Have your children teach you well

 This is a photo from Sept.  As you can see the view is from on the Model T on our Can-Am meet in September.  I am still processing these photos for upload to my account at Megashot, where I will link the Can-Am participants when finished the album.  Still have lots of photos to process.

 This is the 'foxy' frame that I learned how to take from any one I saw on the net, and so, make it my own frame to add to photos that I could process through Paintshop Pro.  There is also a way to create your own frames for PSP.  Tutorials are available on the internet.  Choose any one you like.  This matter of frames came up in a discussion on a photo on Megashot.  I could make the frame on that photo my own, if I had the time.  It is not a very exciting frame, so I did not play with it.

Here is a Scaboisia flower, from June.  I am currently working on the June album of the Gardening page on my old web page.  I have 4 more pages to code and then I can upload the album to the page.  Slowly getting the Gardening page finished... but getting more and more behind in the Travel page.  

 With regard to the Travel page... This is a photo of the Parrot  in the Nazca lines in Peru.  We flew over these ancient displays when on our trip to Ecuador and Peru a few years ago.  I was looking over some of the photos and discovered that I had this Parrot depiction photographed, after all.  I have the Hands and the also the Whale.  I was so pleased to find that I had these three.  I thought I only had the Hands previously.

 The Whale from our fly over the Nazca lines.   Apparently, these ancient lines and graphics are now in danger of being destroyed by feral pigs.   Any wind would be equally destructive.  I am so glad I had the opportunity to get the photos I have.  They will eventually be appearing on my old web page on the Travel page.

I received this cute .jpeg in email recently.  It is about how I feel, too.  With all the changes and constant updates, I get just a little bit disgusted with my desktop PC and its updates and logins, etc.  My Ipad does not seem to give me this bother, but I cannot accesses things I may want to, on the Ipad, either... like ABE books... at least, I have not found their AP yet.   And on and on it goes...

YOUR CHILDREN SHOULD TEACH YOU WELL...

Can I borrow your 12 year old grand child to help me out with my computer?

Trip to Peru and Ecudor in March 2010

The Paracas ‘Trident’ or ‘Candelabra’ is a huge cactus-shaped figure carved into a hillside at Pisco Bay on the Peruvian coast. It measures about 240 m long by 120 m wide, with trenches a metre deep, and can be seen from as far as 24 km out to sea. It is aligned almost exactly north-south. It is variously regarded as a navigational aid or as a ritual object, representing a cactus or tree of life, where high priests worshipped the setting sun. Paracas-culture pottery dated to about 200 BC has been found there. Graham Hancock notes that 2000 years ago, viewed from a kilometre out to sea, the constellation known as the Crux (Southern Cross) would have been suspended in the sky directly above the cliff diagram at the March equinox.  This quote taken from this informative web site 

This is the only figure I got a good shot of on our flight over the Nazca Lines.  I have seen it called Wing or Hands.  More information on this site. 
This was a very busy and active trip. 

I have set up a 'desert' community on Megashot.net and so got searching my old photos for some sand, desert, canyons and badlands photos.  I was up way late last nite working on this, so need my beauty sleep.  This is a surprisingly short post for me.  All the interesting stuff is in the hot links. 

Pats outline of our trip to Ecuador and Peru

This is the best photo I have of the animal figures from our fly over of the Nasca Lines.  This one is called the hands.  These figures are gigantic.  There are many theories of the origins of the lines.  I found this site helpful.

 This map shows   the hands next to the highway that runs through the area.(Pan American Highway)  There are farms in the area too.  More photos on this later in my blog.

Pat's version of our trip

Our trip was good all in all, overlooking the hassle of flying in and out of the U.S. these days. Long line-ups, shoes off, passports examined at every turn. "Inspectors" rifling through carry-on bags frequently.  Terminal paranoia!

