MorseBlog

In May Redington came out for a week to the UK to visit with friends and mother and I. I took a day off work and we visited the Sharpenhoe Clappers in Bedfordshire. This is an area I had seen many times before when I used to carpool with Dave Hutton the VP of Sales. The route to his house took us right by them. Redington and I started out early at the Harlington train station and walked the route prescribed by an online guide parallel to the railway line. Soon we had a view to our destination. The Clappers is that heavily tree covered ridge top. I don't think anyone knows why it is called that. The fields were of wheat and the rape was in bloom. It is the nature of English countryside to appear much larger than it is. It has a way of using compact features and folds to fool me into thinking the distances are much greater. Our track would take us up to this hillside soon. Here is Redington. It still looks early in the morning for him. Soon we climb the ridge and move away from the ...

Vicki and I went explore a part of Suffolk called the Naze. It is located on a lump land on the east coast just below East Anglia. Below is more detail. The Naze means nose as this spit of land implies. There is a small village there and a good walk around the perimeter of the nature sanctuary and some farm land. Behind the Naze is Ramsey island and wilderness of estuary streams and smaller islands. It is easy to see the value as bird sanctuary. Walton on the Naze is a typical seaside holiday town with a pier and amusement park. Below are the brightly coloured sheds common in seaside towns where the owners can sit in poor weather or store their gear when on holiday. Some are quite sophisticated with a place to sleep or facilities to make a cup of tea. Here is a view down the pier. The weather was windy that day.. Here is Vicki bundled up against the windy weather. The ocean here on the North Sea is typically very churned up and brown and looks more like a lake than the sea.. Here a lon...

This summer Vicki, Redington, and I went to the coast of Turkey. We satyed near Bodrum a resort town poplular with Brits. It was in fact too popular and became a base for further exploration of the terrific archaeology in the area. View of Bodrum from our Villa at Night View of Bodrum from our Villa in the Morning We traveled north to places like Miletos, Ephesus, and Priene. This area was occupied in ancient times by a race of the indiginous people called Carians. It was also a part of the ancient Greek empires and colonies. The most famous place we visited was Ephesus famed in Greek, Roman, and Christian history. In a phenomenal condition it was impressive even with the oppressive heat and crowds. The city used to be a port but is now miles from the Agean as the horbor silted over the centuries. Hadrian's Temple A Lintel with Greek Inscription Vicki in Front of the Library of Celsus The Impressive Struture of the Library of Celsus View into the Mithriades Gate View Down the Harbo...

Last March Vicki and I decided to take a little holiday. What with the stress of having left her old job and the new beginning and fresh start of her new job it seemed the right way to start things off. We flew into the southern end of the island to the town of Vieux Fort and and stayed at Coconut Bay an all-inclusive resort of reasonable expense. These pictures were all taken on my Mamiya (Old School 2) film camera. This was a typical view from the beach. Vicki with some relaxing reading near the lazy river. This was a hill near the hotel entrance. Part of it was being quarried away. The hotel was situated in an old coconut plantation. This is the town of Vieux Fort. The island was contested many times by the French and British so while it has close ties to Britain as a Commonwealth country there are many signs of French influence. There was also a long history of piracy here. The Pitons are two distinctively shaped mountains. They form part of the flag and are featured here on the si...

This story has been told in book form available on Blurb. It has a much larger range of photos from the trip and may be purchased here ... Recently on my last trip to the US I stopped to stay with my dad and Joanne. My dad and I dug through the archives of Glenn's photos and I retrieved some old slides of his. The ones I was particularly interested in were from a vacation we took together in November of 1987, about 20 years ago. We traveled to Southern Utah in Canyonlands National Park. What Edward Abbey referred to in an essay Terra Incognita: Into the Maze (Desert Solitaire, 1968). Indeed, this was the inspiration for the trip we took. Ever since having read this essay I was captivated by the description and had to see it for myself. Being as such I will literate our journey's description with Abbey's words. Interestingly his book was published a further twenty years earlier than our visit. ( The photos are ones that Glenn and I took with his Olympus OM2 camera. He...