Where did he go?

     Things have been a little quiet on the blog front lately, but for very good reasons. In late September I went back to America for two weeks, for both a visit home and to attend my mother's art opening. I have a strong mischevious streak, and didn't actually tell my parents I was coming home. Luckily their shock was quickly overcome with joy at seeing their wayward first-born show up on the doorstep. I hadn't been back since I left for Japan in March of last year, so it had been a while since we had seen each other in a non-skype capacity.

     The opening itself was amazing, with beautiful art in every corner and plenty of people milling about singing my mom's praises. She had turned out some fantastic work in the past year and a half, and it was a pleasure to experience all these new paintings first hand.

     I also had the chance to catch up with my Aunt, who flew in from Hawaii, and my cousin from Seattle that I hadn't seen in ages. We had a bit of a mini family reunion, which was very nice. Topping all that off with plenty of non-Japanese food and I had a great two weeks.

     Some photos will follow, but I am still a bit backed up processing Korea photos, and I have some from a visit to Ishikawa as well as festival photos from Maebashi to deal with too. I have been pretty busy lately, which gives plenty of blog material, but not much time to actually write everything up!

Taos

Last winter the Denver Art Museum hosted a special exhibit of Ernest L Blumenschein's paintings. Blumenschein was best known for his life in Taos, and for his founding of the Taos Society of Artists. Much of his work drew on his love of the Southwest, and after seeing the exhibition I was very eager to go see Taos for myself.



Arriving in Taos I was struck by how the reality of the town and my expectations clashed. I was expecting a much larger and more vertical town than I got, perhaps a place about the size of Durango. Actually Taos is fairly small, though for it's size it is a pretty spralling town. Very few of the buildings rise above a story, and almost all of them, even McDonalds, are built in Southwestern Adobe style.



A major item on our agenda for Taos was to get some Mexican food, and we found the perfect place for it, a delightful open patio restaurant a few blocks away from the main plaza. The food was amazing, and the "Tequila Wine" Margarita's were a delicious compliment to the meal.



In the southern side of town there is the San Francisco De Asis Church, and we felt that we should check it out, though by the time we arrived it had closed for the night, even though the sun had not yet set.



Artists say that the light in Taos is different, and I must agree. There was much more color in the light than I notice in Denver. While I don't know what the cause of the percevied difference is, I do know that I went crazy taking photographs of the sunset that evening.



For me breakfast the next morning was a plate of heuvos rancheros with a firey New Mexico red chili. From that excellent beginning we went to Kit Carson's house. The exterior was interesting, but the gift shop inside kind of turned us off, so we walked form there to the Blumenschein House instead. This was one of the best museum's of it's sort I've been to. The house itself was very cool in its design, and when I had finished I felt that I had learned something. The whole family were artist's, and the house had displays of both Blumenschein's work, and his Wife's and Daughter's paintings and illustrations as well.



Despite the massive breakfast I ate, when we sat down to lunch I suddenly found myself hungry again, and tucked into a plate of Tacos that were par for the course. That is to say they were utterly fantastic. Then it was time for the long drive back in to Denver.

The Rio Grande

As we approached Taos we came upon the Rio Grande Gorge, and the large steel bridge over it. Ironically, we initially stopped in the area because there was a rest stop, and it was only after we parked that I noticed the canyon right next door.



The source of the Rio Grande is in Colorado, and it flows from there south through New Mexico eventually forming part of the natural border between Texas and Mexico. For much of the river's path through Colorado and New Mexico it follows the Rio Grande rift, and area where the North American plate has stretched and thinned.



Indeed, the dark rocks of the Rio Grande Gorge are volcanic flows that resulted from the rift. Luckily for those of us living in the Southwest now, mysteriously the rifting stopped, and the area is fairly geologically quite now. For a view at what Taos and the area would be like if the area was still pulling apart, look at other rift zones like Iceland or Africa's Great Rift Valley.



While on the bridge I was thinking less of geology and more of just how far down the river was. I timed the drop and it was 17 seconds to the river below, a very long fall indeed.



