Relic 2: Car Show, Fourth of July, Redwood City

Fourth of July is celebrated in a BIG — and self does mean big — way in Redwood City, California.

Aside from the parade (“the oldest on the Peninsula”), there is a car show.  FUN!

Annual Car Show, Redwood City, Fourth of July

This week’s WordPress Photo Challenge is RELIC.

“Share a photo of what ‘relic’ means to you:  it could be a photograph of your still-running Honda Accord Hatchback, an historic building in your town, or an old, rusted farm implement poking up through the long grass in a field.”

Which had self thumbing back through the photos she took on the Fourth of July:

The Car Show is held in conjunction with the annual Fourth of July Parade, in downtown Redwood City. A VERY fun tradition!

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

Relic: WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge

This week’s WordPress Photo Challenge Theme is RELIC (“Share a photo of what relic means to you . . . “)

These pictures aren’t of relics, per sé.  Self took them on the Fourth of July (just a week ago, hard to imagine!).

The Redwood City Fourth of July Parade is the oldest on the Peninsula.  It’ an annual tradition that self tries never to miss.

After the parade, she and The Man retreat to City Pub for beer and crab cakes.  It’s more of a tradition than a relic, come to think of it.

Is the flag a relic?  Is that what self means?

Or does she mean that parades are relics?

Anyhoo, self is in the middle of the final days of the Squaw Valley Writers Conference.  It is hectic, people.  Her brain is fried.  This is the best she can do, at least for now.

City Pub, Broadway Ave., Redwood City (After the Fourth of July Parade)

Another From City Pub, downtown Redwood City

At the Redwood City Fourth of July Parade: The parade always features a high contingent of military, navy, and veterans groups.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

 

Contrasts 7: Light and Shadow, Annual Redwood City Fourth of July Parade (2014)

Citi Pub, Broadway Ave., downtown Redwood City: Self and The Man always wind up here after the Fourth of July Parade is over.

There’s more of the light-and-shadow thing going on in the next two shots.  In the one just below, self focused on the feet of the members of the Leland Stanford, Jr. University Marching Band.  They participate in the Redwood City Fourth of July Parade, every year.

Self loves when the Stanford Band plays “All Right Now,”  their signature song.  Compared to the other bands, they sport VERY casual attire.  She once heard someone describe them as “a bunch of hooligans.”

Another parade regular are the horses. These are city officials, self thinks.

Self is having so much fun with “Contrasts.”  Turns out that’s what summer light is all about.  In summer, and particularly in mid-day, the difference between sunlight and shade is very dramatic.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

Work of Art 4: WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge

Can you believe it will be summer soon? Summer is absolutely self’s FAVORITE time of the year!

A time to celebrate heat and being outdoors! In fact, summer would be absolutely perfect if she didn’t have to water!

Now to the WordPress Photo Challenge this weeek:  WORK OF ART.

A vintage car can be a work of art.  At least, it is treated as such by people in self’s corner of the world:

Annual Redwood City Fourth of July Extravaganza always includes an exhibit of vintage cars!

Last year, self spent a few weeks in Venice with Margarita Donnelly, long-time publisher of Calyx Press. She loved taking the vaporetto to the various outlying islands of the Venetian lagoon.  She visited Murano one evening, after all the tourists were gone.

Near the Vaporetto Stop in Murano

Another example of outdoor art on Murano. This may be a Chihuly.

Unexpected: WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge

One of the Giant Puppets in Last Year’s Masskara Festival in Bacolod, Negros Occidental

1st visit to the island of Siquijor was in mid-December, 2010. The porters at the pier were really getting into the spirit of Christmas, judging from the Santa hats (in baking heat)

The Miami Beach Holocaust Memorial. There is only one word for it: OVERWHELMING

Saturated 2: WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge

In keeping with the guidelines for this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge, self picked photographs that were “not just colorful” but “saturated with color.”

Masskara Festival, Bacolod, October 2012

The Hirshorn Museum, Washington, DC: April 2012

The Apple Tree in the Fall

Wow, these jolts of colorful are certainly energizing self’s mood!

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

 

Details, Details: An Unusual POV 4

It never stops, self’s impulse to look at other bloggers’ takes on the weekly photo challenge. This Week’s Prompt is:  An Unusual POV.  She had fun looking at tilted subjects by On Random Thoughts and Chris Breebaart’s photo, in all shades of luminous gray, of a building in Paris (La Défense).

And here are a few more from self’s stash:

Sunset from the Balcony of an Apartment in Paris, July 2012

The Front Door, Early Spring 2013

Masskara Festival, Bacolod, October 2012

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: Carefree 4

This week’s WordPress Photo Challenge, posted by Sheri, is “Carefree.” She wrote:

Whether a good memory was made in years past, yesterday, or only moments ago, I love letting the nostalgia wrap me up —  like a borrowed sweater on a cold summer night.  Even more, I love making new memories:  a carefree summer at the lake, a stroll through the park, dancing in the rain . . . then all I need to do is remember, and the same carefree feeling washes over me.

In a new post specifically for this challenge, share a photo that means CAREFREE to you!

Mellifluous Mandarin-Speaking Girl Skyping with her Mom, sure no one could understand her:  Peet’s, Redwood City.  Self loves that her shoes are the exact same vibrant shade of red as the knapsack on the chair opposite!

Masskara Festival, Bacolod City: October 2012

Self at a restaurant in Burano with two lovely ladies from China: April 2013 (We all had a WEE bit to drink, LOL)

WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: Carefree 3

Here’s the latest prompt from the WordPress Daily Post site.  This week’s Photo Challenge is “Carefree.”

The prompt begins:

Summer memories make everything seem magical to me — carefree and untroubled.

Even on the trips where everything went wrong, I look back and smile at the narrow escapes, or the long walks on a beach while I sorted out and righted the world.

Without further ado, dear blog readers:  a new post, the third self has posted (so far) on the theme “Carefree.”

Stafford Park, Some Wednesday Evening

The Picnic Table (Cal Shakes picnic grounds, just before the Sunday, July 14 performance of “Romeo & Juliet,” which also happens to be self’s birthday

4th of July 2013, Redwood City Parade: It’s just as much fun to observe the spectators.

The Parade: Companionable 6

The following photograph needs no explanation.  It’s in line with the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge theme of the week, “Companionable” :

Watching the Parade, Earlier Today

Happy, Happy Fourth!

It’s just as much fun to observe the spectators.

If only self’s camera battery had not run out, about halfway through the parade!

Happy Fourth of July, all!

Stay tuned.