My Ongoing Walking and Running Training Activity: Going for the Steps, Slowly

Today I exercised out in the back yard [soft running] and on the living room floor rug rock-running.  The other day I watched a YouTube video extolling walking for fitness' sake.  It touted doing up to 10,000 steps per day.  I have been monitoring my Fitbit and Angel Sense watches, and watched some live major league baseball innings while simultaneously rocking my feet forwards and backwards, in he process adding steps on my wrist device.  Yesterday I amassed 7,500 steps while, with today's sunset, I went over 8 thousand. Well, let's see how tomorrow goes.Becoming fitter with walking and running may, at my age and with this gloomy medical condition, have slowed down a lot.  but it won't be until Saturday morning, May 23rd, when I test my training progress during Gainesville's next Depot Park 5K.Speed doesn't matter here, only distance covered. Just call me the "slow AF geezer"...Funny, a little while ago I searched on my phone's Facebook for photos taken at last Saturdays'West End Community Parkrun 5K west of Gainesvilleon Newberry Road, but the pictures hadn't been processed.  Well, I'll check it out again tomorrow or Wednesday...

About YEeyerday and This Morning, Parkrun, and Training

 Yesterday for me at Gainesville's Depot Parkrun 5K,  didn't feel empowered enough to go beyond one lap...I even cut it short enough to circle the course once.yet i regard it all as a good walking exercise training session...my first of two today.  The second involved me walking with Melissa around our home block, just before twilight...the day's temperature had risen to 97 before dropping some into the upper eighties. While returning, i would break into a slow'Martinus Evans' jog spanning a couple of homes down our residential block...sometimes a little more.  Today, if the weather and my body [and mind]  decide to cooperate, I'll try mixing a little more running into the training session. This morning I arose early,but it took me a good while to do it completely...I'll brew some coffee and finish writing this article before running in place in the living room. In yesterday's photo from the Parkrun, as I was crossing the e first bridge I came away looking like a semi-zombie, trying to avoid falling forward...but I did get around to saying good morning to the nice lady taking the pics for the Depot Parkun to put on Facebook, posted last night. Today is Sunday, and Melissa and I plan to stay around the house with our beautiful, funny dog Peewee.  Life is precious and good...may you enjoy it and prosper...

On this Sunday in my Life

 

This morning I skipped on rising hours before sunrise. Now it' early evening and all they want to talk about are drought-induced fires in the northern extreme of Gainesville.  Melissa and I will need to keep posted on events as they try to control the fires and keep them from threatening my home area.  If there are evacuation orders, then we will need to scramble to find suitable accommodations for ourselves and our dog Daisy.  Other than that, I have been a bit on the lazy side today, skimping on exercise.  My intention is to run in place for a little bit before finally calling it a day.  Earlier I was watching major league baseball games live on TV, and there's still one left between Atlanta and Philadelphia...the former with an excellent season win/loss record so far and the latter on an extended losing streak.  I often find it difficult to orient myself about the instant game graphics display, keeping up with who's at bat and where they are in the inning.  Maybe tonight it'll go better...I really don't care who wins. Having just eaten what I regard as the equivalent of my dinner, I'm done with the food until tomorrow morning. I think I'll brew a pot of flavored decaf coffee and enjoy the evening.  I wish that for you as well.  Well, if the Baseball Channel doesn't visually show tonight's Braves/Phillies, then Fox should do so on my "regular" YouTube TV, giving me a chance at a little intellectual brain activity.  As for you, have a great night...

