It took me a year but I’ve finally concluded that, yeah, I live by a lake now just like my brother does during his summers in Wisconsin – where this series had its genesis. (But just to be clear, it’s also part of the canal and water-management system, as is all fresh water in NL, aside from mud puddles in the street.) Above came near the end of my Friday-evening cirumnambulation of said lake (11,000 steps); compare the level of sunset at 19:18 on Friday the 27th to that at 20:00 in the other two from Saturday the 21st: ah, how the days shorten rapidly around the solstices! And the other was going to be part of a Signs of the City entry but it fits as nicely here. Yep, that’s my local swimming hole, unofficial though it may be.
We’re splurging all the remaining photos from our lovely May day-trip bike exploration to Muidersloot with this post. I’ll try to explain a few things that you may be curious about, depending what level of attention you give to these various images. Museums in the Netherlands like to do art in many ways. (The plural in Dutch is musea – which if we English speakers used a more latin-root approach I suppose we’d say too, but I think folks would laugh at me if I talked about going to several musea in a day…)
Above, you see one of the ways Muidersloot was adding contemporary art to the abundant history it always offers just being what is: installation art with a theme of rising sea levels. If you don’t get it, stop and think. It’s possible you’ll chuckle a bit. In other photos you’ll see various insect sculptures in the moat or on the grounds. While I wandered the gardens, I heard loud rumbling and noticed a pod of helicopters crossing the sky. Feeling all Apocalypse Now, I was torn between diving for cover and taking photos. The image below and a few more in the gallery demonstrate which instinct won. (And no, pods of helicopters crossing the sky are not a thing I’ve seen here before, nor do I know what this was about.)
Reasonably confident that’s Utah above, along with most of the images below, but I think by the final couple we may have reached Colorado. I remember straining to catch a glimpse of the Great Salt Lake which was well to the north of our trajectory, and it might be in some of these, but it’s long enough ago that I’m sorry to stay I’ve forgotten :-). No more shots remaining from that 3rd May flight, fear not.
A few more shots from the early-May SF to Pittsburgh run, with the city itself above showing more visibly where the two rivers merge to create the Ohio River (which is the third of the “three rivers”), and below where it’s mostly the Ohio, plus some midwestern and great plains aerial views.
On July 19, having gone even further north (and thus to the left, from the perspective of this image) for more than a month, the sun passed directly through and above this iconic landmark above, on its way back south for the next eight months. I’m already mentally preparing myself to miss it ever more in the months ahead, til I can again welcome it from my bedroom window once its come far enough north again.
Last images from my evening bike ride out along the canals, lakes and waterways of far western Noord Brabant and a wee slice of easternmost Zeeland, while visiting Bergen op Zoom back in May.
All from the Pride Boat Parade (the third weekend with an LGBTQI+ Pride event or parade, as it is I guess every summer, just I’ve not been around to notice as much the past few years) — fun, despite some brief rain showers that came on around the time of this photo immediately above. The inflatable things like the Ode to Queer Icons one, above, are pulled down to go under the bridges then pop back up – I caught the one at the top just before it popped back up :-).
Last shot I took before landing back in NL from the US, back on 14 May; and first shot as we took off on 8 September. The intervening months may have been the longest stretch without any flights that I’ve had since I moved here. As these pages attest, I got out and about quite a lot in that period but always by train. Carbon-footprint reduction plans in action. 🙂
Hadn’t seen this little enterprise on past visits, so when my colleagues asked (during a walk in the camps two weeks ago) if I wanted to pay for the adventure I took the chance. I wanted to help this guy do the pulling, but he was too proud. It was hard work for him and mildly unnerving for me when the little raft rocked a bit, but a new experience, and it seemed the onlookers enjoyed it as well. Given the landslips I saw during the walk, including reports of a few lives lost in some of these, I worried very much when overnight and the next day or two much heavier rains came. One ongoing goal for me is keep reducing my carbon footprint as much as possible, given the frequency of all these extreme flooding, heat and drought events I feel like I’m seeing everywhere.
Reasonably confident that’s Utah above, along with most of the images below, but I think by the final couple we may have reached Colorado. I remember straining to catch a glimpse of the Great Salt Lake which was well to the north of our trajectory, and it might be in some of these, but it’s long enough ago that I’m sorry to stay I’ve forgotten :-). No more shots remaining from that 3rd May flight, fear not.
All from the Pride Boat Parade (the third weekend with an LGBTQI+ Pride event or parade, as it is I guess every summer, just I’ve not been around to notice as much the past few years) — fun, despite some brief rain showers that came on around the time of this photo immediately above. The inflatable things like the Ode to Queer Icons one, above, are pulled down to go under the bridges then pop back up – I caught the one at the top just before it popped back up :-).
(so much world, so little time....) 