Posted in Photography, Travel
Tagged Climate change, forest fires, Lodge Pole Pines, Look up, photo challenge, photography, travel, Yellowstone National Park
In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Ornate.”
Homeless woman in Philadelphia
November 7, 2015 in Photography, Travel
Tagged homeless, ornate, philadelphia, photo prompts, photography, travel
Not the best quality image but it was the first that came to mind. I converted this from a slide from the 80s. This is on the path up to Mount Snowdon, in Wales. It was cloudy, incredibly windy and it was my first ever mountain. It definitely felt dreamy.
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged Mount Snowdon, Photo challenge dreamy, photography, Snowdonia, travel
image: terrain.org
The daily writing prompt asks what skill I’d like to have in my back pocket.
Well, years ago I saw a truck driver back a semi into a parking space between two other semis, straight as a ruler and with about a foot to spare on both sides. Now that’s clever. Continue reading
Posted in Transportation, Travel
Tagged bucket list, camping, DPchallenge, If I had a hammer, kamperen, parkeren, parking, reizen, Robin Hood, semis, travel, truck driving, vrachtwagens, writing prompts
You can’t walk around New Orleans’ French Quarter or the Marigny without coming across street musicians.
They’re all amazing. Continue reading
Due to the high water table, most of New Orleans’ dead aren’t buried but rather entombed in “cities of the dead”. More info here.
If you visit Nawlins, a cemetery should be on your must-see list. Continue reading
Posted in Travel
Tagged above-ground cemeteries, New Orleans, Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1, travel
We went on a little trip. Guess where.
Don’t know yet? Here’s another clue:
On the third day of my road trip away from Las Vegas, I came to this little crossroads in New Mexico called Loving, near the border with Texas. On the other side of the road from these poor things was a warehouse, and not much else. Continue reading
image from fashionrat.com
Well, this is an interesting writing prompt. “Go to your Stats page and check your top 3-5 posts. Why do you think they’ve been successful? Find the connection between them, and write about it.”
As it happens, my top three posts today are “Nomadic Retirement: The American Way“, “The Gap” and “To Kill a Mountain Lion . . . With a Spatula“. Continue reading
Posted in Dreams, Writing Prompt Responses
Tagged Austin, Bakersfield women, Black Friday, chicken-fried steak, cockroaches, Congress Avenue Bridge, corrupt school superintendents, cougars, DPchallenge, dreams, eating out, Florida racists, humor, Leslie, Midwest, mountain lions, restaurants, retirement, Rio Grande Valley, RV's, sequoias, South Dakota, spatulas, travel, Walmart, Zetas
image kenmore-wa.showmethead.com
(Response to Daily Prompt “There’s No Place Like Home”.)
America is full of nomads, aka retirees. They live in RVs, some moving around from one beautiful spot to another, others staying in one place.
Posted in Healthcare, Housing, Society, Transportation, Travel, Vacations, Writing Prompt Responses
Tagged America, DPchallenge, housing, recreation, retirement, RV's, society, There's No Place Like Home, travel, vacations, writing prompts
After Yellowstone we took a day and a half to drive around Montana and Idaho a bit more. On the way back to Salt Lake City, we stopped at the Craters of the Moon National Monument. It’s a humongous lava flow area. I’ve posted about the lava flow in Valley of Fires in New Mexico, but this is much more spectacular.
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged Craters of the Moon National Monument, Idaho, lava flows, lava tubes, nature, photography, travel, vacation, volcanic rock, volcanoes
This is what I get from trying to do these vacation posts by theme. I end up with leftovers–pictures that don’t fit in any theme, or I don’t have enough pictures on a topic to merit a whole themed post. Yet I feel like showing them. So this last post about our Yellowstone do-over is pretty unorganized. Hard to accept for a former librarian, but there it is. Continue reading
Posted in Nature, Photography, Vacations
Tagged Chinese tourists, nature, Opinion, photography, travel, trees, vacations, Yellowstone National Park
Like I mentioned before, the central part of Yellowstone is a caldera, a piece of land that collapsed over a volcanic hotspot. Lava heats water that seeps down through cracks in the broken earth’s surface, and the steam and water find their way back to the surface in hot springs, geysers, mudpots and fumeroles. Continue reading
Posted in Nature, Photography, Vacations
Tagged bacteria, extremophiles, fotografie, fumeroles, geysers, heat-loving bacteria, hot psrings, mud pots, nature, natuur, photography, thermophiles, travel, vacations, Yellowstone National Park
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged fotografie, landscapes, landschappen, nature, natuur, photography, reizen, skies, travel, vacations, Yellowstone National Park
The bottoms of concrete structures, dead trees–whatever next? Well, the bottoms of dead trees, of course. There are a lot of them in Yellowstone. Isn’t the bottom of one dead tree much like the bottom of another, you ask? Not at all; like the bottoms of bridges, each deadfall has its own personality.
