My laptop is definitely happier to be working from home.

       I am finally home, after 12 days driving around New England visiting family, good friends, and a few special scenic places.  I drove from Kentucky to and from NYC with a good friend, and we laughed a lot. She stayed in NYC, and I went as far as Maine!  

        She and I did some serious driving through periods of heavy rain, especially in Pennsylvania the first day of our trip.  I see tonight  -- when I am finally able to put together last Sunday's blog -- that there are currently tornado warnings in those very same places! I was fortunate that my friend is an intrepid traveler AND a very cool headed driver.  

         As for the delay in this week's blog, it was all about not being able to transition smoothly from one network after another on my laptop in all the places I visited.  I'll be asking a lot of questions soon about what mistakes I was making as I changed networks so steadily.  I will be making today's effort short, because there are still some "production issues".

         First Smith College and the rock garden behind Chapin House, my "dorm" for 3 years.  None of the college buildings were open to the public last week, including the greenhouses, but the rock garden was lush from the rainy spring and summer in Massachusetts.

The heron is a sculpture in the greenhouse pond.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2) Maine, where my cousin Sarah and her family live:
    

     This is the view of the cove from the house .  There were a dozen of us cousins gathered there for a few days; we do this every few years. Both my sisters were there.  The lobster tradition continues, as does a good game of dominoes.

 

     We did get out and about a bit:

 

 

dinner prep! 

BLUEBERRY PIE

 
            There will be more, but not yet. (That means more photos, I'm afraid, and not more blueberry pie....) I will be adding a video at the end next time, from Hamden, CT, near New Haven, where everyone on the block seemed to excel with some plant or other.  Lovely, lovely.

            May we all be spared from harboring anger toward our neighhbors, and may we be there to support each other and fill the room with kindness.   Also, Bon Appetit --  Ann                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

 

 

TIme for a summer moment, in Maine

post #415
       Too much ugliness is showing in the world these days. And Steve L. encouraged me two weeks ago.  So I've decided today to go back to Maine, from when I was there a year or two ago.  My paternal female cousins got together for a long September weekend, something we had never really done before.  It was about time! 
       And then the light from the lake and the sky was so lovely that I managed to get some good photos.  Even when it rained I got some good photos. I didn't go just to take photos, however, but I'm so glad I had my good camera with me.  We ate well, talked and walked well, and between all of us we remembered well our childhood summer on this same lake, Lake Caspian in Greensboro, Vermont, over 50 years ago!  Bless you cousins, all.
        ENJOY!

 The dock for our long weekend rental was sort of our anchor, so to speak --

view along the bank near the dock

picturesque morning neighbor

afternoon visit from cousin Steve and Kathy, our cousin-in-law

and their happy-to-be-out-of-the-car dog

This view is looking from our dock to the right, in the morning.

gotta love the railing!

We were walking on the path around the lake until we came to the back of the house where we spent time as kids.  At least we were almost 100% sure this was that house.

midday light, but still beautiful with the clouds

another middle of the day, no clouds but lovely sister in the stern, and her visiting friend

one morning's fire after a very chilly night

never a gathering of any kind without a jigsaw puzzle

the longest game of Clue any of us had EVER played

What a wonderful weekend. I hope the photos look particularly good as we face storms all around us today. I also hope all peoples can be safe and the world made safer.

Road trip, non-photos, part 2 of 2

post #388
       So let's take up this story in Springfield, Missouri, where my cousin Doug -- who looks just like his dad who was my mother's brother -- and his family live and share a house with his wife's mother, 3 cats and a dog. This was my first visit ever with him. We stayed there a short 24 hours, but we were busy -- Cathy and I toured the University they are connected to and the great Nature Center -- where I actually took a photo with my iPhone of a chart showing what poison ivy looks like along side plants that may think they look like poison ivy. I am no longer terrifically endangered by P.I., like I was as a child, but I do the magical thinking that the fact that I don't get P.I. any more must mean I haven't identified the plants correctly. So I now have the photo of that chart on my iPhone to carry with me. (If I have made adequate sense in this telling, it's a miracle.)
     At the house, we learned a lot from the family geneology Lois had been doing, and Doug shared his various ingenious uses of computers and speakers and devices. Awesome talent.  He says he has a t-shirt that reads "No, I won't come to your house and fix your computer." He was kind enough to answer a few questions I happened to have about my phone... and he took each of us for ride in his beloved "old car," Cathy was able to do a Walmart run with him, for something needed for her new phone, and later I got a quick tour of the neighborhood with him. I am going to show three photos that Lois took, of me stepping into the car, etc., having great fun and appreciating his patience with my "undignified" behavior. 

