The last trail in the Painted Hills Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, the Red Hill Trail is short and sweet.

Posted on October 28th, 2017 under Oregon. Tags: hiking, John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, Nikon 24-120mm f/4 VR G lens, Nikon D750. Comments Off on One month ago…

Posted on October 27th, 2017 under Japan. Tags: aerial photography, night photography, Nikon 24-120mm f/4 VR G lens, Nikon D600, osaka, Umeda Sky Building 梅田スカイビル. Comments Off on Osaka after dark

Wishes @ Itsukushima Shrine

Posted on October 26th, 2017 under Japan. Tags: ema, miyajima, Nikon 24-120mm f/4 VR G lens, Nikon D600, shinto, torii. Comments Off on 絵馬

Jizo and the hebi

This (2017) is not the year of the snake, or the horse, but this photo was my random, desktop image of the day. These guardian deities, and I’m guessing there were twelve, each had one of the zodiac animals with them. The blurry one to the far right probably had a sheep.

2017 is the year of the rooster. The next year of the snake will be 2025.

Posted on October 21st, 2017 under Japan. Tags: buddhist, Daishoin 大聖院, jizo, miyajima, Nikon 24-120mm f/4 VR G lens, Nikon D600. Comments Off on Guardian Deities

When I was in the airport on my way to Scandinavia last summer I noticed that someone had left The Girl in the Spider’s Web at the gate. I picked it up and started reading. A few weeks later I found myself in several of the exact locations mentioned in the book when I visited Stockholm.

The Girl in the Spider’s Web is the fourth book in the Millennium series so I went back and read book one (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) when I got back to the USA in August. Currently I’m reading book two (The Girl Who Played with Fire).

During my reading a couple nights ago, a scene is described in which Lisbeth Salander is chased up a hill in a park-like setting to get to a church. I thought, “hmmmm…, that sounds like the church I climbed a hill to get to when I was killing time before my bike tour of Stockholm a few months ago”. Sure enough, they are one in the same place. With a little more research I found out that the place I ate my lunch next to (across the street from this church) is where Lisbeth’s first apartment was and the author, Stieg Larsson, is buried at Högalidskyrkan. Small world or something…

Posted on October 19th, 2017 under Other. Tags: buildings, Nikon 24-120mm f/4 VR G lens, Nikon D750, stockholm, sweden. Comments Off on Högalid Church (Högalidskyrkan)