Chicago

This PM we saw Millennium and Grant Parks in Chicago. Does anyone else remember 1968, Abe Ribicoff and Mayor Daley and the Democratic Convention? Well, now they are beautiful parks, not riot central. We visited the Chicago Art Institute, a museum that certainly is world-class (think, Philly, NYC, the Smithsonian, Louvre, and Hermitage - especially for Impressionist works). One thing I found out -I'm not contemporary - more Grant Wood. It is quite difficult maintaining a straight face while two young women are laughing hysterically at our attempt to mimic American Gothic. Here are some pics from the day.

In style

As we get ready to travel, I have the good fortune to be reading another wonderful garden book: The Wild Braid, a conversation with Stanley Kunitz, poet and gardener. So to set up our trip, here are two of my poems and a picture of why we are ambivalent (somewhat) about leaving. Down the path/ Walking through the woods/ Turtle cove and frog hollow/ The stream rushes by./ Swaying branches/ The underside of leaves/ Create darkness compared/ to those basking in the sun./ That is, until the breeze Lifts and twists and Mines silver in the air. As we walked around the pond, Donna was able to get a picture of Madison while she was picking flowers. Madison is definitely in style.

Does it get any better?

What should a garden look like? Try this.

Getting Ready

We are getting ready for a National Park trip from Chicago to San Fransisco with major stays in Glacier and Yosemite. By chance, Pop Pop recently read a fascinating book called Second Nature by Michael Pollen. He argues that the Thoreau ideal of "romantic nature" where we are but observers of beautiful vistas should be confined to spectacular spaces like Yosemite, but that our real ideal should be the garden, or a place where man is not only part of nature, but adds to its usefulness and splendor. So later blogs may just drool over spectacular vistas, but may also speculate how we should interact with nature in a balanced, responsible way. As a start, here are some pictures of our current (home) garden, a place where we have tried to interact in a way consistent, hopefully, with Pollen's principles.

Growing coral

I mentioned earlier how the coral is growing, but not as colorful as thirty + years ago. Here are a series of primarily coral pictures, just to show what is going on under the waves.

Butterflies

Earlier, I promised some pictures of the butterflies. It is a small area to view, but very nice if you like butterflies (we do).

Bonaire - north side

Bonaire is shaped like a boomerang with the outer edge pointing northeast (to the open Carribean and Atlantic) and the inner edge pointing to adjacent Venezuala. Soo ... you snorkel on the inner, leeward side, and - not so much - on the northern side.

Bonaire's south side

Bonaire has one of the world's most unusual sights: a Cargil "farm" for sea salt. They have taken about 20% of the southern tip of Bonaire and made what look like rice paddies except the flat areas just have sea water in them. As the water evaporates, what is left is salt, which is piled into hills of the white stuff, and loaded onto ships docking at the end of a humongous conveyor belt. Other "southern" sights include the town, a mangrove swamp, a butterfly sanctuary (pics on that in a separate blog), and flamingos.

Schools of fish

Not all fish swim alone - in fact, schools and congregation abound. The blue tangs are interesting - pale blue if the sun shines on them, deep black if the sun is behind them.

Fish in water

We are here for the fish - so here are some fish. These are one off - next blog we'll post schools and fish groups. THe pictures are for a French anglefish, a blue parrot fish, and a blue tang.

Harbor Village

Well, here we go with another test. Techy doofus Pop Pop (aka Popsie) locked himself out of the "travel" computer, and had to get MicroCenter to erase my password. Because of that, we did not have the portable laptop in Bonaire in February/March. Some of the pics were good, however, so this is a late blog of a Feb/Mar vacation. We stayed at Harbor Village in Bonaire, so we'll open with a few pictures of the digs and our buddies for the next two weeks, Iggies.

Spring has sprung!

This is the "berry" year: raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, bush cherries, and elderberries. We already are harvesting spinach and lettuce due to an early planting under "hoops."

The big row of plants just in front of the shed is full of garlic, planted last fall. Hopefully we'll have garlic to eat and store.

Return to Rio

We're back in Rio, flying out tonight for ATL and PHL. As we came back, we saw some Carnaval "mummer's" in Receife. For our last day, we walked the Copacabana beach - here are pictures of the beach and hotel.

More faces

For our faces today, we show Fernando, Rudolfo and Kaia, and Stephanie. Fernando, who is from Naronha, pulled Donna completely across Baia do Sueste to see turtles, a shark, a school of sardines and some very big fish interested in a few sardines.

Rudolfo and Kaia were our captain and first mate as we went snorkeling around Naronha,and eating freshly prepared fish (sushi and stew).

Stephanie is typical of Brazilians on the move. She wanted to learn English better, had difficulty getting a visa from the U.S.; Britain was too expensive; so she went to Queenstown, N.Z. for a degree in wine. Who knew you can study wine in college?