Posted in Bottoms of Bridges, Nature, Photography, Vacations
Tagged deadfall, humor, nature, photography, travel, tree roots, trees, uprooted trees, vacations, Yellowstone National Park
Last year I had intended to do a post about the trees in Yellowstone, and the wildfires, but I didn’t have enough good pictures. As we drove out of the park on only our second morning there, on our way to the hospital in Cody, I snapped photos of burnt stretches from the RV window, but of course they didn’t work out. That’s when black and white helps. Well, I felt it did, anyway.
Posted in Nature, Photography
Tagged lodgepole pines, nature, photography, travel, trees, vacations, wildfires, Yellowstone National Park
A large part of Yellowstone National Park is a caldera, land that collapsed and crumbled after volcanic activity. Water seeps through the cracks and is heated by the magma below the surface. Pressure builds and steam and water burst to the surface in geysers. Continue reading
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged geysers, nature, Old Faithful, photography, travel, vacations, Yellowstone National Park
The wildlife was incredible. Of course there were the buffalo–or the bison, as B kept correcting us–and this time they had calves, so we kept our distance a bit more, except when we were in or near the car. Continue reading
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged badgers, bison, black bears, blacktail deer, buffalo, bull snakes, elk, grizzly bears, marmots, nature, photography, pronghorns, travel, vacation, wildlife, Yellowstone National Park
Our three-week RV trip of the Rockies and Yellowstone National Park last summer (which started here), ended sadly when B’s appendix ruptured and we spent the last four days in the Cody, Wyoming hospital instead of in Yellowstone. This summer we had one week, and lots of T’s flying miles, so we went to Yellowstone for a do-over.
Posted in Nature, Photography, Vacations
Tagged Bear Lake, Idaho, Montana, nature, Rocky Mountains, Salt Lake City. Utah, travel, Yellowstone National Park
image from http://www.nrc.nl
Well, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands abdicated yesterday, and Willem-Alexander is king. I don’t care for the monarchy, but it doesn’t have any powers and the queen’s birthday is always the biggest party of the year, Continue reading
Yesterday T and I went to the Market Days in Gruene, south of Austin and pronounced as ‘Green”. The weather was mild and the market was colorful.
Posted in Consumption, Nature, Photography, Recreation
Tagged arts and crafts, bikers, day trips, Gruene, Gruene market days, Hill Country, motorbikes, photography, recreation, Texas, travel
(Image from mappery.com)
The Evolution of X recently wrote a post about maps versus smartphones. Unlike E of X, I do like using the narration on my smartphone. It saves time, money and gas.
When I look at a map to get somewhere in a city, I have to look several times because I have a memory like a sieve. Now, looking at a map while driving is never a good idea, not to mention Continue reading
Posted in Austin, Technology, Travel
Tagged GPS vs maps, smartphones vs maps, technology, travel
I’m not big on collections. I used to be. I had all sorts of collections. If I saw something I liked, I would start a collection. Until I felt that I was surrounding myself with things just for the sake of surrounding myself with things, and I got rid of most of them. Continue reading
(Image from biography.com)
I will have a question in my next post.
But first the story.
In the summer of 1989, two years before I met my husband, my girl friend H and I went backpacking in the Cairngorms in Scotland. We took the ferry from Rotterdam to Hull, hitchhiked to the Cairngorms, Continue reading
(Image from Wikipedia)
The lava flow of the Valley of Fires in New Mexico was formed about 5,000 years ago; it’s one of the youngest lava flows in America. The vegetation still looks like it started popping up rather recently. And in geological time it has. Continue reading
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged Carrizozo, lava flow, nature, New Mexico, photography, travel, Valley of Fire, weekly photo challenge
A much younger R
Well, let’s see.
