Musings

Urban travel today is likely to involve routes underground, whether you are in a vehicle or afoot. A tunnel in the central civic-ceremonial zone of WashDC.

Ronald Reagan building parking/security team joke.

A rose to you for getting through the traffic.

How many US citizens under the age of, what?, 40? know what this is…that it’s not just an aesthetic combo of shapes and colors. Often, in my (limited) experience, the eraser would solidify and the bristles would get bent before the eraser was used up.

Our first stop: the Verrocchio exhibit at the National Gallery of Art. Verrocchio has many names in the literature (WikiPee indicates his birth name was Andrea di Michele di Francesco de’ Cioni), but most cognoscenti refer to him as merely Verrocchio, referring to the goldsmith he trained under, poor guy. He was an accomplished goldsmith, architect, painter, and sculptor. One of his mentees was Leonardo da Vinci.

Verrocchio’s Alexander the Great. Is that a dragon on your head, sir?

Love the sandal strap details. Many art historians think Leonardo painted the ghostly terrier.

This is Goliath’s head with David’s foot in Verrocchio’s version of the same moment as the famous Donatello statue of David. We saw the latter in Florence; I like both. Again: footwear detail.

We got lunch in a downstairs museum café, and headed to the mall. Left: view of Capitol Hill. We went that way last time. We went the opposite way this time.

Toward the Washington monument, all sparkly clean and open for business again.

And from the hill at its base, we could see our quarry, the Lincoln Monument. But first, at this end of the Reflecting Pool, the WWII Memorial.

Sobering to see over 4000 stars here, each representing 100 American war dead.

We climbed out, paralleled the pool, and worked our way through the crowds up the steps and into the main room of the Lincoln Monument, which the Romans would have called a cella. Many old guys in wheelchairs…this weekend’s groups of Honor Flight members and their attendees. One group whose members we kept encountering were from “Flag City,” Ohio.

We tore ourselves away from the Abe and visited the Vietnam Maya Lin wall. Sobering also. It’s all about the names, each life lost.

Enough malling, we headed back to our parking garage. [Ended up with 16K steps for the day. Outdoor mall-walking.]

The “island” out there is a sunken ship. There are over 230 of them in shallow Mallows Bay, on the Maryland side of the Potomac, a bit downstream and opposite Quantico. Look at GooSatView and see how many you can count. Many are steam ships and many date from WWI.

We paid $6(!!) to cross this bridge over the Rappahannock, the next big river south of the Potomac, both flowing into Chesapeake Bay. The beams are pretty, and the light was nice, but I prefer the bridge that spans the two peninsulas way NNW of here, plus the crossing is cheaper.

Posted at 9:27 PM | Comments Off on Mall walking plus

Taftsville Covered Bridge, with autumn complement of leaf-peepers….

When no longer farming, used a large quaint barn, barnyard as event space.

Fall color mosaic varies. We are westbound here—nice light.

Main gate, Vermont state fair, with ginger breading.

Armory with asymmetric towers.

Ticonderoga’s mill dam. There were at least two mills on the river, both long gone.

Lucille Ball was the backer of the original Star Trek; her money, exclusively as I understand it, got the pilot made, then a second pilot made with new actors, and on the air. She and Desi were divorced by then, but the studio name stayed, and she ran it.

Modern transporter footwear.

Magic hallway—Drew, our guide, said that was the filming term. The arc was long enough that actors could walk/run-and-talk for a bit before reaching the end.

Warp core.

Bridge of the Enterprise.

Traditional double bridge.

Modern highway bridge.

Apologies for late/”10:22pm” post; we had a l-o-n-g drive yesterday and I was pooped/too busy navigating.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Built environment, especially bridges

Reading about ancient plant fiber technology…what solution was used to make fiber “longer.” Do you splice or use a kind of spinning to hold the new piece in place (if I have it right)? A recent study shows that across a big swath of the eastern Mediterranean, for generations most fiber workers (probably women) used splicing earlier and longer than previously believed. What’s most interesting to me is that this was widely used for a very long time…and across a wide area…without change. Why? Why do it the same way your grandmother and here grandmother did? Why no innovation? This duration issue arises in other places with other materials, techniques, and technologies. We generally think of humans as innovators, but archaeology shows repeated examples of continuity for dozens of generations and across huge areas, even when populations are low. Love mysteries like this!

Posted at 6:29 PM | 2 Comments »

We spotted this in a fishing boat, not sure what it is. Long line? Hooks…lines…carpet fragment.

This heiau (sacred place) is in a busy park at a good surfing spot. Many signs remind non-believers that this is a sacred place, to avoid—no cars, scooters or entrance. But, oh what a scenic place! I couldn’t tell if there was a adjacent village anciently; it could have been by itself overlooking the ocean.

