I've been away, am back!

I've decided to share my recent trip to NORWAY and to bring whomever wants to go along with me via some photos I made during parts of the past several weeks.  I photographed only with my iPhone, so there's not the usual variety of images I may have had with my regular [much heavier] camera. However, I think I managed fairly well, considering.  

Note: this was a long awaited trip to somewhere I had always wanted to visit. I have been to Norway before, to visit friends there, but never had I taken the mail ship all the way up to the most northern point in Europe, far above the Arctic Circle.  It turns out a friend, Patty, whom I met years ago when we were VISTAs in Applalachia, in 1966, had also always wanted to go to Norway.  Her grandmother and several others in her family had emigrated to the USA in the 1940s  .  It required her persistence over 3 years for us to be able to go -- I couldn't believe that we weren't about to have to hear "We're canceling again this year." Instead, we actually started out from Boston -- Patty lives on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts --  on May 7, headed to BERGEN, on Norway's coast, where the ship set out at 9 pm on Sunday, May 8.  (There's a 6 hour time difference between eastern Kentucky and Norway.)  We learned a lot and ate wonderful food, including lots of fresh fish. Most of the other 300 or so passengers were German or Norwegian, with some other Scandinavians.  The common language was often English.  Our entertainment was the water around us asa well as various excursions when the ship stayed in port more thn two hours rather then the usual 15 minutes.

SO, here are moments from the beginning of our getting to know better a hard to reach part of the globe that is graced with great beauty and ruggedness.  I repeat: I learned a lot!!

THIS FIRST PHOTO SHOWS OUR AFTERNOON IN BERGEN, before our 9 p.m. departure. I was able to visit my first cousin once removed, Brooke, who lives there with her fish scientist husband and their eight year old son.  And she is getting her PhD.  The son and his dad were soon off to soccer practice, a very important part of any Norwegian kid's life.  Please note: no snow in view until ... the next few days, as we headed north along the Norwegian west coast.

streets in Bergen with our ship, the NORDLYS, in view, docked and waiting for passengers like us

One of these windows is ours.... Our stateroom was on the side of the ship that does off and ons during the many stops for pick ups and deliveries, including the mail.  I have many photos from all times of daylight (almost all night long) during the stops which lasted 15 minutes to several hours. That's when we could get off the ship and get to look around for a bit.

getting used to the beauty and the "lay of the rocks and islands -- not just the land"

ships passing in the day -- another Hurtigruten ship -- with much horn noise back and forth

a rescue ready boat? I didn't listen closely enough during our safety presentation to find out....

Tonight I will end with these views of sun, sea and sky -- that began my introduction to this part of the world. I thought it all amazing.  It didn't look the same every night, so I am glad I stayed with it the two early nights of the trip.  Some of the Hurtigruten ships at other times of the year go looking for the northern lights.  In fact, our ship's name means "northern lights" .  (BTW, these photos are not necessarily in consecutive order.}

The last shot (for now) was the first photo I made that first evening. Seeing that scene felt like an unexpected wonder. 

In the next 2 or 3 blog posts I look forward to sharing more of this part of our world I was privileged to visit. It is too fascinating not to share.

color in the skys

         It's now getting lighter every morning! Seconds count! Yea!!  

        For 6 weeks I have wanted to share a series of photos my daughter made by noticing the sky was showing off its spectacular self. She made the instant decision to run outside with her iPhone to record the changes she realized were happening, quickly. All these photos were made within 5 minutes. A lot can happen in that short length of time! Hold on to your hats, here we go:

CLOUD PHOTOS by REBECCA WRIGHT

 

Whew! Wow! Wonderful!     And now for some recent photos of mine, fairly seasonal:

We'll have almost a whole week together!

a gift to the world in her Christmas jammies

another gift, via UPS

        

    wrapping it up

      My more or less monthly writers group finally was able to meet in person a few weeks ago, in Lexington, with one of us in D.C.  We had our annual Christmas meal and some words to share and some tears of happiness just from being together.

       

Then there's the sky outside my window tonight, always a gift, in my book.

