When we finally sat in the BZ4X, my wife and I both felt like Goldilocks breaking and entering into the bear’s bungalow. As previous Prius owners, we both thought, “This is just right.” The acceleration threw us back in our seats and all the gauges & clusters felt normal. It was pretty instantaneous for both of us and a big upgrade.
Arriving on the ship for our Galápagos expedition, my dad’s cousin, Dick, takes a break, relaxing after our long journey to arrive here.
“I’m not getting any younger,” he said as we were sitting in his Chicago home, readying to fly to South America. “This may be my last hurrah.”
A photo expedition to The Galápagos
A sea lion rests atop a rocky climb on South Plaza Island in The Galápagos while frigatebirds fly overhead.
The sea lion couldn’t have cared less about me. It was as disinterested as the iguana that I almost stepped on while photographing my cousin getting off the plane. That tortoise I took a dopey picture with? Yeah, as indifferent as they come.
I wasn’t expecting that down here on The Galápagos, just a touch south of The Equator and 600 miles out to sea.
Yep, that’s me doing the iconic tourist shot of Machu Picchu. (You have no idea how many tries it took this professional photographer to actually get it right!)
I’m sitting in a courtyard 11,000 feet up in the mountains. Breathing is difficult, especially since our tour guide pressed us to climb even higher into the Andes to see the impressive stonework of Incan ruins. I’ve sucked in several minutes of hotel oxygen, provided in the lobby. And I’ve downed cups and cups of coca and mint teas to combat altitude sickness. Every website warns against alcohol consumption.
I order a drink.
Our friend Shamamta celebrated her 90th birthday over the weekend. She’s the matriarch of some good family friends and I was lucky enough to be invited along to hang out, eat some great food and snap some photos of her family and friends at the happy occasion.
In my favorite photo from the day, her daughters take their mother to the sanctuary of the Church of the Transfiguration in Southfield, MI.Read More
I use both my countertop compost container and a bigger bucket to feed my compost pile out back.
“There’s food back here!”
At first I didn’t understand what she meant, but then I let loose a laugh when I heard my granddaughter’s young friend yelling to her mother, shocked and intrigued by my compost pile out back.
This past July, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was part of a bipartisan group of senators who wrote up legislation requiring the United States to collect and publicize records about UFOs or UAPs (unidentified anomalous phenomena) as they’re now called. The legislation said information had to be disclosed to the American public immediately. The Schumer Amendment — as it’s known — mentioned “non-human intelligence” 22 times!Read More
I am going through something that’s hard to explain, but I think you may be going through it too. My worldview is crumbling and it feels like everything is zigzaggy (unmoored? untethered? uneasy? out of sorts? akimbo?).
Joanne Mae Adams in high school and Joanne Adams Curtis nowadays — top right photo by Taylor Yau
She used to fight her twin sister over who got to babysit at a friend’s house because they had something called “TV.” Once the kids were asleep, she would turn on the screen and just stare at the test pattern, “There was seldom anything on,” she said. “But it was so fascinating.”
Now she carries an iPhone that’s connected to her hearing aids. A call comes in and she hears it in her brain. Talk about fascinating!Read More
Notes from Down Under
After snapping this photo, I went up to the family who were wondering why I was taking pictures of a puddle on the beach. They loved the photo and I happily emailed it to them. A week later, this beach town was devastated by Cyclone Gabrielle.