Posted at 9:18 PM | Comments Off on Hawaii mysteries

We stayed up late (as in: after dark) last night chatting on the lanai/patio. At least three of these little lizards showed up to hunt bugs around one especially bright light. I hadn’t seen these pale ones before. This one has a shortened tail.

This morning I felt like I needed fluids. I doubled up with coffee and kombucha. After two portions of each, I felt not-quite-so-dry.

Our big expedition was to the Pearl Harbor Memorial. They’ve been fixing the landing dock for over a year, and we could not land, so we motored by, with first one side of our boat facing the memorial and then the other side, as passengers were required to stay seated at all times. The flag pole is attached to an original part of the Arizona‘s mast. The white float far right is above the bow. It was a solemn visit. The 20+-minute video before we boarded the boat was excellent; visitors were instructed not to talk during it and indeed (surprise), people were quiet.

Mid-afternoon, the Guru and I entered Puowaina, more commonly known as Punchbowl Crater. More military dead are interred here, in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. I believe the current tally of dead exceeds 53K; markers are all flat, which contrasts with Arlington National, for example. We were surprised that the floor of the crater is so high.

Then, we went to the core of the civic-ceremonial and governmental section of Honolulu. This is the ‘Iolani Palace; construction began in 1879. It replaced an earlier building that dated to the early 1840s (if I have it right), built during the reign of Kamehameha III (born 1814; died 1854; reign 1825–1854). This building dates to the reign of King Kalākaua (born 1836; died 1891; reign 1874–1891). TMI?

This fenced area is on the palace grounds; it is a burial mound and super kapu (forbidden—because of its extreme sacredness). The lands around the palace, including other city blocks, was part of a royal sacred area prior to the arrival of foreigners. Behind the fence on the back side, I saw a guy shooting up and that was during an idle glance; that was not something I wanted to see (and have seared into my memory). Elsewhere people were sleeping on sidewalks and on the grass. Homeless problem here, too, in that end-of-the-road way….

Posted at 12:32 AM | Comments Off on Sacred places

We trekked to Manistique and parked by the historic water tower and a cozy, small historic house that was the home of a friend of my grandmother’s.

Quelle surprise! Both were open! This is the view from the window at the stairs next to the small bedroom under the roof. I liked the pattern from the lace curtain very much; however, I don’t think it is “antique.”

Those two buildings are right next to the famous siphon bridge, which only did the siphon thing for about eight decades. The surface of the bridge was below the surface of the water (yes, it’s possible), and beneath the bridge the water was deeper, and this “sucked” the water beneath and past the bridge, and removed much of the pressure of the water level being higher than the deck of the bridge. If I understand correctly.

Despite the date on this plaque for construction of the siphon bridge, 1918, the centenary was celebrated this year. All other info we read indicated the bridge dates to 1919. These discrepancies happen with historical archival info.

Posted at 9:37 PM | Comments Off on Manistique news

The Île de la Cité will never be the same. The gargoyles are still coughing (I’m pretty sure).

Posted at 6:18 PM | Comments Off on Hot mess

These cormorants are waiting for whatever cormorants wait for. Food? More than food? These rocks were under many more feet of water for decades in a huge mill pond.

Downstream of the cormorants, some of the later mill buildings survive, most repurposed as river-front apartments now that the dams are gone and the water is white, as it was through the early 1800s. This is the Chattahoochee at the Fall Line in Columbus.

Now, venturesome people in funky short kayaks dare the once-again fast-flowing river to overpower them. [This guy was just fine; this moment looks scary, however.]

Posted at 9:25 PM | Comments Off on River stories

Gentle Reader, you may have noticed by now that I notice patterns…not all patterns, but certain ones. Like this…

And this….

Not entirely symphonies in grey (not tightly related to the patterns), but close….

Posted at 9:49 PM | Comments Off on Distorted grids

We headed out early, down the Garden Peninsula to the ghost town of Fayette. Here’s the business part of town, where workers made charcoal pig iron for 24 years. The market began to decline and the hardwoods they made the charcoal from were no longer nearby…and, pfft, an industrial town went out of business.

I always take harbor-pilings photos. The water seemed higher than the last few years.

We made our return via Kitch-iti-kipi, the Big Spring. Love the raft ride, powered by park visitors’ arms.

More trout(?) that I ever remember seeing swam in the depths as we made our slow crossing and return.

Hot day; good day to avoid outdoor chores by going sight-seeing!

Posted at 9:16 PM | Comments Off on Excursion SW day