       I sure hope the message about getting vaccines can be liberated from the politics it has brought on. Lies are so dangerous. Common sense is worth a lot more than it is given credit for.  I also hope you have enjoyed these few photos.  May you have something beautiful to be surprised by every day.  I look forward to posting again in two weeks.  Snow??  Ann

short but sweet, sort of

This Sunday I am NOT going to struggle with the Blogger effort to frustrate us all in every possible way.  SURELY they will soon admit that they have royally screwed up and take us back to where we know how to make Blogspot work.... It has been very reassuring to discover that so many users have chimed in after having similar experiences to mine.

So, as is said, I'm going to give it a rest -- though maybe I will at least try to add a couple of sunset shots from two days ago ---  no secret message intended.  I will also make a brief comment before we have a week where dubious claims nightly will overload our political news cycle.  I hope everyone is a becoming a believer that the virus is real.  Nearby neighbor friends of mine may have tried to hide, but they were found this weekend. It's seriously sad. We all pray for their safety, for their recovery, for their families, and for all of America.   We are paying a high price for not having a national coordinated effort to combat -- via science -- the reality that the pandemic is world wide.  We need to have each other's back.  I have a lot more photos I want to make. And I'm way behind in giving and getting hugs.

facing SSE from my house:

and, last but not least, shared because we can always use a reminder of hope, a recent favorite photo of mine, from dear English friends, of a great grandson with his great grandfather:

late summer 2019, heat and all

post #437
        Lots of words last week. Today mostly some photos from this past week. I'm slow to get back into my photo groove. And it has been really hot outside. But there is no question that I love looking closely, noticing things, being hopeful, thankful, and amazed. 
       Yet, even so, or maybe because, please bear with me, it also makes me uneasy.  This week I want to believe there is a way to stop the Amazon Forest from burning up. Why, again, hasn't it been obvious what our responsibilities are to the next generation? 

butterfly visitor, to the past-its-prime joe-pye.

          Now that my big field is getting mowed twice a year, with a tractor, there are so many more flowers for the bees and bugs. A lot of living goes on in there between the mowings.  Each year it gets more beautiful, to me.

Sunsets during my photography years (part 2 of 2)

post #417
      OK, sunsets always have the potential for beauty, sometimes amazing, often when working alongside or within clouds. Since the sun "goes down" every day, it might be easy to take these displays for granted.  I haven't yet gotten to that point, I must confess. I also want to mention that as far as a photo goes, it's sometimes hard to tell later whether it was a sunset or a sunrise! If this is happening in familiar territory, where the looking west viewpoint differs from the one looking east, then there is a clue. Otherwise not. 

      As far as I know, every single image that follows is taking place during a setting sun.  I do hope everyone is still noticing the steady reliable work the sun does for us.  I happen to think that if we don't take responsibility for reducing the human causes of climate change that the sun will no longer be able to be the friend it has been so far.

ARRIVING BY PLANE, IN DENVER, COLORADO  -- SEE THE PLANET

TWO EVENING VIEWS, A FEW DAYS LATER, IN THE COLORADO ROCKIES

FROM RIGHT AT HOME, IN EASTERN KENTUCKY

WELL, THIS IS A VARIATION OF A SETTING SUN, THOUGH THIS ECLIPSE, FOR US, WAS ACTUALLY MAINLY A PARTIAL SUN.

THREE MORE, FROM RIGHT AT HOME

THE CAMPUS OF EARLHAM COLLEGE, IN RICHMOND, INDIANA WHERE IT'S PRETTY FLAT AND OPEN!

ON THE BAY BEACH NEAR EAST DENNIS, ON CAPE COD, MASSACHUSETTS

ON THAT BEACH, LOOKING NORTH, FROM THE SAME SPOT

BACK AT HOME, MIRRORED BY THE POND

I have more such photos, but I am going to end with one last one, for now, to draw the two parts of this sunset 'series' together.  I made this photo sitting in a window seat in the plane going north last week, and the only reason the photo was possible was, of course, because the wing was covering the actual setting sun. I like how the design of the wing mirrored the coastline between the land and the water. I didn't know I would see that. But that's one reason why I stay energized by the visual dimension of my life.