"Papa Was a Rolling Stone" Day Phot-o' the Day: Aztec Ruins National Monument, New Mexico USA

It is the third of September / The day I'll always remember.

September 3 is "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" Day, because it's the day referenced in the opening line of that R&B classic. I don't have any pictures of tumbling rocks and, even if I did, how could tell they were moving from a still photo? But there are plenty of rocks and stones in this picture from Aztec Ruins National Monument, tucked away in the New Mexico corner of the Four Corners region.

The ruins aren't "Aztec" per se. They were built by the Pueblo Culture Indians about a thousand years ago. They are interesting and impressive and worth a visit if you find yourself in the neighborhood.

Visited April or May in 1998.

(Regarding the reference to this not being "Aztec per se," historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists are still uncertain where the Aztecs originated and how they ended up on a plateau in Central Mexico just in time for a meet up with Spanish conquistador Cortez. One plausible theory is that the Aztecs were the lost Anasazi people who disappeared from the four corners region of Arizona and New Mexico around 1200. So it is plausible -- remotely plausible but plausible -- that "Aztec Ruins" the national monument has a relationship to the Aztecs of Mexico, although the name "Aztec" being assigned to the national monument would be pure coincidence and not due to foresight.)

Cool Digitized Analog Phot-o' the Day: Rocky Mountain National Park, West Side

The heat wave here in Las Vegas is dissipating. We may have seen our last day in 2020 when the high temperature hits the one hundred and tens. Highs in the one-oh's for the foreseeable future. The very high one-oh's, but that's still cooler than the hundred-teens.

One cool place for escape is Rocky Mountain National Park, astride the continental divide in Colorado. I was there in late June 2003 and on the main road through the park, in the area around the continental divide (the road peaks at about 12,000 ft above sea level, I believe), not only was the snow still on the ground, the snow on the sides of the road (remnants from the road being plowed through the winter) was well over the height of the car (this was when I had an SUV), probably 10 to 12 feet high. That will cool you down.

This photo is from the descent on the western side of the continental divide, homeward bound. Still cool, however.

The Cool Cool of Olympic National Park (2001)

The Hoh Rain Forest on the west side of Olympic National Park

It is going to be a whole week of high temperatures in the 100-and-teens, so time to remember good times in cool places. I had the chance to visit Olympic National Park on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State back in 2001. I attended a convention in Seattle and, afterwards, headed to Vancouver Island and, right before returning to Las Vegas, Olympic National Park.

I am fairly certain that these waterfalls were in the northern part of the park, the part where you enter from the City of Port Angeles.

Going back into the time machine to back in the day when vacation photos were shot on film and  developed days (or weeks!) after the end of the vacation and you could see the few photos you snapped on the trip.

A weird fact about Olympic National Park is that you can't get from one place to another within the park. You have to leave the park to get another section of the park. There are multiple entrances into the park off Highway 101 which encircles the park on the three sides. So, to get from section of the park to another, you have to go back out to the 101.

I do believe, however, that there were big ol' trees in every section of the park.

It was quite green, even in the summertime.

At this point, I'm not sure if I'm in the northern section of the park or the Hoh Rain Forest section of the park. This doesn't look especially "rain forest-y," but the Hoh is not the Amazon basin.

This is definitely the Hoh Rain Forest in this picture, as this definitely looks "rain forest-y" to me.

As does this. Weirdly enough, it was not raining in the rain forest when I was there. It was sunny and only slightly humid. Well, sunny in the parts where the tree canopy lightened up enough to let the sun shine in the sun is shining.

Yet it was raining in Las Vegas when I got home. No rain in the rain forest. Rain in the driest desert in North America.

But I did have a chance to snap a feel pictures (on film!) of the Pacific Ocean.

The Pacific Ocean off the Olympic Peninsula is quite different from the California coast.

It's Washington, so of course there's going to be wood.

