It’s Raining in California!
The bay area, which I call home and return to between assignments or even on vacations during an assignment when possible, has its icons. There the golden gate bridge, which I cross every time I go to my own physical home after flying into SFO. There’s the corner of Castro & Market, with its massive rainbow flag as a statement to the world that the city’s LGBTQI (did I forget any of the currently-accepted letters?) population is proud and not about to creep back into some box just because some people don’t much like us. There’s Mt Diablo, forming a triangle across the bay as the highest peak in the immediate bay area — visible behind that rainbow flag, down below. There are vineyards…and this year, there’s rain in the vineyards! And snow in the mountains, though I’ve not yet been to see it myself. Perhaps I’ll make it to the mountains after this assignment, before it all melts. Something to keep in mind.
In any case, I was recently back amongst these icons for a final vacation during the current assignment. When the weather was sufficiently clear, I walked or biked around and appreciated the greenest vistas I’ve seen in years, since California’s been in a drought that’s grown more severe year by year for a decade or so. As it rained on my way back to the airport for the flight back to PaP, I photographed one of Sonoma County’s lovely hillside vineyards through the bus’s rainy window. On the way up, I photographed the GGB through the bus’s reasonably clear window. And I took as many photos of flowers as I could: so much was in bloom! I’ll admit I’ve been overworked at work, depressed in real life at home about what’s become of government and “civil” discourse in my native land, and generally rather tired. So I’ve not taken out my camera much. But I do usually have a phone with me and I’m now on instagram (paulbsrca) so every now and then I remember I can snap something with that, then pop it up on instagram. But I remain more of a long-form guy, so here I’m assembling stuff from both camera & phone, to share some of what I’ve seen and thought lately. It’s always lovely when I know folks read and appreciate what I share. Thanks…and let’s all try to add a wee bit more beauty and pleasure into the days and lives of those around us…if that’s not too bold a suggestion. Peace. 🙂
Winter Wonderlands?
Every so often I scan through my own blog and remember beautiful things I’ve seen. Last year for the first time, I did my own personal “greatest hits” selection of photos from the ten+ years I’d been blogging at that point. This year, I find myself thinking about ice, even though I’m a few hundred miles at least, I suspect, from the nearest naturally-occuring ice. Perhaps because of that: listening to seasonal tunes about winter wonderlands and white holidays has reminded me of the ice and snow I’ve seen.
I also realize I didn’t photograph things I wish I had, such as snow piling up on the streets of Beijing in the winter of 2005…although I do feature skaters on Beijing’s Qianhai, and cracking ice on a pond outside Beijing during a winter hike, taken the same winter. Above & in the collage below are photos from winter in Yosemite & summer in New Zealand (icy grass on the Keppler Track in Fiordland; and also a shot of the glacier on South Island’s west coast). There are also frosted grass & icicles from a winter trip to the Great Falls in Paterson, New Jersey: yes, such beauty can be found right off Interstate 80, if you know how and where to look :-). Plus some frosted grass in the early-morning shade at Hood Mountain in Sonoma County, two winters ago. If you’re already experiencing ice and snow, maybe these won’t do much for you…let me know, either way. May your year be warm, safe and dry in 2017.
Autumn in Annadel
I was home for a short holiday in November, after a remarkably wet October. Those early generous rains brought stronger autumn color in the trees than I have yet seen in Sonoma County. The rivers were a bit more robust than usual for early November, the hills of my favorite parks a bit greener…and some of the bike paths already muddy. I delighted in the freedom to hop on my bike & find all the red-leaved trees and beautiful views I could find. I also took time to enjoy the contrast of white lichen with brown, fallen leaf. Here are some photos from those outings. I’m taking pleasure in beauty these days- the slant of a ray of light through a window, the curve of a kid’s smile as he bikes through downtown Port au Prince (yes, I saw this the other day!). It seems a good time to remember and appreciate the blessings in my life, which certainly include all my wonderful friends and readers, known and unknown, around the world. Have a lovely end of year holiday season :-).
Coasting in Sonoma County…
The previous post showed some of the redwoods from Armstrong Grove, maybe 10 or 15 miles inlands from the Pacific ocean, upstream along the lovely and wine-producing Russian River. In the photo immediately above, you see where the Russian river meets the Pacific – and another shot of more or less the same view after the gallery of photos below. All of these photos were taken on the same day as that redwoods outing, on a lovely coast & redwoods loop trip I took with an old high-school friend of mine who’d come up to check out the place I’ve been calling home for the past few years. Large chunks of the Sonoma County coast line are set aside for the Sonoma Coast State Park, and most of the photos in this entry come from sections of that extensive and lovely park.
