I am finally reunited with my blog!!

        I finally discovered the setting I needed to change on the blogger website in order to prepare a new post.  So here I am!  I hope my readers enjoyed the most recent three posts --- about the Arctic Circle and Norway.  I continue to be amazed that I really went there.  My thanks again to Patty who kept me from giving up hope about ever being able to make the trip and for all the laughing we did, just like that week 50+ years ago when we met while training to be VISTA Volunteers in eastern Kentucky (me) and eastern Tennessee (Patty).

      Here we go!!!  

     I have wanted to share some favorite photos from the dozen or so years I have been doing this blog.  I may try to give the title or date of the post for each photo soon so that additional photos that go with it can be visited. If anyone wants to encourage me to do that, please let me know.  Enjoy!

mourning dove, out the kitchen window

April on the ridge, near my home

 

George Ella Lyon, after she gave a presentation at Natural Bridge State Park

George Ella and her college roommate/friend Chris, showing up to speak out in Kentucky's capital (Frankfort) about the damage done daily by MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL MINING.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes I have visited family in England and in France:
 

winter grazing in England

NOTRE DAME, a year before the terrible fire that was felt around the world.

my son on the Seine  (River in Paris)

                                                            Now the inside story --- for the rest of us!

                      

on Christy Creek, almost to Morehead, one spring evening, for my photo class at MSU

Christmas decorations at my nearby friend Sandy's, lovely every year

More soon in two weeks, I sure hope. This all reminds me about how I love seeing what I see with a camera.

Third Norwegian post (and the last one)

   I am so glad to be here -- I may have broken through the stub-ups in this program that currently are preventing me from the access I need in order to add still another post to my SIDEWAY VIEWS that I have been doing mostly weekly for over 12 years.

    I really wanted to share the third and last section of photos I made with my iPhone during my recent travels in beautiful Norway.  My friend Pat (or Patty) and I tried for four years to be on this ship for 10 days, and, finally, this year, we made it !!!! All these photos were taken from a train going across Norway from west to east, from Bergen to Oslo, the capital.

    

on the train, mostly with no road in sight, just the tracks.

Whew, I have enough of my photos to share on this blog, and one day I will add more words.  At the moment, I am dealing with "tiny print syndrome" on the screen where I write that makes it extremely hard to see what I'm writing.  For now, I will simply say again that the train we were on travels from Bergen to Oslo, the capital of Norway.  It is known for being a fascinating journey of about 6 hours.  So, sometime soon I will add a video from the train window.  Bon voyage!

The Norwegian adventure, part 2 (of three or four)

      The ship and me and my friend Patty and 300 other travelers were on the way at 9 p.m. and soon the obvious becomes, well, obvious. We are going to be seeing a lot of water in the next 12 days, a lot of rocks, some big enough to be islands, and yet there are signs of life everywhere.  We are headed to the most northern piece of land in all of Europe, and, since this is mid May, it will be light outside most of the time. (Luckily staterooms have some serious shades to create darkness while we sleep.) 

    The routine of ship life is pretty basic -- there is no pool, no band or dancing, no library, etc.  But there are wonderful meals, 3 a day, and many stops along the way. Fresh fish is therefore really fresh!  All the food is splendid, and very Norwegian.  (Smoked salmon every day, for one thing, if you want it!!)

    So on to the photos I made - with my cell phone because it is good with light, and there were so many wonderful light moments.  Enjoy!

An excursion stop -- colors and light - Nidaros Cathedral, started in 1070 and located in Trondheim, which was the capital of Norway,  A national shrine!

This cathedral, it turns out, was near where my Norwegian friend grew up! 

a wake.....

our ship inching in to the pier, one of several stops that day

the view from one of our two windows... and we appreciated those windows immensely, day and night. 

in the rain, which we didn't have much of -- though we had some snow flurries!  I love the colors on the houses, everywhere.

SCARY!!

getting closer to the north! We were still on an "excursion", and I happened to be sitting in the front seat of our bus... Most of the road is invisible!

on the bus with less mist -- not a heavily traveled road...  We will get back on our ship at its next stop.

   My friend Patty, in a borrowed rescue suit.

our bird watching excursion continues by boat --- Patty is somewhere inside that amazing rescue outfit. SEE THE THOUSAND BIRDS IN ROWS ON THE ROCK.  Our boat was basic, the winds were real, and I'm glad to have been there!!

This blog has done a new trick for me that I am not happy with, so I give up for now. Will resume soon in the next post!!

 

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.

the world with redbuds and with war/hunger/falsehoods/and you name it

          After the Quaker Ladies photo,  I'm sharing some of my redbud photos over the years.  Can't help myself. Mid April wonders.

         While driving around my Kentucky county these last few days I have been totally aware of redbud trees in bloom everywhere!!  Oh my goodness, so beauiful, so amazing and so counter to human beings harming each other day after day.  And, it could be argued, that even by our not working hard enough to solve the ongoing impending changes in our climate, we are harming both people and the planet with our collective greed and ignorance.               

        However, I don't know if this year's redbuds bordering these narrow country roads and along the edges of our woods are what make me so happy this day. Perhaps they simply remind me of the power of beauty.  I don't want to forget that it's certain that there is harm ahead which our world has yet to experience. I ask myself, is there instead a way for the power of beauty and fairness to lead us, somehow, in turning harm into harmony???

        

redbud companions on the ground:  Quaker Ladies, or Bluets

 apple tree companions as well

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of my very favorite roadside redbuds -- though this year these trees were not as lovely as in 2018.

near Winchester, closer to central Kentucky

new branches, showing the redbud way

 

         To finish off, two more photos from Kentucky -- the first one is my MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL photo, from a small airplane's point of view.  This is h a r m.

This is closer to  h a r m o n y.

 

        I'll hope to post again in two or three weeks.  Be good to each other, and love the season around you.  Ann