Category: travel

driving in the driving rain

Yet another day with few moments of downtime. I got home not too long ago from a round-trip drive to southern Vermont to return daughter and friend to school. I brought my mom along for the ride, since she hadn’t seen the school yet. I knew it would be largely dark by the time we arrived at the school, but what I hadn’t anticipated (due to failure to really check my weather app) was that it was going to be very rainy. And foggy. Whereas we did get to see a bit of Brattleboro before dark and the heavy rain fell, there was not a lot of visibility thereafter.

I think this mural is pretty recent. I don’t know why I hadn’t particularly noticed it before, even though it’s right across from the lot where I usually park.
We stopped in to a gallery, where we enjoyed artwork by Vermont artists and artisans. I was quite taken by the still lifes by Julie Baker Albright. In particular the lower one in this image featuring turnips. (Perhaps I do have a thing for root vegetables.)
We also got some coffee at a little independent coffee house. I appreciated the flower in the foam of my soy latte. (I also appreciated having the caffeine in me for the drive home.)

After dropping off daughter and friend at the school, I evaluated the drive home. Usually I take a route up that involves some steep winding roads that take me out of cell phone range. I was considering taking the Pike home instead, which is a longer but straighter route. But then upon seeing the traffic on my map app, I thought I’d try a third option. While not so steep and winding, it was still exhausting with the rain and fog and barely visible road lines. And tailgating drivers. Did I mention that it was exhausting?

I opted not to get stuck in the traffic on the Pike.

Tomorrow will be another busy day. Heading into Boston to see a talk by a friend/colleague about recent changes in pronoun use. My mom will be joining me, and I’m looking forward to the excursion. (But also wishing I had a day of down time in between.)

Coming in for a landing

I flew back to Boston this morning. I always try for a window seat, and was pleased that I scored one. (Even better, the seat next to me was empty.) The flight landed right around noon, and I enjoyed watching the plane’s shadow growing below us as we landed.

I’m off to bed now. It was a long day. (Again.) Tomorrow I need to get my thoughts organized to tackle the week’s miscellaneous commitments. (Work projects, political postcard projects, household projects, and more.) For tonight, I’m just going to enjoy sleeping in my own bed.

Sitting still (for a bit)

Once again, I forgot to post yesterday. It was a long day of activity, ending with a trip up to Maryland for a visit to a close friend from high school. I fly back home tomorrow. After several days of lots and lots of walking, it was nice to have a day mostly sitting around today. On that note, here is a photo I took yesterday of some people sitting around on benches in the Hirshhorn museum sculpture garden in DC.

Skipping a day (apparently)

Oops. I apparently completely forgot to post yesterday. What with leaving home before 4 in the morning, travelling, meeting up with and hanging out with my sister, then rushing to get some work done for a couple of deadlines, I went to sleep with apparently nary a thought for my poor blog. It was only this evening as we poked our heads into a Tibetan shop that I reflected on my post mentioning the Tibetan prayer wheel that I realized that a whole day had passed since I’d last posted.

Anyhow, I took a ton of photos yesterday, but will only share a few for now. 1) a duck and 2) the neighborhood where we are staying and 3) my “office” where I worked last night (in the upper bunk of the room in the hostel/hotel where I am staying with my sister.)

Tomorrow will be another full day. I’ll have more time with my sister, and then will head up to Maryland to visit a friend from high school. (So we’ll see if I remember to post.)

Skipping town

I shouldn’t stay up too much later, as I have an early flight. I’m meeting up with my sister in DC for a few days, and then visiting a friend in Maryland. I have to get on the road for the airport before 4 a.m., which just doesn’t seem right. I’m still packing, which turns out to be a challenge, because I apparently need to pack for multiple seasons. It looks like there will be some nice weather a couple of days, but when I head home Monday morning, there may be freezing temperatures.

Speaking of not being sure how to dress for the season, I noticed this small tree displaying some wardrobe confusion yesterday. Note the spring-like blossoms. And the fall foliage. On the same tree. (See the little springy rosy blossom buds peeking out from behind the autumnal yellow leaf?) I feel you, little tree.

I’ll hopefully still remember to post while I’m away. I have a lot of work to get done, too.

2020: the year of cancelled plans

I’m trying to get caught up with some work projects, but I’m also still committed to some community volunteer projects. For one of them, a program to encourage the adoption of clean energy in local homes and businesses, I’ve gotten involved with doing some of the social media. And in coming up with a post on the theme of home heating/cooling, I went on a bit of a flight of fancy, and I made a thing. It makes me laugh.

Here’s my caption: “Spending a lot of time at home this year? If your summer cooling wasn’t what you hoped, and/or your winter heating could use an upgrade, we can help with clean heating and cooling solutions that will save you money. Learn more at https://www.solarizemendonupton.com“

I had a couple of cancelled trips this year. Not quite the beach scene depicted in the image1 above, but trips I was looking forward to nevertheless. Sigh.

On the bright side, I have had a lot of quality time at home, where I can enjoy drinking tea from my new favorite mug. (Featured in the above photo.)

The “Things Could Be Worse” mug from Calamityware. There is no better motif for 2020.

