The hills of Montenegro were filled with these flowers. They look like purple thistles…but I’m not sure that they were. The air was full of the fuzz that carried their seeds. Click on photos to enlarge.
This hydrant was in the middle of a field in Wyoming.
Wouldn’t want the fire hydrant to get wet!!!
We reached Corfu this morning and are now 8 hours ahead of my usual Central Standard Time in Mexico. This can wreak havoc with both maintaining contact with friends back home, sleep and appetite. This morning as I ate breakfast at what would have been midnight back home, I wrote a poem that had nothing to do with this subject. Unfortunately, I unthinkingly ripped it up and threw it away later after I used the same paper to record our scores for a dice game, so here is a substitute on the subject of what big time changes do to the psyche as well as the appetite.
Culinary Timing
I’m in trouble with reason. My time’s taken flight.
I don’t know the difference between day and night.
My head can accept we’re eight hours ahead,
though my body prefers to stay longer abed.
The diet they serve us now we’ve reached Corfu
agitates me with a troubling snafu.
When it’s breakfast time here, I am taken aback,
for my palate’s desirous of a midnight snack.
Time’s not in contention. I know I am wrong.
As they change the time, I should go along.
All day, it’s my stomach that keeps on resisting.
Shrimp cocktail? I’d rather they desist insisting.
Whatever they’re serving is not what I wish.
I’m ready for pancakes. They want to serve fish.
The meal I desire is not what they’re makin’.
They want to serve lobster when I prefer bacon.
I truly like visiting different places,
seeing strange sites and different faces.
Yet, I may give up traveling merely because
they cannot keep time the way that it was!
Words for today are agitate, diet, flight, contentious and trouble.
Today we got up at the crack of dawn to see the beautiful entrance to Montenegro. A few hours later we were driving up to the very top of the mountains you see in the photos in a Land Cruiser with a driver and two other people. The road was very narrow and proved to be harrowing when trying to pass full-sized buses on hairpin curves with sheer drop-offs on the side I was riding on. Vertigo prevailed. Click on the first photo to view all and read commentary on some. Give a bit of time for photos to focus. They should all be in clear focus.
All day long, in between heart attacks peering down sheer cliffs that we were edges from the sides of (me in the seat closest to the drop-off) I kept seeing these lovely little flowers, but we were going too fast for me to get a shot of them. Then after a day of harrowing but beautiful mountain scenery, we were lined up to get on the little boat to go back to the ship and I saw this little posy stuck into the hatband of the woman in front of me. It was preordained. I got my shot! And survived the day’s ride. More photos coming up.
Click on photos to enlarge.
Ode to the Shipboard Buffet
In the hierarchy of buffets, spaghetti is the king
no matter what competing dishes they may bring
to grace the laden, groaning boards: rich soups and shrimp and cheeses.
They advocate for salads, but somehow no Caesar pleases
half as much as pasta, well-laden with rich sauce:
ground beef, basil and parmesan, tinged with just a toss
of fennel and oregano. It simply has no peer.
We gobble it with cabernet, chianti or a beer.
We leave the smorgasbord serene, replete and full and sated.
Our emptiness has been fulfilled, our appetites abated.
No hunger pangs outlast thin noodles topped with smashed tomatoes.
Spaghetti beats out hamburgers and crisp French fried potatoes.
It beats out cured Virginia ham. It beats filet mignon.
It beats twice-baked potatoes and things put thereupon.
I’m sorely tempted by ice cream and pastries, cookies, tarts,
but such things aren’t exclusive of main courses that are starts.
A plate piled with spaghetti deserves a proper ending.
Just plan when loading up your plate. Dessert is also pending!
Words for the day are serene, advocate, hierarchy, outlast and spaghetti.
Yesterday was hot and filled with a lot of walking, but as you can see from these shots of the ancient city of Pompeii, well worth it.
Here is a description of the destruction of Pompeii. Strangely enough, there was no lava flow. This is what caused the destruction:
The last days (of Pompeii) began on Aug. 24, 79 AD, the day after the Roman holiday of Volcanalia, dedicated to the god of fire. At noon Mount Vesuvius roared to life, spewing ash hundreds of feet into the air for 18 hours straight. The choking ash rained down on the cities in the surrounding countryside, filling courtyards, blocking doors, and collapsing roofs. In the only known eyewitness account to the eruption, Pliny the Younger reported on his uncle’s ill-fated foray into the thick of the ash from Misenum, on the north end of the bay:
… the buildings were now shaking with violent shocks, and seemed to be swaying to and fro as if they were torn from their foundations. Outside, on the other hand, there was the danger of failing pumice stones, even though these were light and porous; however, after comparing the risks they chose the latter. In my uncle’s case one reason outweighed the other, but for the others it was a choice of fears. As a protection against falling objects they put pillows on their heads tied down with cloths.
The next morning the cone of the volcano collapsed, triggering a hundred-mile-an-hour avalanche of mud and ash that flooded Pompeii, just a little over 5 miles away, destroying everything in its path. Pompeii and its smaller neighboring village of Herculaneum disappeared, and were only discovered by accident during the construction of Charles of Bourbon’s palace in 1738. Miraculously, the two cities were nearly perfectly preserved under layers of ash.
(Below are some of the photos I took yesterday. Click on first photo to enlarge all. There are a lot of photos, so If any photo is a bit fuzzy, please give it a few seconds to focus.)
I spotted this little dandelion that found its place between the cobblestones at Pompeii.
For Cee’s FOTD.
In a rush to go see David Copperfield. Here are a few pix from Rome two days ago. Click on any photo to enlarge them all.
Turns out that it was a different David Copperfield but he was hilarious and a wonderful musician/ singer/ventriloquist.
Six o’clock in the morning. My sister’s alarm has been going off for 5 minutes and she is still sleeping soundly. Now that it is light, I can see the Amalfi coast from our balcony as we sail toward Salerno. The pilot boat just came to show us the way…Exciting. The view is a bit misted over by early morning, but we’re expecting a bright day. More review later–but first a lot of walking in Pompeii…
Click on photos to enlarge.
What prompt words I can find for today are review and bright.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 