  We pulled out all the stops and flew business class where we could, as our 40th was at the end of December.  On the Continental 737's this gives that extra leg-room I covet, and more space to stretch out, with better food and included beverage service, and the first-class lounges where available, if time permits. Lounges are all included for food and beverage service too. The nicer, bigger aircraft like the 757 from Lima to Houston had angled seating with footstool shelves, and I could almost stretch out flat! This was great as we got on at 11:40 pm, to arrive at Houston early am. Actually got some sleep enroute.

  Quito is quite a high altitude, but we were okay there. After a day there and a city tour and  to the equator monument we flew with Celebrity Tours to the Galapagos Islands, were taken by buses to the dock and loaded into Zodiacs for a twenty minute ride to the Xpedition cruise ship, our residence for the week. Staterooms were small, but nicely appointed and comfortable for us who travel in a camper van. The Zodiacs are about 24 ft. long, and will plane with their 100 hp Yamaha outboards. Two trips ashore daily, to see the creatures, one each morning and afternoon, and a choice of a shorter or longer walk with a local naturalist guide to give the talk and answer questions. The guides were all good and spoke English well. Among the wildlife were Frigate birds, blue-footed boobies, flightless Cormorants, and a variety of finches, distinguished by long, short, curved or straight beaks, according to their diets. There were penguins and sea turtles, lots of tracks up the sand banks where the turtles nest, just an overnight egg-dropping, leaving them to hatch from the heat of the sun.

  Giant tortoises stopped along some walking trails so getting really close for pictures was easy. Without predators they are very docile. All are protected, no hunting or fishing happens without local government sanction. Getting rid of a feral goat population has been a priority as they consumed too much plant life for the natural  animals to flourish.

  All was included on the ship, a smaller one with about 100 guests and about half that many staff. We couldn't take full advantage of this as we each had an off-day or two with lost appetites, didn't even enjoy the dinner wines. Maybe just as well...could have been the heat, 90's daily, or the ship's motion, or the food, who knows? It was a common thread among many of us, with nothing too serious after all.

  Peru was another interesting visit. 6 of us went on, several , 8 I think cancelled this part because Machu Picchu was closed due to torrential rains in February which washed out the Orient Express railway that was to take us there from Cusco, in luxurious style! Cusco is interesting anyway, and we got to visit other nearby Inca ruins. Only one rainy day in the whole two weeks, Well-warned, rain jackets got used that once. Shopping was too easy, we got nice alpaca sweaters for $20.00 each! Couldn't try bargaining at that rate, besides they gave us cocoa tea and a spinning and weaving demonstration first.

  Our alternative to Machu Picchu was seeing the Nazca lines, great geographs on the ground that are of unknown origin, perhaps 4,000 years old, and are unrecognizable until you are 1500 feet above them. Von Daniken's popular book"Chariots of the Gods" made us aware of the phenomenon in the 1970's, so this was a treat for us. They flew ur over in a Cessna Caravan, a twelve-passenger plane. An hour and forty minutes were spent flying to the geographs and over them. They cover an area of about 50 kilometers square, and depict a whale, hummingbird, spider and a monkey, to my recollection. They are remarkable! Great elongated triangles are thought to be of astronomical signifigance. Von Daniken conjectured they were to lure back the extraterrestrials, who had visited previously. As they took a very substantial effort to be established, and don't relate to food or fortification from enemies, they can be believed to have some religious intent.

  Our hotels were all 5-star luxury resorts, a complaint being how little time available to enjoy each one. Paracas was on the beach, Cusco had the Monasterio, a converted Monastery where cloisters were glassed in for the dining area, the refectory remained for the breakfast room, and two courtyards were lovely gardens. Sometimes there were faint strains of Gregorian Chants in the background, like at breakfast!

  Our buses were nice, new ones and the drivers excellent too. In every case they split lanes, trucks and buses too. Horns are essential, None of them could get anywhere without them! Or so it seems. Smaller motorbikes abound, mostly Hondas with a mix of Asian scooters with unfamiliar names.

  To get our early start out of Vancouver we had an overnight at the Airport Fairmont Hotel, and our dear travel agent, Maria looked after our dinner! We have the best travel agent! Returning through Houston and Seattle got us into Victoria late afternoon last Friday, 19th March