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Paris, FR 12/8/05
So, in keeping with the spirit of the last post, I’ll tell you about another Parisian tour we did. Navigating the subway system brought us to a normal commercial district with cafes and stores, similar to many we had been through while we were there. The guidebook led us to a nondescript door opening into a narrow hallway. At the back was a lady behind a window that collected our Euros and then we went through a door and down a narrow stairway. A long way down. 130 steps, then down a long stone corridor and into a room (or a grotto) full of bones. Human bones. We were in the Catacombs.
It’s really pretty amazing to see. We’d heard about them before, even seen them on TV, but in person it’s…hard to describe. It’s somber, spooky and overwhelming all at once. The bones are carefully placed, it’s not like they just dumped them. The catacombs were originally quarries but when the cemeteries got exceedingly nasty (which doesn’t even begin to describe the, um, sanitary conditions of the time) they moved the remains on in. Several million of them. That’s lots-o-bones. They placed them in piles according to type, piles of thighs and legs and arms. Piles and piles of skulls. Arranged in many different styles. Skulls were used many times as accents.
They made art.
We walked a long way, 2 km, through rooms and corridors all the same and all different. It wasn’t depressing in any fashion, it was fascinating. And then we climbed up another 85 steps and were, rather jarringly, back on the street trying to figure out where we were. It was nice to see the sun.
Note: All photos were taken with no flash. The only illumination was the bare electric lights and my mag lite, held by my lovely assistant. I used a fast lens (50mm, f1.8) and got some interesting shots. I’ve seen almost the same shot as the first one below published somewhere. Apparently the rose is a regular feature.
Paris, FR 12/8/05
Paris, FR 12/8/05
Paris, FR 12/8/05
Pere-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, 12/9/05
Several years ago, Patti and I went to Paris to celebrate one of life’s little milestones. We went in late-November/early-December and it was, for the most part, cold and gray most of the time we were there. Towards the end of the trip, we made a stop at a location that all the books said was totally worth it: the Pere-Lachaise Cemetery. You may have heard of it. It’s best known among people of my demographic to be the final stop for Jim Morrison. We found it to be much, much more than that.
First off, it’s huge (over 190 acres). There are lots of other famous people resting here. One of the first we saw was the bizarre tomb of Oscar Wilde, which for reasons I can’t begin to explain was covered with the red lipstick impressions of hundred of lips (not all female, I suspect).
Oscar Wilde's lipstick covered tomb. Pere-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, 12/9/05
Morrison’s grave was protected by some fans, all significantly younger than ourselves, to protect it from vandalism. At Chopin’s tomb, there was a little old man tending to the many fresh flowers (in December no less) and generally keeping things tidy for old Frederic. We strolled past the resting places of Abelard and Heloise, Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein, and many other graves, tombs and monuments of Parisian society. It was all pretty cool, even though it was our coldest day yet.
Chopin's monument is tended with great love. Pere-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, 12/9/05
What surprised us the most, however, were the monuments to the losses taken in WWII. We ran across them early and often. There were many of them commemorating the victims of the camps, members of the resistance, specific incidents and who knows what else. And some of them, many of them, can only be described as surreal. Grotesque shapes, skeletons and weird art adorned them. It was quite sobering.
One of many sculptures honoring the lives lost in WWII. Pere-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, 12/9/05
Pere-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, 12/9/05
Pere-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, 12/9/05
OK, so we’re in the Orlando Airport the other morning waiting on a flight to Baltimore (more on that in a later post). Patti heads off to find us some breakfast and when she comes back she tells me that she saw a lamb in the concourse. Actually, she heard it first amidst the din of a modern airport: “baaaaa…”. (do you put quotes around an animal’s sound?) She saw a guy with a lamb in his arms.
Huh.
I, of course, head up there with my camera and, sure enough there are not one, but two guys, each with what turned out to be baby goats. Before I took a couple of quick shots I asked him the obvious question. Scroll to the bottom to see the only reply I could get out of him.
4/28/11, Orlando International Airport
4/28/11, Orlando International Airport
He told me that “It’s Bring Your Kids To Work Day”.
USS Torsk, Baltimore, MD, 12/27/08
On the 14th of August, 1945, the USS Torsk fired the last torpedoes of the Second World War. Those shots sunk 2 Japanese Coastal Defense ships, the last enemy sinking of the war. In 1968, after a long post-war career, she was decommissioned and in 1973 she was berthed in the Baltimore Inner Harbor. I looked at her for years, but had never gone aboard and taken the tour.
