Category: Pictures

The Start of a Most Excellent Adventure.

We decided to try exploring the West coast for a number of reasons. The most pressing being to see how the trees I planted while working for the city of Salinas were doing. Well, not really, but it’s been a while and, quite frankly, we wanted to see somewhere we haven’t been recently.

We started off by flying into San Jose, which is a smaller airport than SFO, but has the advantage of being much easier to get away from. We booked a couple of nights in Antioch – near the end of the BART yellow line with plans of exploring the city. (FYI we stayed at America’s Best Value Inns there which is cheap, clean, and decent.  Hazel’s drive in, just down the road, is a fantastic little restaurant if you’re in the area (bring cash – they don’t take credit cards).) If you do this, it turns out there’s no parking to speak of at the Antioch station. Drive to Pittsburg Bay Center and park there. (You also avoid a transfer).

A street in Chinatown.

We explored Chinatown and had excellent dim sum at the Imperial Inn before walking to Telegraph Hill (the Coit Tower then pier 51).  The trick to finding good dim sum is to look at the clientele. If they’re mostly Chinese, you’ve found the right place. We picked up salted plums and various Chinese candies that aren’t easy to find in Atlanta. If you walk a few streets West of the tourist area, you can find the Chinese grocery shops. There English is a scarce commodity, but the vegetables and fruits are authentic.  There’s also a tension between the mainland and Taiwanese Chinese. Several of the buildings pointedly had either the PRC or Taiwan flag displayed.

 

Unfortunately the heat followed us, it being 85-90F (30-32) instead of the more normal 60F (16). So we decided the best thing to do the next day (with inland forecasts of 35-38 (100-108) was to take the ferry.  We started at the SFO ferry terminal (near the Embarcadero BART stop) and took the ferry to Sausalito.

 

 

 

The natives posed for a practice shot with my mirror lens. It’s OK, but the resolution isn’t up to my normal standards.

The ferry ride costs about $6.50 each way (use a clipper card, and keep track of your balance). It’s the cheapest way. There’s a bike over the bridge and return on the ferry route that looks fun, but you have to be prepared for it. (We weren’t.) Sausalito is a bit of a tourist trap, so we walked around and admired the yachts. Most of the yachts weren’t being used, and some could be had quite cheaply – if you don’t count the work you’ll need to put in to make her seaworthy.

Sailing by the Golden Gate

The yachts are entrancing, but I’d need a lot of practice to move up from a sailing canoe to one of these.

More sailing.
The skyline, including Alcatraz

For what it’s worth, I’m selling photos at Shutterstock and Alamy.

Aarhus

From Amelia:
More field research. Aarhus is hosting a summer school in crystallography and I tagged along as an ex-crystallographer. It was refreshing, especially compared to my dear university. GSU is in the first circle of hell for academics. (probably even lower than that -R).

A scene in volume 3 of our regency spies will occur in this city.

Aarhus itself is a fairly modern city, with nominally friendly Danes. Most of them speak English because my Danish is non-extant. Danish itself is interesting, because the roots or the words are clearly evident when written, and almost impossible to hear when the Danes speak. A large part of English comes from old Norse, with the word endings, conjugations, and declensions stripped away.


This shows a section through the old town. A half-timbered building and a bicyclist.
Beware of bicyclists; they will run you down and they ride in dense packs, big dense packs, big dense fast packs. Most of the time, at least, they follow the traffic rules.

One difference between Danish and English buildings is the use of pastel colours.

Right now they’re having a big music and beer beer, festival. Danish popular music is an acquired taste. You haven’t lived until you’ve heard “smoke gets in your eyes” in Danish. The (white) singer had Louis Armstrong’s gravelly voice down pat. We left when he started in on “It’s a beautiful world.” Danish rap is best left to the imagination.

The featured image shows the aftermath of an M32 sailing race in the harbour. The water on this part of the Baltic is flat. I suspect that’s not always the case, but right now I could use a sail canoe on it without problems.

She’s sent me a few more:
This shows Aarhus in 1850 – not too long after the period of the book we’re writing. The church is still there, but apparently it’s all built up since then.

Another from that boat race. Oh, and she likes the beer.

