Skiing this Winter
March 7th, 2010
David Rathe
Lake Tahoe from Heavenly Valley
Still Frozen
February 21st, 2010
Lower Wisconsin River looking west.
Upper Mississippi River looking NW.....
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ARUBA
February 19th, 2010
The Calm Side of the Island
Ruth on a Rock
Had a great trip with Ruth, who was down there for a medical conference. Strange place–one side of the island is packed with high-rise hotels and white powdery beaches, and the other side is empty lava-strewn desert with treacherous waves. About a fifth of the island is a national park. The people were incredibly friendly, and even the tourists were nice! It’s Dutch-owned, and many of the tourists were European. We snorkeled, hiked, and ate great food.
Our Chariot
North Side of Island
Wild Waves
Divi-Divi Tree
Small Natural Bridge
Hotel Denizen
Local Lizard
Butterfly Farm
It Finally Landed...
500+ Steps to the Top
Top of the Haystack at Dawn
Copyright 2010 Diana Rathe Pray
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Everglades Canoe Trip 2010
January 30th, 2010
Check out the photo gallery and blog post from our most recent sojourn into the wilds of South Florida!
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AFTER THE STORM(s)
January 24th, 2010
Yes, we’re not used to storms much here in LA. Five inches of rain–oh my! But this time of year is magical. I never thought I’d live in LA, let alone love it here. But I do…just not in September.
After Storm #3
Just up the street is a wonderful spot to view LA to the south and north. Most people don’t realize LA is backed by snow-capped mountains for a brief period in the winter. The mountains behind Doug and Jeff, however, rarely have snow–very low elevation. I restrained my impulse to head for the hills. As expected, there was a major traffic jam of people trying to get to the snow…
Doug & Jeff on Kite Hill
Copyright 2010 Diana Rathe Pray
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Fern’s 80th Birthday
January 5th, 2010
I’ve started a gallery of photos from the big day!
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Road Trip!!!!! Yucatan, November 2009
December 7th, 2009
temple-of-the-magician-uxmal
El Castillo, Chichen Itza
Tulum
Richard Joined Simone and me for this most excellent adventure into the Land of the Maya.
Puenta del Sur, Cozumel, ROO, Mexico
Simone 11/26/09, Mayacoba Banyan Tree, Playa Del Carmen, Roo, Mexico
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Upper Mississippi Scenes
November 29th, 2009
Day after turkey day (Saturday this year). Relaxing and enjoying the late afternoon light and clouds reflected on the river. Took several photos including a 270° panorama. Update: I did not like the “smokey” quality in some of these photos, so I rendered them again with both tone compression and detail enhancement. I left a few of the first batch for comparison.
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Rioja
November 27th, 2009
Our First View
We left the kids and took a couple of days in the Rioja wine region, part of which is in Basque country. The rain stayed away, the autumn color was at its peak, and we had the place mostly to ourselves. I never imagined it would be this beautiful.
LAGUARDIA
Underground Cellars
We stayed at a medieval town called Laguardia, a walled town on a hill with only four gates. Beneath the town is a maze of tunnels used as cellars and, back in the day, as a hiding place when the town was under seige. No cars are allowed to drive in town, for obvious reasons! These tunnels used to connect but have been bricked up into individual cellars now. We visited La Fabulista, one of the few wineries operating in town. They still stomp on the grapes there!
Surreal Vista
MARQUES DE RISCAL WINERY
We also visited one of the grand old wineries in the area, Marques de Riscal, which has been operating since 1858. We took a tour of the old cellars and the new, tasted and bought some rioja and rueda verdeja, and took a look at the adjacent Frank Gehry-designed hotel, which is now part of the marketing scheme called the “City of Wine.” Rioja is starting to fill up with these “Star-chitect”-designed buildings and spas.
We visited a huge wine museum, Dinastia Vivanco Museo de la Cultura del Vino (another vanity project by a winery), which was terrific (no photos allowed, though). Impressive building layout, all manner of historical presses and machinery, an eclectic but too-scattered collection of modern and ancient wine-related art, and 3000 corkscrews. The only problem was the quite obvious snubbing of the U.S. wine regions in the world exhibits. Harrumph!
Speaking of the U.S., another small town had something surprising–a statue of liberty. It was dedicated in 1897 to those killed in one of the Spanish civil wars.
A relatively new feature to the Spanish (and French and Portuguese) landscape is the wind farm. It seems like every hill is covered with turbines (and the plains are filled with solar panels). But this new technology sometimes doesn’t fit so well with the old; got stuck waiting as a driver negotiated the narrow medieval streets of this small town. He’s hauling a single turbine blade.
All photos copyright 2009 Diana Rathe Pray
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