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From the Air.44

What you’re seeing here is a lot of Silicon Valley, and nearly all of the San Francisco Bay, the city of SF itself slightly visible in the hazy top left, Mt Diablo to the east, at the top right of the photo. This image – looking northeast as the plane banked – and the one below were taken in sequence. With apologies for the combination of window frame and airplane wing, I include as well the image below you since you can see the full width of the peninsula with SF at the top, Half Moon Bay (open Pacific) on the western side, and the bay to the east. The “silicon valley” of legend is pretty much the eastern side of the peninsula, along the bay down to the big city of San Jose which is south of the frame of either of these photos.

County Views.134

Bergen County, NJ has changed since I spent my teenage years there 🙂
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Islands.54

City Lights.54

I noticed these photos from Steve’s and my first evening in Ghent all had electric lights visible in them, so I get to feature them in this series 🙂

Village Views.74

No, the Sonoma County village of Sebastopol has not been invaded by godzilla. 🙂 I finally managed on this last visit to spend time wandering a street or two that I’d previously only biked or driven through in a hurry but never managed to explore more fully. Among which, this street where nearly every yard (far more yards than I could photograph) had sculptures, all or most of which I believe were made by an artist who lives and works on the street.

Urban Canals.164

Evening sun warming Ghent’s impressive riverfront buildings after a day of mostly cloud and drizzle, back in early March.

Urban Garden.194

Late March sunset at museumplein. The days’ll be much longer by the time I get back to A’dam next week 🙂

City Views.224

Last shots from Geneva, til our next visit: the number of mountain shots I’ve amassed on this current visit in the US means I need no longer retain any of these lovely alp shots for future entries in that series 🙂

Urban Entrances.124

The lone gate of Haarlem’s old city walls that still stands is the Amsterdamse Poort (A’dam gate, originally named the Spaarnwouderpoort or Spaarnwouder Gate) and dating to the late 14th and early 15th centuries. One bikes right past this when one bikes over from my place to meet a friend for lunch in Haarlem, as I did on this particular day…

Ah, Royalty.24

Apples did indeed once rule in lovely Sebastopol, but these days the noble wine grape has become both Queen and King. Still, the annual Apple Blossom Festival parade draws a good crowd and many floats, which we’ll be showing you in future posts 🙂

Mountains.34

During my recent stay in California, I got as far north as central Mendocino County when I spent two glorious nights off-network or wifi at all-natural Orr Hot Springs. I took the coast road up from Sonoma County, but cut over to Ukiah and the freeway for the trip back. This photo is from the crest of the coast range west of Ukiah, and if you look closely above or below you will see what I’m 99% confident are the snow-capped east and west peaks of Snow Mountain (which we’ve shown you before), more or less E-NE of this spot. Both peaks are well over 2,100 meters (7,000 feet) high, and it’s good to see at least a bit of snow at that elevation this late in the season.