Thought I’d alert all my Rich’s Rambles followers to my new Instagram photo blog. I have been posting about 1 image a day with a bit of text and hashtags. Have a look-see. Here’s a screenshot of the last few images I posted.
Enjoy,
Rich
Tag Archives: photos
Cloud on the Inlet
I wanted to get in a good exercise walk today and when I looked out my window, I saw that there was a cloud sitting on the inlet. It was pretty cold, front steps were icy and slippery, but it was going to be a sunny day as there was sun everywhere else so I figured it would either be a walk in total fog with no views or the sun might burn it off.
Got in the car and motored down the hill to corner of Moody and St John’s. Parked there and walked the rest of the way to Rocky Pt park and continued around the inlet as planned.
I was not disappointed! Although on the way to my turn around at Orchard Beach, all the boardwalks were frosted and slippery, on the way back, most of them had defrosted as the sun did come out. And there was opportunity for some spectacular images, IMHO.
So here you go. Enjoy
Pretty neat, huh!!! 🙂 Almost wish I’d brought my real camera!
Keep rambling,
Rich
Nothing Special
Exploring Quadra Island
An island, a boat, some trees
some water, some clouds.
A simple photo.
Nice day.
But nothing special.
Rich
Continuity
Many years ago, I somehow obtained an interesting African Violet plant. If I remember correctly, I got it while I was still an undergraduate student at SUNY ESF in the early 1970s. I was into house plants at the time and I was struck by this particular plant because unlike all the other African Violets I had seen, this one had leaves with wavy edges. So it made it into my plant collection.
My Mom was also taken with it so I gave her a couple of leaves which she rooted. Over the years, I remember seeing it from time to time when I would visit my parents but it eventually faded from my memory.
Fast forward to 2015. I’m helping my Mom clean out her house sometime after my Dad passed away and she points to an African Violet she has and says “Do you remember this African Violet that you gave me all those years ago” or something like that. “Well, this is the same plant” I was flabbergasted and elated at the same time.
“Really,” I said. “Oh, I have to have one again.” Now it has been years since I did much with house plants. Oh, I had the occasional one, and I had balcony plants on my condos and I have a great rubber tree plant that I’ve had for years but my partner, J, is into plants in a big way and I just knew she’d love it.
Well, I live in British Columbia, Canada and Mom lives in Greenville, North Carolina so we hatched a plan. The next time she came to visit family on the West Coast, she would bring a couple of leaves and I would get them back to my home in BC. And that’s what we did. We had a family wedding in Portland, Oregon and Mom brought a few leaves in her luggage. She had put them in a plastic ziploc bag wrapped in moist paper towels to keep them from drying out.
As we had driven down to Portland from Vancouver, BC, it was no problem to get the leaves back across the border and into our home.
I put them in water, they successfully rooted and I planted them in small pots. I gave one plant to one of our good friends who also loves plants and just waited for the other plants to grow. And grow they did.
A couple of days ago, we were in a dollar store and saw some great pots and I thought, perfect for the violets. Yesterday, I transplanted them and one of them had already started to flower. That was one of the things I also liked about these African Violets. They liked to flower over and over and over….
And so the circle is now completed and continues. I was able to subdivide the original plants from the 2 leaves into 4 new ones and will keep passing them along to family and friends.
Enjoy.
Rich
Left Coast and Redwoods Trip – Part 2
Day 3
We spent a wonderful morning with our friends in Roseburg – actually in the countryside between Sutherlin and Roseburg – and they gave us a whole host of suggestions of things to see and do as we travelled down to the redwoods in California and when we headed back home via another section of the Oregon coast.
We made our way back to I5 where we headed on down to Grant’s Pass. We wanted to take a coffee break so we got off the highway and just started heading through town. As soon as we drove by the Bluestone Cafe, I knew we had found our coffee stop!
As the food looked really good, too, we ordered a couple of sandwiches to take on the road with us. Good decision so we thought until we opened the bags a bit later. Much to our surprise, although the receipt indicated we got what we ordered and paid for, what was inside was a completely different order! And as I’m a pescavore and both sandwiches had meat, I pretty much had to make do with a bit of bread and some granola bars for lunch. Even so, everyone makes mistakes and I’d still give top ratings for this place!! The bevvies were perfect 🙂
From Grant’s Pass, we picked up Highway 199, which is also called the Redwood Highway. One of the places our friends had recommended we stop at was Jedidiah Smith Redwoods State Park. So we did. It comes up about 45 minutes or so after you cross into California. We spent about an hour there just walking a little loop and having our first experience amongst the big trees. Here’s some big tree photos from the park.
Yup, they’re big!
Really big!!
Like, really BIG!!!
There were also scads of white trilliums in bloom on the forest floor and I’m still striving for a perfect spring trillium shot. I take a bunch every year. Here’s a few of this year’s contenders from the park. 
There was also a lovely bright red mushroom which cried out to be photographed.
And here’s one of the giants just hanging out in the forest. No trail to it. I just enjoyed seeing it so nicely ensconced in all the other foliage and shrubbery. 
So, back into the car and on down the highway. We stopped at a pull off somewhere’s down the road from Crescent City for a bit of a beach break.
From here, we headed down to our ultimate destination, the Humboldt Redwoods State Park and the Avenue of the Giants in Phillipsville, where we had booked what we thought was a nice AirBnB cottage. Hoo boy were we surprised when it turned out to be a pretty down and out motel. It’s amazing how good you can make something look if you take pictures of it from a certain angle in just the right light.
By the time we rolled in around 8 PM or so, it was too late to do anything about it so we made the best of it. We headed to the Riverwood Inn, a restaurant/bar across the street from the motel and had a pretty good Mexican dinner so it was not a complete disaster.
Then we rolled into bed and made plans for spending the next day gawking at the big trees.
Well, I think that’s enough for now. I’ll finish this trip report with the next installment.
Happy Ramblings,
Bioblogging with Rich 