Literally one of the hardest things was the first time I dived off a diving board. This was in a swimming pool in Switzerland. I was twelve, and on vacation with my then best friend Dees. We went to that pool several times, and she dove in like a pro. Toward the end I finally took what was meant to be the plunge. But it was a belly flop instead. Although the term belly flop doesn’t really cover it. A flop sounds soft. This was not soft. In fact, I can still remember just how hard it was, slapping flat onto that water. Very hard indeed. Continue reading
Posted in Books, Emigration / Immigration, Lists, Sports, Transportation, Travel, Vacations
Tagged diving, emigration, flying, immigration, Lists, portaging, romance novels, travel
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged nature, photography, Rocky Mountains, travel
Cartoon by O’Farrell
One of my readers asked me a while ago to give my take on the apparent ambiguity between the American “melting pot” diversity and America’s dissociation from the rest of the world. Well, here it is. My take. I’m fully aware that I’m generalizing the heck out of this, but the question itself is generalizing, so that makes it totally okay. Continue reading
Posted in Education, Emigration / Immigration, History, Society, Travel
Tagged american dissociation from the world, culture, education, emigration, immigration, politics, travel, world
So we saw bison and elk, and two wolves at the river’s edge. They were playing and taking their time, and people were taking pictures from the other side, but just when I was finally almost close enough to start taking killer photos, they decided to leave. Aaaarrrghhh! The photos of the elk in the previous post were my photography high point of the vacation, and these wolves were my biggest photography frustration. Continue reading
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged grizzly bear, nature, photography, travel, Wyoming, Yellowstone National Park
The other animal that we saw a lot of in Yellowstone was elk. Apart from when you’re in the car, it’s not a good idea to get too close to bison, but I got pretty close to a beautiful male elk. I think I was about eight feet away at some point. That’s also not recommended; the grammatically annoying signs everywhere say that “all wildlife are dangerous”. Continue reading
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged elk, nature, photography, travel, Wyoming, Yellowstone National Park
Apart from the mud volcano and the mud pots and a few fumaroles at the beginning of our day, we mainly saw animals. So many that we never got to the next geothermal feature. And mostly we saw bison. Continue reading
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged bison, nature, photography, travel, Wyoming, Yellowstone National Park
The next day we woke up to find ourselves in a wonderful campground, with lots of trees and little trails going off behind our site. Not that we spent any time there. We left after breakfast and didn’t come back until well after dark. Continue reading
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged caldera, fumaroles, mud volcano, nature, photography, sulfur pots, travel, Wyoming, Yellowstone National Park
So the last three posts were all about one day, and it still wasn’t over. We got to Jackson Hole in the evening. You can tell by the gas station that it’s a prosperous town.
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged elk antlers, Jackson Hole, nature, photography, stagecoach, travel, Wyoming, Yellowstone National Park
This series of posts wouldn’t be complete without me complaining at least once. So here goes.
I didn’t fully appreciate how clean Colorado is until we crossed the border into Utah. And Wyoming is worse. Every roadside and every rest stop is trashed. When we got down from the RV, we immediately had to watch where we walked, to avoid all the broken glass, and I regularly picked up trash that was in the way of a good picture. And all this despite the steep fines for littering. Continue reading
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged dead coyotes, litter, photography, trash, travel, Wyoming
I drove after the stop at Big Sandy Reservoir, and being in control of the breaks meant that I could pull over a lot to take pictures.
After that reservoir we drove through the endless plains of western Wyoming. You can drive for tens of miles and not see a single structure, other than the barbed wire fencing along the road.
