Yesterday we headed east to Tavira. It’s very close to the border with Spain and only about an hour and a half rom Saville, a city I would love to visit. Guess we’ll have to include it on the next trip to the peninsula. Anyway, here are some Tavira pix.
Reflection
Nossa Senhora da Ajuda ou de Sao Paulo, Tavira, Algarve, Portugal.
Tile facade
The old bridge
Fixer upper
View from Castle
Gilao River
Igreja de Santiago
Torre do relógio
Ermida de Sao Roque
Illuminated bridge, Tavira
Beer break
We were having lunch in Lagos today at a rooftop restaurant when a hungry gull swiped a slice of bread out of our bread bowl. The theft was observed by our fellow diners, much to their delight. I barely managed to record the event.
Gull steals bread.
After Lisbon we traveled to Albufeira a centrally located city on the southern coast in The Algarve or Faro District. Albufeira has a lovely beach and lots of bars, restaurants and shops. It’s nice enough, and we booked a great AirBnB, and it makes a good starting point for day trips to the east and west.
The Algarve or Faro District
Albufeira Beach
Chimneys, Albufeira
Almart
Red shutters
Albufeira Velho
Albufeira is a party town
I’m way behind on posting pix. In fact we’re no longer in Lisbon, but Albufeira a centrally located city on Portugal’s southern coast, an area called the Algarve. So here are a few more more pix from Lisbon, Belem and Almada.
Cristo Rei
Torre de Belem
Ponte 25 de Abril
Pigeons
Real Mosteiro de Santa Maria
Padreo dos Descobrimentos
Ferramentas
Trams
Tombs
Hanging laundry
Transit Museum
A few people have inquired about my camera etc. I’m just shooting snapshots with my iPhone X. Most =of what happens with these images is post processing in Photoshop Express. If you’re interested in technical details, let me know. I’m happy to share
Miscellaneous pixx of a day in Lisbon. It’s a gorgeous city, full of monuments and churches. One of the world’s great capitol cities.
Tram 28
Pastels
Art work
Wash day
Rainy day dryer
Painted door
LSD
Our first full day in Lisbon. Weather has been cold and rainy, but looking to improve over the next couple of days.
Praça do Comércio
Arco do Triunfo
Arco do Triunfo, head's up
Floor tile
A mixed bag of markets, craftsmen and palaces. Internet out at the AirBnB, this is actually the first time I’ve used my phone as a “hot spot” So we’ll see how that goes. Here are some pix.
Sidewalk troubadour.
Bicycle Wheel Globe
Tile craftsman
Tile Artisan
TukTuk
Tajine this way
Bahia Palace 1
Patti at Bahia Palace
Bahia Palace 2
Citrus Stand
Fruits and Nuts
Juice??
We took a private “tour” to the Atlas mountains today, which means that our very nice driver, Aziz took us to all the retailers where he got a kickback. Not that it wasn’t educational or interesting, but the sales pressure was intense; behavior to which I am congenitally averse. We went to a Berber rug shop billed as a sort of woman’s cooperative, which I suspect is only partially true. But the rugs were varied and beautiful. Not being in the market for a rug, as I explained from the get go, the salesman did an excellent job of making me wish that I were. The next stop was another of that ilk, an Argan oil operation that also sold spices, teas, cosmetics, etc. Dollars were spent. None by me. The lunch venue was lovely, seated right beside the river that three weeks ago flooded so badly that it wiped out a good deal of its embankment. Remember, this area was hard hit by the 2023 earthquake. Anyway, food was great. On the way back Patti wanted to take a pic of a camel which morphed into a camel ride, in costume. I will include some very amateur video. Back into Marrakech we visited the tannery which was technically informative in its use of pigeon shit as an ammoniated bath in the tanning process; we were given sprigs of mint to mitigate the odor. And that’s about it. Got to see some countryside. Here are some pix of the day.
Royal Theater in Marrakech, close to our AirBnB
Berber rugs drying in the sun.
Rug weaving demonstration.
Tajine for lunch
Future goat tajine
Patti along the Ourika River, Restaurant Adrar
Restaurants along the Ourika River.
Post flood bridge
Tannery
Patti atop dromedary.
Having recovered from my malaise, we walked to Jemaa el-Fnaa, a large square surrounded by souks (small stores). The square itself is where various performers ply their trades; snake charmers, musical acts and henna tattoo artists among them. If you feel like being annoyed, I’d recommend the place. Otherwise head to the souks where you’ll see lots retailers selling their niche products, but also a lot light manufacturing. We had lunch at a place called Dar Es Salaam that was just great. Adjacent to the restaurant were buildings damaged by a 6.8 earthquake in September 0f 2023. The earthquake killed over 2000 people.