Walked Three Difficult Depot Parkrun Laps This Morning

 This morning was another installment of the DepotParkrun 5K odyssey that Melissa and I have been undergoing here in Gainesville in recent weeks.  Getting through the entire event was something I knew would be quite challenging.  I wanted to complete the four laps required to get my wristband scanned and my finishing time read and posted online.  Only thing is that in order to accomplish this, I needed to complete the four prescribed laps, either through walking or running.  In previous recent Parkruns, a completed event has been very elusive for me because I have tended to tire out too quickly to finish.  Today I started out all right, but felt crowded out by other, more pushy contestants...they wouldn't leave me alone!  And then some stern-expressioned dude comes up right behind me and Melissa and introduces himself as "my"tail walker! I think his idea was that I stood out as an impaired, incompetent walker, whom he was babysitting...that didn't hit it with me!  I managed to struggle through three laps (2.3 miles), and although I felt it (barely) possible for me to walk that last one, I let it ride after three laps and got into the car.  Maybe I'll swing the whole course next week, after today's particularly annoying Parkrun. I wondered if the others creeping on past me would ever let me go in peace, instead of inflicting themselves and their children on my presence and threatening to knock me down in the process. It seemed that although I deliberately held back on my walk today, I was constantly being approached and passed throughout the course...very irritating, and scary because I dared never to veer at all in any direction! I did get some exercise from the Parkrun experience...maybe things will turn out well next week.  In all, I did the three walking laps in exactly one hour, and Melissa helped me a lot by providing some electrolyte hydration after each completed lap.  My intention is to enjoy the outdoors for a little while this afternoon, inserting some backyard walking and/or light jogging into the mix, which I plan to keep short for the unseasonably hot weather.  Later on I'll check my Facebook to see if one of the Parkrun folks got a pic of me in that race...my suspicion is that they're deliberately shunning me. I'm still getting the chemo treatment for my brain cancer that was identified last October...let's see how the Lord gets me through it all...He's in complete control...  

Follow-Up on Sufjan stevens' 2010 Song Impossible Soul,Parkrun Walking Photo

 

In late 2010 Sufjan Stevens, already established and critically acclaimed in the alternative/indie music genre, came out with his next album The Age of Adz.  I didn't like it, although Stevens seemed to pull out all the stops within his production studio.  Now, more than 15 years later, I have proclaimed as 'song of the month" for March, 2026 the final track, titled Impossible Soul and running at 25 minutes 36 seconds. it grew on me over the years, and is now my Amazon Prime Music current favorite song.  Well, How Soon Is Now by the Smiths is my real favorite, and a masterpiece for its lyrics by Morrissey.  Above is a dubious photo of me walking across the Depot Parkrun bridge on my first and final lap there yesterday morning...

Another Jigsaw Puzzle...and Melissa Takes Her Sister to the Beach

 

Recently Melissa bought me a new jigsaw puzzle, a humorous 1000-piece painting of Yellowstone National Park with its Old Faithful geyser...I just completed it about an hour ago.  Meanwhile, she has taken her sister Krista for an overnight stay at Ormond Beach...that's them out on the balcony.  I'm glad Krista got this chance to get out on an excursion with Melissa...she has endured quite an ordeal with medical issues in the past two months and we are all praying for her recovery and a happy, healthy life.  So here I am at home, being babysat by my dog Daisy.  I hope that things are going well for you as well...

Back to Doing Jigsaw Puzzles

 

I've been working on a couple of jigsaw puzzles I received as Christmas gifts from my family, having just completed them.  They're quite different, one being a trio of cute kittens looking outward from a basket of knitting and yarn, the other being a library of popular VHS and DVD movies from the recent span of decades.  The strategy for putting them together was also quite different...that's one thing I like about doing these puzzles: each one requires a different approach.  Now I guess it's time to get out another one...I think I have one left over from a few months ago that I never got around to starting...

