Self just discovered this challenge, thanks to Travel with Intent.
Here are some pictures she took in the little museum adjoining the Carmel Mission. The words are those of Father Junipero Serra:
Weekend Street/Reflections, 3rd Friday in March 2022
March 18, 2022 at 11:05 pm (Artists and Writers, destinations, Links, postaday, Sayings)
Tags: California, California history, Carmel, northern California, road trip
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge (CFFC): Bark and Leaves
March 1, 2022 at 6:46 pm (destinations, Links, Lists, Places, postaday, Traveling, Weather)
Tags: California, Carmel, Cee Neuner, Ireland, Menlo Park, photo challenge, summer
- This week our topic is celebrating Bark and Leaves. You can post bark on a tree or any type of leaf. And like in the photo below, you can post both in one photo.
Moss-covered tree trunk, southern Ireland (near Cork)
Side-yard gate, Menlo Park, California
Carmel backyard on a fog-shrouded morning in July
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge (CFFC): Which Way by alive and trekking
January 18, 2022 at 8:47 pm (destinations, Links, Lists, postaday)
Tags: blogs, California, Carmel, Cee Neuner, memories, photo challenge, road trip
Self is always happy when she can join in one of Cee’s photo challenges. CFFC’s theme for the next few weeks is ‘other photo challenges.’ This week’s ‘other photo challenge’ is alive and trekking‘s Which Way:
From alive and trekking:
- The Which Way photo challenge is all about capturing the roads, walks, trails, rails, steps, signs, etc. we move from one place to another on. You can walk on them, climb them, drive them, ride on them, as long as the specific way is visible. Any angle of a bridge is acceptable as are any signs.
Here are two views of the rails and steps from Ocean Drive to Ocean Beach, Carmel.
Photographing Public Art Challenge (PPAC) #18: Garden Art
December 28, 2021 at 4:48 pm (Links, Lists, postaday)
Tags: Carmel, Garden, Marsha Ingrao, Menlo Park, photo challenge
Still playing catch-up! Marsha Ingrao explains the Photographing Public Art Challenge on her blog, Always Writes.
For this post, self has decided to focus on Garden Art. Well, not sure they rise to the level of Art. But they are man-made and have a certain aesthetic of beauty.
The hanging heart and the Buddha planter are both in self’s front yard.
The hanging wind chimes are from a garden in Carmel.
The fence with bottles is from a friend’s backyard in Menlo Park.
Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Here’s hoping everyone has a wonderful, safe New Year’s!
citysonnet colors and letters photo challenge: 28 November 2021
November 28, 2021 at 5:05 pm (Family, Links, postaday, Relatives, Sundays)
Tags: Carmel, memories, photo challenge, road trip
The color for 28 November is ORCHID.
Self does not have an orchid (or anything blooming that’s close to the color that’s on citysonnet’s November Challenge page.
Nevertheless, she does have a cousin who wore an orchid-colored top on a drive to Big Sur two weeks ago! Her shades even match her top!
Photographing Public Art Challenge (PPAC) # 13: the Robinson Jeffers Tor House and Hawk Tower, Carmel-by-the-Sea
November 15, 2021 at 7:16 pm (Artists and Writers, destinations, Links, Places, postaday, Recommended, Traveling)
Tags: architecture, art, bargains, blogs, California, California history, Carmel, inspiration, Marsha Ingrao, Mondays, photo challenge, pilgrimage, poetry, road trip
Still playing catch-up with the PPAC Challenge! Self spent last weekend in Carmel. One of the main purposes for the visit — aside from meeting an aunt she hadn’t seen in 20 years! — was seeing Robinson Jeffers’ Tor House, which had just re-opened for tours. Self is a lover of gardens, and the garden of the Tor House has been featured in several gardening books she owns.
To get to it from the north (the San Francisco Bay Area), you take 101 south, then 85, then 17 north, and finally pass through Salinas. Driving the 25 miles through Salinas to the Carmel turn-off will take almost an hour, because this area has perennial stop-and-go traffic. You will see fields, many fields! All in all, the drive took self almost 3 hours. She arrived about 15 minutes before the 1 p.m. tour she’d signed up for.