Carriage Queue
Ferrier
Leather Goods
Earthquake Damage 1
Earthquake Damage 2
Rubber Dealer
Rubber Fetish
Kitchen Gear
Cones
I’ve been under the weather with some kind of bug… nausea, headache and the obligatory talk with Ralph on the big white phone. But after 15 hours of sleep I’m feeling a lot better. Hope to get out and see some of the city today. Anyway, here’s a video of the train we took from Casablanca. It was not an Express.
Today we took a train to Rabat, Morocco's capital city. It's only an hour away and only $7 one way. Rabat is very nice, very clean with wide boulevards. The Medina (market area) is huge and not nearly as crazy as Casablanca's. We had a great lunch of tazines, a Moroccan staple washed down with mint tea. Then we went to the Kasbah des Oudayas. A fort that was at one time the entire city. Before heading back to Casablanca, we visited Musee Mohammed VI to check out the modern art exhibit. Fun day, and we didn't screw up once. Here a some pix of the Medina.
Snack Alame
Sport Shop
Fruits & Shades
Spice Vendor
Feeding Fowl
Garment Vendor
Little Darlings
Pot Pourri
Butcher
Originally, these pix were shared by email. That proved cumbersome for a few people so I decided to use my web site to share. I’m going to see if I can get this located properly in the timeline, but if that doesn’t work, at least it will part of the record
Flying in to Casablanca
View from the AirBnB
Security grating
Fruit vendor.
The ladder store
Alley cat
Old Medina gate
Barber shop bros
Masonry detail
Upholsterer
Fowl vendor
Aldoria cafe-club
Hassan II mosque
Stonework detail
Framed mosque
Tile detail
This year's RV trip started out in Bend, OR and took a circuitous route through Eastern Oregon, Northern Idaho, Montana and Wyoming and ended in Salt Lake City Utah. Here are some pix of the trip.
While visiting friends in Seattle this summer, I had a some time on my hands and realized that I was pretty close to a town called Renton which is where a guy named Jim Anderson built a beautiful geodesic dome on the banks of the fabulously named, Lake Desire.
Jim Anderson sitting on top of the Shake Dome c.1971 as it appeared in Domebook 2
Jim Anderson along with Chuck Nelson and Jim Lang had given a course at the Free University at Ohio State called "Photography For People Who Like to Drink Wine" that I enrolled in (circa 1969) and it really propelled me on my way as a hippy artist.
Chuck and his wife Chrissy and Pam and I had stayed in that dome for week or two back in 1974 and it was amazing. So naturally I was curious to see if the dome was still there and if Jim still lived in it. I figured it ought to be easy to find since as I recalled, Lake Desire was a pretty small. As it turned out, it wasn't all that easy and after diving around for a while realized that I might be able to locate it by using the Google Earth app on the alPhone4S.
Lake Desire screenshot from Google Earth.
The dome revealed
Voila! Thanks again Google for the valuable tools you give us for free (while data-mining our every move). By blowing the image way up and carefully tracing the shore line I was eventually able to spot it. Unfortunately there was nobody home and the dome had apparently developed some leaks over the years and now wears raincoat. Here's how she looks as of July, 2013.
40+ years later.
My New Year's resolution was to lose some weight and the belly that had begun to irk me every time I walked by a mirror. So I began walking down and up the hill I live on... a miserable dirt road that runs 1.1 mile in length and 500 ft. of elevation between Chateau Dorsa and the East End Road.
It turns out to be an ideal form of exercise. It's tough enough to break a good sweat, but low impact. I listen to podcasts and collect roadside litter for the 40 minute duration of the routine. I've lost about 15 lbs. and the gut is looking much better.
Rare and wonderful, the green flash is a phenomenon that occurs as the sun sets into the sea. For a technical explanation of why this happens, here's a link to the Wikipedia article.
Whenever I'm "out west" around sunset, I hope to see a green flash, but am rarely lucky enough to catch one. This shot was among the first I made with my then new "big boy" camera, the Canon 5D Mark 2 back in 2009.
Green Flash, Frederiksted, St. Croix, VI 2009.
Gabrielle has dumped a lot of rain on Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. There was also a lot of thunder and lightening, but fortunately not much in the way of strong winds. Here's a pic from the archives taken in November of 2009. Sometimes lousy weather is makes a good photo op.
Christiansted Harbor, November 2009
One of the big annual events we have in St. Croix is the 3 King's Day parade (a.k.a "the Adult Parade"). People really let it all hang out and have big-time fun. This pic is from the 2012 parade and really embodies the color, energy and joy of the trampers. If you want to have a really good time, be in Frederiksted next January 4! Lots of details on the Crucian Christmas Festival website: http://www.stxfestival.com
The new site has several galleries. At the moment there are four: Architecture, Botanica, Landscape and Et cetera. Always interested in feedback.