About Marginalization

The other day I wrote a long blog article about feeling marginalized...and refrained from posting it.  After reading it a couple of times, I had felt it had a kind of whiny sound to it...as if I were bemoaning being a kind of victim.  Well, I guess that factors into it all a little, but truth be told I don't particularly enjoy being the center of attention with the spotlight trained on me...better to be a little off to the side of the picture...while still being in it.  And if that inclination of mine communicates to others that marginalization is their best option in dealing with me then I suppose I bear some responsibility in that.  But in situations where no one knows me, or over long periods of time in the same place, there should be a least some kind of acknowledgement of my existence if not participation.  Let me give a couple of personal examples regarding photographs.  If you've read this blog over its existence, you'll know that I'm into distance running...going back to 2007 when I resurrected this activity after a hiatus of 31 years. I've engaged in many races over that period, my finishing times unspectacular-but-fulfilling experiences.  Since we now live in the Internet age, almost all of the races I've run in have had websites with posted results...and some of them show pictures taken during the race of the different runners.  In all the years I've engaged in these races, I have seen myself in only two pictures, both as an unrecognizable figure among many others, one with me partially hidden and the other showing my back from a distance.  Yet over and over again, while running different races, I see folks who I know are volunteers or officials standing there snapping photo after photo of runners passing by, including of me...yet my picture is consistently rejected when it comes to posting it with the others online.  Now go back much further in time, to the six-year period when I attended my junior/senior high school.  Each year they came out with a yearbook, featuring the perfunctory individual studio shots for each class year, arranged in alphabetical order.  But sprinkled throughout each yearbook's pages are also assorted cameo shots of different students.  You'd think that the law of averages alone would dictate that I'd be in at least a handful of them, considering the many photos displayed over a six-year span.  But of course, you probably already guessed it...no photos of me anywhere, even though like with the running races I would see yearbook staff from time to time taking pictures that I knew I'd be in. It all seems a bit whiny of me, doesn't it?  Oh well, we all have areas in our lives to complain about and in the grand scheme of things, griping about being marginalized around others is probably a relatively minor issue, especially considering that I'm an introvert to begin with.  On the other hand, I'm often pressed upon to engage in community relationships with others, but when in those situations, discover that they don't particularly want to engage in community relationships with me...

Before writing this article, I checked the Internet to see if others were like me in feeling unduly marginalized, only to discover that the term "marginalized" had been coopted by the PC/Woke crowd to designate people belonging to demographic groups from which I am excluded...great, even the marginalized marginalize me!

Our Recent Visit to Asheville, North Carolina

 

Last month Melissa and I went on vacation to the Carolinas, first in Asheville, North Carolina for a few days and then on to Charleston in the South...I've written about the latter in recent articles.  As for Asheville, we stayed at a hotel on the city's east end, near the Billy Graham Training Center which we visited.  It was a pretty, pastoral setting perfect for retreats...I always felt a special respect for Christian evangelist Billy Graham, whose worldwide ministry rejected partisan and Cold War politics in favor of focusing on spreading the Gospel throughout America and the rest of the world.  He always avoided openly siding with one political party over the other, befriending a long succession of both Republican and Democratic presidents, and even sat with atheist authoritarian rulers like the Soviet Union's Nikita Krushchev and North Korea's Kim Il-sung.  Sadly, one of his sons, Franklin, has plunged himself deeply into fractious, divisive political partisanship, first publicly and repeatedly criticizing President Obama even to the extent of questioning his faith and then unquestioningly siding with Trump during his tenure, even going so far as questioning the 2020 election's outcome...very sad indeed.  But as for the retreat center, I loved it and recommend it for visitors, along with the tours they offer.  That visit we did the second day.  On the third we took the train ride on Great Smoky Mountain Railroads, which starts at Bryson City west of Asheville and goes through the surrounding country, stopping off for lunch at a little town called Dillsboro before returning...that was fun.  While in Asheville we ate a couple of times at an excellent locally-owned eatery on Tunnel Road called East Village Grille and did some grocery shopping at a nearby store called Ingles...I wish this chain were in Gainesville, too.  In our previous visit to this area in 2006 we toured the Biltmore estate south of town and also drove through the Smoky Mountain National Park on to Tennessee, stopping off for a few hours at Dollywood in Pigeon Forge before heading back... but not this time around. We did stop off at the Arts and Crafts Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway about a mile from our hotel, though...I got an excellent 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle there (see photo). I liked Asheville, although when walking around I quickly learned to keep a cautious eye on the ground since there were a lot of steep drop-offs everywhere, something that a flat-lander Floridian like myself isn't accustomed to dealing with...

