Travel

Dalles Mountain Ranch

This is the final in my series of photos taken at Columbia Hills State Park, on the Columbia River Gorge, near The Dalles. This historic working ranch was deeded to the state as a vital piece of a park that stretches from the river’s edges to the ridge of the hills overlooking one of the nation’s most dramatic landscapes. Visitors can see historic petroglyphs and pictographs down below, and also drive up the hillside to the ranch, where a trailhead has been created for some outstanding open country hiking. Wildflowers are blooming now. Definitely worth a visit.

Indonesian traffic jam

 

Traffic is bumper to bumper in many places in Indonesia.

The traffic on Bali and Java were among the most congested I can recall anywhere in the world. You can read another article I wrote describing exactly how dangerous it can be to use public transportation in Indonesia as well. I shot this, in February 2009, from inside a long haul bus that took me from Denpesar, Bali, to the island of Java. (Click on the photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

Scenes from the Columbia Hills, high on the Gorge

 

During my visit to Columbia Hills State Park last weekend, I took a hike to the crest of the hills that stand a couple thousand feet above the Columbia River Gorge, from the Washington side. There are miles of open space. Windmill farms lie to the east. To the south, one sees farmland and cattle country in Oregon. Beneath my feet were a dizzying array of blooming flowers, the balsamroot and lupine. I now rate this as one of my favorite perches in the Pacific Northwest.

The Sistine Chapel of Native American art on the Columbia River Gorge
A cultural Interpreter leads a tour in early April. The rock painting is in the upper left hand corner of the photograph. You can barely see it–it is a figure in white.

Native Americans, according to archaeology records, lived continuously on the banks of the Columbia River for more than 12,000 years prior to their near demise due to new diseases and the arrival of white settlers in the 1800s. Their culture thrived because of trade among tribes and the stable supply of one of the world’s most nutritious natural food sources: migrating salmon and other fish species in the Columbia River.

The many generations of Native inhabitants also left behind a legacy of artwork, in the form of petroglyphs (rock carvings) and pictographs (paintings). The latter were mostly with white paints, derived from bones, and red paints, derived from blood. The age of these pieces of art are not fully known. They can be found in the region roughly east of Hood River and eastward for the next 40 or so miles. The residents who lived here at the time Lewis and Clark made their journey in the early 1800s on the river were known as the Wishram people.

Sadly, most of the art, the paintings and rock carvings, were flooded when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built dams on the Columbia, flooding historic village sites that had been settled since well before the rise of ancient Rome. A number of rock art carvings were salvaged and then reassembled in 2004 for public display at Columbia Hills State Park, in Washington state, near The Dalles, Oregon. The location of the art today was once the site of a thriving Native settlement. Today, the Yakama, Umatilla, and Warm Springs bands hold ceremonies here by their ancestors’ art, which was once on their ancestors’ land.

There is no written record describing the purpose of the art. Current theories suggest the artwork provide guideposts for dream quests, connecting the people to the spirit world. Other pictures also depict elements of folk myth, the most famous painting of all, “Tsagaglalal” or She Who Watches, derived from a story about coyote and clan matriarch who was cast into the rock and stood watch over her people. (The painting is now used as the logo for the Columbia River Interpretive Center.) This is considered one of the finest examples of Native American art in all of North America.

The petroglyphs today are accessible to all for the price of admission to the state park. To see the rock art paintings in an area with limited viewing, you need to call the park in advance and sign up for a guided interpretive tour, led by a park cultural interpreter or a Native American guide. This was one of the highlights of my regional outings in the Pacific Northwest.

I would recommend this trip to anyone, of any age. You find yourself in one of the most scenic areas in North America, standing on land where countless generations stood before you.

You can see some photos of this area and its former Native inhabitants in the collection of Edward Curtis, famed photodocumentarian of Native American people (including staged photos). His work is archived on a superb Smithsonian photo media archive. Look for pictures marked “Wishham” (note spelling differences from above).

Click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.

Jerusalem, winter morning’s light

This is one of my favorite places in the world. Despite the divisions that crash together among the believers of monotheistic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), I felt something special here. Somehow the prejudices I saw and felt in and around Jersusalem were overcome by the feeling of the place. It’s Holy week for Christians, so I decided to did this one out of my old archive. This dates from 2004. You can see more pictures of Israel and the Occupied West Bank on my web site. (Click on the photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

The ducks were made for walking

Seeing happy ducks in the muddy wetlands not far from my home on a rainy night this week made me think of other happy ducks. Here is some footage I shot in the rice paddies outside Ubud, Bali, way back in 2009. (Ouch, that is so long ago already.) Now tell me, do these ducks have moxie or do these ducks have moxie. You can see a larger version of these critters on YouTube too.

Big house and the small house, and the dark history they tell
I photographed this old plantation manor and slave cabin in Mississippi in 2000.

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.

Mourning the loss of antiquity while appreciating what remains
The Djoser Pyramid is in the complex know as Saqqara, south of Giza near the ancient city of Memphis.
The Khufu Ship, in its home next to the Giza Pyramids, known as the Solar Boat Museum.
This recreated ship used materials buried for nearly 4,600 years.

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.)

Grain Silos, Lincoln County, Washington
The sun was setting as I snapped this photograph in August 2014.

It was a hot August day when I snapped this picture as the sun was setting on wheat country in Lincoln County, Washington. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful place indeed.

Tibetan carpet weaver, Darjeeling, India
This refugee was working on making Tibetan carpets in Darjeeling, India (1989).

When I visited the Indian hill station city of Darjeeling in 1989, I met many Tibetan refugees, who had made their home there, preserving their culture in exile from Chinese-occupied Tibet. You can see more photos I took on my India gallery. (Click on the photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)