Cactus Sunrise, Sea of Cortez Mexico
If the visit to San Carlos is to be judged by the people we met, the visit was a grand success. Less so from the photographic side, which may be simply my fault. I did not get an abundance of good photos, but hope to stay in touch with the people we met.
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Ever have one of those days where you did not know if you should EAT or DRINK, then realized you could do both??
Eat or Drink, Which shall I do????
This is a very nice lady I met in a small town in southern New Mexico, Carrozza. If I get to visit just half the places she has, my retirement will be a success. She had such a great positive outlook on the world while doing it, something else I’ll work on….
Pesos front side
Driving into Mexico for the first time, we read and researched what to do. We learned you should exchange some dollars for pesos prior to getting into Mexico as there were tolls booths and a few miles into Mexico you need to buy a Visa which would cost a few hundred pesos.
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Stairway to Retirement
Retirement
I started preparation for retirement from my first job out of collage. Immediately when I qualified for savings contributions to their 401-K plan I participated to the maximum the company matched, I contributed 6% before taxes and the company contributed an additional 3%.
Guaymas Soccer
Driving in Guaymas, Mexico searching for elusive photo opportunities, I came across this neighborhood soccer game. I guess they would call it football. Talk about feeling out of place…. I am carrying more in photography gear than any of these people make in a year or more, I would think. I have always had the utmost respect for real travel photographers such as Mitchell Kanashkevich. Doing a simple shot like this magnifies that respect. One does not capture the feeling of people by a quick drive-by photo, it takes time, getting to know them, being invited into their home and world…. Here is a drive-by view of eager, happy kids enjoying a Sunday afternoon game. This would be brutal in the summer heat…..
I walked about 50 feet for this sunset photo and the moon behind Mount Tetakawi. It was basically taken from our deck. We are staying in San Carlos, Mexico for a couple months. The term Tetakawi either means hill of stone as most people say “Goat Tit Mountain.” Either way, there seems to be surprisingly few photo opportunities in this sleepy little town.
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Infinity Cruise Ship
I feel as if we are WAY behind in our reservation efforts. We now have booked a cruise going and returning from Europe, but no car nor a single night’s lodging reservations. Twenty-eight places have been selected, most for a one week stay, but no reservations have been completed. Many people with this home free lifestyle pick one or two places and live there for months at a time, but we are trying to visit many places (28) for a week at a time. Scotland seems to be the least expensive area and not too surprisingly, Venice is by far the most expensive. More about this in the Budget section under the Plan tab.
There was no need to return to the same port as we left from, but that is the way it worked out. We liked the departure date which allowed for more time in Great Britain. Here is the itinerary of the return cruise, booked through http://www.repositioningcruise.com/index.cfm
ITINERARY
DAY DATE PORT ARRIVE DEPART
Mon Oct 13 London (Harwich), England 5:00pm
Tue Oct 14 At Sea
Wed Oct 15 At Sea
Thu Oct 16 Lisbon, Portugal 7:00am 4:00pm
Fri Oct 17 At Sea
Sat Oct 18 At Sea
Sun Oct 19 At Sea
Mon Oct 20 At Sea
Tue Oct 21 At Sea
Wed Oct 22 King’s Wharf, Bermuda 3:00pm
Thu Oct 23 King’s Wharf, Bermuda 4:00pm
Fri Oct 24 At Sea
Sat Oct 25 At Sea
Sun Oct 26 Nassau, Bahamas 7:00am 5:00pm
Mon Oct 27 Fort Lauderdale, FL 6:00am
Farolitos and Luminarias on Ledoux Street Taos, NM
New Mexico has a tradition of lighting Farolitos and Luminarias during the holidays. Above are brown paper bags with a bit of sand and small candle placed inside for illumination. Small bonfires are also lit. The other pastime in New Mexico, other than discussing which is better, red or green chile, is to argue if the bags are called luminarios and the small bonfires are called firelitos, or is it the other way around? I prefer to call the scene above bag-a-litos so there is no mistake about it….
I spent the month of December 2013 in Taos searching for a specific Christmas scene. An adobe wall and gate with a Christmas wreath, snow and some bag-a-litos. Not only did I not find such a gate, but there was hardly any snow in December. So the search goes on. Ledoux Street was made famous in part by the Navajo artist, R.C. Gorman.
ORIGINAL Scene
The final version of this beach photo totally changed from my original vision. The brilliant orange sunset lit up the beach in a way no photographer could pass by. The sky was bright orange as was the reflection in the wet sand. However, in working with the photograph, the contrast appeared to be tooooo great. Also, one might wonder what was making the sand so bright and simply think it was an over-saturated photo. The entire reason for me capturing this photo now seemed to be a problem, so the bright sand was cropped out below.
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Drying fish in a Shanghai ally
I am proud to say I eat just about any food. If it is on a menu, I’ll try it. As a young kid, I ate rattlesnake, squirrel, turtle steak, frog legs, kangaroo tail soup and just about any odd item found on a menu. The squirrel and frog legs I hunted, which makes me sound a bit like a hillbilly, but it was fun as a kid. I really looked forward to new foods in China. However, overall, it was disappointing. Despite us driving past miles and miles of red peppers piled high in the fields, the food was boiled and bland. Boiled broccoli, boiled cauliflower, boiled bok choy. Also, the Chinese do not differentiate between breakfast, lunch and dinner foods. In the morning you had much of the same foods on the buffet the prior night. Very few of the dishes were great. However, I did get to add to my list of unusual foods, which included:
My main question was who got the good cuts of meat if in the fine restaurants they were feeding me donkey skin and camel tendons???
Quail on a stick
Outdoor cooks
No, I did not get to eat the above fish. They were hanging in a Shanghai ally. Oddly enough, I did not see any flies in these open air markets full of hanging food.
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