Recent Visit to Charleston Harbor and Downtown

 

During our brief visit to Charleston, South Carolina last month, Melissa and I decided to explore its famous harbor and downtown.  We went on a tour boat and were treated to various historical and geographic aspects of the area, including Fort Sumter (see bottom picture), the site of the start of the American Civil War on April 12, 1861.  The U.S.S. Yorktown...not the famous aircraft carrier of the Battle of Midway fame (it sank in the Pacific)...but the new ship commissioned to replace it in 1943...is also in Charleston Harbor on the eastern Mount Pleasant side.  Both Ft. Sumter and the Yorktown have tours, but we were pressed for time and let the harbor ride work for us.  Afterwards we walked the streets of downtown Charleston.  The sidewalks around the harbor and immediate surroundings were often blocked by construction and barricades, but once we got further south and west to Market Street, things became easier.  All along Market Street are long brick buildings that provide a flea-market type of people's marketplace (2nd photo from the top).  We turned south at Church Street, on which is located St. Philip's Church...its steeple makes it the tallest in the city, which has prohibited any building from being taller than it.  Down the road on the right side is a special coffee shop, Bitty and Beau's, a chain with 23 stores (one to open soon in Jacksonville) that distinguishes itself by employing those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.  When we got there the store was about to close, but I managed to get a decaffeinated caffè americano to go...click HERE for the company's website.  Eventually we looped around on our downtown walk and made it toward the garage where we were parked...on the way we were passed by horse-drawn carriages, one of which was followed by a car whose business specializes in cleaning the streets of horse poop.  At the end of our walk we cut through the beautiful Gaillard Center to get to our parking garage.  I would have preferred a little more time to explore the area...I was disappointed that the Slave Market Museum had just closed when we passed by.  Still, I'm glad we visited...maybe at a future time we'll get to explore a little more deeply, and maybe even sit a spell at Bitty and Beau's...

About Old Elementary School Classroom Pictures

I like to look at old class pictures, and they don't necessarily have to include me in them.  This is especially true with elementary school, in particular the 4th through 6th grade pictures taken at Nova Blanche Forman Elementary School in Davie, Florida.  For my 1st through 3rd grade years I attended Boulevard Heights Elementary in West Hollywood...just a couple of blocks from my home.  In those years the kids in a particular grade were divided into a few separate classrooms with teachers...and they stayed in those classrooms the whole school year, apart from students in other classrooms in their same year.  When I got to Nova Elementary in 1965, it was a completely different situation. There the 4th graders were assigned to Suite C, comprising five "home stations" (classrooms) and the 6th graders were in Suite B, split among six home stations.  The 5th graders were rather arbitrarily divided between Suites B and C.  Now the home station was where I would meet with the other assigned classmates at the start of the school day and its end, but in between the students of the entire suite would mix in various classes, so I ended up getting to know quite a lot of them within a relatively short time.  But our yearly class picture was always of those kids in the same home station.  Since my parents were responsible for deciding, year-to-year, whether to purchase classroom pictures, I was fortunate to get my 4th grade picture from home station #7 with Miss Kidder as the teacher, but for the 5th and 6th grades, which I spent at home station #18 in Suite D (renamed from Suite B) with Mrs. Williams as the presiding teacher, we didn't buy the class pictures...I believe that in one or both of these years I was out sick when they were taken.  But since the kids in a particular suite pretty much got to know one another over the course of a school year, any of the other home stations' class pictures were fun to examine...as I have recently on a Facebook Nova alumni group page.  Marjorie, with whom I went to Nova from the 4th through 12th grades, put up her 4th grade class photo (Mrs. Jenkins, Station #9), 5th grade (Mr. Boyle, Station #13), and 6th grade (Ms. Bryant (I don't remember her), Station #16).  And Alan, another classmate with whom I attended through those same years, posted his class's picture from the 6th grade (Mr. Niedermeyer, Station #17).  And although he attended the "second" Nova Elementary School and not the "original" one I was at, I appreciated someone else's classroom photo as well since it included many kids who later attended Nova Junior and Senior High with me.  A few years ago I posted on this blog my old 4th grade picture...I'm seated in the back/left next to my friend Eddie Simmons: click HERE for a link to it.  One thing about these classroom pictures that bugs me, though, is that if you don't remember the name of a particular student then since they're not identified there's no way of knowing who they are...there were several of these in Marjorie and Alan's pictures. What's really frustrating is when I distinctly remember them by their faces but still can't name them.  Ah, nothing like a mystery demanding to be solved... 

