2024 Highlights (with Marie’s photographic bests)

2024 was a whale of a year!

By any measure, it was a momentous year, in which we semi-retired after 33 years in radiology practice for me and 34 years for Steve.  We also celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary.  Both of these milestones were handy excuses to reward ourselves with a present which had never been practical to seriously consider before:  a share in a fractional apartment in Paris, two fixed weeks in October and two floating weeks.  Last year, I attempted in the year-end highlights reel to curtail the words in favor of images, but what can I say…it was an eventful year!  So eventful, I have many half-finished/unpolished blog posts which may never see the light of the web but for this whirlwind tour of our 2024.

2024 by the numbers:

2 final months as partners in Scripps Clinic Medical Group (SCMG), 10 months semi-retired, working as locum tenens physicians for SCMG (2, sometimes 3, days/week when in town). OK, 8 months, since we took two months (May and October) completely off (gasp!).

Longest stretch of continuous travel made possible by the above: 6 weeks (Argentina, New York and Paris for me and southern Utah and Sedona, New York and Paris for Steve)

2 dive trips ( Misool (Raja Ampat, Indonesia)) and Philippines (Tubbataha and Dumaguete) for me, one for Steve (Philippines, see February)

3 snorkeling trips (Dominica, Baja and Argentina) for me, 3 for Steve (Dominica, Misool and Baja)

Whale species photographed (3 for me, sperm, orca and southern Atlantic right whale; 2 for Steve (sperm and orca)

42 days in Sedona (10 days in February for Sedona International Film Festival), 13 days in May, 8 days in September (Steve), 11 days in December (including a 3-day road trip to Hanksville, Utah)

28 days in New York (10 days late April-early May, 5 days in July, 11 days early October, 2 days later in October)

Most thought and planning expended for meager photographic pay-off: the nearly completely cloud-obscured total solar eclipse of April 8, 2024

Most monumental photographic task: selecting 30 images to print for our first joint exhibition, in November, at the Photographer’s Eye Gallery in Escondido

January

We started the year off right, ringing it in at Mile’s and Tatiana’s, enjoying the company of Victor, Julie, Ellen and David.  The film screening was Almodovar’s Volver with Penelope Cruz.

We joined Greg, Danny and Julie in Dominica on a sperm whale search trip organized by Cindi, definitely the photographic highlight of this month.  As SCUBA isn’t permitted with the resident pods of female and young sperm whales who inhabit Dominica’s western waters, this simplified the packing (even free-diving is forbidden).  Our sperm whale luck was with us, with sightings on all 5 water days, 2 of which were off the charts for the length and intimacy of the interactions with these gentle giants.

Their tender dealings with each other were so moving and for a time, they seemed to accept us into their midst, lolling on the surface and sleeping vertically just below us.

For me, being able to sprint swim towards the whales and haul myself back up the ladder into the boat, the Aria, was validation that I had finally shaken off the fatigue which was a major symptom of us finally succumbing to Covid in December.

At the end of the month, I resumed cycling, both on the road and trail.  The 4 months since I broke my wrist at the distal radius was the longest hiatus from riding of my life.  Although I’d recovered enough from the fracture by 8 weeks to dive in the Philippines, I had been having intermittent carpal tunnel symptoms in that hand since returning.  Thankfully, being back on the bicycle did not seem to worsen the symptoms, which gradually abated.

February

My Valentine gave me a scare with a syncopal episode at work, suddenly becoming light-headed while heading out for a post-lunch stroll around the hospital, thinking he should sit down and finding himself on the asphalt staring up at concerned faces.  One of these kind samaritans rounded up a wheelchair and wheeled him over to Urgent Care for EKG, hydration, and head and cervical spine CT scans.  I learned about this by phone from Steve, at my desk at the Memorial campus reading nuclear medicine studies, having just finished giving thoracic conference. Coverage was secured for the following days while he embarked on a cardiac work-up, beginning by wearing a chest-mounted Zio heart monitor on discharge from Urgent Care.  The following day, driving home from Green down the Torrey Pines Hill, he relayed over the phone that he’d managed to capture a strip during a 10-minute episode of feeling not quite right. “I’m no expert, but I think it might be ventricular fibrillation.”  Since that rhythm is generally incompatible with life and he sounded normal on the phone, I suggested he text the strip to John R, one of his cardiologists. John thought it was atrial flutter, which made more sense, since Steve had previously been ablated for atrial fibrillation and flutter and we knew he’d had a good, but not perfect, result (occasional breakthrough bouts of the abnormal rhythm, but many fewer).  I had been after him to get in touch with John since autumn, when his implanted Linq heart monitor’s 3 year battery gave it up, right on schedule. Preoccupied with preparing for his recent sinus surgery, he had instead upgraded his Apple watch, since the old one’s EKG function no longer worked, so he’d have a way of capturing any abnormal rhythms.