After our afternoon and night in Rock Springs, Utah, we drove on up to Jackson and then east to Yellowstone. B was no longer nauseous. He was drinking water and holding it in, and eating some jello at my insistence. He still didn’t feel all that great, but that was understandable after the day before. He got to lie on the couch while we drove, strapped in, of course. Continue reading
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged Big Sandy Reservoir, photography, Rocky Mountains, travel, Utah
We backtracked slightly the next morning to squeeze in Dinosaur National Monument before going on the Yellowstone national Park, or at least Jackson, Wyoming. Continue reading
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged Dinosaur National Monument, photography, travel, Utah
Okay, where were we? After State Forest State Park we drove clear across northern Colorado to Utah. Not so many spectacular mountains, more rolling landscapes of the high desert. Continue reading
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged Colorado, photography, Rocky Mountains, travel, Utah
We took the smaller scenic route to Rocky Mountain National Park from the Black Canyon (highway 50 east to just before Salida, and then north on 24 through Leadville to the last bit of Interstate 70, but honestly, I think going straight up to Interstate 70 from Montrose would have been more scenic. Except for Blue Mesa Reservoir, the biggest body of water in Colorado. It goes on and on as you drive east on 50 from the Black Canyon, and it’s worth seeing. Especially if you’re used to lakes always being surrounded by trees. Here the desert comes right down to the water’s edge. Continue reading
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged Blue Mesa Reservoir, Colorado, double rainbow, elk, ground squirrels, marmots, photography, Rocky Mountain National Park, Rocky Mountains, travel
The next day T had to work, so he stayed in the RV while the kids and I went along the rim trail that ran from just outside the campground to the visitors center. The walk was about one mile along the rim of the canyon, but it took us an hour and a half, because there was so much beauty to take in, and so much breath to catch, since we weren’t used to the altitude. Here are some of the many, many pictures I took during that walk. Continue reading
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged Colorado, photography, the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, travel
We spent all of the second day driving from Durango to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. We had driven the road from Durango to Silverton before, and we had taken the old train as well, but it’s spectacular every time. Continue reading
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged Black Canyon of the Gunnison, photography, Rocky Mountains, Silverton, travel
In my previous post I asked what my readers would like me to write about. I realized later that I would be in big trouble if I got no reply. Would that mean that no one is interested in what I say? Or they don’t care? Or what if I have no readers that day? Would reposting the question be too desperate? This could very well spell the end of my blog. But fortunately someone did reply. Phew, thanks, Hanneke, for averting my existential crisis! Continue reading
Posted in Emigration / Immigration, Holland, Society, Travel
Tagged America, American knowledge of the Netherlands, culture, Dutch immigrants, emigration, immigration, travel
Well, it’s the Fourth of July, Independence Day here in the States. I just saw a post by an American blogger friend in the Netherlands, who posted some beautiful landscape photos of Tennessee for the 4th. I’ll do the same. Not of Tennessee, because it’s one of the few states I haven’t visited yet, but just from all over.
Click on the first picture to see them bigger. Enjoy. Happy 4th. Continue reading
Posted in Nature, Photography
Tagged July Fourth, photography, travel, United States
Well, I’ll wait with the scathing post. I was cleaning up the slides I’d scanned a while ago. I used to have slides instead of photos. So I saw them even less than photos. That’s one of the things I love about a blog. I can see my favorite pictures and share them with whoever is interested.
Anyway, I didn’t clean my slides very well before scanning them, so I was doing that in Photoshop last night. Amazing!
Posted in Nature, Neither Here Nor There, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged Mount Snowdon, nature, photography, Snowdonia, travel, Wales
On this, the first day of summer vacation, we went to Blanco, a little town along the Blanco River, where they hold the Blanco Lavender Fest every year. As usual, it was hot, but nice. A real taste of Hill Country. You can click on a photo to make it bigger. Continue reading
Posted in Photography
Tagged Blanco Lavender Fest, photography, Texas Hill Country, travel
Photo: tageo.com
I visited a nice blog with photos of Enkhuizen a while ago. My parents lived there for a few years. in the Westerstaat. It has a link to Google Earth and it was great to stand in front of the house!
I told myself I should do that more often. There’s nothing like Google Earth if you’re a homesick emigrant. Or just getting older and wanting to go down memory lane. Well, now I can.
The first place I went was Collaroy, in the state of New South Wales, in Continue reading
Posted in Emigration / Immigration, Travel
Tagged Collaroy, Collaroy Street, emigration, Enkhuizen, Google Earth, immigration, technology, travel, virtual travel
In the late 60s Richard Proenneke built his own cabin in the Alaskan wilderness with only a few simple tools. He spent most of the rest of his life there. Sam Keith fleshed out Proenneke's diary of his first 16 months, when he was making his home by a lake. I love these kinds of books!
An old Oji-Cree healer and her nephew canoe down a river in Canada, away from the world of white people. They both have to come to terms with their past. The woman has lost most of her tribe and the young man is traumatized from his recent experience in the Belgian trenches of World War One. My second book by Boyden. Can't say enough about him.
An incredibly comprehensive history of everything related to slavery in the Southern United States, from the beginning of the colonies to the end of the Civil War. Over 700 pages and I took over 30 pages of notes. I will be sharing over many posts to come!
Hamid's debut novel. I love this author. A young man in Lahore, Pakistan, is the victim of love, drugs, obsession, the class system and his complete lack of self-awareness.
