I treated myself to an early morning and was rewarded with a pretty nice pre-sunrise sky. I credit Monte and his early morning excursions for the motivation to drag myself out of bed at 5:45. It was worth it! I also was able to get a nice cup of coffee in the lobby on my way back to our room. Double nice!
I mentioned in an earlier post how we had recently had our bathrooms and bedrooms repainted, and that I had been given the “assignment” of providing prints for the walls. I’ve been thinking for a few months about the proper theme and color palette for each room. I’m still cogitating on the bedroom and master bath, – actually waiting for a new chair and draperies to arrive – but I finally settled on a scheme for the hall bathroom.
I’ve always tried to stay away from using other photographer’s work in my bathrooms, not being sure how that would come across. 😉 I’ll admit to previously having a John Shaw print and a Les Saucier print in our master bath, but neither of those two gentlemen are ever likely to set foot in our house, let alone the bathroom.
In general, Kathy & I are going for images that capture our sense of travel, showing a sense of the places we have visited without being “literal.” When we decorated our sunroom with prints from a St. Martin artist, we wanted it to “feel” tropical without sea shells and palm trees. The colors and fabrics express that well. For our bathroom we wanted a splash of color – ideally Caribbean-inspired. I think we got there with these three selections. We’ll then get to hunt for accessories to go with what we have and these prints. Another reason to get back on the road again soon!
For now these are just files – my print lab starts their “sample sales” soon and I’m hoping to save a little $$$ by waiting a few weeks! 🙂
Taken this evening, the night after the full moon!
As if we haven’t been traveling enough, Kathy & I decided to head for Hilton Head Island, SC to (hopefully) escape some of the election shenanigans. Here at the beach we don’t care about a whole lot other than having enough to eat and drink. Oh, and maybe taking a few pictures. 😉
We arrived Friday afternoon to crystal clear skies, awoke to same on Saturday morning but unfortunately are dealing with gale-force winds and a dense cloud layer Saturday evening. So, no “full” moon for us. Fortunately I caught the moon in it’s “pre-full” stage on Friday. And to my way of thinking, since the full moon occurred this morning at 10:30, my “almost-full” moon is “as full” as the moon coming up this evening. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it! 🙂
Kathy & I woke this morning to a temperature of 68 degrees and a noticeable drop in humidity. We had our morning coffee & tea on the screened porch and almost needed our sleeves! 🙂
Kathy & I met our friend Paul for lunch today, and on the way home Kathy said that the shadows and colors on the houses looked like fall. The air is crispy clear and it does have that fall look. But we’re not fooled! This will only last a few days before the heat and humidity return. In the meantime we’ll enjoy it!
Kirk Tuck recently used this phrase in regards to making choices between camera options, specifically about different lenses. The full quote follows:
The “science” of optical design can not have changed a tremendous amount in four or five years so you have to understand that the “new versus old” shift is largely a recalibration of compromises. Buy the new one and watch your left biceps atrophy. Buy the old one and suffer the dreaded effects of manual portage. Suffer the ruinous added weight of the original for the extra 1% of quality in the corners or choose the lightweight version and forever wonder how much optical magic they had to remove to get the lens corpulence under control.
It occurred to me, however, that the concept applies in a much broader context, especially in recent months.
Every decision we make requires some effort to balance the options, to compromise. Do I want the camera with the big sensor that is huge, heavy and requires a large suitcase to cart around, or am I better off with the compact camera with a smaller sensor, small but excellent lenses and “good enough” image quality? We want to travel – we love to fly but not not any time soon. We have spent a lot of time on cruise ships but won’t for a while. Our trip to the beach worked out really well – just like living at home but with better scenery. 😉
We love to eat our but have limited our restaurant outings. We’ve gotten even better at preparing simple but delicious meals at home – much to the delight of the bathroom scale!
Kathy and I are currently in the process of planning a road trip to the Pacific Northwest. The places we’re planning to visit are the places where we’re less likely to encounter big crowds. As crazy as it sounds, we’ll probably drive within a few miles of Yellowstone or Glacier National Parks, but have no intention of stopping. First, crowds are not our thing. We probably would be doing pretty much the same thing even without all the Coronacrisis hoopla. But second is that we don’t want to have to deal with the logistics of large crowds. Third is that when we do go to those parks we want to be able to spend several days or even a couple of weeks there. That isn’t the plan for this time.
Our recent drive to Ohio and Wisconsin taught us that we can eat, sleep, pee and get gas just about anywhere. Sometimes it requires a little compromise on location or timing, but it can get done. Ultimately, once we solve that basic equation we can go just about anywhere!
People ask us why we don’t buy an RV. For some people it’s the perfect solution. For us, we like knowing that when we get to the motel, tired after or driving or exploring all day, we don’t need to spend another hour setting up camp. I can have cocktails made within minutes after arrival! And the next morning, we grab a cup of coffee, drop the keys at the front desk and get on our way again. Neither option is right or wrong, just different ways to calibrate the compromises.
None of our choices are either/or or yes/no. We need to consider what we can do instead We have to look at the options and recalibrate our compromises. Our priorities, if you will. It can be hard, particularly for those of us who don’t care for change. But the effort is worth it, because there are still plenty of things to do once we have worked out the details.
Yes, Avon and Avon Lake are two different towns, next to each other. As you might expect, Avon Lake is on the lake (Erie) while Avon is inland a few miles. We were treated to a nice finale to our day on Friday.
It may be a dicey time to try and get out to other parts of the country, but Kathy & I are fixin’ to get back on the road again. We’ll be headed to Ohio and beyond for a few days. So I’m going to end the post-a-day I’ve been doing and concentrate on taking photos and spending time with family and friends. You may see an occasional postcard from time to time.
One thing I did do, for anyone who is interested, is post a gallery of photos from our recent trip to the beach: 2020-06 Hilton Head
Monte commented on my last post about having been inside having dinner when a nice sunset was happening. As it turned out, Friday’s sunset here was also pretty nice, but I missed it for the same reason. I’ve often told non-photographers that many of the best landscape photos are taken when people are either eating or sleeping. Of course, Kathy’s version of that saying is that a sunset is best observed through a glass. Albeit not a glass in the form of a camera lens. 😉
I had my camera all ready to go on Saturday night but it turned out to be a colorless mass of gray clouds. But I left everything out in the office to I would be ready last night. When the first hint of pink started in the sky I went inside, grabbed my gear and headed to the patio. But in the course of that 1-2 minute window the pink faded as fast as it started. I did manage to salvage a bit of the last remaining hints of color as it faded. First photo and last photo were about 12 minutes apart.
Transmission towers aren’t as nice a subject as palm trees, but they aren’t drift fences, either. 🙂
The ominous sounding Sahara Dust Cloud passed through Charlotte over the last few days, including (I guess) today. Yesterday afternoon was really hazy and smoky-looking, but it didn’t present the vibrant sunset that had been predicted. Supposedly the sunset on Friday was pretty colorful, but that might or might not have been a result of the dust. I was inside a restaurant having dinner anyway, so I can’t say. Things look pretty clear outside now, dust-wise, although it is pretty cloudy. The afternoon will show if there is any remaining dust in the air, and an air quality alert is in effect until midnight.
Happy Sunday!