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Steve P

Road Trip – This and That

Road Trip – This and That

  • Travel
We followed Highway 1 along the California coast to Half Moon Bay where we had lunch and encountered the spectacular, shortened VW bus shown above. It is so Californian!

After lunch, we continued until we approached San Francisco where we joined the larger Highway 101. After a long, slow trip

Big Sur

Big Sur

  • Travel
This post is just a slide show. It begins at Ragged Point at the southern end of the drive and ends at Carmel to the north.

How was it? I imagined a twisty road amidst attractive coastline. I was not disappointed. For those inclined to spend multiple days in the

La Cuesta Encantada – The Cottages and Kitchens

La Cuesta Encantada – The Cottages and Kitchens

  • Travel
The three guest houses that make up the “Spanish village” of Hearst’s imagination are like the Three Bears: small, medium and large sizes. We were able to have a look inside the largest of the three, which is where the Hearst family stays when they come to call.

Casa

La Cuesta Encantada – The Upstairs Suites

La Cuesta Encantada – The Upstairs Suites

  • Travel
If you were lucky enough to be invited to stay at the Castle, you could expect to find yourself in pretty spectacular surroundings. We saw the public rooms in the previous post, now let’s have a look at bedrooms.

Hearst never “finished” working on the Castle, and probably never

La Cuesta Encantada – The Grand Rooms

La Cuesta Encantada – The Grand Rooms

  • Travel
“This must be a new experience for you to see the grand home of rich people”, I said to the British family joining us on our first tour.

Hearst imagined The Enchanted Hill not as a house or even a single structure. His model was a small Spanish town with

La Cuesta Encantada – The Visitor Center

La Cuesta Encantada – The Visitor Center

  • Travel
Most folks call this monument to tasteful pillaging Hearst Castle but its given name is La Cuesta Encantada, which means The Enchanted Hill. I’m here to tell you that when you sprinkle the fairy dust of money on ranch land, you conjure up a whole boatload ‘o enchanted architecture.
Itty Bitty Inn

Itty Bitty Inn

  • Travel
Meet Rik, creator and proprietor of the Itty Bitty Inn in North Bend, Oregon. Although the motel was built in 1950, you can bet it didn’t look like this in the early days. Rik took over about 1980 and began the transformation into the whacky place you see today.
moh-tuh-vey-shuhn

moh-tuh-vey-shuhn

Why the funny name for this post? If you live nearby, I’m hoping to motivate you to visit SAM and see Giacometti’s works for yourself.

This is a small taste of what’s on display. There are sketches, paintings, many more sculptures and a short film showing the

Étude – Getting close!

Étude – Getting close!

  • News
We dropped into the Nordic factory on our way back from Canada. I was hoping for a firm delivery date, but didn’t get one. As best we know, Étude will be on the water some time before the end of the month.

But that’s not delivery. It’s

Canada D’eh

Canada D’eh

  • Travel
God, it’s nice to visit a country where half the population doesn’t uncritically believe everything a power-mad narcissist says.

Sorry, just had to get that off my chest.

In late June, we made a kind of mini-tour of British Columbia to catch up with Mary Anne’s relatives,

Glass!

Glass!

This post is a test. I moved my blog to a new cloud server and want to make sure that posting, including the email notification sent out, still works.

As long as I was testing, I figured I might as well include some pretty photos of glass work from the

Water!

Water!

  • Photos
We nipped in just ahead of closing day to take a look at OUR BLUE PLANET: GLOBAL VISIONS OF WATER at the Seattle Art Museum. It was an interesting exhibit, although the connection of some of the works to water was sometimes tenuous.

Pacific Northwest tribes were well-represented. Beyond traditional

Étude – What a mess!

Étude – What a mess!

  • News
No, your eyes are not going wonky. All of the photos in this post were taken with a 28mm wide angle lens. I figured I’d need it for the interior shots, then was too lazy to switch to a different lens for photos outside of the boat.

You won’

Random, Arizona

Random, Arizona

  • Travel
Theres no story to be told this time, just a few photos of things i thought you might like to see.

Well, maybe one little story…

Some of you, my most perceptive and tasteful of readers, have said nice things about a few of my photos. That got me thinking.