Far from being an artist myself, I look for art through my camera lens. Nature seldom disappoints. A much anticipated trip after our boat trip on Lake Powell to Rainbow Arch was a tour of Antelope Canyon.
On Navajo land, an Indian guide takes you from the the town of Page Arizona on a rather hairy exhilarating ride in an open top truck through streets, then tire-sucking sand dunes to the entrance of the canyon.
Our patient Navajo guide, Bruce, pointed out good camera angles and whimsically named rock formations to overexcited tourists crowding through the narrow slot canyon.
An ordinary hole in the rock? Not so much:
The play of light on the water carved rock was astonishing:
“Lincoln’s Nose!”:
“Monument Valley”:
The site (we were told) of the original National Geographic photograph that captured the public’s imagination:
What more can I say? Wow! Nature doing the work for me.
The best way to see the upper reaches of the stunning Glen Canyon is to be “on the move” on a boat on Lake Powell. The Colorado River was dammed above the Grand Canyon, creating the lake.
What’s that speck in our wake?
Jet skiers having fun jumping our wake!
The only way to see Rainbow Bridge is by boat. The rock arch is static, not fitting this week’s theme, but I’m sure the people – see tiny dots at base of the left side of the arch – are “on the move!”
I’m a bit slow off the mark with this challenge as they are published each Friday and it’s Wednesday already. My brain is a bit sluggish. I seem to have been struck with some strange virus that most affects me from the neck up – headache, earache, nose-ache! and eye-ache! It’s like a cold that hasn’t come out except for the occasional volcanic sneeze that makes himself jump and utter obscenities.
Gazing at old photos seems all I’m capable of at the moment.
For details of the challenge, push the blue button!
I’ve been nominated for a Sunshine Award! I’ve never thought of myself as someone’s little ray of sunshine. Himself thinks it’s hilarious. Don’t think him unkind. You don’t have to live with me.
My nominator, Joanne took the trouble to research the award so rather than reinvent the wheel I will pass on her words to you. “It is an award given by bloggers to other bloggers who “positively and creatively inspire others in the blogoshere.” (Questionable punctuation is mine.)
I am to nominate up to 10 blogs – hard to keep it down to 10 – and think of 10 vaguely interesting things to say about myself – horribly difficult.
I’ve read these types of lists on other blogs and admired the author’s imagination, ability for introspection, self-knowledge and sense of humor. I panicked and blanked at the very thought of it but here goes:
I was The Alien in England for 30 years but I feel like an alien in my own country now. I’m told things move on. Get over it.
I am the only person I know who likes cottage cheese. Isn’t that riveting?
I love words but fear my vocabulary is shrinking.
I’m sure I lived in France in a previous life.
I miss family and friends in my adopted country of England. And my garden. But the garden thing obviously isn’t on a par with family and friends.
I never take myself seriously.
I cooked on a charter yacht in the West Indies for two years. Walter Cronkite chartered that yacht. I can still hear his voice as he read to us each night.
I am easily moved to tears. Too easily. It’s annoying.
I can’t think of a single favorite food. I love everything I eat. I deserve to be fat(ter). As it is I always have that elusive 10 pounds to lose.
I am fascinated by the lives of my blogging friends around the world, most of whom I’ve never met.
My blog nomination choices are a combination of travel, RV travel, photography, history, poetry and humor. I am following dozens of blogs and would like to list them all and have agonized over choosing just 10.
Please visit these blogs and prepare to be amazed:
In an attempt to improve the look of my blog, I decided to put a map on the sidebar. That should be easy, right?
Many thanks to Steve and Mona Liza for allowing me to pinch the idea, a photo of the map on the side of the RV, off their most excellent site The Lowe’s RV Adventures.
I’ve got a map too, I thought. I can do that. Several aborted attempts with the gallery widget and image widget produced nothing.
Mona Liza offered her help but not wanting to look the complete IT dunce, I thought I would try Googling how do I put a photo on the sidebar of my wordpress blog.
Well thanks to the helpful bods in the WordPress.org support forum for this but for the sake of your sanity please don’t bother to read any of the following in red. Skip to black.
Basically, in your functions.php file put in this:
function postimage() {
// get the post meta info
$key = "postimage";
$id = get_the_ID();
$custom = get_post_meta($id, $key, true);
echo $custom;
}
Then in your sidebar.php file (or within a widget that you can enter in PHP code), put in:
<?php
$image = new WP_query ('showposts=1');
if(have_posts()) : while($image->have_posts()) : $image->the_post; ?>
<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"><?php postimage(); ?></a>
<?php endwhile; endif; rewind_posts; ?>
where you want the image to appear.
There is absolutely no chance of me following any of that. Could you?
Then some clever lateral thinker called hhsleep, who is perhaps as programming-code-challenged as I am, posted this easy solution:
“I figured it out. Pretend you are doing a post. Upload the image you want. Then insert it in your post. Copy the code and insert it in your text widget.”
Well thanks a bunch hh. That didn’t work either.
Then vtxyzzy posted:
First go to Admin->Media->Add New and upload the image you want. Once it is uploaded, click in the File URL box, hit CTRL-A CTRL-C to select and copy the URL.
Then go to Appearance->Widgets and drag the text widget into the sidebar. In the text area, enter ‘<img src=”‘, then CTRL-V to paste in the URL of your picture. Type ‘” />’ to close the img tag. Click Save.
Sounded doable. Not too much code. Didn’t work. Not for me anyway.
Every post suggested using the text widget. Why would you do that when there is an image widget? C’mon. Tell me.
I had tried the image widget but discovered I was using the wrong url after having put the correct url in the text widget and just getting text.
Eventually I put the correct url in the image widget having spent HOURS on it. Or maybe many, many, many more minutes than I wanted to trying to put this map on the sidebar:
How did we miss that one?!!!
And who is going to appreciate all that effort? Nobody but me, but I think it looks amazing. Thank you again Mona Liza. I should have come to you first.
I’ve been nominated for a Sunshine Award! I’ve never thought of myself as someone’s little ray of sunshine. Himself thinks it’s hilarious. Don’t think him unkind. You don’t have to live with me.
Which Way Now 101 