         That night we had a light supper and the night in Kansas City, Missouri, where Cathy's friend, Carol, joined us after arriving in town at 11 pm on the train.  Early the next morning we three drove to the Kansas City International Airport, which meant only a half hour for me in the back seat. Carol is a Union Organizer, and knows all the airports and all the tricks for mapping trips on her phone. I believe her call name must by "Never Lost." I was let off to take a plane from there in order to get back home.
          Please note that the only reason I took the plane was that there isn't any other option! Not to where I needed to go. Not even any buses. How sad. I used to love the occasional long bus ride, and I am a big fan of trains. 
          To make the rest of this story short enough, I will just add that my flight from KCI went to Charlotte, NC, very smoothly flying over Lexington, KY, where, as I wrote last week, my car was. I was supposed to catch a flight from Charlotte to Lexington, yet all of a sudden the word was that the Lexington airport was closed down and there would be no flights to there for 24 hours. So close was I to going, and now so far.
           I had no interest in staying in Charlotte, so I managed to figure out how to get on a flight that evening to Louisville. I had no idea what to do after that. Luckily I hadn't checked a bag. The supervisor at the American Airlines desk in L'ville, however, told me I had just missed their bus going to Lexington. But, even so, she managed to get me a paid taxi ride to get there! Weird but wonderful.      
          Along my way, then, to find the taxis, I had a conversation with two guys from Ecuador, one of whom spoke some English. It turned out they needed a ride to Lex. for the same reason I did, so I invited them to join me. It ended up working out even better than I expected. I was just trying to be American hospitable, but they helped me, too. Then, about 40 minutes into the hour and 15 minute drive, I found out the taxi driver spoke French and so do I. I think he was African, and his French was great. He was thrilled, as was I, since usually it's all Spanish. Then, for quite a while, we had three languages going as it got darker and darker out. I would tell the Ecuadorians how beautiful the horse country was on either side of the road we were on and it was too bad they couldn't see it. What could have been a travel stress-out turned into a lovely and very interesting experience! 
       That's enough to get the idea of things. I am glad to be home, and, in fact, I am just finishing this by sitting in a chair outside my house, watching the darkness increase. There are no bugs, and no wind and it's all very peaceful.  But for sure it's good to get out and have an adventure every now and then. 

a week of non-photos

post #387

Today I’ve decided to share how the non-photo life can be experienced by photographers who always see stuff but can’t always immediately make art. For you, my readers, it may simply feel like a litany of photos I didn’t take. But for me, the week has been unusual.  The incentive for all this was to take part in a road trip my sister, Cathy, had planned, starting her trip in New York, driving to North Carolina with a friend and then coming to Kentucky to see me before heading to Missouri and Lincoln, Nebraska and then back home via Indiana and Buffalo. Lots of miles!!

My part started when Cathy and her friend, Judy, who was doing the first part with her, came here from Tennessee after being in North Carolina.

Once Cathy and Judy finally arrived on Monday -- escorted by a neighbor in a pickup truck, leading them from the local store because Cathy had lost her phone that morning and didn’t know where I now live or even what my phone number was but she remembered the store and my name.... Cathy and I had to go into Morehead right away to the Verizon store to replace her phone. They did retrieve her phone numbers, and she kept the same number. Sorry, but I think it’s amazing. And time consuming. Meanwhile Judy cooked up our supper. Bravo, Judy! None of this, needless to say, was of direct relevance to the art part of my life….

Tuesday there were the usual demands of the day, including my finishing reviewing an article, for its English fluency, about Vitamin D that a German friend sent me out of the blue. Cathy spent time setting up her phone, and Judy met a friend at Morehead’s renowned Folk Art Center (which may be closing because of the pinching of funds for public universities. Thanks for nothing, politicians.) Late afternoon we three went over to where I used to live and we ate supper on the porch with R, J and T.  Luckily, this happened after the shower of rain that ended in time for a quick walk to the first waterfall before dinner, but with no time, however, to do the noticing a good photo usually requires, especially when there is a threat of rain. I still haven’t heard how many photographers ruined their cameras during this year’s very wet Kentucky Derby!

Later, at home, there definitely was no time to make a photo record of all that I left undone before going to bed that night, even though I well knew we were leaving early in the morning! Ha!

Early Wednesday is when I left the battery for my point and shoot on a table at home…I guess it was on the way to being recharged but never made it to the plug. It really needed that recharging. I had finally decided not to take my big camera with me because of the heat this time of the year in a closed up car. My photography friend John F. would be rolling his eyes at me, but this time it really wasn’t worth the risk since we would be living out of the car for several days, a car without a trunk.

The morning was spent taking both their car and mine as far as Lexington, where we left mine at the Lexington airport. Then the three of us and our bags squeezed into the little car for the hour and a half ride to Louisville, which included a deluge that required us to pull off on to the shoulder and wait it out. I couldn’t even change positions in the back seat well enough to take an iPhone photo of the storm. 

We left Judy and her baggage at the Louisville airport so she could fly home. A changing of the guard. Cathy and I spent the next four hours driving halfway to Springfield, Missouri. The road was lovely and country and no big trucks. No time to stop either, however. Miles and miles on Route 60 west, and more miles, through the southwest part of Kentucky that I rarely see, yet there wasn’t time or reason for photography. We stayed in a motel en route, and the next night we were to stay all night with our cousin, Doug, his wife, Lois, and her mother, Priscilla. We got lost (near Paducah)! We got found! We got lost (in Springfield)! Finally Doug had to talk us along the final part of our route to their home. An urban sister and a rural sister hit small city challenges! No street signs! No unusual landmarks! Once we arrived, we started right away catching up on multiple family stories since we are a spread out kind of family. What a treat.

Oh yes, at one exit in Kentucky we had tried to find some special bourbon to fill a request from a close friend of my sister’s, but we hadn’t done our research ahead of time; what we found was essentially a factory. Not very picturesque from the outside. Sadly I missed the whole Bourbon Trail.

This might be too long a piece for my blog, so I will leave the last two days for next time. There are some unexpected adventures still to share – in words that imply a reliance on the images we each form in our own heads.

However, I just have to include a single photo by my friend in Germany – obviously not one I made! I thought it a beautiful moment looking out into their back yard. Thanks, Juergen, for sharing this, and for all I learned about Vitamin D.  Really.