1Beach/drink image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay. Picture of my laptop by me.

umbrellas saved for a rainy day

It’s been a rainy day, today.  I didn’t think to grab an umbrella when I was out during the day, but I dug up a few from my photo library back at home.

When you have the opportunity to travel and visit exciting locations, you generally hope for clear skies and moderate temperatures. But sometimes (especially in some parts of the world) you get rain. If you are lucky, other visitors will come equipped with colorful umbrellas to add splashes of color to liven the scene.

These were taken near(ish) and far (some very far), mostly quite a few years ago.

First are visitors to Brú na Bóinne in Ireland, the site of ancient burial mounds in 2014. (I was in Ireland for a conference in Dublin.)

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Tourists with umbrellas visiting Brú na Bóinne.

The next photo was taken in Kyoto, when I visited in 2004. The specific locale may have been Nijō Castle. This was back when I only had a pretty so-so point-and-shoot digital camera. I was happy with a lot of photos at the time, but now when I look back at them, I’m sad I wasn’t able to take better quality photos. (This one turned out okay, but a lot of the ones I otherwise like are pretty blurry and/or grainy.) (I was in Japan for  a conference in Nara.)

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Tourists with umbrellas in Kyoto,

This next one was in London in 2015, on the Millennium Bridge. (I was in the UK for a conference in Glasgow. Magically, it didn’t rain at all for the nearly 2 weeks we were in Scotland. We visited London for 2 days, and it rained both of them.)

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Tourists with umbrellas in London.

This is another one from my trip to Ireland in 2014. I believe this was in the garden of Malahide Castle.

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Visitors with umbrellas at Malahide, Ireland.

Next we a visit to Plimoth Plantation (in Plymouth, Massachusetts) in 2014. (I was in Massachusetts because I live here. And visiting Plimoth Plantation for my daughter’s school project.)

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Visitors with umbrellas at Plimoth Plantation, Massachusetts.

And finally, a couple of photos from Versailles, France in 2007. (I had a conference in Saarbrucken, Germany, and visited Paris afterward.)

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Tourists with umbrellas at Versailles

This is possibly my favorite of the umbrella photos, because it appears to tell a story.

 

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Woman pursued by group of umbrella-weilding tourists at Versailles.

 

(mis)reading the signs

For whatever reason, I enjoy the iconography of signs, and find myself including them in many of my photos. I especially enjoy seeing the varied signs in other countries. Often the meaning is clear, or at least familiar. Other times, the signs are more cryptic and I can only guess at the meaning. And still other times, I enjoy just making up the meaning for the sign. (And hope that the sign I’m chortling about isn’t warning me of my impending demise.)

Since I’m on a roll with my photos from last June’s trip to Poland, I’m sharing a few photos from that trip.

First is one of my favorites: No parking in this tree. no-tree-parking

I read this sign below as a general exclamation. Whether of alarm or enthusiasm, I can’t be sure. (Google translate tells me that “wyjazd z budowy” means “departure from construction,” which doesn’t enormously clarify for me. Perhaps it is just a diversionary tactic.)

exclaim

This sign in Warsaw clearly means “look up at that cool tower.”

look-up

Next we have a neatly stacked display of signs. The top one, clearly, indicates that yellow squares should be displayed at a jaunty angle. Below that is an public service message to keep a wide stance and swing your arms while walking. The meaning of the yellow sign below, though, isn’t completely clear to me. It appears to be a person holding some sort of object. giant-lolly

AT first I thought it was a girl with a pony tail, wearing a dress, and holding a balloon. But on closer inspection, I think it may be a bald man struck in the back of the head with some unknown object, wearing hammerpants. But I have no idea what the object in his hand is.

Version 2

This sign in my hotel is Poznan is a weather forecast that must at least be right on occasion. (Fine, it means “elevators.”)

windy

Finally, this sign was for a convenience store. Obviously, it is aimed at cornering the market on frog supplies. I’m not sure whether the intended patrons are frogs, or just people who like frogs. In any case, this is a very happy looking frog.

happy-frog

And now it’s after 11, and I can barely hold my eyes open. I will read this as an unambiguous sign that I should not park my frog in any trees. (Or that I should get to bed.)

a bunch of balloons for the birthday blog

My blog is 13 years old today. With this, it officially becomes a teenager. It’s hard to know what to get your blog. Really, I’d love to spend more time with it. Maybe reminisce about old posts and the halcyon days of the blogging community. Maybe spend some quality time composing posts with a bit of substance, or maybe a creative writing project. But as is apparently my mantra, I don’t have time for that today. So I’m getting my blog what I usually get it: a few photos I’d been saving. These particular ones are wrapped up in my ongoing thematic train of thought.

Here are several photos I took of balloons during my June 2018 trip to Poland.

poznan-balloons2This brightly-colored bunch of balloons drew my eye in the Old Town square in Poznań. I enjoyed the contrast of the regal renaissance buildings and the garish contemporary pop culture balloons.

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Colorful stripes abound.

unicorn-balloon

This stylish woman (whether a balloon enthusiast or a balloon vendor) was not to be overshadowed by her bunch in her vibrant hot pink dress.balloon-seller

And finally, this photo was not from my trip to Poland, nor of balloons. But I’d hate for my blog to think I hadn’t remembered the cake.

cake13.jpg

Happy birthday, dear blog.