Tuesday, 20 February 2018
We coffee’d up and got going, finding this local fog-bank somewhere inland—it’s not a marine layer!
After several hours, we left the Spanish Moss State (or so it seemed)…
…and entered the Peanut State.
Then, closer to home, we saw several almost-Vs of sandhill cranes (pretty sure about that ID).
Saturday, 17 February 2018
The title is apt for our day; we did cover some ground. We also kinda went underground through this tunnel. I could not even read the last line of the sign “No trucks except standard height…” because, irony of ironies, truck-roofs had so damaged it that the letters have been bashed to near-oblivion.
We also went through tunnels of trees. The green is beginning to pop. (Apologies for the insect grease.)
Then we made it to the ocean! Yay, Atlantic! Substantial marine layer for after noon…. Thanks, K!
Southbound, we dodged some serious traffic, as the Day-tone-uh race (rrrrrrrr) was underway as we slipped south past it, keeping thousands of vehicles in actual parking lots and not out on the roads. Above we could see the Wingfoot One, but without the customary Goodyear name…and instead a hashtag advertising a Goodyear ad-video that will premier tomorrow.
Safely past the motor mecca, we headed for a place that advertised it’s fine view. Walking through the parking lot, we were glad we found a regular space, as apparently handicapped vehicles get special avian…attention…the kind that can damage the paint job.
Turns out the restaurant gave us seats to a terrific sunset show, and decent enough food. Won’t go back, but it was perfect for this evening.
Tired, we reached our destination. Yawn. G’night.
Friday, 16 February 2018
Rural small towns in the Deep South: you will find churches, but not usually this large and fancy.
You will also find evidence that there used to be more buildings.
Go far enough south, and you will see Spanish moss (not a moss at all) festooning the trees, often oaks.
Monocropping trends towards trees and…
…cotton (decorative sample). Also pecans and sometimes peanuts (neither pictured).
The soils tend to be sandy, sometimes nearly white. You may see horse hoofprints.
And you know you’re in a small town when the restaurant puts the game to keep the kids occupied out in the street.
* (Chinese) Happy New Year!
Thursday, 1 February 2018
We went to O4W Park for our steps-and-flights today. Those two big cranes are attending the apartments-and-Kroger construction I mentioned on the 25th. I wonder how close this neighborhood is to housing saturation, with all these new apartment buildings opening.
Scotch broom bloom. Say it three times fast, I dare ya!
Saturday, 27 January 2018
As I headed out on my walk, I discovered this crew with their big crane prepared to lift a new AC unit that’s on the sidewalk by the crane to the roof of the Y. When I returned about 50 minutes later, the crane arm was folded and the crew was letting the leveling jacks down and putting away the jack-stuff (plywood pieces, etc.). I think the installation crew was still working on the roof.
On my loop between crane inspections, I found this purple gate on a little-used alley. I remember the gate, but not the purple.
Things do change….
Thursday, 25 January 2018
We got exuberant today in the sunshine, and headed over to the BeltLine. Since we were there last, the powers-that-be have put a new set of public art along the right-of-way. I liked the asymmetry of this one.
We headed farther than I expected to (over-exuberance?), to check out the Kroger apartment building across from Ponce City Market. Many crews working, with two cranes, one at each end of the complex, including this load of supplies being elevated to the upper level. I think there’ll be at least two more floors added to this end of the building. Note the old roof-top water tower on the old, neighboring building.
Okay, I am cribbing the title phrase from the redesigned label of our favorite Georgia cheese….
Monday, 15 January 2018
We’re looping today…I’m posting a few pictures from the last few days that I didn’t have access to on each day…you see, it gets complicated to remember charging cables and downloading cables…you know, the Stuff that goes with the Things you choose to take on your trip. Or that we did. Sooooo, we neglected a certain download cable, so these are harvested from the camera that I didn’t have access to each day.
This is a log version of one of those square-footprint buildings that we saw in, was it Virginia?
And this is a view from the east side of the National Gallery across an interesting art-inhabited plaza toward what the Goo indicates is the library of the Art Research for the NG. Which I assume is correct. Anyway…I really liked the juxtaposition of the circle of bollard-stubs around the glittering triangle-shapes. And water-features.
In the Air and Space Museum, this was the reflection on a nose-cone? Not sure…but fascinating.
And a fine view of the capitol atop Capitol Hill, showing how builders carved into the hill to make the building’s lower tiers. Kinda like the remaining parts of Nero’s Domus Aurea and various constructions along the lower flanks of the Palatine Hill in Rome. Well, many other places, too, and not only in Rome. Maybe it’s just an obvious engineering solution to occupying a steep slope if there’s plenty of labor and building stone. Maybe.
