WINDOWS OF NEW YORK

It seems I never catch up on the blog posts, whether here at WebsAndThreads Travels or my sister blog, Webs And Threads~ But with a bit of time between working, painting a huge new painting, and all other pressing things on my to-do list, I vow to squeeze in more of the great moments in that fabulous city of New York.

High on my list of things to do whenever in New York is to stroll down the great avenues of the Upper East Side, Madison and Fifth Avenues. Here are the creative efforts of some of the great designers. But creativity can be found in the shops offering not only gorgeous clothes but toys, food, cosmetics, jewelry and so much more.

I love the multiple images reflected in the shop windows.

The patterns of the great Italian house of Missoni are unmistakeable.

Heading over to my old neighborhood, 77th and York, this window reminds me that I really am back in New York.

 

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

 

A long weekend in New York with Scott was just the thing for two Californians wanting a taste of  The Big Apple before winter set in. Even though our first day was a bit damp, the rest of our stay was gorgeous, with all the blue skies and mild temperatures one could wish for.

We did everything we hoped to, from getting together with friends to visiting galleries, museums, and roaming the neighborhoods.

Our hotel, The Crown Plaza, was located right on Times Square, which is quite a different place than the first time I visited New York decades ago. Then, you could find guns and handcuffs for sale in shop windows!

The Broadway production is still packed at every performance after a years-long run. It was just astounding and lived up to my expectations for stunning costume and set design as well as the now-iconic music. There were many small children in the audience who clearly were so entranced that not a sound was heard from them throughout the fantastic performance.

 

   

DELICIOUS PARIS!

There is no doubt that Paris draws visitors for the justly famous churches, monuments, and museums. But sometimes memorable moments are out there on the boulevards, side streets, and in the unexpected corners of each arrondissement~

If you, like me, find fruit and vegetables just as beautiful as a gorgeous painting, then Paris is your city. And let’s not forget the sweet things Paris is known for~

A single macaron, the famous “cookie” from Paris, will set you back one euro, about $1.50 at the mid-May rate of exchange. No trip to Paris is complete without at least one!

Next post~Enjoying “The Slow Life” in Paris!

POSTCARDS FROM PARIS

It’s a busy time since leaving for Paris on the sixteenth and now family visitors to have fun with in San Francisco. So for now, a few “postcards from Paris”~

The City of Light is gorgeous viewed from the Eiffel Tower just at the end of the day.

STREETS OF INDIA

As another trip comes up soon, I want to return to the amazing journey to India before I fall further behind in my posting. The photos are both mine and Scott’s. It’s always interesting to see how two people see the same place and choose what to photograph. Sometimes it’s difficult to remember who took which photo!

 I’ll share a few here but then make a gallery Page for those who want to find more.

(Coming soon~ PARIS!)

We passed what seems to be a goat fair.

A favorite scene everywhere we traveled were barbers practicing their trade.

 

This is a tattered and weathered poster on a wall in the most interesting little town of Pushkar in Western Rajasthan.

Scott’s photos were some of the best of the trip. He is always willing to take two to every photo I take and thus captures far more.

MARIN MORNINGS

Our California mornings can be a little magical even when it’s winter. The “marine layer”, better known as fog, creeps in over the hills of Marin, just north of  The Golden Gate Bridge, to tuck us into nights of foghorns and misty lights. The views become gorgeous abstractions and are conducive to glasses of wine and a warm blanket. By morning, if we’re lucky, we’ll find the fog burning off, revealing spectacular views of land and water.

Richardson Bay, the arm of water extending from the San Francisco Bay, offers gorgeous views for the towns surrounding it. From Sausalito, Tiburon, and Belvedere, the morning fog burnoff might reveal not only ducks and seagulls but occasionally some swimmers like the seals seen below in Belvedere.

These morning swimmers are seals, noses breaking the water.

Driving into the City can take you through some dense areas of fog, especially approaching The Golden Gate.

Early morning sailors don’t wait for the sun.

But once the fog burns off the reward is spectacular.

While my posts on the Bay Area aren’t strictly “travel” posts for me, they are, I hope, interesting to those who live in parts of the world that are unfamiliar or unknown to me. As always, it is wonderful to hear from readers who wonder about this special place that is home to me.

DOWN BELOW-THE QUEEN MINE

Our last adventure in Bisbee was to take the tour down into the old Queen Mine, once an important part of the thriving mining industry that gave the entire town its reason to exist.

The first thing we do is get outfitted for damp conditions-and, perhaps, falling rocks!

Pete, our guide into the mine, is a former miner with the most amazing information about the life of the men who risked their lives daily down in the mines. We learned about how to set explosives, among other things, how the men needed to rely on each other, and the dangers of not doing so.

With our jackets and helmets on we boarded the train down the track deep into the mine. The temperature remains fairly constant in the mid-forties farenheit.

Pete showed us “the facilities” used by the men down in the mine.

Riding back up to the surface we saw this sign, lit as was all in the mine, by small lamps powered by battery packs as part of our equipment to go down into the pitch black mine. At one point we all turned off our lamps to experience what “true darkness” is. Only a cell phone light appeared in the utter black down there.

Up above ground once more we visited the gift shop. One of the signs showed this old photo of the early days of the Queen Mine before “modern technology”.

This diorama gave an explanation of the process of working in the mines.

As we left Bisbee and headed back to Tucson we still had a few more opportunities for photos.

BISBEE, ARIZONA

Leaving Tombstone, we headed for Bisbee.

BISBEE, ARIZONA. Even the name conjures up memories of my early days in Arizona. I first visited this little town in the far southeast of Arizona in the mid-Seventies. Back then it was a little “wilder and woolier” indeed. The laid-back flavor of this town still remains. Back then, there was no hint of “gentrification, Arizona-style”. I had memories of a summer visit , hanging out at The Glory Hole Saloon and St. Elmo’s Bar. There was even a horse or two on the streets.

