3 Free eBooks - November 2013

It’s time again for the monthly post about eBooks that are freely available on the Internet. The three below are my favorites for November 2013.

Gusman, Pierre.Pompei, the city, its life & art. London: W. Heinemann. 1900. Available from the Internet Archive here. Pompeii still fascinates us today. This book has drawings and color illustrations - for tourists of more than a century ago.

Smith, Watson; Woodbury, Richard Benjamin; Woodbury, Nathalie F. S. The Excavation of Hawikuh by Frederick Webb Hodge: report of the Hendricks-Hodge Expedition, 1917-1923. New York: Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation. 1966. Available from the Internet Archive here. Hawikuh is located near the Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico. Since I had just visited the Southwest in October - the images in this book prolonged the experience once I got back home to Maryland. The book contained many drawings of the designs from pots that reminded me of the pots at Edge of Cedars State Park.

Japanese decorated silk. 1700. Available from the Internet Archive here. This is a digitized version of a swatch book - decorated pieces of silk mounted in an accordion-type folder. The images on silk are elegant glimpses into the skill of the Japanese in 1700; no wonder the silks were in high demand.

A Year of Travel Keepsakes

I posted more than a year about earrings as travel keepsakes. I’ve continued that preference over the past year. Here are the keepsakes acquired since June 2012:

From Tennessee in June 2012 (Memphis, Chattanooga, Knoxville)

From New York in October 2012 (Watkins Glen and Corning)

From Arizona in March 2013 (Kartchner Caverns)

From South Carolina in April 2013 (Charleston)

From Virginia in May 2013 (Chincoteague

And Richmond and Norfolk)

From Arizona in June 2013 (Tucson)

And finally - from New Mexico in June 2013 (White Sands and I-10)

These small items are easy to fit into luggage…and great memory joggers for years to come. Here’s to remembering happy times!

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 6, 2013

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

18 Jaw-Dropping Ocean Photos - Aptly named BuzzFeed posting

Can city farms feed a hungry world? - Experiments in urban farming around the world….the future of food in the cities may depend on their success.

Stunning Shots of Reine, the Most Beautiful Village in Norway - Snowy pictures for a hot summer day!

Modern Technology Aids Repairs to 14th-Century Kiva at Bandelier National Monument - Bandelier is probably my favorite place in New Mexico. I’m glad it’s getting needed repairs.

Oral History….DNA from Ancient Tooth Tartar - Bacteria in the mouth have changed over time (large changes with transition from hunter/gatherer to farmer (more soft foods) and then with the advent of refined carbohydrates and concentrated sugars).

Amount of Dust Blown across the Western U.S. is Increasing - The technique that they use to determine how much dust is blowing is the most interesting part of this gleaning.

Magical Long Exposures Photos of Fireflies in Japan - It is easy to image fireflies as fairies in these forest images.

X-ray images of women in corsets show skeletons in a bind - I am very glad corsets are in our past rather than our present or future!

Opinion: On Living Longer - A thoughtful piece about memory loss and aging.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #44 - As usual, I can’t resist the bird photographs. My favorite in this group is last one - of the southern carmine bee-eaters aerial ballet.

White Sands National Monument

White Sands National Monument in New Mexico is about an hour off Interstate 10. We made a stop there in the morning on road trip from El Paso to Tucson. It was a typically sunny June day.

Everyone with children was renting saucers to slide down the dunes. I overheard the instructions: find a steep dune, lean back and keep your feet up. Even the adults that were coordinated enough to follow the instructions did not build up much speed; the sand was too soft and fine. The children, on the other hand, slide rapidly…laughing at their parents all the way. It was thirsty work. The gallon jugs of water that families lugged from the concession were needed.

The sand itself is so reflective that it does not get hot like the tan colored sand. We all pulled off our shoes and walked up a sloping dune face after our picnic lunch. It was noticeably cooler in the shade of the pavilion - comfortable with the little breeze. The reflectivity made the air above the sand feel very hot indeed and we all were prompted to lather up with sunscreen.

The air was dry and even the green plants seemed brittle from desiccation. The main evidence we saw of animals were their tracks in the sand.

The highpoint of the trip for me were the nests of barn swallows in the eaves of the visitor center. The little birds senses when their parents were coming and open up wide in anticipating. Enjoy the slide show tour of White Sands National Monument below!

June 2013 Road Trip

My road trip a few weeks ago took me from Dallas TX to Tucson AZ. The route went through Dallas - Fort Worth - Weatherford - Abilene - Midland - Pecos - El Paso - Las Cruces - Tucson…and back. On the way out we made a side trips into Abilene for the Frontier Texas exhibit and from Las Cruces to White Sands National Monument. On the way back we stopped at Clark Gardens near Weatherford. I have some future posts about those places. This post is about the scenes from the road.

It turns out that the pictures from Tucson back were the better ones - so the slide show below starts in Tucson and includes the scenes from the road in the three states. All three states have increased decoration of bridge abutments and overpasses along their interstates in recent years. They emphasize architecture, natural features and colors of the area. I captured some of the more unusual ones. El Paso seemed to have the most extensive and the most elaborate - in muted colors that seemed to fit the environment of El Paso.

The clouds were also noticeable. Their thickness built up in the afternoon of our first day of driving from Tucson. We had quite a rainstorm about an hour past El Paso. At first we thought we might be able to drive from underneath the big cloud…but it was as speedy as we were. The speed limit in that stretch is 80 mph but we slowed down in the deluge.

All three states have rest stops…many of them quite scenic. And they had picnic tables with shade - and situated to catch the breeze; we enjoyed picnic lunches even in the June heat. The welcome centers are even more elaborate. I took a picture of the sign and the doors of the one in New Mexico. The Texas rest stops included mosaics on the walls….and photogenic insects because they are so ‘open.’ As we got closer to Dallas we managed to take the route through Weatherford rather than return to the highway after our stop at Clark Gardens - so I got a picture of the center of town while we were stopped at a light. From there it was Fort Worth and Dallas traffic…not photogenic. We were all glad to get out of the car and stretch!