Helllooo.....Anybody Still Out There?

I can't believe it has been 28 months since I wrote a blog entry. I just seemed to run out of steam for the blog while I worked on other projects. But, for some reason, I'm feeling the urge to write again.

One of the big things that has happened is that I completed a book I have worked on since 2010. In order to do that I spent a lot of 2017 learning Adobe InDesign. I still am a beginner but I learned some on my own and then I hired Mary Meade to help me pull my ideas together with the master page feature of InDesign. Then 2018 was the year of the book. There is a lot to tell about that experience but I'll save that for other blog entries.

I've done some travel over the last 28 months, two times to Italy and once to London and the Cotswolds, Port Aransas a bunch of times, Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas, Austin, Memphis to see a grandson graduate from Rhodes College and maybe another place or two that I'm not remembering.

I had my 80th birthday and I've survived another couple of years. Just can't believe how fast time is passing.

Using the blog, I'm going to try to fill you in on what has happened as well as writing about current events. So, who among my blog readers is still out there?

The Mediterrenean Sea

Sicily sits off the mainland of Italy in the middle of the beautiful Mediterrenean Sea. Mediterrenean Blue is truly a color and it is different from the colors of the Caribbean Sea. You see the blue reflected everywhere in the colors of buildings and boats and often accented with a bright orange-red.

I did not see many sandy beaches. Mostly the sea rolled up at the foot of cliffs with maybe some small rocky inlets.

When you are looking out at the sea it is hard to imagine the part it is playing in the migrant crisis as people try to escape war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa. Many people have asked me if I saw evidence of the refugees in Sicily. I did not.

Happy 2015

That is me! December 30th is my birthday. I have been on the Party Circuit since Christmas but after welcoming the New Year last night, it is time to move on. A lot of wonderful things happened in 2014 but I am so excited about what is already on the calendar for this year.

First of all I'll still be working on my project in Port Aransas. Since last Spring so many things have happened that are more than just a coincidence or serendipity. I've met some very helpful people and doors have opened. One exciting thing that happened just this week is that I found out that a group of very creative photographers are meeting in Port Aransas at the same time I was planning to be there. I'll be joining them and I am sure it will be like a massive shot of creative energy. I have many things to follow up on and photographs to take but this project is bringing me great joy.

I've signed up for the San Miguel Writer's Conference. I've heard nothing but wonderful things from people who have gone and the schedule for this years conference includes amazing speakers and workshops. I can certainly use some help writing an introduction for the Port Aransas book but I'll also take some of the workshops about publishing. I'm hoping that some of the writing talent and creative energy of the people attending will rub off on me.

I am going to Sicily along with five other photographers. Great photography opportunities and great food.  And all of this is in the first half of 2015.

I also have some fitness goals that I will work on this year. Yes, I feel great but at my age I have to work on it so that I can do the things I want to do. I'm very optimistic about 2015. I think it is going to be a great year.

I wish all my readers robust health and many adventures in 2015.  

A Piece of The Spanish Sea

 Geoff Winningham has a wonderful travel/photography book called, Traveling the Shore of the Spanish Sea. I love the book and I love the title. I had never thought of the Gulf of Mexico in connection with Spain until I saw his book. The Spanish Sea. In the book he travels the coast of Texas and Mexico down to about Vera Cruz meeting people and making pictures. Of course I have been exploring Port Aransas Spanish Sea but I wanted to revisit more of it so I planned to make my way down to Port Aransas hugging the coast as much as I could.  I had travel companions. My Mercer cousin, Dotye joined me along with Debbie a long time friend. And before the end of the trip Debbie's husband Guy joined up too.

The trip started with a general outline but plenty of time to take detours and that we did. We had a lot of rain but that didn't stop us from driving or photographing. We headed out toward LaPorte, Texas but I had to make a stop in Pasadena. I lived in Pasadena for six years while I was a kid. The old downtown has moved away and a freeway ate up the railroad line and the old buildings. What is left is a wasteland of decaying buildings. We stopped and I made a few photographs and it felt familiar but there was nothing to hold on to except the old movie theatre whose art deco architecture is terribly disfigured and now houses a gun shop.

The Sylvan Pavilion in LaPorte was still there and was still being used for community activities. I had to walk around to where I could see the terrace that hung over the water so I could remember going out there during dances. It was quite a glamorous place for an event.

The drawbridge between Kemah and Seabrook is gone but I remember the Easter Sunday when Jerry and his girlfriend and Ned and I were there at the light by the bridge. Jerry was driving and we had a wreck. No one was hurt but we rode in the car while it was towed back to Houston. Driving over the high bridge I looked for all the little shacks where you could buy fresh oysters and shrimp and the ramshackle restaurants that hung on the side of the channel where you could watch the boats coming and going out in the bay. They are gone replaced by upscale commercial venues.

