The St. John’s Bridge, in North Portland, is bike friendly and outstanding for views of Portland and the Willamette River. There are a lot of fabulous rides that can include a trip over the bridge. The views are always worth it.
In May 2000, I took a road trip through Louisiana and Mississippi. I photographed a number of slave cabins and old plantations. My notes are buried somewhere, and one day I might dig them up. I do not recall getting the name of this old plantation home in southern Mississippi. I photographed it from the distance, from the road. If you look close, there are two cabins to the left. Those are the slave cabins. On many plantations, the “small house” stood very close to the “big house.” All of the plantation’s wealth was derived from using slave labor to grow cotton and other agricultural commodities sold to local, national, even international markets. It was a system built and sustained by the lash, as President Abraham Lincoln so eloquently referenced in his Second Inaugural Address.
During the past year I discovered the writings and videos of British adventurer Alistair Humphreys. He biked around the world, wrote a book about it, and then turned that into a career of motivational speaking, media production, and discovery. I like his spirit. I like his style. So, Alistair, I am totally ripping you off here, even stealing your term (well, just this once) for this short video highlighting a great trail near Portland. I came to Wahkeena Falls a year ago and loved the place. It is a steep climb up a great trail on the Columbia River Gorge, about 30 miles from downtown Portland. This trail climbs more than 2,000 feet in elevation and provides a few great views of the Gorge. In the spirit of Alistair, I am branding this a “microadventure” because it really is. I will develop my own branding later. Hope you are not too tweaked about this, mate. Mimicry is a form of flattery, as they say.
The winter is proving to be short, and spring has told us, very boldly, I have arrived. Many blossoming trees are looking lovely. I shot this at Westmoreland Park, near my home.
Tonight I read that the lunatics with a plan, known to the world as ISIS, have bulldozed the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud in Iraq, after taking jack hammers to some of the world’s most historic treasures.
Make no mistake, these guys are deranged nihilists, masquerading as liberators and religious purists, who would like to see a religious world order. That vision is premised on the eradication of human history, in order to create a theocracy based on what they claim to be Islam. I deeply mourn the deaths caused in Syria and Iraq over the last decade and actually decades before, in which the West and local actors all have played major roles. I will always reserve greatest sympathy for innocent civilians who have suffered the most.
But as someone who values the past, who respects what it teaches the present, who appreciates its richness and beauty, I am severely heartbroken by yet another brazen act of destruction by these criminals. I am still waiting to learn if many in this group of criminals had been trained in facilities funded from Saudi Arabia-based oil wealth, but I doubt that expose will be written. (Note: these guys just did not appear out of nowhere, and there is a long trail here in terms of who promoted this fringe brand of Sunni Islam. ISIS emerged after the wily and Machiavellian Saudi Prince Bandar, former ambassador to the United States, had re-emerged in 2013 as Saudi Arabia’s go-to dealer to topple Syria’s President Bashar al-Hassad, until Bandar was recently toppled.).
So, tonight as I grieved for the latest act of human idiocy, I wanted to pay tribute to some treasures I adored when I visited Egypt in 2004. These treasures dating from more than 4,600 years ago are still with us today. So here they are, my salute to who we were, and not what we have become. The ship seen in these pictures is the Khufu Barque, a 4,600-year-old treasure of ancient Egypt that was unearthed near the Giza pyramids and was restored painstakingly after being buried nearly 46 centuries. Its exact purpose remains a mystery, but it likely served to transport the pharaoh as the sun god during his daily trip across the sky. The ziggurat style pyramid is from Saqqara, known as the step pyramid of Djoser, also more than 4,600 years old. It is near the ancient city of Memphis, south of Giza.
(All photos were taken with a simple Canon point and shoot; click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)
It was a beautiful weekend, and I took advantage of the nice weather by doing one of my favorite bike rides to Skyline Boulevard and down Germantown Road, starting from my home in the Sellwood neighborhood of Portland. This is a classic ride.
What Beautiful Light 