Hawaii - Diamond Head and First Sunset!

We left Los Angeles at 10 AM this morning and headed out over the Pacific to Hawaii!  Our first trip here.  Liz and Amy and Sarah are with us, and Gus will be here in a week.  We haven't had a grand family vacation since 2006 when we went to Nice and Barcelona together when Liz was on tour.  It has been non-stop since we got here, both day and night, for our first day so I won't be writing much except to say that Liz and Sarah's room looks out over Diamond Head.  Our room looks out over the beach.  We went to The Moana Surfrider Hotel in downtown Waikiki for drinks at sunset and then dinner.  So here is a photograph of our first Hawaiian sunset!

One Hundred Years of Marriage

This is Kathy and I with our friends Ken and Ronnie.  They lived across the street from us back in the early 1970's.  He and I were both sailors and we became friends as a couple.  They were transferred first to North Carolina, and then to Milan, Italy, where we visited them.  They are now in Charleston, South Carolina.  But here is the amazing thing - we were married on September 13, and they were married on September 15, in the same year!  And this year is the 50th anniversary for the both of us!  We had a dinner tonight in Venice, California, and our children and their children all came.  What makes my head spin is the thought this photograph of the four of us represents one hundred years of marriage!  Astounding! 

Cloudscapes

Another trip from coast to coast.  We are now in Los Angeles after a nice flight on a day with great weather.  The clouds were quite different all the way across the country.  I took a number of photographs, but the series of cloudscapes seemed to be the most interesting of all the photographs.  The first picture is near the New York metropolitan area.  The other two photographs were taken about four or five hours later over Arizona, and over Southern California.

The Beginning of the End

I showed you the giant excavator parked at the abandoned office buildings located in "Village Square."  I have always photographed the scene from the rear of the buildings, rather than from the Village Square side.  So I noticed that the excavator had moved and I went looking for it, and I found it on the front side of the plaza, and it had been at work for a few days, apparently.  So I had to hold my camera over my head in order to shoot over the temporary chain link fence they have installed to keep people out of the construction site.

Then I went to the top of the parking garage, and I got a much better photograph of the whole scene, which was fun.  Here's the killer - I realized that when we get back from our trip in two weeks, all of this will be gone - I will miss the best part - the destruction of my favorite side of the complex.  At least I got this today.

Accidental

I didn't discover this image, even thought I took it.  I am shameless when it comes to stealing someone else's idea...   :-)   Kathy and I did a selfie video to wish Vince and Jo Anne a happy anniversary.  When you do that with an iPhone, you switch to the lens to the screen side of the camera so you can see yourself in the video.  When we were done, Kathy put her phone down on the dining room table, and then said "Look at this view looking straight up at the chandelier!"  So I got my toy camera and took the photo.  Confession is good for the soul...   :-)

In The Garden

It is interesting how few times I actually walk over to the side garden to see how it is coming.  But when I am desperate for a blog post one of the first places I go it to the garden.  I was not disappointed today, because I found this almost perfect blossom of a Dahlia!  It is unusual to see an almost perfect blossom - there is always something not quite right - perhaps a bug has chewed part of a leaf or two, or perhaps the center of the blossom has started to deteriorate.  But not today, thankfully!  The secret of the beauty of this photograph is the soft lighting - this picture was taken about an hour after sunset.  Please click on this to see it in spectacular detail.

The Old Gate

When I was photographing the lovely garden on the street the other day, I happened to notice this old gate behind me, at an entrance to a park in the center of Roslyn.  I liked that it was old wood that has been there for a long time, based on the weathered post.  I also loved the old fashioned rusted hinge that was visible as well.