Down the coast and across to Galveston Island. Lunch was in Surfside. Back to the mainland and to Palacios on blue highways. We spent a couple of nights at the 1903 Luther Hotel where we could sit in rocking chairs on the front porch and look out at Tres Palacios Bay. Are you wondering why we stopped in Palacios? Well, as a teenager I went to the Baptist Encampment in Palacios several times  and I wanted to see it again. It is still there but the oleanders that lined the walks are gone. Some blight has taken its toll on the oleanders that use to be so profuse in the coastal towns like Galveston and Palacios. And another reason to stop in Palacios was that Dotye's grandfather is buried there and her father's ashes were scattered there. We also thought we might see one of the rumored ghosts in the hotel but the ghosts must have been tired from Halloween and they stayed hidden.

About the image: When we came through Galveston the wind was blowing and the clouds were rolling in the sky and the seas were choppy. There was a fine mist in the air. We stopped anyway. We took some pictures. I'm glad we did. I like this image of this piece of the Spanish Sea.

Ready to Roll until 2024

I picked up my new US Passport this morning. I'm good to go until 2024. This is the second Passport I have done via the US Embassy in Mexico City. It is easier to do now that it was 10 years ago. I filled out the application form on line and printed it out. Stopped at a photo place and had my photo taken just the right size for a US Passport. Went to the bank and got the US dollars to pay for the new Passport. Took everything to the Consul's office and turned it in. They instructed me to go to DHL to pay to have the Passport returned to me. I did that but instead of having it delivered to my house I had them deliver it to DHL where I could pick it up. Three and a half weeks later, I have the new Passport.

Easy, peasy! Except seeing the expiration date of June, 2024 started me thinking about how old I would be in 2024. WHOA! I'm already considered too old for some travel and medevac insurance plans. But I'm going to save that story for another blog entry. Tonight I'm just going to think of places that this Passport and I are going to see.

Mexico City Metro

Last weekend I was in Mexico City. What a great city. I took the bus there for a birthday party but as long as I was going to be there I stayed a few extra days. Margo from San Miguel also went for the party and we were staying at the same place, The Red Tree House in Condesa. Margo goes to Mexico City often so she became my guide to the public transportation system. While I don't have it all figured out, I've got a few of the basics so at least I can get from the Condesa/Roma area to the Zocalo or Bellas Artes or the Saturday Market.

I really like the Metrobus because you can see what the neighborhoods are like. The bus passed a huge Liverpool. For those of you who don't know, Liverpool is a department store like a Macy's. The one we have here in San Miguel is very small with a nice but limited selection. So, if I need to do some serious shopping, I can always just run over to Mexico City. Just kidding. In Queretaro about an hour away, a new shopping center has opened. Oops....it isn't a shopping center it is Antea Life Style Center. And it is said to be the largest shopping center or Life Style Center or mall or whatever you prefer, in Mexico and the second largest in Latin America. There is a Liverpool in it with about 100 other world name brand stores that you would recognize like Calvin Klein or Crate and Barrel. I haven't been there yet but hope to go this week.

Back to Mexico City. I had a fabulous time. I went to the Bellas Artes and saw Picasso Revealed by David Douglas Duncan. Duncan, an American war photographer, lived with Picasso many times while he was in Europe. He photographed Picasso at work and at play. The show was a juxtaposition of his photographs along with Picasso's drawings, ceramics and sculptures. One thing that really interested me was the many drawings that Picasso made of his studio especially the end of the studio that had three windows. They were the same studio but all different. It made me think of two artists who have focused on the same thing over and over. For example, Monet and the haystacks and of Josef Sudek and the many photographs he made of the window in his studio.

In a video of Duncan talking about Picasso, he tells that after he had made 1,000s of photographs of Picasso, he asked him if there were any that he would not want published. Picasso said something like, I paint. You photograph. You do what you want with the images.

Also at the Bellas Artes was a small exhibition of the photographs of Robert Doisneau, who was a contemporary of Henri Cartier Bresson.

What a thrill for me to see two wonderful exhibitions. But wait, there is more! I walked a couple of blocks from Bellas Artes to Palacio de Cultura Banamex on Madero and saw a fabulous exhibition of the Architecture of Mexico, 1900-2010.