More Jigsaw Puzzles I've Done Recently

 

For the few days preceding my admission to the hospital I returned to my old pastime of putting together jigsaw puzzles...from the above pictures you can see that I'm pretty flexible with the pictured images.  The top puzzle shows international postage stamps depicting native bird life, which I got as a family gift.  Next comes "Ralph Breaks the Internet", a Pixar movie that I haven't yet seen: I picked up the tiny-sized 300-piece puzzle at Dollar Tree.  Number Three is an interesting arrangement of fruit...looks like I'll be increasing my consumption of them in the future.  And finally...and the most striking...is a view of Arizona's Glen Canyon National Recreation Center: specifically Horseshoe Bend.  As I recuperate from my surgery I've got a few more ready to open up, lay out on the table, and assemble.  The other day I went to Books-a-Million where I bought the Horseshoe Bend puzzle.  They have some exceptional jigsaw puzzles, even one with 3000 pieces!  For now, though, I have a difficult-looking 1000-piece puzzle showing purple plants (another gift) and a multi-pack (purchased from Wal-Mart around the corner).  Looking forward to doing them...

Quote of the Week...from Psyche Roxas-Menoza

Every time I stand before a beautiful beach, its waves seem to whisper to me: If you choose the simple things and find joy in nature's simple treasures, life and living need not be so hard.

                                                     ---Psyche Roxas-Mendoza

Psyche Roxas-Mendoza is a writer and editor from the Philippines...I admit to no knowledge of her other than this fantastic quote of hers, which I intend to use as a segue to this article about Melissa and my vacation beach trip to Daytona Beach for the previous four days. We arrived there late Sunday afternoon, staying again at our favorite hotel until yesterday.  We were originally booked for a room with a smaller balcony and a side view of both the ocean and city, but when our door's lock malfunctioned they moved us without the usual extra charge to an oceanfront room. This was fortuitous as we both enjoyed a lot of time on that balcony and could view from it the second "Super Moon" in as many months as it rose from the southeastern horizon in the constellation Scorpius.  We also did a lot of walking up and down the beach, during both high and low tides when its character and size drastically change.  On Wednesday afternoon we were walking southward back to our hotel when Melissa noticed a strange trail in the sky: it was from the SpaceX rocket launch just a few minutes earlier.  Over our stay we deliberately kept it all simple, mainly enjoying the beach and our hotel's fine pool area while going out to local restaurants like Aunt Catfish, Charlie Horse and Don Pepper's.  After checking out Thursday the two of us paid a visit down memory lane at Ormond Beach's Pirates Cove miniature golf course where we would play years ago while our children were growing up.  But more than anything we enjoyed each other's company and the simplicity and beauty of the beach, with all its different kinds of birds, interesting cloud formations and fellow human visitors...the last of which, gratefully, there weren't that many... 

Enjoying Putting Together Jigsaw Puzzles Lately

The last few days I've been doing some jigsaw puzzles that Melissa, Will and Rebecca have recently given me...always a fun little diversion that I can rationalize because it keeps my aging mind sharper.  The above-pictured ones are the last few I did...I call the puzzle with the space theme the End of Everything (after the excellent recent cosmology book I read by Katie Mack)  because such a scene in reality would be pretty apocalyptic, wouldn't you agree?  Jigsaw puzzles...the ones not done online, that is...are a good way to get away from all the digital gadgetry around me and tone down the technology a few notches.  Still, I couldn't resist showing them on my blog...

Miscellany: Coffee Shop, SCOTUS, Local Weather

Where I work, the policy is for my annual leave accumulation to cap out at a specific number of hours: at year's end any leave I have left over exceeding that cap will disappear...and I found that I needed to taken extra paid days off in order not to lose them.  So here I am in the middle of a three-day weekend, sitting at my nearby donut shop drinking iced coffee and writing this blog article.  Normally I would have been at the national coffee chain store down the road doing the same thing, but they've been behaving in a manner lately unbecoming to a business that purports to value the customer, closing their dining area in an almost random manner while the manager, when it is open with the necessarily limited number of seats due to COVID-19, always seems intent on occupying one of them.  Three times I've gone there recently and they were closed, and three times I've gone there with no available seating: enough is enough, I've crossed over to the "other side"...

