Back to the Golden State

Here are some of the pictures that ten pounds of camera equipment produced on a nostalgic trip down the California coast echoing trips I took when I was still in college.

Spent my birthday on the Rock. Alcatraz Island.

On to Point Lobos, where Edward Weston and Ansel Adams worked.

China Cove. Edward Weston made a famous photograph here. I stood in this exact spot when I was 19 and all I had was a camera and a future in front of me.

Then down to the relatively crowd-less Morro Bay which was teeming with wildlife.

Then back home where Montana tells me summer is over.

Goldilocks and the Travel Journal

My original travel journal setup was a pocket-size Moleskine with a couple of pens and a pencil, glue stick and folding scissors in a canvas case sold by an entrepreneur who has since gone out of business.

Then I stumbled onto the Midori Traveler’s Notebook universe and well … this happened.

Two! Passport and Regular in black.

 So, when a trip came up, I thought, let’s switch to a better travel journal – Moleskine paper not being what it used to be.

The regular Traveler’s Notebook was out of the question.

TOO BIG.

Especially when I’m already carrying ten pounds of camera equipment.

So this arrived. 

Passport size, in camel. Cool. Tucked right in the old canvas case.

Away we went.

It lasted one and a half trips before I realized it was TOO SMALL.

Since the addition of the polaroid printer – business card size photos were taking up lots of space. 

I hunted down a stationary store on the road and returned to the pocket Moleskine of yesteryear.  

Which was – JUST RIGHT.

And goes to show, that old adage is correct.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Americana

So, enough about politics.

Seriously.

Went to the county fair last week, a bit of Americana I’ve always loved.

Homemade crafts. Farm raised produce. An art show. Livestock. A carnival. The rodeo. What’s not to love?

Our local fair, which used to stretch through four buildings and two barns, toured by walking over dirt paths, in July. Heat stroke kept at bay by free ice water doled out in a booth run by Christian youth. Hunger pangs soothed by steak sandwiches handmade by Kiwanis gents.

A few years back a committee decided to improve the fairgrounds. Well, okay, the grandstand was about to collapse, but why stop there? They paved all the paths, built a large, air conditioned “multi-purpose” building. They tore down the old barn and most of the other fair buildings.

And was the fair improved?

4H seems to be going strong, but the rest of the fair is almost non-existent.

Improved into just an old memory. That haunting refrain that begins … back in the old days.

Old Territorial Prison, Deer Lodge