A friend and I go to Hawaii, to the big island, in March of 2018. The road near Kilauea is closed because of fumes. The level of the lava had dropped. My friend and I find a place where we can see it in the distance and wait for nightfall to get these photographs.
We could see it in the day and clearly they were right about fumes.
It got much more impressive as it got darker.
The real eruption started about a month later, destroying houses and land and building new land.
I would have trouble walking this pet, who weighs 90 pounds, a bit cumbersome The owner explains, “She’s happy to go to a stranger because her goal is to get to the ground. Strangers are not as good at holding her.” We were at the PACNWRS, with many many many snakes. Most of them are not out, but are contained.
Of course, if you need a special hat, well, maybe it’s the place to be.
On the day my daughter and I explored two Florence gardens, I tripped. I did not knock myself out, nor my teeth, but I scraped both knees a little and bruised both palms.
I fell on gravel. Can you tell? I held lots of pressure on the knees first, and then palms together. Less bruising with pressure because the bleeding stops sooner. I still had these nice gravel prints on the photographs taken the next day. I was looking at the garden and did not see a ridge to divert rain and fell quite hard. I rolled and did not break a wrist, which is nice. After that, my daughter warned me when she thought the ground was rough and I was looking up too much. “No texting while walking, mom.”
The cobblestones could be rough too.
And this garden sculpture is not watching his feet either.
This one might not need to, since he looks like he’ll be airborne.
Happily, I did not fall down any steps nor with my big pack on.
At a clinic visit this week the Medical Assistant screens me. “Are you sexually active?”
I say, “Um, what do you mean?”
“Are you sexually active?”
“Um, I do not have a partner.” By now, I really want to laugh.
She still looks confused. “You are not sexually active.”
“Ok.” I try not to giggle. Apparently her question series does not cover um, solo sexual activity and I resist telling her about the downtown sexual health and toy store. The new multispeed, multipattern suction toys are, well, enlightening and INSPIRING and EXPLOSIVE.. Or, um, something. Snort.
Let’s just study the dome. This is from Venice and tells the story of Adam and Eve.
I have sent a message to my physician saying that they may want to rephrase the questions. “Do you have any sexual partners?” would be more enlightening as far as sexually transmitted disease risk. Heh. The whole thing cracked me up. My blood pressure was still 108 over 70. Ha, so there, heart disease. My English/Scots father’s family is adapted to tobacco and alcohol and my father ran a low blood pressure even with 55 years of unfiltered Camels in his lungs.
Heh.
For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: dome. This is the Basilica San Marcos, which has multiple domes. This one tells the story of Adam and Eve. I now want to paint one of my ceilings. The bathrooms have too much moisture. I suspect this will not enthuse future realtors.
I did not sort out Italian fashions in the two weeks I traveled with my daughter.
For one thing, we were mostly in tourist areas. It was hot, though not as hot as August. Very thin straps on tops and short shorts or skirts were to be covered to go in to the big churches and the Vatican Museum. Having to cover up is just a little ironic since so many of the sculptures are nude or partly nude, both male and female.
I took a black skirt and a pair of pants that are loose and flowered and cool. These proved to be very good guesses for my age group. I had washable travel button down shirts, which worked well. I never used my fleece jacket or rain jacket, on this trip. My feet complained and I might choose different shoes next time.
One recurring theme that I noticed is leopard prints. Dresses, skirts, shirts, blouses. I saw them in each of the five cities. There also is a recurrence of rompers. My daughter comments, “There are very few people that look good in rompers but mostly people don’t.” I didn’t like them in the 1970s and I don’t like them now. We did see a very few either tall or thin or both women who carried them off.
Tourist wear is all over the place but mostly is driven by the heat. Hats were for sale to tourists and large scarves to double as a skirt to cover short shorts or skirts.
My daughter and I hike in Cinque Terre, Italy. There are five villages along the coast and a trail from the first to the last. Lots of stairs! And look at the terraces, built to farm the area. They grow mostly grapes and olives.
No cars in the towns.
Here is a map.
Here is a stairway from the path to a terrace.
For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: waste. No waste here.
This is the Trevi Fountain. We can curate the photographs so that we can’t see the crowd. Here is the crowd.
There are lots of changes from 43 years ago, 1980, when I traveled there. More people. We were traveling in January and February 1980, so that’s not a fair comparison. But the crowd is more diverse. At that time we ran into Australian travelers, the same people in hostels as we traveled. We were mostly Caucasian. Now the crowd is much more diverse and I also do not know what language a person will speak. Race is a messy construct anyhow, very unscientific, but I really like the diversity and not knowing what language a person will be fluent in until I hear them speak.
Here is the Vatican Museum. Also crowded and diverse.
Here is a park near the train station in Rome with some “Olympics” for both kids and adults.
We were staying in hostels and only did one formal tour. I wonder if the expensive hotels have the same diversity.
Discover and re-discover Mexicoβs cuisine, culture and history through the recipes, backyard stories and other interesting findings of an expatriate in Canada
Engaging in some lyrical athletics whilst painting pictures with words and pounding the pavement. I run; blog; write poetry; chase after my kids & drink coffee.
Refugees welcome - FlΓΌchtlinge willkommen I am teaching German to refugees. Ich unterrichte geflΓΌchtete Menschen in der deutschen Sprache. I am writing this blog in English and German because my friends speak English and German. Ich schreibe auf Deutsch und Englisch, weil meine Freunde Deutsch und Englisch sprechen.
KO Rural Mad As Hell Blog 
You must be logged in to post a comment.