The other day I felt compelled to write a "politics" article, something that I had been studiously intent on avoiding during this most disturbing and divisive presidential election campaign season. Yet I felt the topic, concerning Justice Ginsburg's replacement on the US Supreme Court, demanded that I address it.  Concerning a solidly conservative Court after Trump's pick, federal judge Amy Coney Barrett, is almost certainly destined for fast-track Senate confirmation, I have a different perspective than do many of my more liberal friends who are understandably concerned about this body's marked shift in ideology.  Maybe I'll express some of my thoughts in the future...I'm afraid it all might take up much more writing space than I'm accustomed to using in my daily blog articles...

Looks like the weather around my home Gainesville area is on the upswing, with the extreme precipitation, heat and humidity characterizing the previous several weeks diminishing substantially.  The ground throughout my neighborhood had become waterlogged: when stepping on any of it I would literally sink down into the dirt mud.  Now the ground is solid, weather conditions are more bearable, and I'm ready for more outdoor weekend distance runs: today seems like a pretty good day to get out there, so I think I'll "close up shop" here and head for home...     

Our Weekend Trip to Daytona

For Melissa and me this year's Labor Day weekend coincided with our wedding anniversary...going on 34 fantastic years now.  We decided to book a room in Daytona Beach at the Hampton Inn we liked...only our preferred hotel was already full and we just barely got a room at the one further south in Daytona Beach Shores.  But that's a good hotel, too, and Saturday afternoon we drove into Ormond Beach on State Road 40, looking forward to getting settled in at our place down the road.  While going down Granada Boulevard I noticed many motorcyclists riding as a group, all donning special shirts identifying them as veterans...cool...but then I wondered whether we might have stumbled into this area in the middle of a special bike week celebration.  But when we all got to A1A the bikers turned left and we went right toward our hotel destination.  The traffic seemed a little heavier than expected, but hey, it was Labor Day weekend after all and we knew it would be busy.  But a little later we found ourselves stuck in a massive traffic jam...loaded to the hilt with pickup trucks, the kind their owners like to raise up high over their wheels for some peculiar reason known only to themselves.  Everywhere.  It was then that we discovered that a trucking rally, postponed from a few months earlier due to the coronavirus, was now taking place...oh joy.  We did eventually make it to our hotel, and from our 8th floor balcony we could look down on the beach and a long procession of raised pickup trucks passing by, first in one direction and then in the other.  I get it, this is an "identity" kind of thing where you see yourself in terms of your interest and congregate...just driving back and forth like that, though, seemed silly.  Apparently, the focus of the rally was the Daytona Speedway...glad we didn't go anywhere near there...

You've maybe seen the same scenes on TV that I have of people on different beaches violating distancing rules, but generally here on Daytona Beach Shores they seemed to be doing a reasonable job...with the pointed exception of the truckers and their mostly young adult passengers, many times crammed together in the pickup trucks' backs and nobody ever wearing a mask.  In our own hotel most patrons and all of the staff complied with mask rules...but then again there were a few guests who didn't.  But we didn't let the lack of common civility among some of the people around us wreck our enjoyment of the weekend and we had a great time...love the beach...

Our February 13th Visit to the US Virgin Islands

On Thursday, February 13th our Royal Caribbean cruise ship Allure of the Seas docked at Charlotte Amalie on the island of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, a few miles east of Puerto Rico.  The weather was warm and clear...perfect for sightseeing and enjoying the beach.  After disembarking we found our shuttle and rode up a steep, winding road to a mountaintop where stood a large gift shop prominently touting their banana daiquiris.  We strode through it to the back where they were offering the drinks and cut sharp left through the doors to our real destination: the lookout point over Magens Bay Beach to where we were headed (1st photo).  There Melissa and I changed to our swimwear and enjoyed the mild sand and waters (2nd photo) until we all returned the shuttle and headed back up to where we could view the capital city of Charlotte Amalie along with its harbor and outlying islands (3rd photo).  Upon returning there we walked around the stores (4th photo)...most of them jewelers with aggressive salespeople and owners cajoling the pedestrians to enter their stores.  Melissa and I agreed that it was too bad we weren't allotted more time in that "banana daiquiri" store on the mountaintop: they had by far the best selection of items.  Seeing that there wasn't time to enjoy a full meal at one of the local eateries, we decided to split a candy bar and sit on a bench in a little park area until it was time to get back on our shuttle.  A chicken running loose began to approach from our right and I stupidly encouraged it by making eye contact and sweet-talking it.  Then suddenly around the left a horde of chickens came rushing toward us...we quickly left for the safety of the shuttle!  Later that night we watched the stunning, retreating coastline of St. Thomas as we went back out to sea (last photo).,,

