Sonoma Valley

Interesting building in Cloverdale

on the way to Sonoma Valley

Closeup of the chimney in the previous photo.

Above are more flowers found in the Sonoma Valley

Below are 2 varieties of grapes with their fall leaves

More Sonoma coast

The watch guard!


Interesting growth on the rocks at the beach.

Mussels

Sonoma coast trees and flowers

Trees at Point Arena

Interesting formation at Sea Ranch

Following are plants at Seacliff Motel

Sonoma coast

My wife and I went to the Sonoma Coast on November 11 to celebrate my birthday. We stayed at the Seacliff Lodge which is on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

This is the Point Arena lighthouse, which was built in 1870, destroyed by an earthquake in April 1906 and rebuilt and resumed operation in 1908, 18 months after the earthquake. It was the first lighthouse to be built using reinforced concrete and was built by a company that built factory smokestacks. The lighthouse stands 115 feet tall.

This is looking up from the base of the lighthouse at the 133 steps I climbed to get to the top.


This is a 1st order Fresnel lens. It is 6 feet in diameter and weighs over 6 tons. It is composed of 666 hand-ground glass prisms which were carried up the steps one piece at a time! Everything else was brought up with a winch. More history of the lighthouse can be found at www.mcn.org/1/palight/about.html

Waves alongside the lighthouse.

The view from the top of the lighthouse.

These signs were seen on a cafe on the way to and from the lighthouse.

This was the scene outside of our motel.

Sunset at the end of a beautiful day from our motel room window.

Graphic design

I have been experimenting with my CorelDraw software to see what king of graphic designs I can make with it. This is my first attempt. There will be more to follow as I get more proficient with design. FYI, if you are creating a jpeg for Blogger, you have to use the RGB color palette and not CMYK for the colors to show correctly.

This is a variation of the center part that I started out with:

Fall flowers

Ah, the rewards of patience. I caught this fellow sitting on one of my Arizona Sun Indian Blanket flowers. He is know as a metallic green bee, genus Agapostemon.

The foregoing show the Arizona Sun Indian Blanket flowers in their various forms as they prepared to spread their seeds. They really get some interesting shapes
Found these out amongst my primroses.

Wild sweet peas which we obtained from seed in Elko years ago are near the end of their blooming season.
This is the first dahlia I have every grown. The flowers are about 2 inches across. Maybe they will be bigger next year.

I love the vivid colors of these plants. I think they are dianthus.
Fuschias are really pretty this time of year.
Looking pretty in red and white.
The holly tree is really happy right now. I have never seen so many berries forming on it. Must be a sign of something, maybe a long, hard winter?

I have removed all of my vinca majors (periwinkle) from the backyard planting area which I am redoing with plants and pavers. Should have pictures of the results next spring.

Queen Victoria Building, Sydney, Australia

The Queen Victoria Building, now know as the QVB, was designed by George McRae and completed in 1868. It replace the original markets that were on the site. It was built as a monument to Queen Victoria during a time of recession in Sydney. The Romanesque architecture was specially designed to employ the craftsmen of the time. The QVB fills an entire city block. It was remodeled in the 1930's and threatened with demolition in 1959. It is now filled with shops and is perhaps the grandest building in Sydney.

These stained glass windows are over one of the entrances to the building. The dominant feature of the building is a large dome but I didn't get a picture of it.





There are 3 large clocks in the building, one in the middle and one on each end.

This is the most interesting clock in the building. It is the Great Australian clock and weights 4 tonnes and is 10 meters tall. The dioramas include 33 scenes from Australian history. Everything revolves in a circle. If you look closely on the right side you can see an Aboriginal hunter who revolves around the clock and represents the never-ending passage of time. The various sections indicate the time, day of the week, and date. I spent a lot of time watching things move. It is very fascinating.

And here is the queen herself, prominently displayed in a glass cabinet on the second level.

If you have a fear of heights, don't climb these stairs!