Into The (Red)Woods
It is notoriously impossible to photograph our California redwood trees. They’re so very tall, so very big around…and when you’re fortunate enough to find a true grove or forest of them, with dozens or hundreds in sight, all of your senses can be captured by the collective impact of so many wide, strong trunks reaching high up into the clear blue sky, so high that sunlight filters down in hazy shafts through their crowns. Your eyes scan up and up along the trunk to the source of that light…your ears find the rustling breeze through the undergrowth…your nose detects the moist earthy scent of the undergrowth…and you realize that no two-dimensional photo can do it justice. I suppose I could try videos, but that wouldn’t do it either; moreover, bandwidth for uploads isn’t sufficient for that.
But still – I do what I can. The bark, the shafts of light running across a burned trunk – the massive roots of a tree uprooted long ago. I took these shots on a visit to the Armstrong Grove just outside Guerneville with my friend Jill (up from Ventura), during my vacation in August. Yes, I’m still catching up with that last home trip before I go on another: things have been busy for me here in Haiti even before the 4th of October – and busier still, since.
Seven Views of the Golden Gate Bridge … Four of Twin Peaks
I’ve known the city of San Francisco for so long – from a childhood summer in Berkeley, from living in the city and/or staying for long period quite often in recent decades – that I tend to assume everyone is aware that it’s surrounded by water on three sides; that it’s full of hills which give beautiful views of its other hills, of the bay and the ocean that surround it, or of lovely San Bruno Mountain which draws up its southern border…that it’s full of beautiful Victorian houses nicely maintained and painted for the most part…that it is chock-a-block with parks at the tops of many those hills, giving thus even better views with greenery and flowers in the foreground, hills and Victorians n the background. But I realize, when I return to work and my international team of folks from Haiti and around the world, that my little corner of the world is one to which most people actually have not yet been. And so herewith some photos from lovely sunny days where I enjoyed the freedom to stroll at will and to pull out my camera any moment I felt like it. They’re all named in a way that intends to inform you of what you’re seeing. I hope you enjoy the photos as much as I enjoyed those strolls :-).
On the Road to Musical Adventures
Two quite different views on two quite musical days: fairly typical vacation outing for me if I’m able to be around the Bay Area in August. I always look forward to the chance to hear some performances at the Cabrillo Music Festival, which my friends Gene & Howard introduced me two nearly two decades ago. This year I enjoyed two excellent evenings of contemporary music during the final season of their excellent long-standing conductor Marin Alsop. Day one, we drove down from SF via Route 1 for traffic reasons, and thus had far lovelier views and a chance to pick up fresh strawberries at a farm stand in the northern part of Santa Cruz county. I always enjoy that drive because so much of the west side of the peninsula and of Santa Cruz county remain very heavily agricultural, while of course the east side of the peninsula is silicon valley: economic (and visual) diversity, eh?
Day two we had a matinée performance of the contemporary Opera Powder Her Face produced by West Edge Opera in an abandoned train station right next to the freeway in Oakland. It must have been a very grand station before the rail lines were relocated to the north side of the major interstate that now runs right behind it. The opera was disturbing and quite well produced, and the train station made a great concert hall and interesting subject for architectural photography. I hope you’ll enjoy these glimpses of what I get up to given time and opportunity back home :-).
