Punalu'u Black Sand Beach

On the way back from Volcanoes, we stopped at a black sand beach. In a large tidepool there, we found two sea turtles resting and eating algae. By law, you are supposed to give them space, but camera zoom can create the illusion of intimacy. This one breathed at me.

Volcanoes National Park II

Another part of the park was pure rainforest. And, indeed, it was raining while we were there and not very photogenic at a distance.

Volcanoes National Park

On day three, we drove to the other side of the island to Volcanoes National Park. There was no lava flow while we were there, but the general trend is for the island to be growing. (There's one underwater volcano which will eventually emerge and join with the Big Island.)

In one section of the park near to the coast, there are petroglyphs preserved in the lava rock.

Hawaii

Recently, I had the opportunity to train a laser death ray on my last remaining proletarian credentials and take a vacation in Hawai'i. And it was a lot of fun! Thanks to everyone who made it possible and entertaining. As per my usual blog policies, to respect the privacy of others I don't post names or pictures of people except to give photo credits.

We were staying on the "Big Island" of Hawai'i. It has an enormous number of microclimates. Guidebook-level information would have it that there are 13 biomes on the planet, and that eleven of them occur of the Big Island alone (all save the Saharan and Antarctic climates). Parts of the island look like the Amazon, parts like Sonoma, parts like Ireland. The center-west region is dominated by lava flows and scrub. You see mountain goats along the road. The beaches, where they occur, are great, but it mostly looks like part of Nevada or New Mexico. The Ironman Triathlon takes place in this part of the Big Island.

A bit to the south, there's a coffee-producing region. We stopped for a tour of a small coffee plantation, and Nicole took this picture of a gecko on a banana tree.

Fall colors II

My last Midwestern fall, at least for now.

Fall colors

On the Niagara River

More Niagara

The next morning, we were amused to see the birds hanging out in the eddies and on sticks right at the edge of the falls. I guess if you can fly the falls are less impressive.

Niagara at night

We were both leaving from Buffalo the next day, so we stayed at Niagara Falls. Got in late - curiously, there are no good restaurants open in Western New York on Sunday evenings - and I took a walk to the American Falls at night. (Over the years, I've now seen the falls in summer, fall, and the dead of winter, but this was first time at night.)

Syracuse

Two weeks ago I went to Syracuse in New York with Dad to see the gravestones of Grandpa Iber, Great-Grandpa, and Great-Great-Grandpa. We left Grandpa some gummy candies, which he always liked.

Squirrel diets, West Coast vs. Midwest

Seen today in Hyde Park: a squirrel eating a lollipop. Had to zoom in pretty far to get it, so it's blurry.

By contrast, behind our house in Berkeley now there's a pear tree that produces tiny pears that the birds and squirrels like to eat.

Oh you California squirrels and your health food!

The Point

I'm back in Chicago for autumn quarter. Yesterday I walked out to The Point...it was probably the clearest day I've seen in my four-plus years of living here.

The water was beautifully clear too, but it's at the lowest level I've seen in since I moved here. I wonder if this is a cyclical or a secular trend.

"Cave" paintings at Malinalco

Lerdo de Tejada

This mural was painted by the son (he's known as "Vlady") of one of the characters in my dissertation, Victor Serge.

Mexico update

Nicole can tell you all about what we did when she was here in Mexico, complete with photos, here here, and here. It remains to me only to add a few photos.

Torre Latinoamericana II

It was hard to find appealing photos from the sky, but I liked this roof.

Torre Latinoamericana

Today is Nicole and my first anniversary! So we set about finding something nice to do. Alas, being Monday, almost all museums in Mexico City are closed - and anyway, we've seen most of the not-obscure ones and some of the obscure ones. But one thing we had not done was to take the elevator to the top of the Torre Latinoamericana, completed in 1956 and while under construction a towering symbol of Mexican modernity. Forty-three floors up, it is easy to grasp something which is in fact already easy to grasp: this city is enormous. This is the view to the west, including the Torre Mayor, Chapultepec, Polanco, etc.

Zion National Park III

Golden columbine growing from the seeping porous rock walls.

Zion National Park II

Zion National Park I

Well, I've just gone and driven across my rather large country of residence and the natural highlight of this trip had to be Zion National Park in Southwestern Utah. It's a valley carved out over millions of years by the amusingly small Virgin "River." Up at the end of the valley you can trek up the "narrows", hours of hiking through the water that gets deeper and deeper and narrower and narrower until at some point (which we did not reach) you can place a hand on either side of the canyon wall. Or you are under water. While we didn't make it that far, we did make it far enough to see some praiseworthy interplay of light and rock - far better, anyway, than the "light rock" one hears on the radio. Viz.:

Ford Foundation

The Ford Foundation headquarters is a true architectural masterpiece. The offices are all exposed to a 12-story skylit atrium and winter garden, which is a beautiful and ostentatiously inefficient use of space. (Some photos and architectural history here.)

The centerpiece of the garden is a bonsai tree in the center of a coin pond. The tree symbolically places wisdom at the center of its building and the goal of the Foundation philanthropic activity. (Although with that reading the coin pool suggests the futility of throwing money after wisdom. Perhaps that's overthinkng things a bit.)

But to my mind, the most remarkable thing about the space, other than that it makes a cathedral of nature, is that in its midtown Manhattan setting, it inverts the traditional relationship between nature and built space. In Manhattan, architecture has displaced landscape as the manner of beautifying the space that humans occupy. The Ford Foundation building brings the landscape to the inside, which serves all the more to reveal the brick jungle on the other side of the windows.