have them and I was cleaning up the guest room, which we have used as something of a store room for things we don’t know what to do with. I was in there this evening and this do caught my eye. I don’t know why but I think the composition with the dog in front of the samovar lamp just works. It’s all I have for today, so I guess it has to.
As I mentioned a few days ago, with the shorter days, if I don’t get out during work and if there doesn’t happen to be a nice sunrise or sunset, I have a hard time getting an outdoor photo this time of year (and for the next few months). Because of that, I’m afraid you’re going to have to put up with this sort of photograph. This happens every year and I really should look back at previous years and see if there is anything I did that I might do again now, to deal with this issue.
Around Lake Needwood
I stopped near Lake Needwood for a bit today, walking in the woods and enjoying the cool, autumn air. Many trees have lost their leaves although there are still some in shades of brown, yellow, orange, and red. On the ground is a thick carpet of drying leaves. I love the colors and the patterns in this old piece of log that’s lying on the ground, especially the swirl a little below and left of center. It’s not really something I can put into words, so I won’t try. I just like it, that’s all.
Leaves and Walnuts
While we were in Alaska, most of the leaves on the trees have fallen here. As seen a couple days ago, the Zelkova trees are still holding on but those will be bare shortly. Around my office building most of the trees are bare or nearly so. There are lots of leaves down in the parking lot and where I park, there is a black walnut (Juglans nigra) that has been dropping its fruit for a while now. As you can see, there are willow oaks (Quercus phellos), red maple (Acer rubrum), and elm (Ulmus americana) represented here.
Sunset
As I was driving home today, the sun was setting in my rear view mirror, as it does these days. At one point, I had had enough and pulled onto a side street so I could get out and take some pictures. As you can see, I’m along a road and there are power lines on the left but they don’t really distract from the main event. I didn’t notice at the time but I see now that what I assume is Venus, the evening star, shows up on the left side of the photo.
Zelkovas on Norbeck Road
Having returned from our trip to Alaska, I am going to have a hard time getting photos as nice as those from our trip. It’s going to be made more difficult by the fact that we’ve gone off of daylight saving time, which means it will be getting dark about the time I leave work. Today I went to the store and on the way home I stopped along Norbeck Road to take some photos of the Zelkova trees in their glory. IT’s really a pretty show every year and this year is no exception. The range of colors is really quite amazing.
Sunrise North of Seattle
Our ten day journey to Alaska, like all good things, came to an end today. We were very sad to be leaving and of course were not very excited about getting up at 3:00 AM to get to the airport for our 5:00 AM flight, but it meant we’d get home during the day instead of the middle of the night. We had a great time and would happily have stayed for another week or even two. Of course not having to go to work is part of it. Anywhere on vacation is generally better than anywhere else with work. The weather was about what we expected, cool and damp, but we came prepared (and Dorothy gave me a really nice rain hat as an early birthday present). That meant we got out regardless of the weather and enjoyed pretty much every minute of it.
Sunrise North of Seattle
The trip home was relatively uneventful, which is sort of what you want when flying. There’s not much better than a sunrise or sunset from the air and we got a pretty good one as we headed south to Seattle, on the left side of the plane. Someone who knows the area might be able to recognize the coast line seen through the clouds in this first photo. The second, taken about ten minutes after the first, is possibly Mount Baker, but again, I don’t really know the area, so I’d be happy to be corrected. Much of the country from eastern Washington until we neared Maryland was covered with clouds, so there wasn’t much to see. We did recognize some landmarks as we made our descent into Dulles. And thus ends Alaska Trip, 2019.
Brian, Lisa, Nathaniel, Cathy, Henry, and Dorothy
It’s our last evening in Juneau and we went out to dinner with our good friends Brian and Lisa and their son Nathaniel. This photo was taken by Nathaniel’s girlfriend, Alex and it’s nice to have a picture with all of us in it. We were sad to be leaving and could easily have been happy staying another week or even two. We’ve know Brian and Lisa since early 1986 and Dorothy’s been living with them since she arrived in mid July. I’d say it’s been very good for her to be here, although not without its struggles. But as a wise man once said, “Life is pain, highness. Anyone who tells you different is trying to sell you something.”
Tongass National Forest
One of my favorite hikes around Juneau is on the western extremity of Douglas Island. back in the 1980s there was a trail through woods, across muskeg, and to the shore. There is now a much shorter loop trail called the Rain Forest Trail that we took today. While I like the longer, older trail better, we didn’t have a huge amount of time to spend and it was also fairly wet as we drove out, with rain softly falling. You shouldn’t get the impression that the shorter trail isn’t very nice, because it’s actually wonderful. I took quite a few photos both in the woods and on the shore. This one is of a small pond just into the woods as we headed back on the southern part of the loop. The light in the woods is quite difficult, with fairly low light levels along with a very bright sky showing through. I’m pretty pleased with how this one turned out.