Then my great accomplishment of the day....I found my way to the big Metro Station by Bellas Artes, found the line I needed going in the direction I needed to go, changed trains at the right station and got off at the right stop. The hardest part of all of this was figuring out which way I needed to go once I came up from the subway to walk back to the Red Tree House. I was confused but then I remembered my iPhone. No problems, the little GPS guided me right to Culiacan #6.

A Creative Shot in the Arm

Have you ever done something that energized you, replenished your soul, made you want to create more and better art? That is what I've been doing.

I went to NYC for a few days and walked and walked and walked. Rode the subway a bit as well. I had not been to NYC since Grandson #1 was born and he is graduating from high school this week. It had been a long time. I hit some museums and galleries, saw two plays but mostly I walked and just took in the city. I love NYC. In most ways it was the same but the parks and squares were glorious in Spring green and blossoms. Central Park was especially wonderful.

I was going from NYC to Boston. I checked the train and the buses. The buses didn't take that much longer but were a lot cheaper. I bought a ticket for the bus. It was a cultural experience. The taxi driver from the hotel to the address where the bus was to leave, kept asking me where I was going and he had never had a passenger to that location. It was a street corner on the lower east side. Let's just say that there was a diversity of people taking this bus. I got in line on the street corner and at the appointed time the bus pulled up. We loaded our bags into the bottom of the bus and off we went and we arrived in Boston on time at the South Street Terminal. So there was no problem. But it was an interesting experience.

I spent a couple of days in Boston with a friend from San Miguel and then I was picked up by my long time friend Frank. Frank and I were trying to remember when we met on the internet and the only thing we know for sure is that we knew each other for a while before 1991. Frank is an amazing photographer. He has been my teacher, mentor but most of all my friend for all of these years. Over the years we have visited in each others homes and he and Ellen have even come to see me in San Miguel.

Being with him and Ellen for a few days has been the highlight of my trip. First of all, I saw so many prints and we talked photography for hours. He gave a dinner party and John and Marilyn came down from the cape. John is another photography friend. Stephen, another friend who teaches photography at Clark University along with Frank, was also there. It was a marvelous night. Frank and Stephen are going to have a show in November and they are starting to get ready for that so I saw Frank's 42 inch by ??? maybe 60 inch proof prints. Can you imagine photographs that big made with large format cameras. The details are amazing. There were some gallery visits. Lunches. More talk about the process of making art. Yes! I am energized and inspired.

Now I'm in Houston for some family time.

The Bucket List - Blue Highways

Yesterday I was talking with Son #3. That is #3 in birth order. I was telling him that I wanted to take a road trip. Maybe follow the Gulf of Mexico coastline from Galveston all the way to Key West, then back up the East Coast of Florida, on to Savannah. Maybe even to Charleston. I'd love to see Savannah and Charleston when the azaleas are blooming. I think my desire for a road trip and thinking about it was rekindled as I read Kim's blog, El Gringo Suelto, about his road trip around Mexico.

Son #3 immediately said, "So you are thinking about Blue Highways." Blue Highways is a book that I read years ago and then passed it on to #3. The book was written by William Least Heat-Moon. I'm not sure what the copyright date is but I read it sometime in the 1990's. Heat-Moon had some things fall apart in his life so he outfitted a van that he named Ghost Dancing and he headed out on a trip around the US following the blue lines, not the Interstate highways, on an old Rand McNally road atlas. Along the way he wrote about places and about conversations he had with people. That book hit a nerve with me.

My Dad always talked about just driving down the road to see what he could see. His talking about doing a road trip became a dream of mine too. I thought that when he retired he would do it, but other than a trip to California he didn't head out on that open road. Then my mother was sick. After she died, I thought he might do it but again, he didn't.

Hitting the Blue Highways has been on my bucket list for a long time but somehow I've never done it. I've done some road trips but I was getting from point A to point B usually on an Interstate Highway. So when #3 brought up the book, I immediately thought, Billie, are you going to talk about taking a road trip on the blue highways and die without doing it?

When I close my eyes I can see a drive from Galveston to Lake Charles to Sugartown, Louisiana where my Dad grew up. Then back to the coast at New Orleans, somehow to Key West to look across the ocean to Cuba. Turn and head North zig-zagging along on blue lines and small towns until I hit Savannah and Charleston.

Yes, it is on the Bucket List, but I wonder if it is better to leave the long road trip as a dream. It might not be as romantic or the adventure I've long dreamed about. Of course, if I don't like it, I can always turn around and drive back. Whether I do it or not there is one thing I'm sure about, I don't want to get to the place where I don't have any thing on my bucket list. Without a bucket list, what is left?

The image above is another from my Mercer Log and Port Aransas project.

