Latest

County Views.124

Nikos leading the way on the steeper ascent of Henry’s Knob, in Annadel, a fitting last photo from the most recent visit to good ol’ SoCo. 🙂

City Lights.21

Though the long days do limit my exposure to city lights, they also give me more enerty to notice things like the glorious lingering light in a 10pm / 22:00 sky, and the city clock on Valeriusplein, as I walk home from another lovely concert at Concertgebouw :-).

From The Air.4

As noted in yesterday’s post, I connected through Istanbul again at the end of January. Since citizens will be voting in a rather important runoff election there today (Sunday the 28th, I believe?), these photos taken during the approach to Istanbul’s airport on that flight feel appropriate for today’s entry. Full confession, I’ve never been outside the airport in Istanbul, so though I’ve looked at maps and fantasized about its storied history, to be honest I have no idea what we’re looking at in any of these Istanbul images 🙂

 

From the Air.3

When I flew back from that last trip to Iraq, we flew north towards a connection in Istanbul. That flight path took us directly over some of those historic, high and lovely mountains which house the sources of the Tigris, into which the various streams I’ve been showing you in some of these earlier posts flow. As you’ve seen also in at least one prior post, even the closer mountains were nicely snowcapped when I was there. So I stared and stared out the window, uncertain whether the white things I saw could be mountain tops, and whether I was maybe seeing some of the mountains named in ancient texts, or just more cloud peaks. Can you tell?? 🙂

Islands.23

This one is a bit more obviously a little island; I’d just never noticed it before. These must be heaven for the birds and small mammals of our urban park, since no one boats and I’ve never seen people swim in these canals, and dogs only going in to retrieve sticks…

Country Canals.33

Village Views.43

A lovely sunrise on my last morning in Hawija, back in January. (Already four months ago!)

Coasting.53

Last Pacific coastal shots for a while…though I might have something left from Hong Kong that I could drag out if I had to, but not a very high-quality shot, for sure :-). Bodega head, looking south toward Point Reyes peninsula in the shots below.

County Views.123

View from a Lake County Winery with some of those hills also in northern Napa County. Second-to-last evening of my most recent stateside visit.