I was all good to go with writing this post on an airplane headed for Nevada, New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island but things happened. Actually the movie Amelie which I had never seen was on the menu for the longer flight and so I forgot about this little ditty. Excellent movie. I remember it was a big thing associated with the Olympics in Park City for some reason but I didn’t get around to watching until just now. That is how I watch all films these days. Pretty much every one.
After a brief check-in in Southern Nevada, a dorm reunion in New York and a quick visit with friends in Connecticut, I managed to grab a few hundred photos in Rhode Island, edited those, then re-edited all of my old Paris photos using new techniques that have availed themselves over the intervening fifteen years, several thousand of those images, then restyled my photography galleries as the first step in a full site re-do. The change in methods associated with new technology in Lightroom and Photoshop is substantial and best revealed when bringing new light to old photos. The removal and masking enhancements in Lightroom are especially impressive. I also have developed a new method for editing images in general based on bringing greater detail to dark faces in India and am starting to apply those techniques across the board.
So here I am, blog post in process, having remembered it again and about to head out on an another trip.
In terms of production for my site, the original post would have dealt with just images from Park City taken over a couple of weeks this May. But with the delay I now have some splendid shots of the American flag on the face of the Hoover Dam in southern Nevada. And around 1,500 images from Rhode Island.
Aside from the site stuff. I have been busy pursuing something I never imagined would be on my radar. That being, becoming Canadian. Ironically it was an article about legislation considered in the United States to prevent the switch of those of us of Canadian heritage from becoming dual citizens that alerted me to the opportunity. The Canadians have changed the so-called one generation rule.
That was before our trip to India in March I think. The process is long and tedious and may very well not end well. But it doesn’t cost a lot and I’m learning much about my father’s family in the process. The story begins in Ireland but those people on my Dad’s side set up shop in Ontario for a few generations before moving on to the immigrant bastion of North Dakota, it really was around 1910, and then moving on to northwestern Montana.
The Canadian process is a tad weird. At first there were lots of folk on several facebook and other sites claiming that all you needed were documents downloaded from Ancestry or FamilySearch, the Mormon equivalent, and some hint at a Canadian ancestor and you were Canadian. This has proven not to be the case. I did take a much more conservative approach, obtaining certified documents from original sources where possible, and am actually feeling better about being Canadian than I did at the beginning.
My Father, a Montana-born-and-raised New York City writer, always had a fascination with Canada. I rode along as he drove across it all the way to Montana more than once. He took me on trips, when separated from his second wife, to the Maritime Canadian coastal provinces. His great dream was to visit the huge lakes in northwestern Canada. I knew that his grandparents were Canadian but the connection never really registered. Now I get it. I’m almost certain I don’t want to move to Canada. Mexico, Spain or France would be more my thing. But I do want to be Canadian, for my Dad and for my kids. Time will tell. And with that, a note of true Americana from Park City Utah on Memorial Day.
Our first stop out of Salt Lake was to have a look-see around the place in Nevada and fortunately we happened upon what I consider a major event. This was the display of a really large American flag on the face of the Hoover dam associated with the 250th American birthday. We had seen images of an earlier larger flag but none had been present since we’ve lived there. When we arrived we didn’t know it would be there. Soon we learned of it and took a couple of trips up to the viewing platform on the bridge over the Colorado to see it. 104 degrees F. But, whatever. We also visited with some of the local desert big horn sheep at a municipal park. The images of the flag on the dam are ones that I have wanted to take for a long time. Sometimes things just go your way.
Visits with old friends in New York and Connecticut led up to our time in Rhode Island. I should mention that we used to live there, while we both were in separate graduate schools. I was at the University of Rhode Island, both geology and oceanography, and my wife was studying social work in Providence. That was a really long time ago and we most recently visited friends there twenty-seven years ago. For two years we lived on an island, Great Island, in a salt pond connected to the ocean adjacent to a lobstering community where the Catholics come to bless the fleet every summer, Galilee. For a third year we lived in Newport.
On spending just a speck of time back in Rhode Island we both wondered first why we had ever left and second why it had taken so long for us to return. The weather could not have been better. To say the least, both Great Island and Newport have gentrified substantially. Our old tiny cabin of a house on Great Island has been replaced by a hulking modern thing. And neighborhoods in Newport that once catered to commercial mariners with all of the ancillary things that one would suspect are now purveyors of green tea and flip flops to the more financially adroit among us.
Two of my favorite places in Newport are gone, Salas’ and the Main Brace. The twin lobster special at Salas’ and the bloody Mary with a shrimp the size of your foot hanging off the side of the glass at the Main Brace. But the lawn at Castle Hill and my favorite bars in Jamestown and Narragansett remain. We also met with old friends there and spent the entire time with a close relative from near Ithaca bearing New York state wines. We had a drink at the White Horse Tavern, the oldest bar in America, which to my surprise is a bit older than the oldest bar in Paris.
I had India stuck in my head for a little while. I have Rhode Island stuck in my head now. Such pretty soft sunny mornings. A lobster roll with good wine in the afternoon. Del’s lemonade. The whole place felt like the scent of roses after a quiet rain. Or better yet, an impressionist painting along those same lines. Soon enough, its off to Lincoln City on the coast of Oregon, Silver Falls State Park, near Salem, and Bend, with another quick trip to southern Nevada thrown in. Life is pretty good.
Images described above can be found in the more recent pages of southern nevada usa, park city utah usa, and the new rhode island usa pages in my photography galleries. The images in the ile de france pages 1 -18 have all been reworked. And the entire set of galleries has been restyled.
On to Oregon.