The tour guide/driver told us that the U.S. Virgin Islands...which the United States acquired by purchasing it from Denmark...is 99% dependent on tourism for its economy, which distinguishes it somewhat from Puerto Rico.  There was nothing like that beautiful beach we visited, and the mountaintop and hillside views were spectacular.  On the other hand I didn't care all that much for the shopping and the overbearing people trying to push merchandise we didn't want.  Still, if you're ever there and get in the mood for some fried chicken, just reach out and grab one...

Our Puerto Rico Excursion on February 12

During our cruise in February one of our stops was at San Juan, Puerto Rico.  We had signed up for a brief trolley bus excursion through the commonwealth's capital city and into the country and quickly found our station after leaving the ship on Wednesday morning, the 12th.  Angel (pronounced "Ahn-hel" was our driver/guide and gave us a brief history of Puerto Rico, first informing us that we were on the "little island"...this is where the ship harbored and some forts are...but would soon be on the "big island" as we rolled down the road.  Angel asked the packed bus if anyone knew what year the United States acquired Puerto Rico...nobody but me knew it was 1898 and I lightly muttered the answer: Melissa, my champion, then proceeded to shout it out loudly!  I thought this was the sort of thing we were taught in high school history class, but apparently that isn't so.  Angel also mentioned that Puerto Ricans on the island are neither accorded voting representation in the U.S. Congress nor allowed to vote for president...neither do they pay federal income tax, although the Puerto Rico government levies its own taxes on them.  We rode through San Juan, noting that the road system was designed and marked pretty much as it is on the mainland U.S. as well as the many still-damaged rooftops from disastrous Hurricane Maria that devastated the island in September, 2017.  We drove on, eastward toward Carolinas, and stopped at a long stretch of beach called La Posita.  We all got out and walked around the sand and some waded in the calm, shallow water: a lengthy coral barrier shields the shore from the Atlantic Ocean's rip current and strong waves...visitors simply park beside the road and enjoy the sand and water.  Then we got back in the bus and rode to an outdoor restaurant called Iguana, which prepared and served something called "alcapurrias": fritters of plantain with beef or chicken filling...they were scrumptious and I also had some of their grilled barbeque chicken on a skewer.  The prices were very reasonable but I was taken aback at how the hot grill was totally exposed to the public...anyone walking past could have accidently touched it and been badly burned.  There were also arcade game machines in the back...one penny per game!  After lunch we rode back into San Juan and parked behind their Capitol building, designed after the one in Washington, D.C....there were lined up statues of every American president (with the exception of our current one) who had visited Puerto Rico: the above photo shows President Eisenhower about to smilingly pat Melissa on the head.  Then we went back to the "little island" and explored old forts and a beautiful seaside church and cemetery before disembarking near the ship where there were numerous shops.  By this time it had begun to rain and Melissa and I decided to get back on board...

I didn't see anything especially spectacular on our brief excursion around San Juan...I got the notion that to truly get to know Puerto Rico on any substantial level I would need to reside there for a much longer period of time.  I feel uncomfortable with their ambiguous status as Americans subject to the military draft but unable to vote for their own representation on a national level.  I've never stepped onto another country's land: I planned to do so on Monday the 10th in the Bahamas but that was scrapped when the ship couldn't dock there because of high winds.  Puerto Rico has its own national sports teams as well as national beauty contest representatives...still, in all honesty I can't bring myself to claim it as my "second" country.  By the way, Angel pointed out the two predominant "national" sports...can you name them? Baseball and boxing...

