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“Pic of the Week”, October 18, 2019: A Swirl of Color
I walked past this scarlet macaw preening itself, and had to stop and enjoy a display of nature’s palette. Scarlet macaws are amazingly beautiful birds! In the act of cleaning itself, the bird’s multicolored feathers were moving and beautifully displayed. I tried to capture some of this brilliance in these images — hopefully with at least an element of success.
(Click on thumbnails to enlarge photos, right arrows to advance)
“Pic of the Week”, October 11, 2019: Robert W Service, the Bard of the North
While I love reading whenever I find the time, I’ve never been much of a fan of poetry, with two exceptions — the writing of Rudyard Kipling and (the man featured in today’s Pic of the Day) Robert W. Service.
Robert Service was born in England and began writing poems as a child, dreaming of a life of exploration and adventure, and of one day being a cowboy in Western Canada. He emigrated to Canada in 1895, although he never became a cowboy.
Service is well know to Canadians because of his writing about life in Canada’s Yukon territory during the Klondike Goldrush. He moved to the Yukon during this colorful period in history and loved the characters he met and heard …
“Pic of the Week”, October 4, 2019: White Ibis, Florida
I’d never seen White Ibis before visiting Florida years ago. It’s a rather common bird in the Gulf Coast region, extending from the Mid-Atlantic coast to Mexico. The white ibis prefers living around marshy and swampy ground. It’s obviously a white bird, with pale facial skin and pink beak and legs. Apparently the legs turn scarlet during mating season. Males are larger and have longer bills than females.
Their diet consists primarily of small aquatic insects and fish, including crayfish, although these freeloaders were enjoying a meal provided by Flamingo Gardens.
(Click on thumbnails to enlarge, right arrow to advance slideshow)
“Pic of the Week”, September 27, 2019: Grand Staircase, Manitoba Legislative Building
One of my favorite places to visit in Manitoba is the main entrance to it’s Legislative Building — home of the province’s governing body. Within the entrance is a magnificent staircase framed by two bison — know affectionately by me as the Bison Stairs (but to most others as the Grand Staircase). The bison is the symbol of the province of Manitoba.
The staircase is composed of Carrara marble and has three flights each with 13 steps. The bison flanking the lower stairs are solid bronze and were cast in New York, each weighing 2 1/2 tons. Apparently to install the bison without damaging the marble floors, the main entrance was flooded and left to freeze. The bison were slide in on …
“Pic of the Week”, September 20, 2019: Dragon Bridge, Ljubljana
Dragons are an important historic symbol in Slovenia and, as such, one can see why Dragon Bridge in Ljubljana is so popular. It crosses the Ljubljana River and provides access to its famous Central Market.
The bridge contains four dragon statues, one at each of its four corners, which were beautifully crafted in Vienna. It was constructed between 1900 and 1901, a time of Art Nouveau, and was Ljubljana’s first reinforced concrete structure. It replaced an old wooden bridge, called Butchers’ Bridge, which had been on the site since 1819 and which was damaged by an earthquake in 1895.
The bridge is also decorated by lamps containing griffins at their base, which were originally powered by gas. When the bridge was completed, …
“Pic of the Week”, September 13, 2019: A Coffee Shop in Nederville, Colorado
Situated in the Rocky Mountains near Golden, Colorado, is the small town of Nederville. We were driving through the mountains, in need of a caffeine fix, and my son told me he knew of a nice coffee shop in Nederville. Turns out this coffee shop was situated in several old train cars, an unusual and fun setting.
The java was good and the fresh mini-donuts were terrific!
(Click on thumbnails to enlarge, right arrow to advance slideshow)
“Pic of the Week”, September 6, 2019: Grenfell, Saskatchewan
I spotted this interesting Tourist Information building while driving across the prairies on the TransCanada Highway. Grenfell is a small town in Saskatchewan that cleverly made its TI look like a prairie grain elevator. As we’ve previously pointed out, the real counterparts of this structure are disappearing prairie icons. I enjoyed the row of smaller grain elevators behind the TI, which you can see better in the photos below.
As I’d pulled off the highway, I though I’d drive around the town to see what’s there. Nothing much, really. A nice historic mural on one of the buildings. A small museum featuring pioneer artifacts (open only during summer months). And it being the prairies, no town would be complete without a …
Sep 5, 2019
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“Pic of the Week”, August 30, 2019: Milano Centrale Railway Station
Stazione Milano Centrale is the main station in Milan and has the most passenger traffic of any train station in Europe. It is large and very busy, connecting Milan with many of Italy and Europe’s great cities.
The station was officially inaugurated in 1931 to replace the older central station (built 1864). Its reconstruction coincided with Benito Mussolini becoming Prime Minister. Mussolini wanted the station to represent the might of Italy’s Fascist regime, so the architecture and details were tweeked to represent what’s now called “fascist architecture”. The architectural details are powerful but not very refined, and are present throughout the structure.
Although we used the station twice, I never managed to head outside (given the luggage we were totting), so I didn’t photograph the …
Aug 29, 2019
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