Brightly colored homes in Newfoundland, Canada
My theory regarding brightly colored homes seems to still hold true. European towns with long, cold winters have the most brightly painted houses. These brightly colored homes were a common sight in St. Johns NL, Newfoundland-Labrador, Canada. Most every home and business in this town followed this tradition. Islands seem to have more subtle pastels.
Nanortalik, Greenland Field of Dreams
Greenland villages are small by any standard. The largest town in Greenland, the largest island on earth, has less than 20,000 inhabitants. Nanortalik has about 1,100 people making it the eleventh largest town on the island. So I was wondering what is the eleventh largest city in the US? If you go strictly by incorporated city limits, it is Austin, Texas. If you include the primary statistical area it is the Miami, Fort Lauderdale area with over six million residents.
Cruising a Greenland fjord
An advantage to a small cruise ship is we could squeeze into smaller ports and fjords where larger ships dare not go. We had a leisurely day cruising up and down this Greenland fjord, launching Zodiac boats for a closer look.
Puffin swimming, presumably looking for fish.
I was excited to see my first ever puffins and photograph them while cruising the islands off the coast of Iceland. I knew my resultant travel photographs would never compete with professional nature photographers who sit on a hillside and wait for the perfect moment to capture a puffin. However, out of the many hundreds of photos taken from the moving, bouncing Zodiac boat, two photos were acceptable to show here.
For some reason, homes in coastal towns are often painted in colorful pastel colors. Weymouth, England is no exception.
Our method of exploration of these coastal towns generally consisted of shopping for something we apparently feel we needed or forgot to pack, like warmer clothes. We then search for a lunch spot in town to sample the local cuisine. Indian food is very good across the UK, so that was often at the top of our list. The local seafood was also good to find. However, please note there is no Dover sole to be found in Dover, England. No matter how good the food is on board, local cuisine away from the ship is a very welcome change.
Colorful Tobermory, Scotland
Colorful Tobermory, Scotland was a fun spot to explore after our failed bird watching expedition to the countryside. The photo above captures about one-third of the town. The arrival of our ship doubled the population of this quaint town for the day. We went into the Mishnish Hotel, the yellow building above, and had some local beverages and a half dozen oysters as part of our shore excursion. Then we ventured a few doors down for some Indian cuisine.
Thirty-two days on the Seabourn Quest, our longest cruise yet.
Our 32 day cruise began in Lisbon, Portugal. The Portuguese say Lisboa. Our cruise itinerary seemed to include every place that ended in “…land.” That would include England, Ireland, Scotland, Iceland, Greenland, many islands and finally Newfoundland. We accomplished our main goal. Get out of the August heat of Idaho. Greenland may have been my favorite.
In the winter of 2023 we went to southern Utah to escape the winter cold and provide me with yet another opportunity to improve my golf game. Neither goal was fully realized. But I did get to experience the surreal beauty of Bryce National Park under a deep cover of fresh snow.
Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise in Banff National Park.
Partly on the advice of my dad, I looked forward to our visit to the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise in the heart of Banff National Park, Alberta Canada. What fun it would be to have a room with a balcony overlooking beautiful Lake Louse and hike in the surrounding mountains.
Green Sweat Bee
My area of focus in photography changed a few years ago toward macro photography. It seemed that photographing bugs and flowers might allow me to escape the crowds and all-too-popular iconic sites of landscape photography. An early step in this process was to build a bug stage allowing for easier placement of the bugs, lights, flashes and my camera.