I actually encountered a few photographic issues while shooting the gorge. The first was simply that I didn't a wide enough lens to capture both the shadow of the bridge and the full length of the view, so I shot another vertical panorama, such as you see below. Another issue that I didn't notice until I got home was that every single one of the photos I took was horribly overexposed, unusable. Thankfully, some post processing in Lightroom saved the day.

Chama, New Mexico

After an overnight in Durango we headed towards Taos, and Liz's first trip to New Mexico. En route I actually took a wrong turn and ended up in Chama. Chama is one end of the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad. Both the Cumbres and Toltec and the Silverton and Durango narrow gauge railroads are leftovers of the Denver and Rio Grande Western spur line that went from Antonito all the way to Silverton and it's famous mines.



While I had been unimpressed at the level of access within Mesa Verde, I was very impressed with the Chama yard. They had a variety of volunteers in the area restoring train cars, organizing tools and whatever else needed doing, and any of whom was happy to answer questions. The only area that was off limits was the engine house, where they were performing repairs. Other than that the whole yard was open. Imagine, an organization that trusts that people won't break things, hurt themselves or otherwise won't make a fuss.



I had a fantastic time wandering about the yard, poking my head into rail cars and just generally have a good time. My poor sister soon was soon wondering if I had been kidnapped by the trains, but I was just exploring down a side spur.



Pretty soon that was it for Chama, and we were back on the road towards Taos. While it was a wrong turn, I think that all together it was a right turn, even if it cost us over an hour of me poking about the trains!

NoCal

Most of the time we spent in California was spent at my Uncle's place in Vacaville, and my Grandfathers in Hopland. Hopland was famous for it's beer brewing and especially the aromatic Hops that gave the town its name. Beer has (with the exception of the Mendocino Brewing Company) moved on and now the dry hills are covered in vineyards.



We spend most of our time in the area on my Grandfathers property, driving tractors and shooting the lever action .22 at the copious beer cans my uncles provide.



Though there is a fair amount of exploring to do as well, there are a pair of creeks and a network of roads and deer trails in the area, so there are plenty of nooks and crannies to check out. On one of our walks down the road my Mom, Sister and I saw three skunks one right after the other. I had never seen a living skunk before, so I was pretty excited, even chasing after one of them. I didn't get too close though, so I managed to avoid being sprayed.



While not a skunk, my Grandfather's cat Elvira is a tad wild. She won't often come up close to humans, but I managed to persuade her to accept my pets.



While in Vacaville, my dad decided to break out the croquet set and teach The Youngest Cousin (TM) how to play. I avoided the game myself, as open toed sandals + beer + heavy balls + mallets = pain and suffering.



I have been trying to work on my portrait photography lately, and this is one of the results of that effort, I think it came out looking pretty good.

It has been a very busy summer for me, and my remaining weeks in the United States will prove even busier, with hikes and climbs and a road trip to the Four Corners!

The City by the Bay

Father's Day found me in California, visiting my Grandfather. I've been to West Coast a great many times, but rarely have the opportunity to do 'touristy' sorts of things. Luckily, this time we managed to squeeze in a visit to San Francisco.



The whole family was excited to visit China Town and get Dim Sum. While we have excellent Dim Sum available in Denver, we all knew that it would be even better in the heart of China Town. Not only was the Dim Sum on offer amazingly delicious, it was cheaper than it had any right to be.



After brunch, we walked the waterfront from one side of the city to the other. While San Francisco may be a city of fog and dim light, the day was actually quite sunny and warm. The Golden Gate never showed its face, but the rest of the bay area was covered in sun.









While Liz and Mom took some time to have a coffee, Dad and I walked out to the end of the community pier, where I took the opportunity to shoot a few Panoramic shots of the city. I've really come to enjoy the looks of the panoramas, even though it does add to my post-processing workload.

My feet hurt

I had a few more things on my "must see" list, and they included the two great art Museums of New York City, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met). However, the first stop on my hike uptown was St. Patrick's Cathedral.