97% Totality.

The top of G-deck turned out to be a good decision. There were a few other people there, but nothing like the crowds in Woodruff park (where I understand fights broke out over viewing equipment.)

I used a regular photographic tripod, which is decidedly sup-optimal for astronomy, but good enough for this purpose.

You can see how the shadow appears to roll over the sun in the sequence below.

Ready for the eclipse.

I ordered a solar filter for my long lense. It looks something like a very fragile and expensive piece of tinfoil, but works.

Even with that filter, getting the exposure correct can be a bugger. I ended up in manual mode 1/4000 s f29 iso2000.  The featured image shows the results, and, yes, those dots in the middle of the sun are sunspots. So we’re ready to go.  I’ll probably play around a bit with the film speed to reduce noise, but this is decent enough to work.  I’ll use a tripod tomorrow and be at the top of G-deck.

 

If you don’t adjust the exposure, the sun is completely washed out. Not at all what you want.

 

Dunster Loop #Exmoor #UKwalks

I’ve been queuing up a series of walks – mostly about 10 km (6 miles for us colonials), and this is the second.

This started out as a “pub walk” from the house we hired in Wootton Courtenay – and we did get to one, about seven miles in. After several missed turns and places where the map … deviated from the trails on the ground.

This shows our GPS trace overlaid on the most current Ordinance Survey map. These differences made it a bit interesting.

I covered the first part of the hike on an earlier post where we hunted a local pub. So you can read that post for details. We take this walk up at the village of Timberscombe.

Saint Petrock’s church in Timberscombe

We headed uphill on the wrong road, but eventually found our way to where we could see Dunster in the distance.

Dunster’s there, somewhere.

If you get to this carved bird (the buzzard), you’ve gone too far.

Some of the local landmarks have a decidedly sci-fi name. Is Gallox bridge in Gallifrey?

Gallox Bridge
Inside the Stag.

We stopped in the Stag – which is an excellent pub – and let two sweaty, dirty, and tired hikers enjoy their pints inside. It had a guitar in the corner so if you were a better player than I am, you could entertain the crowds (or if you were a better runner you might escape the disapprobriation.)

 

 

The path heads uphill, of course, from the town. It winds its way past St. Leonard’s well (Shades of Blackadder) along a ridge.

St Leonard’s well. Locked, but making the footpath mucky for the last thousand years.

There is an excellent set of views of Minehead from the exposed ridge. The sun is shining on Butlin’s holiday camp.

Minehead.
Minehead in the distance

We also wanted to look for this weird feature – seen on google maps.

Unfortunately, it’s nothing special.

Dunkery Beacon #UKwalks

I’ve been queuing up a series of walks – mostly about 10 km (6 miles for us colonials), and this is the first.

Dunkery Beacon is the tallest peak in Exmoor. We’d hired a house in Wootton Courtenay which is at the base of the peak, but if you’re driving there are other places to start from.  I would probably park at Webber’s post where there is a large parking lot, but no post.

We managed to arrive just after a heat wave; 32-35 is no fun without aircon. It was typical English summer weather; i.e.raining and cold.

The trail proper starts in a lovely grove of trees and then ascends a moderate slope.

Of course we started in the sun, but that was not to last.

Wootton Courtenay is there, somewhere beneath the clouds

We passed the ponies several times – this shot being on the way up.


These preferred Bracken to handouts, which was a relief.

The top is marked by a cairn. We used it to shelter from the wind while eating lunch.

This shows the path up the hill.

We followed a steep descent part way down the hill and made our way through delightfully pretty woods (Rowan and Holly so we were doubly safe from the foul spirits of the undead) to Webber’s post, and back to our house. If I started from Webber’s post I’d go across the hill and up the way we did rather than the other way around.

Of course, then the weather cleared.

The view from the Timberscoombe trail.

Spring Daffodils

Daff’s

It’s dull, drizzly, and grey. Here are the first of this year’s spring flowers to brighten things up.

dsc_0174 dsc_0176 dsc_0181

The trick, of course, is to get down where the flower is and shove the lens as close as maybe to it. These are on an eastern exposure of our house and in flower much earlier than most.