Settle in for the Long Winter's Nap

Its a great day here in the big city. Our Christmas presents to each other were delivered Friday, so we're all set for that long cold winter here.

Note the Friday evening glass of Chardonnay next to my chair - I think I've started a great tradition with that one. Oh, can you figure out which chair is mine? They are identical chairs except for the fabric. The cat prefers Ed's chair, naturally. Eddie has always been her number 1 buddy. (Possible Downside: this is the hairest cat we've ever had.)

Hope you like our new chairs. I promise to let you sit in one of the chairs if you come see us!

Paradise Island, Nassau, Bahamas 2011

This is one of my personal favorite shots from this trip. I could have watched these beautiful rays glide around all day. The resort, Atlantis, has a really interesting aquarium. You can explore part of it, called "The Dig" by walking through a dark underground cave - really reminded us of Indiana Jones - I think Patsy would have enjoyed this exploration with us. I would like to go through The Dig again, as there is so much detail, I couldn't take it all in.


We stayed here in Harbourside at the Atlantis. The Atlantis is a huge mega resort that reminds you a bit of Disney. Lots of ornate, hookey stuff, and extremely large complex. I think at least 4 different hotel complexes - The Cove, The Royal Towers, The Beach Towers, The Coral....and then the villas where we stayed, Harbourside. It was pretty fascinating just to gawk at all the stuff.






This is Todd, Amanda, Ed and Brenda gawking at the aquarium. It had so many different kinds of fish. Some were predators, I wonder how that works?

Lots of commissioned art work. Beautiful. I loved the flying fish. Better than the Chihuly art glass this time. Way better than the flying horses too.

Of course, we were the real show. Joey, growing his Bert Reynolds mustache.



Brenda and Ed, trying to figure out the camera for that perfect memory shot.


Amanda and Todd, what a beautiful shot.

For this shot, I was in one of the caves, see the waterfall flowing over the opening?


This was coming up out of the caves, the ceilings were beautiful everywhere. And dramatic. This was one of my favorites.

Vacation begins

Ever the optimist, I'm looking forward to 90 degrees and thunderstorms. Alternatives to snorkeling? Let's see, movies, casino, eating, spa treatments...OK, we'll live.


I've heard Joey is all excited to be going to the beach again!


Mom and I went to the Bahamas - I think she was really having a good time! circa 1974

My first snorkeling experience - in the Bahamas. 1973.
wow. Hmmm. Wouldn't let you take this photo today.

Mom like the flowers best. It was a lot of fun.

Our Healing Totem has arrived!

At 20 feet tall, this is a beautiful work of art. I wonder how they will choose to maintain this. Maybe it is meant for the colors to fade over time.


Love the salmon in this one, the salmon were quite important to the Lummi nation.


I am pleased to say that our healing totem has arrived safely in Bethesda. What a trip across the country it has made, from Seattle to Bethesda, with colorful blessings along the way.

I love the totem, it is inspiring. They have placed it in our medicinal herb garden. I think that is a good place, and it has caused some volunteers to pay a lot of attention to the herb garden. We have clean walkways there now and the herbs are now labeled clearly, so that is cool.

Maybe there is a place in urban life for some love of nature and natural things. I'll be spending a bit more time out there in the garden for sure.

Her Secret is Patience

Her Secret is Patience
The art piece is shown here from the rooftop pool deck of the nearby Weston Hotel in Phoenix. It is suspended over a park and adjacent to the new light rail station in downtown Phoenix.

I've included a link to a pretty neat blog that explains a bit about this work of public art: http://www.downtownphoenix.com/blog/2010/03/her-secret-is-patience/

Fabricated from multi-colored polyester netting of a type commonly used in commercial fishing nets, the net employs nearly 64,000 meters of polyester twine and is comprised of more than 200,000 knots. Custom software was created by Buro Happold to rationalize the shape, conduct form-finding and analysis, and output drawings to manufacture. Working closely with the net fabricator, Diamond Nets, Buro Happold designed the software to account for the manual process of controlling the net looms, outputting patterning drawings that described knot counts and lengths, and splice locations.

For areas of the sculpture where net-loomed pieces could not capture the form, the nets were spliced by hand using drawings that represented every piece of twine unrolled, with each splice location dimensioned.

Material selection was key to the success of the project, both structurally and economically. In order to resist 144 kmh winds, the material had to be exceptionally strong. The Phoenix site also required consideration of the degradation of the material over time due to UV exposure. Polyester, although not UV stable, was chosen for its high strength-to-cost ratio. This enabled the city of Phoenix to purchase several versions of the same sculpture, which could changed at five-year intervals.