Digitized Analog Phot-o' the Day: Monument Valley, Arizona USA (in artsy B&W)

Monument Valley, on Navajo tribal land in the Arizona corner of the Four Corners region, was used as the backdrop for a number of movie and TV westerns. Some of those were in the black & white era. And that means the Phot-o' the Day is Monument Valley in awesome artsy black & white.

Visited April 1998.

Digitized Analog Phot-o' the Day: Monument Valley, Arizona USA

 

Monument Valley, in the Arizona section of the Four Corners region, is one of the iconic sights of the American Southwest. Its name comes from the fact that so many large rock formation jut straight up like a bunch of tombstones.

There are no hiking trails here -- there is no shade, there are no "facilities," there is no water -- so take in the majesty of the park you drive. The roads within the park -- one of the "main" ones is in the foreground -- are not paved, but the land is so dry and the ground is so hard that it really is the same as if you were driving on asphalt, but without the distracting ribbons of black asphalt detracting from the terra cotta red of the rocks.  I guess that's why so many "new model" automobile photo shoots were done here. It definitely would explain why this used to be a filming location for the old Hollywood westerns of the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, and, really, up until the time that the mountains of Italy and western Spain would play the part of the Desert Southwestern USA in those hipster spaghetti and gazpacho westerns of the 1960s.

Visited April 1998.

Swetsville Zoo: Metal Animals in Fort Collins, Colorado USA (2003)

And the band played on. 

The Swetsville Zoo may be the greatest roadside attraction in all of the United States. Maybe even greater than Carhenge. So what is it? Where is it? Why is it?

Where it is is just outside Fort Collins. What it is is a collection of metal sculptures made mostly from car parts.

Why it is is obvious. Because the world could always use another collection of whimsical metal animal sculptures.

I visited in June 2003. I remember hearing a few years later that it was closing and that the land was going to be used for condominiums or a strip mall or something less whimsical. I assumed it was closed. But it wasn't. In the summer of 2019, the land officially went on the market, so it could be sold to build condominiums or a strip mall or something far less whimsical.

But the Swetsville Zoo apparently still is open and inspiring awe.

For example: wow. That VW Bug has been transformed into a giant bug.

Sea serpent and turtles. Turning old tires into the body of a sea serpent may be obvious once you think about, but who thought of it before Mr. Swets constructed his Zoo.

In a world of digial photographhy, I would have taken about 1 million pictures. But film was expensive to develop and pictures were scarce. Hence that awesome skeletal dinosaur has to be merely background fodder for that awesome giant winged insect scuplture in the foreground. The skeletal dinosaur deserved a photo in its own right.

Snoopy and Woodstock, transformed:

There was a small "indoor" section of the Swetsville Zoo, which is where the really weird stuff was kept.

It gets weirder:

This one has a dinosaur/Star Wars stormtrooper/I've been working on the railroad vibe that somehow works perfectly fine in this environment.

Not all the zoo animals are friendly, of course:

But more are.

This was an absolutely amazing place.

Well worth the time spent. Enjoy it while it is still of this world, even though it may be other-wordly.

Digitized Analog Phot-o' the Day; Joshua Tree National Monument, California USA (1994)

It was Joshua Tree National Monument when I took this photo (with real camera film!) in 1994. It's since been upgraded to national park status. But the photo is of Joshua Tree in its national monument days,

Sort of like if you had taken a photograph back in the 1500's of that large city on the Bosporus in Turkey. The photo would be of Constantinople not Istanbul, even though today that city is Istanbul not Constantinople. So this is Joshua Tree National Monument Not Joshua Tree National Park. Why did Joshua Tree National Monument get the works? That's nobody's business but the clerks.

Digitized Analog Phot-o' the Day: Old Quebec City; Quebec, Canada

South Park was right. French Canada is the best Canada.

This is a view of historic Old Quebec City, near the Plains of Abraham. You may remember the Plains of Abraham from the French & Indian War as the battlefield upon which the game of Stratego is fought. Yes, those red and blue lieutenants, sergeants, miners, and flags from the Stratego game were here in Quebec City. But not in any of those buildings, including that awesome signature building of downtown Quebec City in the upper left of the photo.