Quote of the Week...from Ralph Waldo Emerson

Pictures must not be too picturesque.                         ---Ralph Waldo Emerson

After reading off the TV (Music Choice's Soundscapes channel) a quote from the nineteenth century American philosopher/poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, I went to the BrainyQuote website to look for it to use on today's blog. Instead, among the multitude of his cool sayings, I found this quote that pretty much captures the essence of my philosophy when it comes to taking pictures.  When reading quotes, especially the really brief ones, you're often never quite sure what their creators had intended...but I'm just guessing as to what Emerson meant here.  When I want to capture the essence with my camera of whatever setting I'm in, I don't necessarily want to crop out the "ugly" aspects to it and only include what my limited artistic abilities regard as aesthetic.  So within a nature scene I might deliberately include roads, vehicles, people, buildings, power lines, etc. to place it in its true context....the above pic I took from a mountaintop on St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands last week is an example.  To me, I'm more interested in helping out my memory of my experiences by including more within my pictures that can more comprehensively restore how I felt at the time.  And this all reminds me of a movie I saw (more than once)...

The 1982 movie Koyaanisqatsi, beautifully scored by Philip Glass and containing a collage of stunning video sequences of the American West, begins with what Emerson probably would have regarded as "too picturesque" views of nature, with humanity's presence or influence completely omitted in the footage. Then, a few minutes into the film they begin to show construction vehicles and high-tension power lines supposedly marring the landscape...the film's title is Hopi for "life out of balance" and seems to promote the idea that modern human civilization throws everything out of sync.  Maybe they're right with that up to a point, but when I'm out there in the "wilds" I want to incorporate it all when I'm shooting photos, and we humans...along with our effects on our surroundings...are a part of the real, legitimate world that merits inclusion regardless what purists may want to insinuate...

Our Visit to Pine Mountain, Georgia

The Pine Mountain/Warm Springs area of west-central Georgia is probably best known for where President Franklin D. Roosevelt spent much of his presidency in the Little White House at Warm Springs, where the spring water there seemed to help him with the aftermath of his polio affliction that immobilized him in his later years.  Melissa and I visited here last week for a couple of days, lodging at a place about halfway between Pine Mountain (on the west) and Warm Springs (on the east)...Picture #1 shows a field on the property where they hold outdoor weddings.  It is very hilly here...mountainous, especially by Florida's standards...and the scenery is beautiful.  Although the spot had great historical significance due to FDR's legacy we focused on just relaxing, partaking of the area's shops and eateries, and hiking on the Pine Mountain Trail...which snakes through the woods, across streams, and up and down hills through several miles.  Thursday morning we entered the Trail at its start, situated next to a TV tower on the west side of ALT-US 27 just north of SR 190...see the map, Picture #2.  On the trail Melissa fashioned her own walking stick from a branch lying nearby and we trudged down (and up) the very uneven path, with large roots, stones, and abrupt drops and rises forcing us to look down while we walked.  We met several different parties of hikers along the way...this Pine Mountain Trail is very popular, and some hardy souls chose to pack up and camp more deeply along the trail.  We eventually decided to turn back in order to get out before dusk set in...Pictures #3 and #4 show the trail, with the latter displaying a stream crossing on unstable rocks...

In Warm Springs we ate at the Bulloch House, a famous restaurant where Roosevelt ate and which showed many historic pictures, one of the President smilingly about to cut into a large roast turkey and my favorite showing him actually standing up, on the rear car of a train at the Warm Springs station.  They still have a railway there...albeit probably now just freight...while in Pine Mountain to the west they got rid of theirs in favor of a walking-biking trail.  We shopped and ate in Warm Springs on Thursday, supping at Mac's Barbeque behind Bulloch and did the same the next day in Pine Mountain, breakfasting at Eddie Mae's Country Kitchen and trying out UniquExpressions Coffee Shop...Melissa's in Picture #5 in front on one of their Main Street shops.  Then we headed on back homeward.  I recommend this part of Georgia to those, especially from Florida, who just want to get away for a little while but don't feel like having to navigate through and past Atlanta to get to the northern Georgia mountains...that last picture was taken off the side of SR 190 where they offered a place to pull off the road to see the scenic view.  There wasn't a person we met anywhere there who wasn't overly friendly and helpful...can't beat that!  I'd like to return someday and extensively check out the Little White House and the nearby Callaway Gardens.  Still, it's good to be back home again...