I've always loved Gothic cathedrals, so I was very eager to see one of the more famous American examples. Being that it was Sunday morning, mass was already in full swing when I arrived. I took a few discreet photos, listened to a reading, and then slipped away from the tourist area they had set up at the rear of the church.



I have never been a fan of Modern Art. I often find it more interesting than beautiful, and I personally look for beauty in art. However, the MoMA is home to Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night, which may well be one of the most famous paintings in the world. This alone was enough to convince me to make the trip.



Sadly, when I arrived I found that Starry Night was on loan to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam! I still went in, and was glad that I did. While I may never really like modern art, I certainly gained an appreciation for the skill of the artists represented there. One exhibit that I did enjoy was devoted to Russian artists around the Revolution, and how they got caught up in the heady rush of early communism and how they adopted their "bourgeois" art to a more "people" oriented outlet for their creativity. One oil painter began designing furniture, and some worked on propaganda for the new regime.



From there I hiked up to the Met, and was glad that I did. If there is any collection that could rival the Louvre it lives here, off of Central Park. The first area I went to was the extensive Egyptian collection, which is perhaps the finest in the world and certainly the best in North America. Like many people, I've always found the culture of ancient Egypt absolutely fascinating, and the vast numbers of artifacts, statues and inscriptions on display kept entranced.



You can't have an art museum without art, and so from the Egyptian area I made my way to the opposite wing of the Met for a look at their European collection. They have an amazing selection of Impressionists, including some Van Gogh's to take away the sting of the missing Starry Night.



I really enjoyed each of these paintings by Monet, especially the winter chill that you can feel looking at the one on the left.



I also really liked these painting for their sheer size and romanticism.



The Met also had a large collection of Asian art, including a bunch of Japanese wood block prints and a few huge examples from China. I've obviously seen a lot of Japanese art in my time, but the styles of the artifacts and statues from China were all pretty new to me.



I filtered out of the Met shortly before closing time, after having walked from the Port Authority bus terminal on 42nd street to the Met on 83rd street. Phew. However, my day was over, but the night was just beginning, so I made my way to Times Square to meet up with my hosts for a night on the town!

USS Intrepid

On the opposite side of Manhattan is the USS Intrepid Air and Space Museum. By this point in the day, my feet were in no small amount of pain, but I figured for a chance to see an authentic WW II era aircraft carrier, I could limp a bit.



I have a penchant for visiting museum ships, and have seen battleships, submarines, cruisers and more, but there are very few preserved aircraft carriers, making a stop at the Intrepid a must while I was in the neighborhood. She was commissioned as an Essex class fleet carrier in World War II, and saw action throughout the Pacific Theater. She also saw service in the Korean War, and in Vietnam. While she launched plenty of sorties against Hanoi, the Intrepid was by that time lagging behind in size and creature comforts compared to her larger newer sisters like the Forrestal Class super-carriers that had been built in the late 50's, and were designed to launch jets, and not piston engined fighters and bombers.



No matter how well as ship has fought, there comes a time when there is nothing to be gained by keeping her around, and the Intrepid's fate was the scrapyard, until a local millionaire decided to make a museum out of her, and park her on the Hudson River.



Not only do visitors get a chance to explore a ship that is steeped in modern history, but they also get to see a great many fantastic examples of Aviation history. I go to see just how small and cramped a Concorde really is (though the high speed flight would make it a lot more tolerable), and glimpse the A-12, the CIA built predecessor to the famous SR-71 Blackbird. As well, there were jets and helicopters from all over the world displayed around the flight deck.



Through no fault of my own, I had actually ended up in New York during Fleet Week, when navy ships park in berths along the Hudson to allow the sailors a weekend of liberty in New York, and to allow New Yorkers and tourists a glimpse of a real working ship of war. Sadly I was far too footsore, and it was far too late in the day, for me to tour the rest of the ships.



All in all I had had a long day, visiting Ellis Island, the Brooklyn Bridge, Ground Zero AND the Intrepid all in one day, I felt the miles, so I was plenty glad to grab a bus from the Port Authority and head home, to a giant meatball sub and a soft bed, ready to head out the next day for some more epic walking around The City.

Brooklyn Bridge