Ouray, Colorado

Great Sand Dunes-Part1

Variation on the Theme

The-Atomium in Brussels, Belgium continues the stainless steel architecture theme perfectly.

Minimalism in Missouri

Rocio Romero's LV Series prefab house in Perryville, MO.

St. Louis Stainless Steel

Eero_Saarinen's stainless steel masterpiece of monumental minimalism.

There was an old woman who swallowed a fly.

Carnivorous pitcher plants in the greenhouse of Longwood Gardens.

Chefchaouen Chefchouen Chouen

Two women walking in an alley. Sitting high in the Rif Mountains of northern Morocco, Chefchouen (also just called Chouen) is one of the most beautiful towns in Morocco and also one of the most relaxing. One reason for the laid back vibe is that this is the heart of "Kif Country" (the hashish producing area) in Morocco. It was not uncommon to see merchants and customers partaking in not just the usual hot mint tea during price negotiations but also passing around a hash pipe as well.

Tamezmoute? Or Not Tamezmoute? That is the question.

We left Marrakesh early in the morning and headed south east over the the Atlas Mountains. We were looking for a Peace Corps Volunteer named Garren who was living in a village 11 hours away near the Draa Valley. A friend had arranged for us to meet up and head out to the desert together. I had never met Garren before and the directions he had written down for my friend a couple of weeks earlier went something like this: "Go for a few hours past Ourzazate until you cross the river three times, then go past three villages. Ask for me at the cafe of the fourth village." Sounds simple until you cross the first few bridges over dry river beds and wonder "did those count as rivers?" or past a few houses or buildings along the side of the road and try to figure out if they were considered a village or just some houses. So after hours of wondering if we had traveled far enough or gone way too far and pretty much giving up on finding him altogether, we drove through a sleepy, dusty, sun baked little village and heard something unusual. Almost everywhere I had been in Morocco the default musical soundtrack usually consisted of a mix of Moroccan pop music, Algerian Rai Music, Berber folk tunes, or even Adalusian Flamenco guitar which could be heard wafting from cafes, taxis, street vendors, and buses. But here was a different type of sound, both strikingly out of place and yet very much at home at the same time. Filling the air of this seemingly deserted little village was a music that sounded at first to have little form but slowly coalesced into something very familiar to me. The unmistakable little voice, and the oddly beautiful sounds of Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead's "Here Comes Sunshine" rolled down from a cafe with a shade arbor under which sat a light-skinned, bearded man sipping tea and talking with a berber man. We had found Garren. We relaxed for a while sipping tea and just absorbing the setting before Garren joined us on our trek to the desert, beyond Zagora, where we ended up in Tinfou and spent the night sleeping in the courtyard of the Auberge du Repos de Sables. After our adventure in the desert together we brought Garren back to Tamezmoute where it happened to be the day of the weekly market. We walked with him as he did his shopping for the week. View Larger Map

Seasonal Shortcut.

Following the snowmobile tracks across Harrisville Pond to the village center. Harrisville, New Hampshire.

Glowing Thunderheads

Thunder clouds stay out on the horizon beyond the pastures and hills of Belgrade, Missouri. As a child I spent many hours at nearby Clear Creek swimming and exploring, searching for arrowheads and crawdads.

R. Crumb was here!

South Division Street, Bonne Terre, Missouri. Bonne Terre is French for "good earth"
which reminds me of the transformation in R. Crumb's "A Short History of America."

Greenhouse at Edgerton

A Monument to George Washington

The Washington Monument has attracted the attention of protesters over the years.

Norman Mayer protested the insanity of nuclear weapons in 1982 by driving a van up to the monument and threatening to blow it up. They shot him dead.

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Dwight_Watson drove a tractor into a pond in Constitution Gardens near the Monument in 2003. He also claimed to have explosives. He was protesting the fact that he couldn't make a living growing a highly addictive, fatal disease causing drug (tobacco) without continued government subsidies. He served fifteen months in jail.

Neither man had explosives.

Conspiracy Theorist's Moral of the Story-If you are going to protest, do not protest something meaningful for purely selfless reasons. Protest something ridiculous for completely selfish motives. That way the powers that be might sympathize and let you live.

Looking Up in DC

Interior domes of the Museum of the American Indian (top) and The National Gallery of Art (bottom). The former makes me think of Porky Pig saying "Thats all folks!"

Reunida com Uma Amiga da Infancia.

Joana meets up with a childhood friend of hers from Sao Paulo, Brazil. They hadn't seen each other for 16 years but seemed to pick up right where they left off. My Portuguese is a little rusty, so I took a walk around the city while they caught up with each others lives.

To Form A More Perfect Union

At the Greenbelt (Maryland) Arts Center (formerly Greenbelt Center School) one in a series of limestone friezes by WPA artist Lenore Thomas depicts part of the preamble to the Constitution of the U.S.

Greenbelt, Maryland.

The Chrysler Building pays homage.

Looking east down 42nd Street with The Chrysler Building reflected in a storefront window.

Woman letting her dog use the men's room at Grand Central Station, NYC

If only New Yorkers would tell Parisians their secret.

Have A Seat!

Cameron Trading Post in Cameron , AZ.

Camel Trek Across the Dunes

Out onto the Dunes of Merzouga by camel for a night in the desert. I got lucky and rode the one that knew the way on her own so I got great views of the rest of the camels and riders on the trek. Shooting stars, scorpions and dung beetles were our only other companions. As the sun rose the next morning a small herd of goats bleated by on a nearby dune.

The road to Marrakesh ends here.

August 2000- The Djemma El Fnaa in Marrakesh, Morocco in the early evening. Full of incredible tastes, smells, and sounds.

Used Book Storage

The Beineke Rare Book Library at Yale University is a very interesting structure. A protective glass box inside a cube of translucent marble that glows softly inside from the natural light outside.

It feels like someplace Kirk and Spock would visit. The sacred repository of all knowledge of some ancient alien race silently biding it's time on some long forgotten distant planet.

The Golden Gate Bridge

A nice, big, orangeish-red looking structure actually.

The Beautiful Bronx

The New York Botanical Garden is a sylvan paradise in the middle of The Bronx. The fire hydrant in the middle of "the woods" reminds you of where you are in case you get lost in the illusion.

Frank Fights A Girl

All very sad, but at least he won.

"Omaha Beach", Normandy

Today it is hard to imagine what transpired here on D-Day.

Well it was 17 years ago today, that the Cicadas last came out to play.

May 2004-My third time around with "The Locusts" as we called them when we were seven. I took Joana down to Maryland to see the Cicadian invasion. She liked them! Now that's a cool girl.

The New York Public Library

Glass Beach

The town of Fort Bragg, California used to throw all their trash into the sea. Now fifty years later the spot that was their dump has turned into an expanse of polished glass. Do not try this at home.