Dry Hillsides & Live Oaks
We’re reaching the end of a lovely three-week vacation back home in the beloved Bay Area. Realizing that I’d taken tons of photos as always, but not posted any of them whether to facebook or to the blog…let alone to instagram, which friends are telling me I should try out…I decided that before I head to the airport tomorrow for the flight back to Port au Prince, I should at least start sorting some of the pics and putting them up. I’ve been out on my bike even more than usual this time, because I have no motor vehicle up here; I’ve driven around a bit with friends down in the city (SF, that is) and the peninsula; and yesterday around Sonoma County with another friend who came for a visit…but those shots will appear in future posts once I’ve sorted the good from the bad. This post is all about the superb mountain-biking park that is semi-literally out my door, turn right, and walk til the streets end and the paths begin. Any time someone wonders why I’ve continued to pay state taxes in CA during all these years when I’m more out of the country, than in…well, state parks with toilets and drinking fountains (potable water than won’t give you cholera! piped fresh to a faucet near you! don’t take it for granted!) and maintained walk and horse and bike trails…well, if my taxes are going for that rather than bombing schools in various poorer foreign lands, they’re taxes I’m happy to pay. ‘Nuf said…oh except the mountain lion sign is for my brother Steve: these, you can be afraid of. Chickens, no; mountain lions, yes. Got it? 🙂
Paths and Parks, Poppies and Panoramas
In May, I spent a few weeks of holiday back in Sonoma County. As ever, I spent as much time as I could on the bike trails and in the parks. As you’ll see in these photos, the California poppies were in bloom, the days were usually sunny but sometimes – as when Amy & I climbed to the top of Hood Mountain — pretty cloudy and even occasionally rainy. (That’s rare for May in California, in case you didn’t know.) In Haiti, where I’m spending most of my time these days, I rarely have the chance to linger by streams with wading birds and gliding ducks, or to enjoy little irises or turkeys fanning out during a hike in the woods. I’ve also included a couple of shots taken at Dolores Park, one of my favorite spots in San Francisco, which has been under reconstruction much of the past year and now looks fresh, new and as popular as ever.
The Bay on New Year’s Day
2016 dawned beautiful, bright and clear in and around San Francisco. And for the first time in many years, I saw my first sunrise of the new year in the bay area instead of out on another continent across a ocean or two. True, the next day I flew out again to head back to Haiti and my work here…which would be why it’s taken me nearly 1/6 of 2016 to get these put up: sorry! As you see, though – the view was clear enough to see easily and clearly all the way out to Mt Diablo, and all the way up to Point Reyes National Seashore. Enjoy these little views of my home region :-).
The Trouble with Trees…
Taking pictures of them, that is. Especially when they’re 2,000 years old, enormous, and have curious and fascinating extrusions angling off in interesting directions. Or when its just grand and full, and no photo your little pocket-camera can capture could ever convey the enormity of leaning against its trunk and scanning the grey skies through its dense crown. That’s all my way of apologizing for the inadequacy of my attempts to show two of the grand heritage trees that can be found at Jack London State Historic Park, where with Steve & Mom, I spent a chunk of one of the last days of 2015. Mom and I had been before, to learn more about the man and his family and ideals and history. Really remarkable stuff, and it was clear to me that Chuck (my eldest brother) would have been good friends with the guy – seems he was quite the cut-up, aside from being quite work-driven and really a fairly original thinker in many ways. (He tried to experiment with sustainable farming in the first decades of the last century — well before the dust bowl first made obvious how badly we were over-farming the continent!) Anyhoo — here are just a bunch of shots from a hike Steve & I took to a remarkable, lone ancient redwood. I guess it’s the only old-growth redwood left, i.e. the only one that didn’t get cut down and turned into planks for housing some time between 1850 and 1980 or so. I’m fairly sure we saw new-growth redwoods coming back in various spots along the walk, which is nice to know. So many SF tourists stick with Muir Woods, which is certainly lovely but also a great deal more densely crowded than the many magnificent state parks which dot the coastal mountains both north and south of the city. If you’re interested in redwoods and considering a trip to the city, do think about ranging further afield…it’s well worth it.
That’s Steve with the ancient redwood behind him, especially the multi-tiered burl, which may look like a fungus or problem but is apparently one way the tree can reproduce itself if it needs to. I’m not quite clear on the mechanism, but it’s clear the coast redwoods have multiples systems of reproduction. Further down there’s a shot of me & Howard & Gene at sunset on the last day of 2015, at Limantour Beach in Point Reyes National Seashore – another great bay area location well worth visiting. 🙂
Family Holiday…at Home :-)
2015 was the first time since 2005, when I started this whole global-wanderer thing, that I’ve been at work only one flight away from the US, and in the same time zone as my mom and one of my brothers. This was also the first holiday season in more than a decade where both my brothers and I managed to get together in one place. Not only several lovely meals and afternoons together, but a trip to the local, fantastic, brewery in honor of my biggest brother’s new brewing ambitions. My sister-in-law generally stayed behind the camera, but certainly helped fill out the festive feeling for everyone. We got out and about a good deal, some with just mom and Steve who were able to stay longer, and some with Chuck as well. Lovely, and I’m going to let the many pics just speak for themselves. Some are really just family stuff of limited appeal to most of my readers…apologies, but it was special for me. 🙂
Elephant Seals @ Ano Nuevo
smw, slt has landed back on the west coast of North America for a short end-of-year holiday. The morning after I landed, I had the chance to head down from SF to Ano Nuevo State Park with my cousin’s daughter, who’s recently begun her college career in SF. Ano Nuevo is best know for its large visiting population of elephant seals – enormous, unusual seals of the northern Pacific who were nearly wiped out when Europeans first discovered how easy they were to kill when beached, because they had no natural land-based predators (and thus no land-based fear, let alone defense against guns). After European hunters had decimated whale populations, they found elephant seals a reasonable alternative source of oil for street lamps and other uses, and by early 20th century, there were no more seals hauling themselves out on the beaches of California for their mating, molting, or socializing seasons.