I remember climbing up the zillion steps to stay with locals in a rustic little house. There were pears growing on a tree outside that were huge. Though it was broiling hot down in Tucson, it was gorgeous and temperate a mile high in the Mule Mountains in Bisbee.

There were other artists and lots of people making silver jewelry with the abundance of local stones such as the famed Bisbee Blue turquoise as well as other stones such as azurite. These and other stones are found in the same area as copper and silver deposits.

 The first wave of people to discover the town of Bisbee just as copper mining came to an end in 1975 were referred to as “hippies” and I suppose this fit the picture of the lifestyle of many residents of Arizona at the time. Though I didn’t consider myself a hippie in those days, (I owned panty hose and wore lipstick), life in those parts certainly was bent in a direction that was far more relaxed than say, New York or San Francisco!

The desert’s vastness suited my need for wider horizons both as an artist and in some sort of psychic dimension, and Bisbee was the perfect getaway from the big city of Tucson when a trip into the past was in order.

 The town has been rescued from disappearing by artists and boomers looking for a place to retire, escape, or relax. Tourism has replaced the work once provided by the copper mining industry, and retirees man the desks at the wonderful museum and take visitors on tours of the old Queen Mine.

There is still the flavor of the old days in Bisbee. Folks resembling those hippies of years ago still walk the streets. The laid-back atmosphere and remote location still seems to invite those who live life in a far different way than in the big cities. There seems to be room to “get off the grid” in a manner of speaking, room for alternate ways of living, and I suppose, for making a living. It’s the kind of town that tempts those who want to escape- to write, make art, hang out, or even as an old San Francisco colleague’s son did, buy a ranch and raise snakes. (He was a herpetologist!)

The old headquarters of The Phelps-Dodge Company, the mining company responsible for much of the town’s development, is now a fabulous museum ( affiliated with The Smithsonian Museum). We chatted with the wonderful women who worked there about the history of this company and its role in this “company town”. Unfortunately no photos could be taken of the amazing exhibits which documented every detail, building, individual, and event of the history of Bisbee as a mining boom town.

The kind of train used to go deep into the mines sits outside the Museum.

I assume these are prison inmates who are brought to work on the Museum grounds, watched over by a female guard.

This “Bisbee character” remained obligingly still for my photo.

Like Tombstone and Tucson, Bisbee has provided the setting for Hollywood movies and television productions. Stars like John Wayne visited and often stayed at the famous Copper Queen Hotel (which was being renovated on my last, long-ago visit.)

Unfortunately, my sliver of the front of  The Copper Queen Hotel was taken on the fly and I didn’t have a chance to take another. But the hotel’s website tells mcuh more of The Copper Queen’s part of Bisbee’s history.

Just behind the Copper Queen is the area known as Brewery Gulch.

Rugged vehicles are the rule in this part of the country. This is a real Bisbee mode of transportation and looks like it’s seen a lot of road.

A short walk from The Copper Queen is the entrance to the now-closed Queen Mine. We headed there after the Museum to take the tour.

BOOT HILL, TOMBSTONE, ARIZONA

On the edge of Tombstone, Arizona is a turn-off from the highway up to a small hill overlooking the desert. Here is the final resting place of famous and unknown citizens of Tombstone when it was still a part of the Arizona Territory in its booming mining days. The name of this small cemetary, Boot Hill entered into the history of the American West during the late 1800′s. Even though there are other “boot hills”, places where are buried those who died “with their boots on”, this is the “Boot Hill” of legend.

Of the roughly three hundred people buried here, some remain unknown, immigrants such as Chinese who had no markers. But the markers that can be seen today by visitors give us an idea of the violent ends met by many as well as other causes of death including pneumonia.

Most tourists stop to see those killed in the famous “Gun Fight At The O.K. Corral”, the McLaury’s and the Clantons.

But there are others here whose markers bear testament to the brevity of life in this hard country.

From the vantage point of Boot Hill can be seen this vast panorama of the desert. Out there are ranches, homes, and the kind of landscape that still demands much of those who live there.

This grave marker, enclosed by a battered picket fence, has a message for all who come.

THE EARP HOUSE IN TOMBSTONE

One of the most legendary names in the history of the American West is that of the Earps. These brothers, of whom Wyatt is the best known, lived for a time in the tiny town of Tombstone, in what was then Arizona Territory.

Surviving today is the simple, 14 x 27 foot house, now restored, The Earp House and Gallery, which gives an idea of how small indeed were the first homes of settlers in the West. It is filled with memorabilia about Wyatt’s personal life as well as the events at the O.K. Corral, site of the infamous “Gunfight At the O.K. Corral” , now a part of Western myth and legend.

A sculpture of Earp stands near the little house, and not too far (nothing is “too far” in this little town, population today of about 1,500 people.) from a small section of old houses which seem to be in the process of being restored also.

This is the edge of town, and here I found some wonderful opportunities for images.

Directly in front of these weathered houses is a structure common to farms and ranches across the country, the windmill. This glorious old windmill has an ornament that speaks of the history of its location!

 

Tombstone’s Cowboy Church seems to provide entertainment along with spiritual comfort.

Very near here is a wonderful rusty iron “gate” marking the entrance or departure one takes to get back onto the highway out of town. And very near this, an old wagon contrasts with the sleek whiteness of a modern 21st Century vehicle heading down the road out of town.

But there is one more amazing place to visit before  heading out for Bisbee~the famous resting place for not only gunfighters but others who all too often met untimely ends and now lay beneath the rockpiles of  Boot Hill.