A Part of My Life

While in Prague I wanted to go to Terezin which was an old fortress town about an hour outside of Prague built in the 1780's. About 7,000 people lived in the town when during World War II the Nazis moved them out and began using it as a concentration camp for Jews. This was the Nazi "model" Jewish town that they used for propaganda for the Red Cross and the world. In actuality, tens of thousands of people died there, some killed outright and others dying from malnutrition and disease. More than 150,000 other people (including tens of thousands of children) were held there for months or years, before being sent by rail transports to their deaths at Treblinka and Auschwitz extermination camps in occupied Poland, as well as to smaller camps elsewhere.

You may be wondering why I'd want to go there. I was a young child during World War II but at the end of the war the news reel pictures at the movies and in Life Magazine of the Prisoners of War and the Jewish Concentration camp survivors was printed in my brain. I also remember something about the trials of the Nazi war criminals. Oh not the details but it is a part of my history. So I wanted to see a Nazi Concentration Camp.

Terezin is a day trip from Prague and in the end I decided to hire a guide to take me through the Jewish Quarter in Prague. My wonderful guide was a Jewish woman whose parents had survived so my half-day tour was more like a first hand account of  the Nazi Holocaust and life under Communism.

The Jewish Quarter in Prague is really very small. The picture above is one of the walkways into the Jewish Quarter. There are several Synagogues, one of them is the oldest in Eastern Europe built in 1270. Those synagogues within the Jewish Quarter are museums and memorials to the Jews who lost their lives in the Holocaust. This picture is just a tiny piece of the walls in one of them where their names are recorded. It is set up by family name and then the members of the family. Sometimes it was name after name in one family. Being surrounded by these walls of names was emotional for me.

Another thing that hit home with me is that women were only allowed into a back space or upper gallery which was usually mostly concealed. Another reminder about the status of women throughout most of history.

This beautiful Moorish-style synagogue was built in the 1800's and has been loving restored since World War II.

My guide told me that most people in the Czech Republic are not connected to any religion, or as she put it, few say prayers. There were some 120,000 Jews in the area in 1939. Just 10,000 survived the holocaust. Today only 1,700 people "register" as Jews in Prague. There are probably more but after their experiences in the Holocaust and Communism they do not proclaim their religion.

I was surprised at how this trip turned out to be such a reminder about World War II. It is time to pull out a few history books about the period and put some events and places in perspective. I'll be writing some other entries about how places reconnected me to this part of my lifetime.

Where Are The Pictures?

Tourism is alive and flourishing in Prague. Even on a rainy day the Old Market Square is full of tourist and for every 1,000 tourist there has to be 500 of them who has a camera and is aiming it at something. All kinds of cameras, iPhones, Point and Shoots, mirrorless cameras with and without interchangeable lenses, small DSLRS and a surprising number of  top-end DSLRs with BIG zoom lenses. These two young women had just taken a picture of the horses and I was taking a picture of them. They looked up and saw me and asked me to take a picture of them with their iPhone. I did.

It was impossible to make a photograph of the landmarks of anyplace that I traveled that had not been made many, many times before. And it was impossible to take any pictures without a herd of tourist. Oh, that didn't stop me from making pictures because I came home with hundreds and hundreds of image files.

Now everyone is telling me they want to see my pictures. They don't really want to see all my pictures unless maybe they are trying to fall asleep and counting sheep hasn't worked.  I'm going through the files editing and processing the RAW files. Eventually I'll post a link to the edited files. In the meantime, I'll post a few on the blog along with a story or two.

Where is Billie?

Where am I? Well, now I'm home in SMA. Oh, but the places I have been. I was gone for a month. I was in Texas, Czech Republic, Germany, Luxembourg, France, back to Texas, then home to Mexico. It is a long story that started a year ago and I think this story was one of the reasons why I chose Reservations for One for the name of the blog last March.

I have some dear friends who started planning a trip to France last September and they invited me to join them, but as their plans progressed their itinerary became more complicated. I felt overwhelmed at the time with all the details so I backed out of going with them.

Still, the idea of going on a trip in Europe intrigued me. So I started looking for something where I would not have to worry about getting from place to place. A River Cruise with AMA Waterways won...Europe's Rivers and Castles.

The tour included a few extra days in Prague and Paris but I wanted more time so I added additional days to each city. I'm so glad I did this trip. I saw a lot of places I never would have seen otherwise, I met some really nice people, and I found out that I CAN travel by myself.

I'm not going to write a town by town description of my adventure but over the next few weeks I'll share some pictures from the trip and some thoughts that came to mind as I traveled. So keep checking in. I'll be blogging again.