This is very interesting stuff, and I've always enjoyed public art, ever since we had the knitting needles installed in Concord. (They are gone now, sad to say, and I don't think I photographed them.) Gone now, but not forgotten, I guess those 91 aluminum poles were actually called Spirit Poles, here is a bit of info on them: http://cowellhistoricalsociety.org/html/spirit.html

Healing Totem in Progress

This is my experiment with Google Blogger app for iPhone

Interesting native canoe from Hawaii. This is a custom made 1/6 model. (In the lobby at NLM.)

Foundation pad for the totem pole and custom carved benches.

Labor Day Weekend ~ The Homestead

The Homestead was a pretty fun place to spend the Labor Day weekend. We got a Groupon type coupon for half price here, so I had to go see this place.
Two of my favorite things were soaking in the Jefferson Pools and Falconry!

Counting our Blessings ~ Say YES to the Dress

Wow. This weekend just past, Ed and I got to be with both our kids AND we got to help Amanda select a wedding gown! How cool is that??!!

I really loved getting to do this. As per our Pre-shopping instructions - we brought upbeat attitude, enthusiasm, (and debit card.)

We have learned a lot. Wedding gowns are strange creations. Attach the word "wedding" or "bridal" to anything and you can just mark it up about 300%; Ratchet up the emotional component about 600%. Having the clerk pull you aside and ask "What is your budget number?" is a bit disconcerting, to say the least. Of course, learning that the absolutely huge number you had in mind is the lowest price gown they carry - well, that's just weird. But, having a smart, tenacious bride with a degree in finance really helps! Little did I realize how tough this day could be.

Gowns must weigh 20 lbs. I'm not sure, of course, but they just looked heavy when the girl brought them to the dressing room. All the clerks had great looking arms - guess they do not have to do bicep curls.

Appointments are required for this kind of shopping. These aren't the kind of places you just walk into, like J.C. Penny. So, I'm not accustomed to shopping like this. However, I understand now why that is necessary. You need the relatively undivided attention of the clerk, if only to move the gowns into and out of your dressing room. But, they do much more than that. They consider price and the desired style and design attributes the bride needs. And, they are patient people. Which, I think, helps a lot. They walk the tightrope of not offering feedback unless requested. They allow the bride to think about each dress and consider.

Personally, I think it would help greatly if they had dresses in a wide variety of sizes, instead of just mostly a size 8, with a few 10's thrown in. These stores seem ready to deal with the size issues, as they all had some kind of cheesecloth or piece of fabric to button, pin or clip into the back of the "too small" dresses - so the bride could see how each dress might look on her. I could see this technique was universally used and came in mighty handy. Apparently, although models might be a size 8, most brides seem to be more realistic women with actual hips and breasts. Amazing.

Our resourceful Joey found a great shop using his smart phone. With his help, we were able to add a 3rd appointment to our day. (Although we all had some reservations about whether we could accommodate a 3rd appointment.) This shop was more intimate and had a nicer variety of sizes, and also had a great variety of styles and designs. We were working with the owner herself, and it was soon clear that she knew her stock, knew the manufacturers, and knew what could be ordered and what might be possible. She also had a good eye for what looks good. It was fun to work with her, in spite of our tiredness at the end of a long day. I think we were lucky to have her helping us.

It was here we found just the right dress for our bride! Of course, I can't post the photo or talk about it, but I'm really happy. Amanda is beautiful and its fun to get a special dress for this happy special occasion.
Now, I'll have to find just the right "Mother of the Bride" dress. Oh dear.
Ed and Joey are lucky, a nice dark suit will do for them.

2011 ~ Ketchikan, Alaska

The images of these totems are from Totem Bight State Park in Ketchikan, Alaska.

This is another wonderful example of the work resulting from the CCC program in the United States during the pre-WWII years. Totems are actually large cedar monuments, created by natives. After Alaska began to see changes due to the decline of bartering as a system of economics, and an increase in non-native settlements, the old totems were abandoned in the villages, where they soon became forgotten and began to deteriorate. The CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) came into play in the late 1930's to employ older native skilled carvers. These carvers were able to teach the art of totem carving to young artists and to recreate or repair some of the old totems, hence preserving part of the culture.

Not an idol, but a silent storyteller.

Kadjuk Bird Pole:
This Tlingit pole was copied from Cat Island. A similar pole can also be found in Ketchikan. The fabled Kadjuk bird sits on the top of the pole. The undecorated portion of the pole symbolizes the lofty habitat of the bird and the high esteem in which the crest is held.

Raven is the next figure, with his breast forming the headdress of his wife, Fog Woman, wearing the labret in her lower lip. In her hands she holds two salmon, which she produced, the first in the world. The two large faces at the base represent the two slaves of Raven.