Fourth Street Stairs
When we first lived in Juneau, back in 1985 and 86, we rented the downstairs of the pale blue Quonset hut seen in the upper left of this photo. Our address was on Fourth Street but the street ended at Harris Street, almost two blocks away. To get to and from her job in the Goldstein Building, Cathy would walk down the long flight of stairs from above our house to Fourth and Harris. I don’t remember for sure how many steps there are, but my remembrance is that it’s 174 or so. Quite a few, anyway. In this photo you can see a person near the top of the stairs wearing a bright, red jacket.
We moved from the Quonset to an apartment on Douglas Island after a year or so and lived there the rest of our time in Juneau. Living in downtown Juneau certainly had its advantages, but it was also nice to have a few more windows as we did in the apartment. I’m not sure where I’d want to live if we moved back to Juneau. Land is at something of a premium, with usable land squeezed between the shore and the mountains and with so much given to National Forest. But I think I’d be inclined to be outside downtown at this point, just for the sake of having a bit more of a yard and garden.
Granite Creek
In addition to our visit to the Shrine this morning, Cathy, Dorothy, and I took our longest walk of the trip with Brian, Lisa, and their two dogs. We drove out Basin Road and went up Perseverance Trail and then a ways up Granite Creek Trail towards Granite Basis. I don’t know exactly how far we walked but it was at least three miles each way, possibly a little more. The Perseverance Trail goes up hill pretty significantly in places but it’s an easy trail to walk on. The view of Ebner Falls was nice, even in the light rain that was coming down. We turned off onto the much smaller Granite Creek Trail that zig-zags up a steep hill before becoming more gradual after that. We didn’t go too far up that and this photo was taken somewhere near where we turned around. It was after 5:00 PM and it was going to be dark before we got back. In fact, it was quite dark as we made our way past Ebner Falls and the rest of the way down, particularly those places under trees. But we didn’t lose anyone and had a really nice time.
Shrine of Saint Thérèse
We went out to the Shrine of Saint Thérèse this morning and enjoyed a very pleasant walk onto the island (well, it was an island but is now connected by a causeway), into the chapel, and along a path on the shore (from which this photo was taken). It was cool and when we got there it looked like rain. Nevertheless, it didn’t actually come down and by the time we walked down the shore, there was some blue in the sky. If we see anyone else on any of our walks around Juneau, we like to joke that the place is getting overrun with tourists. Of course we’re tourists this time, and it’s only a joke anyway. There may have been a few other people at the Shrine the same time we were there but we hardly saw each other.
The Empty Chair
In May, 1942, the valedictorian at Juneau High School, John Tanaka, was absent because he and others of Japanses ancestry had been forcibly removed and incarcertated in government internment camps a month earlier. The graduating class left an empty chair in his honor at their graduation, honoring John and the other Japanese Americans. John’s younger brother, Bill, was in my mother-in-law’s class and naturally she remembers this incident. The Empty Chair Memorial is in Capital School Park between 5th and 6th Streets and Franklin and Seward.
Today was the rainiest day of our trip. While Dorothy was at work, Cathy and I spent the morning in the State Museum and Library, which I highly recommend. We also drove around downtown a bit with Dorothy after she got off work. That’s when this photo was taken. You can also get an idea from this photo of the steepness of some of upper Franklin Street.
Cathy, Henry, and the Dogs
This photo wasn’t taken by me, but I’ve already posted two photos from today that I did take, so I think I can get away with it. I don’t appear in many photographs and for the most part, that’s my preference. Nevertheless, I’m trying to learn that if I want to expect others to let me take their picture, I need to be willing to return the favor. Dorothy took this with my camera and while I don’t think it’s a particularly good photo of me, it’s at least evidence that I was there. Nugget falls is larger than it looks in this photo. The reality is that we’re quite a ways from it. If we walked so that we were right below it, you’d see how high it really is. I have a few photos like that, but this isn’t one of them, so you’ll just have to trust me, or better yet, go visit it for yourself.
Cathy at the Mendenhall
We have a very fond and somewhat funny memory from the winter of 1986-87. It was on a relatively mild day in February when Cathy, Brian, Lisa, and I drove out to the glacier. There was eight to ten inches of snow on the ice on Mendenhall Lake and there were kids sledding on the hills of glacial moraine. Brian, Lisa, and Cathy walked out into the snow on the ice wearing boots and their bathing suits. They took off the boots and settled on a blanket laid on the snow (which naturally sank into the snow when they sat down. I took a handful of photographs of them, pretending it was a lovely day. Actually, for February in Juneau, clear skies make it a lovely day, regardless of the temperature. Anyway, here’s Cathy, 32 years later, in front of the Mendenhall, although she was dressed more warmly today than she was on that day in February.
Mendenhall Glacier
We went to the glacier today. In Juneau, that’s short hand for the Mendenhall, since it’s the one you can basically drive to. When we lived here in the late 1980s the face of the glacier was just a little past Nugget Falls, on the right in this photo. When my mother-in-law lived in Juneau, the face of the glacier was considerably further out into the valley. Like most (but notably not all) glaciers since the last little ice age, roughly between 1300 and the mid to late 1800s, it is receding. It’s still pretty and the clouds separated long enough for us to see some of the mountains around it, at least briefly, although you can’t really see them well in this photo.