The tour of house and tower takes about an hour. Our guide was David, and he was really good. It will make you weep when you learn that Jeffers bought his lot for something like $200.
The views from Hawk Tower, right next to the house, are spectacular. Watch your step, the stairs are very narrow.
To think Robinson Jeffers built the house and tower all by himself! Tours cost $12.
The house is truly unique. Don’t miss, if you’re in the area.
A Photo a Week Challenge: BOKEH
November 1, 2021 at 8:06 pm (Links, postaday, Surprises, Traveling)
Tags: A Photo a Week, Carmel, memories, Mondays, Nancy Merrill, photo challenge, road trip
Self learns something new every day! She’d never heard the term ‘bokeh’ before. According to Nancy Merrill, host of A Photo a Week Challenge:
- bokeh is the visual quality of the out-of-focus areas of a photographic image, especially as rendered by a particular lens. In other words, it’s the quality of the intentionally blurry part of your image, or the background.
For this challenge, self thinks this photo fits the bill. She took it in Carmel Mission, last July. She didn’t notice the woman about to walk in front of her until she had taken the picture. The woman appears in the picture, but she is blurred. Is this bokeh?
Thursday Trios Challenge: 19 August 2021
August 19, 2021 at 7:47 pm (destinations, Explorers, Family, Links, Lists, Places, postaday, Surprises, Traveling)
Tags: California, Carmel, humor, memories, photo challenge, road trip, summer
Self loves this challenge. It is so much fun to look through her archives for trios.
Thank you to the host, Mama Cormier!
In July, self decided to Airbnb in Carmel for a few days. On all her drives around California, she somehow failed to hit up this place, which was one of the first places her Dear Departed Dad took her to when she was a wee little girl. We were on our first family vacation from the Philippines, and Dad decided to make of it a road trip. Somehow, he had always harbored a secret fantasy of having his entire family engage in that quintessential American family activity: the road trip. So he bundled all five of us kids and Dearest Mum on a plane, and rented a car after we landed in San Francisco, and took us on a road trip that included: Carmel, Las Vegas, and La Jolla. Oh, and Highway 1, which we drove all the way from San Francisco to La Jolla.
Anyhoo, last month, self decided to Airbnb in Carmel, and her host had a most interesting apartment, filled with original artwork, weights, records and turntables, hefty art books, and guitars (in case any of the guests wished to break out in song?). Here’s his guitar collection:
Self’s host was extremely cryptic. She notified him that she was vacating, and leaving the key in the apartment per his instructions, and got this response:
- I am just down the coast a little, enjoying the vanlife.
She thought and thought about an appropriate response, and finally came up with: Have an excellent vanlife!
Stay cool, dear blog readers. Stay cool.
A Photo a Week Challenge: Natural Lighting
August 13, 2021 at 5:07 pm (Flowers, Food and Drink, fpj-photo-challenge, Links, Lists, postaday, Traveling)
Tags: California, Carmel, Fridays, Nancy Merrill, photo challenge, road trip, summer
What a fun theme! Self looooves Natural Lighting.
Thank you to the host of the Photo a Week Challenge, Nancy Merrill!
Picnic in the Park
Kitchen Window
Carmel Mission
Lens-Artists Photo Challenge # 160: Your Inspiration
August 11, 2021 at 10:47 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, destinations, Flowers, fpj-photo-challenge, Links, Lists, Personal Bookshelf, Philippine History, Places, Publishers, Recommended, Traveling)
Tags: Carmel, Filipino writers, Gardens, inspirations, patti moed, Philippine History, photo challenge, road trip, seasons, spring, summer
Wow! Self LOVES the quote from Agnes Martin that inspired this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge!
She had a lot of fun going through her archives to identify her sources of inspiration.
Which are MANY. Here are a few:
- Gardens
Front Yard, May
- Beaches
Ocean Beach, Carmel
- History
The Jesuits in the Philippines, by Horacio de la Costa, S. J. (Harvard University Press)
Self is so glad she can share her inspirations with dear blog readers.
Kanlaon 