Jude’s July challenge on her blog Travel Words: Life in Colour is the color blue. This week she challenges us to post seaside blues.
Two views of our cruise ship at the first stop of our Panama Canal cruise, at Half Moon Cay, Bahamas.
Three scenes from our cruise ship to Alaska: leaving Vancouver (click on photo to see it larger).
For Jude’s Travel Words, Life in Colour, this month’s word is the color purple.
Purple hyacinths
A more vibrant shade of purple are these rhododendrons.
Purple displays at Lightscape, a holiday event at Chicago Botanic Gardens
Marine life (corals) at Brookfield Zoo
Faux flowers
Purple in sunrises and sunsets (sunrise in Tanzania, sunsets on Chicago expressway and the Caribbean Sea)
Purple signs (Quebec City & Rio de Janeiro)
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week has the topic of Bridges.
I’m back after a bit of a hiatus from blogging and participating in this challenge, so this time I’m including multiple photos for Becky’s October KindaSquare challenge, because there are many different KINDs of markets around the world!
Sandy’s Friendly Friday Photo Challenge topic this week is markets.
I love outdoor markets – we have a farmers’ market near us on Sundays which runs from June to October. Most of the farmers are from Michigan or southern Illinois. Of course, the items change with the seasons. This is a local farmers’ market in October.
It is fun and interesting to visit markets in other countries – both outdoor farmers’ markets and regular supermarkets. Following are market scenes I took on my recent travels.
Quebec City, Canada in October
Aswan spice market, Egypt, in January
Rishon le Tsiyon, Israel – these photos were taken at an (indoor) supermarket, in January
Tel Aviv, Israel – another supermarket, in January
Vienna, Austria – we took a special tour to this large outdoor market, called Naschmarkt, which sold a lot of other things besides food! In July
Not all markets sell food…
Here is the Daraw animal market in Daraw, Egypt, in January.
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week is Anything to do with boats. All the photos in this photo essay are from my travels near and far.
26th Century BCE – 1st century BCE: Ancient Egypt
Modern Egypt: Today the Nile teems with cruise ships alongside fellucas (open air sailing boats with no cabins), fishing vessels and freighters.
1st Century CE: Palestine/Israel
Modern Israel:Â This is one of the vessels used today to take pilgrims across the Sea of Galilee. We sang hymns, watched a demonstration of casting a fishing net, and watched the flocks of gulls who followed our boat.
Middle Ages: Norman Conquest, 1066 CE
17th-19th Centuries CE: A failed ship, flat boats, and art
In Stockholm, Sweden, 1628, a ship became famous because it sank, 23 minutes after its maiden voyage! The Vasa was not pulled out of the canal until the 1950s, when the technology to do this had been developed, then it was reconstructed and the museum housing it opened in the 1990s. Why? Because it was top heavy! The photos above were taken at the Vasa Museum in Stockholm, where the actual boat is on display (photo far right). The other photos are decorative mastheads and other items on the outside of the ship.
19th Century Flatboats:
1880s-Early 1900s: Impressionist Art
Native American Canoes: (L) in Maine (Oceanarium, Acadia); (R) in Alaska – this tribe still makes its canoes the traditional way.
1904-1914: The Panama Canal was completed in 1914, and received updates in the late 20th century to accommodate larger cruise ships and ocean freighters. These are some of the ships we saw passing through the canal.
20th Century: Steamships
2019: Amsterdam, a City of Canals, Ships and Boats
For Day 6 of Becky’s July Square Perspectives challenge, I look at the artistic angle of perspective: Art – the method by which solid objects drawn or painted on a flat surface are given the appearance of depth and distance.
A few years ago, we took a cruise from Boston to Montreal, and one of our stops was the lovely Quebec City. Wandering around, I saw a mural, which took up an entire wall and, next to it, another one of (famous) people in the windows of a building. These murals were so realistic and blended so well with the surroundings, that it would be easy to mistake them (fortunately I didn’t, because I would have walked into the wall!).
I can’t square the second photo because you need to see the entire wall to get the proper effect.
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week is anything painted.
Cee’s On the Hunt for Joy is in its 18th week and the theme for this week is Make Your Own Rainbow.
I love to draw and occasionally paint. I also enjoy coloring books. Here are two coloring pages I did. The first is called “Rainbow Wheel Mandala,” done with markers. The second is “Rainbow Tessellation,” done with gel pens.
Some of my other artwork: The first is called “Arizona Desert,” which I painted with acrylics; the second is untitled, drawn with charcoal pencils.
As bloggers who follow me know, I do a lot of photography also. These photos I took in various places at various times.
Gay pride at Solstice Parade, Seattle
Colorful scene in Regensburg, Germany
This colorful Tanzanian bird is called lilac-breasted roller, and it really does seem to have every color of the rainbow!
Sunset over North Atlantic Ocean
A real rainbow, South Dakota. We should have stopped and hiked over that field to the end of the rainbow to see if there was a pot of gold! 😉
The Lens–Artists photo challenge this week has a guest host, Viveka, whose topic is capitals.
On our road trips around the United States, we try to visit as many capitals as possible – not just the capital cities, but also their capitol buildings. I have a series of posts featuring some of the capitols we’ve visited lately. (Check them out in my archives – that’s why I’ve put the dates in below.) These are the ones that we have seen in the last 3 years.
ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA (May 2017)
Capitol exterior and its dome from inside
Some of the memorials and statues on the capitol grounds
BISMARCK, NORTH DAKOTA (May 2017)
Capitol building exterior (no, it doesn’t have a dome) and view of grounds from the top floor viewing area
Some famous North Dakotans
LINCOLN, NEBRASKA (May 2018)
Capitol exterior (the dome is at the top of this multistoried building), floor of the rotunda, visiting school group
Artwork viewed from the rotunda, including a colorful door
DENVER, COLORADO (June 2018)
Exterior and view from the dome
Stained glass portraits
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH (June 2018)
Exterior and staircase
Slideshow of some of the sights inside
SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO (June 2018)
The capitol building in Santa Fe is shaped like the Zuni sun symbol, which is also depicted in the rotunda and on the state flag. The first two photos are a partial view of the exterior and one of the curved hallways.
The New Mexico capitol building has a lot of artwork by New Mexican artists. The slideshow shows some of them.
OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA (June 2018)
The Oklahoma state capitol has the distinction of being the only capitol in the U.S. that has an oil rig visible at every cardinal direction. Two of these can be seen below. The middle photo is the dome from the rotunda, and the photo at right is a commemoration of Oklahoma’s native tribes, each of which has its own flag.
Sculpture, artwork, and artifacts in the capitol
DES MOINES, IOWA (Sept. 2018)
Capitol exterior and chamber of the legislature
Iowa’s capitol has colorful designs and patterns on its floors.
On the capitol grounds, there is a Holocaust memorial.
Interestingly, this post does not contain photos from my home state capital (Springfield, IL – I was last there in 2012) nor the capital of the state north of here, the state where I was born and I grew up (Madison, WI – I can’t remember the last time I visited the capitol).
I have also visited several foreign capitals in recent years (2017-2019), but not their government buildings – can you figure out which cities these are? One is a provincial capital, the others are national capitals.
Wanderlust & Wonderment 