Christmas of 2008 we went to Baltimore to visit family. Two days after Xmas, on a misty, foggy morning, we found ourselves wandering the Inner Harbor. I decided to take the tour while MLW went shopping. “I’ll be back in an hour,” I promised.
Paid my admission and climbed aboard. They funnel you down a gangway in the stern that they installed into the Aft Torpedo Room. You work your way forward from there. It was empty when I got there, so I started taking photos and looking around. Very cool stuff if you’re into that kinda thing and I was enjoying myself. I moved into the next compartment where one of the volunteers was working.
Now, if you know me then you know I speak the truth when I say that I can talk to pretty much anybody, pretty much anywhere, about pretty much anything.
I started asking questions and we immediately hit it off. He started explaining the workings of a WWII attack sub, I kept asking questions and he ended up taking me through the entire boat, compartment by compartment, from aft to bow, telling me everything. At one point there was a gangway going down a deck that was roped off: the battery compartment & machine shop. He took me down there, showed me the batteries. I saw the bunks, the engine room, the map room. Hung out in the Galley with him and the other volunteers. The Radio Room. Past another roped off ladder, this time up, into the Conning Tower where I saw the “computers” used to determine the attack parameters. They let me look through the periscope. I was in heaven.
While in the Conning tower my phone went off. MLW asked where the hell I was. I had been gone for not quite 2 hours. Time to go.
It was a great 2 hours, though. Fascinating hardware, lots of stories about how things worked, boat and crew. I had the boat to myself (2 other folks came through the entire time I was aboard and they blew by) and the volunteers were great. If you get the chance, take the tour. It made me really appreciate a small portion of what those poor young guys went through. It must have been terrifying.
Next time, I want to go aboard the SS John W. Brown, one of only two restored Liberty Ships in the country, which is docked nearby.
I’ll budget more time for that one.
Below: The Aft Torpedo Room. Note the bunks upper right & left. These were cramped and uncomfortable.
USS Torsk, Baltimore, MD, 12/27/08
USS Torsk, Baltimore, MD, 12/27/08
Above: The “comfortable” bunks. Considered spacious, it just shows that everything’s relative. Note the gangway on the left that leads down to the battery room.
Below: Hanging in the Galley. My guide is on the left.
USS Torsk, Baltimore, MD, 12/27/08
Below: The Conning Tower. It was very cramped. I’m not that big of a guy, but I had to move sideways when passing the periscope.
USS Torsk, Baltimore, MD, 12/27/08
Geek Note: The interior of a submarine is an interesting environment to shoot in. The 10-22mm lens and good flash made it possible. Love that lens.
Sorry for not posting recently. It’s not for a lack of material, rather a lack of time and discipline. We have a lot of material to post here, we just need to get off of our butts and do it.
Appalachian Trail, GSMNP, October 6, 2010
I spent last week on what has become my annual solo trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I try to go between Labor Day & the changing of the leaves in order to avoid the crowds. This typically involves dodging hurricanes heading towards Florida, since I promised my bride that, after an unfortunate incident involving my being out of town during a hurricane, I would not travel if there is a storm heading our way. Unlike previous years, this was not an issue this time. Which is not to say that the weather was not a player in this year’s trip.
This annual adventure has rapidly become a highlight of the year. I can do day hikes at my own tempo (slow, not like other crazy people in this family) and take lots of pictures of landscapes that are notably unlike Florida. Trust me, when you’ve seen one alligator you’ve seen them all. I have a beautiful campsite in the Elkmont campground that I return to each year. At night I sit by the fire with my adult beverage and eat well. Very well. Over the course of my three full days, I hiked about 19 miles of trails, took a horseback ride (just me & the guide…very nice), took 340 photos (of which a couple are pretty nice), met many very nice people on the trail and walked in snow. Snow. Did I mention the cold? This Florida boy camped in 35 degree weather. While it was refreshing after our typical hot, humid summer, it was a bit shocking during my middle of the night sojourns out of the tent.
This was the first year that I didn’t see any bear. Darn.