A golem, created in Poland and brought to life on a ship to America, and a jinni who was trapped in a flask a thousand years ago and released in New York -- the most unusual immigrants you'll ever meet.
The only part of her life a Korean woman can control is her body, so she withdraws into it. Harrowing.
Autobiography lightly disguised as a novel about the son of Southern migrants growing up on the streets of Harlem, New York City, in the 1940s and 50s. Written like you're hearing the whole story in a bar. Quite a feat.
The story of a man struggling to make a living in Morocco. No plot, no clearly defined characters, but fascinating in its authenticity.
Pakistani man tells an American about his experience as a college student and employee of an assessment firm in America years ago. Smart, nuanced and pretty darn honest considering the unreliable narrator.
Wow! The answer to the inane platitudes about how all parents love their children and how children should always respect their parents. The protagonist must come to terms with his deeply flawed immigrant parents in order to change himself.
Seven short stories about life during the Kim Il-sung regime, by a writer who still lives and works in North Korea, were smuggled out of the country and translated. Mind-boggling stuff.
A 15-year-old autistic narrator wants to know who killed a neighbor's dog, and ends up much further out of his comfort zone than he planned. Wonderful read!
In politics, education, religion, agriculture, business--it turns out that dumbing down has been here from the start.
Fifty years of Istanbul seen through the eyes of a street vendor who migrates to the city as a young boy. It's also a window into the complicated dance between men and women in Turkey.
Hey, don't laugh, at least I'm trying.
A Norwegian immigrant is cooped up with six other people on a tiny island off the coast of Maine all winter in 1873. A woman in the present researching the Norwegian immigrant is cooped up with three other people on a tiny sailboat. What could possibly go wrong?
A man stuck between two worlds in more ways than one. Fascinating!
Historical novel about early contacts between first nations and the French in Canada. Beautifully written story that doesn't pull any punches. I bought his other two novels right away.
Beautifully written. By my children's favorite English and Creative Writing teacher! It's got rave reviews and we're all very proud of her.
Suki Kim is a Korean-American journalist. She poses as an evangelical Christian posing as an English teacher at a school for the sons of North Korea's elite. Her experience and the information she manages to get via writing assignments are incredible. Definitely a lot more eye-opening that any CNN special.
This. Explains. Everything!!!
Why has Islam not undergone a reformation like Christianity? Why is it so easy for Islamic extremist groups like IS to recruit young muslims? What would it take for Islam in fundamentalist Islamic countries to enter modernity? Does the West have a role to play?
Amazing! A man wanders endlessly through a dreamscape, becoming other people, himself in the past, everything is fluid. Kafkaesque disconnect between people and their different needs.
A multi-layered novel about the history of Libya. A fast read, but one you can repeat and find something new each time.
Twelve Americans go missing in Burma/Myanmar during a tour. Touching and hilarious, but mostly hilarious.
The most unusual murder mystery I've ever read. Incredible writing. It haunted me for days.
The quote on the front mentions that these stories are exhilerating. I couldn't disagree more. They are almost unbearably painful to read, and yet I couldn't put them down. Very well done, apart from the third story, which is written in the second tense. Please let me know if you know of ONE story that works in second tense.
Rants, essays, and diatribes.
Fascism, Nationalism and Authoritarianism in U.S. History
He was in India. I was in Ireland. Now we're in Paris. New posts every week.
Making Sense of a Vexing and Perplexing World
Cogito Ergo Sum
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Explore Scotland through my stories, photos and videos. She's a beauty!
Wanderers on two wheels!
Quintin Lake's photographic Journey walking around Britain's Coast
Adventures in the world of history
Amsterdam days and nights
196 countries, countless stories...
Postcards from afar: Immersion Travel, Cultural Travel. Currently in... Singapore!
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Historian, Folklorist, Writer, Re-enactor, Museum Professional. Follow me on Twitter: @stuartorme
“I have tried my best to keep my country alive by writing about it.” - Nuruddin Farah
Trimming the bush of life...
een amerikaanse schrijft over liefde, ouderschap & volwassen worden in nederland
I write books--cuz I love words. Sometimes they love me back.
the past in pop culture
a place to showcase
When will we ever learn?: Common sense and nonsense about today's public schools in America.
Rising from the ashes of domestic violence
a chronicle of recollections
There are 5 sisters. She's the middlest.
Visual Arts from Canada & Around the World
Resident Alien -- Being Dutch in America 