There is a long (and growing) list of places I've been where I've not spent nearly enough time. Quebec City, PQ, is definitely one of those. Historic and beautiful architecture. Great food. And a funicular. The three essential ingredients that make any place worth visiting.

I believe I visited in the Summer of 1995. I could be off by one year in either direction, but it definitely was in the final years of the second millennium.

Digitized Analog Phot-o' the Day: National Pantheon of Heroes; Asunción, Paraguay

El Panteón Nacional de los Héroes, the National Pantheon of Heroes, in Asunción, Paraguay. Many Paraguayan national heroes are honored and interred inside.

I visited Asunción in late 1997, just when Paraguay was emerging from the isolation and military dictatorships that had been its station since independence in the early 19th Century. Things might have changed over the last two decades, but the only person in all of Asunción I encountered who spoke English was the day shift front desk clerk at my hotel. But it was OK. I went to Paraguay specifically because I wanted to go somewhere no one else I knew went to. Twenty-three years later, I still think I'm the only one I know (in the sense of whether any of us truly knows one's self) who has been to Paraguay.

And I loved it.

Digitized Analog Sunday Church Phot-o' the Day: Igreja e Convento de São Francisco; Salvador, Brazil

This is the facade and main entrance of Igreja e Convento de São Francisco, the Church and Monastery of St. Francis of Assisi, in the Pelourinho neighborhood of Salvador, Brazil. The church is just as amazingly beautiful inside as it is outside.

Salvador is a wonderful city. It is the center of Afro-Brazilian culture. (It is probably the best place in the western hemisphere to experience African culture, period.) It has the best music and the best food in Brazil. Basically, it is a Portuguese-speaking version of New Orleans, only with miles and miles of the beautiful beaches.

Visited December 1997. For years, I had wanted to spend Christmas on a beach in Brazil. In 1997, I did. In Salvador.

Digitized Analog Phot-o' the Day: Iguacu Falls, Brazil

Heading into the spray at Iguaçu Falls along the Brazilian/Argentine border.

There are two important things to note about the mighty Iguaçu Falls, only one of which is captured by this photo. It is incredibly beautiful. It is by most measures the largest waterfall in the world, although it would be more accurately described as a waterfall complex. Look up aerial photos on line to get a sense of just how huge the Iguaçu Falls series of waterfalls actually is. So, yes it is beautiful and magnificent and awesome. But when you go there to actually see and experience Iguaçu in person, you will have one other major sensory memory.

It is loud. Overwhelmingly "you can't carry on a conversation" loud. "The Who In Concert" loud. Water makes noise. And lots of water makes lots of noise.

Visited December 1997.

Digitized Analog Phot-o' the Day: MGM Grand Hotel Lion-head Entrance

Back in the bygone days of film photography, I took a number of black and white photos on the Las Vegas Strip. This is the original, now replaced, lion-head entrance into the MGM Grand hotel-casino a the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue. I'm not sure when this was taken, although I know it dates back all the way back to the 20th Century. There is an escalator in the bottom right corner for an overhead walkway across Tropicana. That might help in dating this photo. Were those escalators original from the opening of the MGM? I don't remember. I don't recall.

Digitized Analog Phot-o' the Day: Butchart Gardens, Brentwood Bay (near Victoria), B.C., Canada

See all the pretty flowers.

Butchart Gardens is a large garden. That has to be stated because not everything named "Something Gardens" is a garden. Madison Square Garden in New York, for example, may have a plant or two nearby, but it's known for something else entirely. Marvin Gardens on your Monopoly board is a street, in the yellow sector, at the extreme upper end of the mid-range properties. But Butchart Gardens is not metaphorical gardens. It is actual gardens. Lots and lots and lots of plants and trees and colorful flowers.