Sunshine means shadows. And I loved these fence-lines flanking our route across rural Maryland horse-country. Expensive horse-flesh gets expensive fences that are protective, but unlikely to mar or scar that flesh. And safe fences make good shadows.
This pair of water towers once stood over an industrial factory zone. I’m pretty sure. This was in NC, not far from the SC border, if I remember correctly.
We’re glad to be home, but today was a chores day, and limited in the visual capture department…so I rely on a few recent days to…entertain(?) you, Gentle Reader….
Sunday, 14 January 2018
We loaded up and when The Guru fired up the beastie (complete with a full electrical charge (yay!)), it gave us this temp. Time to head south, we agreed. It even dropped another degree by the time we crossed the Potomac one last time east of Harpers Ferry. The water sparkled in the sun; we were southbound; life is good, we also agreed.
The landscape was mostly open and we saw a few “fancy” houses. I tried not to think about the ugly history of slavery in this former(?) tobacco-farming region. (We saw very few (surviving?) tobacco barns, unlike this latitude on our northbound leg.)
It was Sunday and perhaps that is partly why this was the only active farm vehicle we saw….
All the horses I remember seeing on the many mini-farms had lovely jackets. I don’t think they’re anything like the old-fashioned “horse blankets.” I suspect these are high-tech and perhaps even Goretex.
I loved the low sun angle at this, our last rest area of the journey.
Proof that home is not far ahead…the Gaffney peach. And attendant power lines….
Such a great trip; such a diversity of experiences! We especially enjoyed last night’s socializing with our friends from Venezuela* (presently in northern Maryland). Still smiling!
* And, yes, the terrible things you have heard about people starving to death, lack/absence of medicines (including for malaria), and brutality by…well, you get the idea of what’s happening in Venezuela…yes, what you’ve heard: true, true, true. Soooo, so sad. We are glad they are safe. For now….
Friday, 12 January 2018
From the train, we could see fog wafting up from the Potomac and that the ice floes were visibly reduced compared to yesterday. By day’s-end we carried our heavy coats in temps that almost reached 70°F, and on our return trip there was still fog and the floes had become chips (almost).
Leaving the subway station, we walked by this Temperance Fountain. Am I the only one to find it ironic that the city cut off the water quite some time ago, so that the water sponsor Henry D. Cogswell hoped would slake the thirst of potential liquor-drinkers was no longer supplied? And when the monument was relocated in 1987, it still wasn’t reconnected. Of course, the overflow was no longer needed for a horse trough, either!
At one of my first stops in the Newseum, I discovered blooper-tiles in the ladies with headlines you probably don’t remember.
This one, however, you may well remember.
I also learned that this thrice-weekly got the scoop over the weeklies when the Declaration of Independence was signed. This was still two days after the signing…. Only nineteen copies of this historic front-page survive.
After lunch the overcast had thinned and we climbed Capitol Hill. And it is a hill. The visitor center is on the other side; we looped to the left, climbed, then descended to the VC entrance.
We took the next tour, which focused on frescoes by Constantino Brumidi (he began them in 1855). During the tour, we got a chance to see the views to the west, down the mall toward the Washington Monument.
We saw glorious Brumidi frescoes in Senate hallways, although his best-known work in the Capitol building is the ceiling of the rotunda. Brumidi was paid a substantial $10 per day, which covered his assistant and their supplies, with Brumidi taking about half. He augmented this salary by doing outside commissions. He did most of the ceilings, leaving the walls to his assistant, our guide said.
If you can tell the lower part of the left wall is darker, it is because restorers have left overpainting to show how the original work was obscured. The restoration was finished on this hallway about two years ago, and removed tobacco-smoke stains along with layers of added paint.
Leaving the Capitol we crossed to our enjoy the façade of the Supreme Court, also looming over DC on Capitol Hill. To help your eye with the scale, I’d estimate that the “normal” door opening is about 1/5th the height of the doorway in the stone.
On our way back to catch our return train, we passed in front of the Library of Congress, and saw more Classical-inspired artwork that was installed in 1898 beneath the monumental staircase leading to the main, formal building entrance. The central bronze is Neptune flanked by his two sons and accompanied by a large frog and coiling sea-snakes(?). This composition is in turn flanked by a pair of Naiads/Nereids—sea nymphs; only the south one shown here. You don’t have to look closely to observe that sculptor Roland Hinton Perry was inspired by the Trevi Fountain figures.
Another fantastic and fascinating DC day!
Thursday, 21 December 2017
Here, the solstice was…gloomy. So I give you recent photos (from Tuesday)…
…and from Monday.