Mercifully a small remnant population of seals remained on a small island off the coast of Baja California. From that remnant population has sprung a newly-robust population that has resumed its historic habits of seasonal haul-outs in various spots along the mainland California coast. The very first, small groups started coming back to the island with the lighthouse-keeper’s house which you’ll see in these photos, in the 1960s or late 1950s. Now there seem to be thousands who haul out for mating, from mid-December through March or so – and then for the molting season (different months for adult males and adult females), the juvenile socializing season and other such things. These are fascinating animals who spend months at sea, then haul out and spend months on land without taking to the water again. We saw the very beginning of mating season – in six more weeks, the beaches will be completely packed with harems dominated by one bull seal – they’re the ones trumpeting loudly, and with scars on their necks. The females delay implantation, and then give birth just after beaching in December…feed their pups ‘til they wean (about four weeks), mate again, and head back to sea for several months to fatten up again, before returning to the beach for molting season. Truly fascinating stuff.
In the slide show just above you’ll see some juveniles hanging out together, and then a one-year-old (or so) coming ashore and wandering up onto the beach. I set that one up so if you follow the sequence of slides, you’ll see the young one emerging from the water, and then shots as it works it flippy-floppy way up onto the beach. The other shots are just general – you’ll see one bull seal trumpeting, but I didn’t have my camera out at the right moments when two were facing off. They don’t physically fight as often as the media would tell you: mostly they just posture and then one backs down, and the most we observed was two bulls trumpeting and staring each other down, ’til the smaller one shrank back and turned away. You’ll also see a rock – truly a rock – that was so distinctively shaped I hypothesized it had to be a petrified part of a (very) large animal’s skeleton – and indeed the ranger confirmed it’s a piece from the back of the skull of an ancient and mighty big whale. Every shot should be informatively named, so you can hover over the image or click on it to see its name. Enjoy.
Remembering in December
My wandering field life passed the ten-year mark earlier this year. That’s ten years of finding my way into a new work environment and getting to know new colleagues once a year or so. In a more mundane way, it’s ten years worth of photo files to keep up-to-date and to try to remember to share on my blog. A cousin (thanks, Juliette!) noticed that the entries from my earliest days had lost their photos: mine was a rather early blog, and the ways of uploading photos have changed since then. (Many of those earliest posts appear frankly so embarrassingly shallow to me now that I’m tempted to simply wave my editorial wand and have done with them…but thus far my sense for historical accuracy is controlling that temptation…) If my continued research succeeds, many of those photos will be directly restored onto the blog as I find their originals in backup hard drives and other obscure locations: ah, new year’s resolutions before the old year has even wrapped up!
In the meantime, I’m uncovering little treasures that never made it up here, while fondly remembering where I’ve been and what I’ve done. I was recently saddened to learn that Nancy Schrom Dye, former president of Oberlin College, had passed this year. During my years of active alumni-association work I greatly appreciated her contributions to my alma mater – so I was proud to join some other colleagues in taking her for an end-of-year meal which, the digital date stamp tells me, occurred in Beijing on December 31, in 2005. Up above are also a few rediscovered December 2005 Beijing-area shots which somehow didn’t get posted at the time. (Posting photos was more challenging in those early days…)
Just below are some previously-unposted 2015 shots: early-morning moonset at my home here in Haiti; me with my brother and a colleague when I gave a talk at Carnegie Mellon University earlier this year; and some shots from the lovely Frick House & museum in Pittsburgh, from the same visit. And since this put me in the mood, I’ve wandered through the many countries & continents, family meals & trips & assignments on four continents that have filled the years between these two sets of photos so very fully. Assembling them’s been fun for me so I hope viewing them is fun for you too :-).
