Travel Theme: Yellow

By Vladimir Brezina

DSC_0014 cropped smallAilsa’s travel-themed photo challenge this week is Yellow.

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Channeling Georgia O’Keeffe

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More photos are here. And a second “Yellow” post is here.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Selfie

By Vladimir Brezina

This week’s Photo Challenge is Selfie.

Me, myself, and I… and I… and I…

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At the Hotel del Coronado, Coronado, CA. More photos are here.

Fat, Wonderful Fat

By Vladimir Brezina

Looking around the kitchen and in the refrigerator and freezer, our collection of fats, many of them the residues of repasts past, seems to be remarkably varied just now…

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From left to right—
Front row: lard (pig), bacon fat (pig), butter (cow)
Middle row: olive oil, beef marrow fat (cow), coconut oil, goose fat
Back: duck fat (and stock)

Each of them will be used, one day, in its own best way… Julia Child would approve!

Snowy Postcards

By Vladimir Brezina

… from NYC’s Central Park.

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And more snow is on the way…

Dry Objects

By Vladimir Brezina

This week’s Photo Challenge from “The Daily Post” is Object, and Ailsa’s over at “Where’s my backpack?” is Dry.

So, here are a few Dry Objects…

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More photos taken (in NYC’s Central Park) on these days are here and here.

Another interpretation of  “Object” was here, and another of “Dry” here.

Travel Theme: Dry

By Vladimir Brezina

Ailsa’s travel-themed photo challenge this week is Dry.

As kayakers, we like Wet. We don’t like Dry at all!

“I don’t believe this!! There was water all the way up to these rocks yesterday!?”

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Denial

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Anger

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Depression

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Acceptance

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(A day on Cape Cod Bay in 2011.)

Weekly Photo Challenge: Object

By Vladimir Brezina

This week’s Photo Challenge is Object.

When we land somewhere on our kayaking expeditions, for lunch or to camp for the night, we aim to leave nothing behind and to take nothing with us when we leave again. But sometimes we find there a little object that just begs to be taken home as a souvenir…

Here is one such, in situ

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It’s coming home with us

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to join others, from other journeys

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(This little green fish is a souvenir of our stay on Stockport Middle Ground during our 2011 trip down the Hudson from Albany to New York City.)

Everglades Shakedown, Day 3: Wind, Waves, and Chickees

By Johna Till Johnson
Photos by Vladimir Brezina

<—Previous in Everglades Shakedown

Ready for adventure!

Start: Highland Beach.
Finish: South Joe River Chickee.
Distance: About 23 nautical miles.
Paddling time: Roughly 10 hours; average pace 2.3 knots.

Continue reading

Our 2014 Calendar

By Vladimir Brezina and Johna Till Johnson

It’s almost the end of January, and we’re still looking up at that blank space on the wall where our 2014 calendar should be. But we aren’t going to buy one. Rather, like last year, we are going to make our own, selecting from Vlad’s photos those that seem to us to best capture the feeling of each month.

Now, finally, it’s done, and we’ve sent the calendar off to Shutterfly to be printed.

Here are the photos that we’ve selected:

Cover

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Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide!
Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg’d waves!
Gorgeous clouds of the sun-set! drench with your splendor me, or the men and women generations after me

Walt Whitman, Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

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New Bridge Over the Hudson

By Johna Till Johnson

As many of our readers know, I’m a huge fan of bridges. To me, they’re beautiful both physically and metaphorically—lovely structures that bring two sides together. Although my favorite bridge is the Hell Gate Bridge, I’m passionate about all the New York waterway bridges.

So it’s a big deal to me that New York will be replacing the Tappan Zee Bridge—and the new structure will be complete relatively soon (supposedly, by 2018).

Here’s what the Tappan Zee Bridge looks like today:

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And here’s what it’s supposed to look like in future:

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I’m not crazy about the outward-reaching “harp” towers… but it is a bridge, and I love bridges… What do you think?