It is located just north of Victoria, British Columbia, on Vancouver Island, which is not to be confused with the City of Vancouver which is not on the island of Vancouver, it's on the mainland. If you're into this sort of thing, referring to acres of pretty flowers, it is well worth the visit. If you're not into this sort of thing (and I am not), it still is well worth the visit. If you are REALLY into this sort of thing, it's worth planning a trip with Victoria, B.C., as your primary destination.

Visited June 2001.

Digitized Analog Phot-o' the Day: Arches National Park; Moab, Utah USA

Delicate Arch, the signature arch of Arches National Park. It's been on the Utah state license plate so that makes it pretty iconic. Is this as seen from a hiking trail? Or is it as seen from a viewpoint on the driving loop through the park? It's been too many years for me to remember.

But I do remember that Arches is one of the greatest sights to see on Planet Earth. How did they manage to fit all these stone arches into such a tiny corner of Utah? Why is this where it happened with so much frequency? I've seen these stone arches here and there and everywhere as I've traveled around. But I think that at least a clear majority, if not an overwhelming majority, were packed into this one national park.

And Moab, Utah, is a cute little town worth visiting on its own right. Well, at least it was when I visited in June 2003.

Phot-o' the Day: Yosemite on a Dry Autumn Day; Yosemite National Park, California USA

If you go to Yosemite National Park, don't make the mistake I made. Do not go in the fall, when the weather is warm and dry. Go in the spring, preferably after a wet winter. Why?

You need water to make a waterfall. You can see the barest glimmer of a waterfall plunging over this cliffside. I am guessing from the discoloration of the surrounding rock that the dark color is the maximum water flow in the wettest years. That's a whole lot more water than the tiny trickle visible in this shot.

At least in the fall, on a weekday, after the school year has long started (back in the pre-COVID days when children would physically attend schools in actual live person), Yosemite was relatively empty. Still, Yosemite without waterfalls is like Yellowstone without geysers. Or Rocky Mountain National Park in the plains. Something important is missing.

Visited September 2002. Before the advent of digital photography (in my life, at least).

Sunday Church Phot-o' the Day: Cathedral of Brasilia; Brasilia, Brazil

The most retrofuturistic cathedral in the world, in the most retrofuturistic city on the planet: the Cathedral of Brasilia, in the Brazilian capital city of Brasilia.

Like most of Brasilia, the Cathedral was designed by Oscar Niemeyer, Brazil's architect of the future, well, the future as envisioned in 1960. The most interesting thing about Brasilia? There are no cross walks. There are almost no intersections. High-speed, multi-lane roads cross above and below each other, but almost never "at grade." There was no thought given to the idea that there would be pedestrians.

So just try walking around downtown Brasilia. On the other hand, don't try. The hot equatorial sun is searing hot, especially in late December (which is when I was there) (which is the beginning of the South American summer) (not the seasons matter all that much this close to the equator). Walking in Brasilia makes walking in L.A. seem like a stroll through a shady village green.

Visited December 1997. Still scanning my analog photos into digital.

Phot-o' the Day: At the Copa, Copacabana; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

I have finally started the long process of digitizing all of my old film-photography photos from my life (including travels) prior to the advent of digital photography. It's like experiencing a past-life regression. Scratch that: it is experiencing a past life regression.

Today's past life regression is to the first major international vacation of my adulthood (Canada not counting as "international" for the limited purpose of defining a travel experience):  Brazil in December 1997. My first stop in Brazil (other than the change of planes in Sao Paulo airport) was Rio de Janeiro.  This is the view of crescent-shaped Copacabana Beach as seen from Pão de Açucar, Sugarloaf mountain. An iconic sight of Brazil as seen from an iconic sight of Brazil.

Colors are fading because that what happens with film photography. The sand is not pink on Copacabana. They're sandy tan. And neither are the bodies pink. No skin gets sunburned in Rio de Janeiro because it's always exposed to the sun (well, except after dark).