This time last year? In December 2014, I returned from Sierra Leone & later went with great friends to enjoy the Ai WeiWei exhibit on Alcatraz Island (more photos from that one in the original post….though that particular set of great friends – you know who you are! – are remarkably camera-resistant):
Where’d I spend 2013? Living in PNG, participating in meetings in Amsterdam & dive trips in Australia, then celebrating the holidays with Steve & Mom in New Zealand:
I began 2012 in the US (where I visited Washington, DC in cherry-blossom season), turned 50 in the company of Howard & Gene at Kakadu National Park in Australia, and finished the year in PNG:
2011 was mostly Mweso, a little Lamu, a little London and a year-end back home seeing Frank Lloyd Wright homes of Pennsylvania with family:
2010…wow, what a year. Just seeing all the continents and countries where I spent time (actually meaningful time, with friends and family and work) makes my head spin even now. The photos evoked so much for me that I just couldn’t narrow it down to three or four…so I’m giving you a lot from 2010, a mix of Manipur (start of year) and Mweso (end of year), with a sprinkling of Sweden, Berlin, Paris & California in between:
I entered 2009 in Tahiti, yes it’s true: during the year I took off from work to help Mom with her house, I dedicated two months to exploring Australia (and watching the Australian Open!) and New Zealand, flying in via Tahiti with a few nights in Papeete, just because I could. The year ended, of course, in Manipur and included a great trip to see excellent sites of Rajasthan with Howard & Gene:
2008 started in Nigeria, and ended in Tahiti…with a lot of good work in Nigeria, a short assignment for the earthquake in China, visits in Germany with my exchange family friends there….and a good deal of time in and around NYC (Mom, aunt Judy & I enjoyed a harbor trip past Ellis Island where our own immigrant ancestors entered the country, and also a trip to our favorite sculpture park up th Husdon)…with a side trip for some hiking in Sequoia and other California adventures:
2007…I began the year based in Colombo but spend the new year’s period with Mom & Steve at Angkor Wat, returned to Colombo to finish out an assignment, headed on for training in Paris where I also got celebrate Mom’s 71st birthday…back to the US to reorganize my life after my first two years in the field, and then off for a new assignment in Nigeria. At the time it felt big. Now it’s all fond memories:
…which will bring us back to year two of this current phase of life’s great adventure, the lovely year 2006. From Beijing & Yunnan in China, to Polonnaruwa & Sigiriya in Sri Lanka (where I was based at year’s end), with family time on Cumberland Island (Mom’s 70th birthday dinner!) and in Germany in between. With a special souvenir from Seoul, where I had the opportunity to work a bit with the young ladies pictured with their daffodils. In a small-world twist, I had dinner with one of those two young ladies just a few nights ago in Port au Prince, which she visits sometimes in her current work with the CDC. So much small world, so little time for it all. Happy end of 2015, and many good hopes for a 2016 of more peace and health to everyone, everywhere.
Seasons in Sonoma County
When I moved from New York City to southern California, a long-time family friend told me I’d miss seasons. While not untrue, this was also not entirely true. The joke among southern Californians at the time was that there were seasons but they were just different from the classic northern four — in LA, one had fire season, mudslide season, etc. Now I’ve spent the past decade and more roaming among assignments mostly well within the world’s tropical bands, I’ve learned more about the seasons not of winter and summer, autumn and spring — but of wet and dry, all too often also of malaria and cholera. As a world we seem also to be learning about the less-bad and even-worse seasons to attempt crossing the Mediterranean in an overcrowded wooden boat in the urgent hope of providing for yourself, your children, your spouse some kind of safety or opportunity more than you and yours face in the horn of Africa or parts of the Arabian peninsula. And meanwhile, would-be presidential politicians in the US whose great-great grandparents left northern Europe as economic migrants wax sanctimonious and try to bar the gates behind them and limit opportunity only to those who look, think and act like them. Ah well: when the politics and pain of the world get too much for me I think about the green grass of winter, and the brown grass of summer, on the hills of California.
Herewith some examples of the same places, at different times of year. And let me add, for blog readers new and returning: I’ve made some changes in design and layout recently. One feature I’m personally addicted to is the header image on this page, which should shuffle through a bunch of different images, changing pretty much each time you come back to it. I’ve tried to pick some of the most interesting things I’ve seen since I started this little blog thing in early 2005…so please, if you see things up there that you especially like, or that you think aren’t strong or interesting enough, drop me a comment or shoot me a note. I’m enjoying fiddling with the design and layout, and always love to hear from readers, whether I’ve met you yet in person or not. Thanks!
(so much world, so little time....) 