Sunrise, GSMNP, October 5, 2010
Alum Cave Bluffs Trail, GSMNP, October 5, 2010
Note: The peak in the right foreground in the photo below is Porter’s Mountain
View from Charlies Bunion, GSMNP, October 6, 2010
We travel for many reasons. Many times it’s for work. I’ve been lots of places for my job and seen some interesting things, both work related (the astronaut training pool in Houston, for example) and culturally related: catching Los Lobos at a small theater in Denver, Robert Craig in a bar in San Diego, Patti Smith in Atlanta, Rembrandt in DC (one of these things is not like the others). Of course, we also pack the bags for the traditional reasons: the lights of Paris at Christmas, a honeymoon to remember, meeting interesting people. Many of our trips carry the double bonus of doing interesting things and seeing extended family at the same time. With family members, we have sailed in the British Virgin Islands & Belize, skied in Utah and Montana, and rafted the Yellowstone River. Feasting on crabs and corn in Baltimore is always a good time. And a couple of weeks ago, we met up in New York City for the weekend.
When our talented niece from Bozeman (whose blog can be found here) told us that she was attending a blogger conference in NY, and that she was bringing her Middle Son, we were all over it. Her brother and his partner live in Harlem and our best friend from our youth lives in Midtown, so it sounded like a chance to meet up with friends & family, see some sights and spend some quality time with our loved ones. And perhaps enjoy an adult beverage or two. To make it even better, the Salt Lake contingent (our niece’s parents) decided to join the festivities. Game on!
The Montana crew did pretty well in the big city. Niece got lost a couple of times while navigating the subway, 
including getting on the wrong train and ending up in a sketchy part of the South Bronx. She persevered and ending up walking to her brother’s place in Harlem. Her son proved yet again why I hold him and his brothers in such high regard by buying the strangest piece of fruit I have ever seen while we were in Chinatown and, later that night, slicing it up himself and presenting to the gathered family in a most beautiful arrangement. I sure wouldn’t have done that at his age!
Highlights of the trip? Taking the Boy to the Top of the Rock. Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge on a beautiful morning. Wandering Central Park listening to the many buskers playing their music. Strolling the High Line (a beautiful park created from an unused stretch of elevated train tracks). Several excellent meals, made so by the company we kept. And the people watching! We never, ever get tired of watching the beautiful, strange and sometimes scary faces of the city, ranging from the girl in her too short skirt walking up 5th Av. to the mother/daughter heading to the beach on the subway. And one of the city’s best-kept secrets? New Yorkers are friendly! Every time we looked at a subway map people stopped to see if they could help. I struck up a conversation with an off-duty security guard about camera equipment (prompting an eye roll from my spouse). And the girl on the A train sitting across from us when we were heading to Harlem after dinner one night. She watched our niece and her son attempting pull-ups on the subway car grab rail and, after I caught her eye and we shared a laugh, trying it herself (and doing better than any of us).
Low point of the trip? Leaving (and not knowing when we’ll see them again…however long it may be will be too long).
Empire State Building, NY, 2010
The Montana Contingent, Brooklyn Bridge, NY, 2010
Family, NY, 2010
My good friend Oscar thinks I’m crazy. Now, he’s not alone in that assessment, but it’s the reason for this belief that’s the subject of this post. He simply can’t understand the great enjoyment that I derive from going camping solo. It is one of my favorite things in life … quality time in beautiful settings doing exactly what I want, when I want.
The roots of my love of the outdoors go way back. My parents were not big on the outdoors and the closest we ever came to camping was staying in cabins in Wisconsin for a few days at a time (my sister still insists that “roughing it” is a Holiday Inn without cable). However, when my family moved to Baltimore when I was 8, we lived in a house that had a large wooded expanse adjacent to our backyard. I knew every inch of those woods and used to spend hour upon hour in there. Good times. But it wasn’t until my mid-teens that the definitive event took place. I spent 28 days in the woods of North Carolina at Outward Bound.
For those of you who don’t know, Outward Bound is an outfit that takes folks into the woods, teaches them skills and essentially stresses them out. Pushing their limits is the goal. It was originated as a result of the Second World War when many merchant seaman were perishing after their ships were sunk. It was deduced that the high casualty rate was because the men simply gave up hope due to a lack of self-confidence in their ability to survive. Outward Bound was created to show people that they are capable of far more than they themselves believed possible. They’re very good at it. We spent many days hiking long distances with little food, canoeing whitewater rapids, rock climbing 600′ cliffs, rappelling and, ultimately, spending 3.5 days alone in the woods with no food. It was quite an experience, one that left me with a deep-seated love of the outdoors as well as an appreciation of my own capabilities.
Shortly after my return I became good friends with Tom. Tom & I would go off to Western Maryland and West Virginia for hiking and caving trips. We would pile into my old VW with too much gear and head out. We did this for years and I have many fond memories from those trips, as well as some pretty funny stories. (For example: we rated the wet caves we went into as to whether you had to wade through any water that hit “yodeling depth,” that being the depth of water that hit certain regions of a man’s anatomy that makes him yodel. There was also the time he set himself on fire, but that’s another post.) I have been regularly camping since those days.
