timistravels

Dec. 20, 2014

What a wonderful day to begin exploration of Madrid. First stop, The Reina Sofía National Art Centre. We came here specifically to see som Picasso’s and Dail’s paintings. There is much work from the Surrealism period and covers artwork from 1930’s through 1980’s. As I expected some of it was just bizarre to me personally. It was as if all these artist friends tried to out wired each other for a certain time period.

Onto our next stop the Prado Museum which was just blocks from Sofia.
However unlike Sofia this museum is full of European art dating back to the 12th century, stunning oil paintings lined the walls. We viewed much work by Francisco de Goya, Diego Velázquez, El Greco, Titian, Peter Paul Rubens and Hieronymus Bosch are some of the highlights of the collection. No photos are allowed to be taken inside the Prado!

Two pieces that stood out to me were: Las Meninas, as We have statues of it given to us as a gift years ago. To see painting was stunning. We are NOT allowed to take photos so theses both came off the website of the museum.

Second stand out was The Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosch. To me it’s a painting before its time. It was painted sometime between 1490 and 1510. It is a 3 panel painting done with the 2 side ones being shutters. The left shutter is Adam and Eve, the middle has a lot of nudity, animals, fruits, etc and the right shutter then displays hell or what happens after adultery etc. they say it shows what happens with life’s temptations. The reason it stood out to me was because it seems ahead of its time. It is more Salvador Dali like than something done in 1490-1510!

it was a beautiful day for viewing the needle

there are short trails around the park but NO hiking trails

sunshiny day

Each time we visit Maui we are in awe of the stunning, lush valleys that you can find on the island.  One of our favorites is the one that houses the Iao Needle.  It is easy to get to from any where on the island and only costs $5 / per vehicle to enter the park.  One of the bonuses of going to the needle si that you get to drive through historic Wailuku, one of my favorite communities on Maui.  It is a lush region with a lot of the island’s history.  The Iao Needle is 1,2oo feet tall and is a lush green rock outcropping that rises above a local river to an elevation of 2250 feet.

this is looking back towards Wailuku and the ocean. You can see how far up the valley we were

Kuka’emoku as it is known in Hawaiian is an “erosional remnant.  It is at the end of a ridge comprised of denser dike stone.  The softer rock around the dike stone was eroded by steams and waterfall” reads one of the informational signs at the site.    

This area is beautiful and full of history in this area.  In 1790 there was the Battle of Kepaniwai.  The needle was a lookout point for King Kamehameha as he beat the Maui army; changing the course of history on Maui.

Last time we were here, the needle was in a fog/cloud as it gets a lot of weather changes in this area, but this visit was perfect, it helped that we went early.

July 17-20, 2014

we flew in from Anchorage about a 30 minute flight on RAVN Air

local airport

Homer, Alaska is one of the places in Alaska that gets the title of “end of the road” as it is the end of Alaska Highway 1. It’s about a 5 hour, 225 mile drive south of Anchorage so driving is an option as well as a quick 30 minute flight.   During the summer is a very popular destination for those visiting Alaska from outside, but we saw just as many, if not more, visitors that were from Alaska. Many people were visiting from as far north as Fairbanks, the Mat Su and Anchorage. People head to Homer for a number of reasons but fishing is the biggest!

This is a view of the 4.5 mile spit from the air. As you can it feeds right into the bay.

the change in water color is due to the fact that much of the water comes from the glaciers across the bay and glacial water is full of silt which leaves the water greyish in color and ‘thicker’ looking!

Homer is known for the surf and individuals travel here so enjoy the waves.

The Spit is where a lot of the ‘tourist’ things occur. This Spit is a 4.5 mile strip of gravel, rock and sand that stretched out into the ocean. The spit was developed by glaciers in the past and most likely is the moraine from that glacier. Since it is surrounded by water on both sides, it is reshaped often. Historically there was a community on the spit from 1896 to 1902 but it was deserted after that. When a road connected Homer to Anchorage in the 1950’s the town grew quickly up into the hills surrounding the water.

probably the most known establishment on the spit, though it’s menu has shrunk over the years.

view out of my hotel room at Land’s End Hotel; view rooms are worth it.

arts and gardening combined.

11:30 at night, not bad!

as we were flying out I captured this view of the bay with the Grewingk Glacier flowing into Katcemak Bay

Across from the spit is Kachemak (Catch-a-mack) you can view many glaciers flowing from the Harding Ice Field, named after President Harding. 30 glaciers flow out of this ice field which is about 3oo square miles. The 3 that can be seen from Homer are Grewingk, Portlock and Dixon Glaciers.

creativity on the spit

these floats pouring off a businesses porch in Old Town

Homer is an artistic, farming community. There were fresh, local vegetables on every menu in town and each store highlighted local artists. This farming in this area has grown significantly in the past few years. Homer has aspired to be known as THE ART community in Alaska. Many shops carry local art, but the fun place to visit is the Farmer’s Market on Wed and Sat mornings. You can buy not only fresh veggies but a lot of art work.

If you have a change be sure to take the ferry and visit Seldovia while in Homer. It is a quaint town that depicts off the road communities here in Alaska. The Island and Ocean Visitor Center is also a nice stop. It offers a great overview of wildlife in the area and showcases history of the region. s://timistravels.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=3478&action=edit&message=6&postpost=v2

yeppers, Moose running down the road, captured on the iphone of colleague J.Reeves

The thing that was most challenging for me was to view the 100’s and I am not exaggerating when I was 100’s of RV’s that were parked in the RV parks. When a community is on the road system this is an outcome one might expect. It was also odd to see tents set up on the spit as there is NOT one tree on the spit so it is wide open camping, I suppose I prefer camping in the woods !

this fellow sat outside our meeting room for an hour on Sunday morning.

255 miles South of Anchorage