There are about 14 totems here and a clan house has been built, resembling those built in the early 19th century in the Tlingit villages.

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This is Creek Street in Ketchikan. Along this little picturesque street are several shoppes and interesting bistros. It is a lovely boardwalk.


Imagine our delight in stumbling upon this funicolare or "incline" (like the Duquesne Incline in Pittsburgh) right in Ketchikan. This one is the Ketchikan Alaska Funicular Rail Car - and it goes to the Cape Fox lodge, so there are really nice places to stay in Ketchikan.

We didn't have time to ride this one, it was time to run back to get onboard our ship for departure! Didn't want to be left behind!

2011 Alaska - Juneau, capital city

This is Ed and I at the Salmon Fish Hatchery in Juneau. We were there in June, but a little too early for the salmon running!

See the images of the little salmon on the wall of the Salmon Ladder - above? that's what we might have seen in about a month.


Ed, looking out at the Salmon Ladder.



Surrounded by so much beauty when you wake up in the morning!

JUNEAU

Juneau is a really interesting place, it is accessible via sea or air ONLY! The "ICE ROAD TRUCKERS" don't go through Juneau, which is in South East Alaska. Cars are brought in via barge or ferry boats. There are some roads within Juneau, and a bridge to Douglas Island.

We saw a whole lot of neat stuff in Juneau. After our cruise ship was docked, we disembarked and met a tour bus.

We had a really nice Latino girl as our bus drive/tour guide. She took us to the Alaska Museum, the Salmon Hatchery, a wonderful viewpoint on Douglas Tidal Island, at least 40 jewelry shops, and the most famous Mendenhall Glacier. Cruise ships dock daily in season (May to Sept.) and bring the little town from a population of about 30,000 to a population of about a million for the next 6-11 hours. Tourism is big here, but the main employer is government in the state capital city.

Remember - you can click twice on this photo to enlarge, then use your back button to return to the blog.

Alaska State Museum

Inuit waterproof parka - made from gut and scrapped sealskin, sometimes trimmed in small delicate feathers. This authentic parka on display, was sewn so carefully that no water can leak in. All these little seams you see are turned and stitched so carefully that a needle never completely pierces the gut or skin. Seams are kind of rolled. Trim (feathers in this case) carefully sewn so as not to pierce anything, thus not allowing water in.
Can you imagine the workmanship they are showing here? It is beautiful. I know the sewing needles were carved from bones, the gut could be from whales or any of a variety of sea creatures. These indigenous people were very wise in the use of what they had at hand. I wish I were that smart and clever. We have much to learn.

This was a beautiful work of art. My favorite piece in the whole museum.

Float planes...everywhere! Look carefully, you can see the bridge to Douglas Island, the tidal island in Juneau.

Image of a vintage photo of the Mendenhall Glacier, near Juneau, AK. This was in the Alaska State Museum in Juneau.

This is the Fresnel Lense - from an old light station in Alaska. Beautiful even today, these lenses were made in France and were used all over the world for their magnificent ability to multiply the light, in order to be seen through fogs and over distances by the ships. Very important part of our history.


Alaska culture, of course, predates the USA. However, this is a contemporary woman artist, depicting a mask. My lighting wasn't the best, but this piece was a good example of the cultural art of the mask shown there. There are several more really nice pieces similar that I didn't have time to capture - moving a little too quickly through the museum.
I hope you are enjoying this - occasionally I feel like I'm writing into a void. Don't really know if anyone is there.

2011 Alaska - Vancouver, BC

We are approaching the Port of Vancouver, British Columbia in the early morning hours, after having cruised all night. It was very gentle seas and a pleasant, very small, sensation of movement as we cruised, nearly rocks you to sleep every so slightly. I was very excited to see the Vancouver. We had been here before and loved this city.

Stanley Park

This is my favorite photo of this part. On our earlier trip here, Ed and I had hiked all around Stanley Park on this trail, by the light. It is a beautiful place.

Lions Gate Bridge

Here we go - - right under the Lions Gate Bridge!
Captain says we only have a 3 meter clearance for our stacks on the ships top! Will we make it ! ?

Hey - looking back at the bridge, along the deck. We seem to have passed under this lovely bridge without a hitch.
Hmm...no one else lining the balconys to see if we made it? Well, it is early yet.



This is the dock - with the white pointy things. This is also a really nice 4 star hotel, Ed and I stayed there last time. There were floor to ceiling windows in our room with great views. We watched cruise ships loading food for a new voyage, people coming on board; and thought how much fun that might be.


Who knew Vancouver had a "W" hotel? I took this photo about 20 times before I got the W just right. (W turns around.)