GSMNP, 2009
One of the perks of my job is that I get a lot of time off. My Loving Wife (MLW) does not get nearly as much, so for the past several years I have been taking some time shortly after Labor Day and spending a week by myself camping in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This has quickly become one of my favorite trips of the year (not including ANY trip with MLW, of course) along with my annual trip with my buddies to the Shenandoah Mountains on the 2nd weekend of January … 25+ years and counting. I head up there with my gear & some fine bourbon and spend a few days hiking at my own speed (slowly) and taking lots of photos. Cool nights around a campfire next to a noisy stream and believe me, it doesn’t get any better. I just made my arrangements for this year’s trip and I simply can’t wait.
Try it, Oscar, and you may just understand.
Outward Bound, North Carolina, Too Long Ago
Above: Yup, I’m in there.
Well, we are back in the land where people drive on the right and don’t talk (too) funny. We had a GREAT trip…expect many posts over the coming weeks on some of the sights that we saw. We took a few photos, some of them actually worth viewing. Below is a screen grab showing the locations of the shots we took, courtesy of Aperture & our GPS.
The pins show locations of photos shot.
(Geek notes: Each day I created a new track on our tiny GPS and it tracked where we went that day. Back at home, I loaded each day’s photos and the associated track and Aperture assigned a location to each shot based upon timestamps. It’s a very nice feature that allows us to rapidly find photos that we took. Technology can be a good thing.)
So, a good time was had by all. We met some interesting folks: the guy we met at dinner in Oban who’s walking the perimeter of Great Britain, the geologist who had spent some time on the rig in the Gulf that is now so famous and who had some interesting words concerning BP’s approach to safety, the bartender from New Orleans we met in Edinburgh who also had a few choice words for BP, the four Englishmen we met at a distillery who provided us with some excellent pointers on enjoying Whisky (and who I educated on the making of bourbon), the nice couple from Tasmania who are essentially on their way around the world, and many others.
We had, as usual, several unexpected experiences. We spent an immensely enjoyable afternoon watching a falconry demonstration. We watched bands at an open mike night in Inverness prior to the opening of a music festival there. We learned how dyes for yarn are made from natural ingredients at a shop located at what felt like the end of the world on Skye. We utilized high technology to finally understand a battle that took place almost 300 years ago. And, again, many others.
We also watched World Cup everywhere we went. We experienced the USA – England match with a bunch of Englishmen on Skye. We learned that the Scots are cheering for whomever is playing the English. We learned that the BBC must provide an option to turn off those damn horns and only listen to the commentators. And we learned just how much the World Cup is a truly international event. Our pilots provided updates and the bar in Newark was PACKED with folks watching…they were stacked well into the concourse outside the bar we were eating in, straining to see. (Reading the UK newspaper coverage was a lot of fun, too.)
Now we’re just trying to get back on our feet and re-adjust to the oppressive heat of Florida in summer. Not to mention our return to our desks tomorrow. All good things….
Dunrobin Castle, Scotland, 2010
Above: Falconry demo – yes that’s an owl, not a falcon. His name is Plop.
Below: Recipe book for yarn dyes
Isle of Skye, Scotland, 2010
(BTW: upon leaving each city, village, District, whatever, there was a sign that said “Thanks for visiting, Haste Ye Back”. Thanks, we may just do that.)
We arrived in Oban, our last major stop, Monday afternoon after a beautiful drive down from Skye. Oban is the “Seafood Capitol of Scotland” and we have been eating well (salmon, halibut, mussels, scallops, oysters). Yesterday we took a trip out to three islands (Mull, Staffa, Iona) which involved a ferry ride, a bus ride, a boat trip, another ferry, return on the bus and finally one more ferry. It was a long day but we saw some extremely beautiful sights.
On the ferries, there are announcements before you set off. They all consisted of something along the lines of: “Good afternoon, I am Captain Colin Campbell and mumble mumble mumble mumble safety mumble mumble mumble whisky mumble mumble mumble.” Not very helpful. On our last ferry of the day, while nursing a wee dram, I swear I heard him say “and ferrets to port.”
Which would, of course, imply that badgers are to go to starboard.
Oban, Scotland, 2010
Above: the lovely town of Oban
Below: Fingal’s Cave on Staffa
Fingal's Cave, Staffa, Scotland, 2010
The World as We See It 