On Friday night of the same week that began with his Monday syncope episode, the phone rang as we were driving after work (me in the Dunn Breast center, Steve off on medical leave) to East County for dinner in La Mesa at Farmer’s Table before seeing Clyde’s at the nearby Moxie Theater.  We’d missed Clyde’s on Broadway when it was a New York Times Critic’s Pick in late 2021 and early 2022.  Based on Ruined and Sweat, I am a big admirer of playwright Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning writing. I was amazed this tiny theatre was the first local regional production. John was on the phone, saying he’d been in touch with Doug G, SCMG’s electrophysiology and ablation specialist, who had done Steve’s prior ablation procedure. On the patio of the restaurant, Steve’s phone rang again.  This time it was Doug the electrophysiologist.  We were already drawing the conclusion that our Misool dive trip to Indonesia the following month was in serious jeopardy.  By the end of the evening, we’d decided Steve should go forward and have the ablation sooner than later and not postpone it until after the trip.  He would snorkel instead of dive, as the procedure would mean he’d have a temporary opening between right and left atria and would be at risk of stroke until it healed over.

The procedure was set for the Tuesday following President’s Day.  Over the weekend, we had another scare, walking through Balboa Park on the way to the Old Globe to see an adaptation of Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence.  We had parked at one of the outlying lots and were strolling through the park when Steve grabbed my hand and said he thought he’d better sit down.  Which we did, right on the grass.  With the Apple watch, he captured his EKG, which was racing away at a rate of 170!  Fortunately, for just such an event, he had an anti-arrhythmic medication in his pocket.  I speed-walked over to the Mingei Cafe to grab us sandwiches and some water.  After he gulped the medication down, I had a dilemma-stay with Steve and miss the play?  There was nothing he could do but wait for the anti-arrhythmic to break the rhythm and hopefully, slow his rate down into the normal range.  He couldn’t immediately get up and walk lest he have syncope again, so there was no going on to the theater for Steve.  As long as he stayed sitting, he couldn’t fall and hit his head.  I pointed out a bathroom in an adjacent structure, for when he felt able to try walking again and I headed to the theater.  By intermission, the medication had kicked in and he had repositioned himself at the Organ Pavilion across the street.   After the performance, we took the park shuttle back to the car for the first (and hopefully last) time, as it was interminably slow.

After Monday night dinner on President’s Day, I drove Steve to the Memorial ER, through which he was admitted to cardiology.  Our Internet wasn’t working on our home work station, so I read some PET scans while he was going through the admission process. I worked with Rob on CT at Green on Tuesday.  It wasn’t until nearly 5 o’clock that the call came from Doug that I’d been waiting for all day-the procedure had gone well and he was hopeful of a favorable result.  Relief!  He’d be released in 3 hours or so, so I doddled at work rather than drive home and back again, prepping for the following day in the Dunn Breast Center doing biopsies and localizations and reading a few after hours breast MRIs.

For my last official workday, I rode my bicycle to work for the first time since late September when I broke my wrist.  I felt nostalgic seeing the familiar haunts, as though I were riding back through my working life. In the evening, we watched a film I’d wanted to see at the prior year’s film festival in Sedona, Patrick and the Whale, after Cindi texted that she found it on PBS.  We completely related to Patrick’s infatuation with sperm whales and enjoyed reliving our recent trip through the film’s outstanding footage.

On the drive out to Sedona Friday before the start of the Sedona International Film Festival (SIFF), I called in a take out order to Elote.  Miraculously, I got through on the first try.  Our San Diego friends and neighbors, John and Joan, who have become regulars at SIFF as well, picked it up for us and (unable to get a reservation at the restaurant despite trying a month in advance), we dined together in peace at home with a delicious array of Elote dishes. This was an antidote to the trying 2 hours of buzzing around the house, discovering a variety of atrocities committed by the string of monthly renters the house had endured since our last stay in September.

Highlights of our film festival week, with recommendations for many cinematic gems, are here.

March

The week before our departure to Indonesia by way of Tokyo flew by.  Driving home from Arizona consumed Monday, Tuesday we started on the packing and ordered more gear (new Sea & Sea D-3 strobes for me), Wednesday and Thursday inaugurated our post-retirement careers as locums rads for our former group and Friday flew by with hair and nail appointments and endless packing,  sorting and wrapping up loose ends.  Breaking up the week was a most enjoyable evening at The Kitchen at MCASD with Bob and Catherine, making a “Study of Cacao” in the form of a 5-course meal with each course featuring cacao in some form.

Our dive trip to Misool, a land-based dive resort in Raja Ampat, Indonesia, was intended to be the kick-off to our newly (semi) retired status.  This workshop was led by underwater photography giant Alex Mustard, with whom we (me, Steve and Greg) traveled in previous years to British Columbia, Iceland and Anilao, Philippines, as well as Lightroom guru Erin Quigley, whose instruction we’d benefitted from before at Triton Bay and Little Cayman.  However, February’s unexpected turn of events meant Steve could only snorkel.  He still managed to produce images (with his housed iPhone) that impressed Alex, who did periodic image review sessions as well as presentations.

It was a wonderful trip, especially for me (Steve was understandably frustrated by being unable to dive).  We both loved the resort, carved out of volcanic rock, a marvelous example of eco-tourism.  Our room was a hike up and over a steep set of stairs to the other side of the island, which was incredibly private and beautiful. The spa services were wonderful, and the food delicious, including home-made cashew nut milk lattes in the morning. It was so productive that the blog post it deserves is interminably delayed, but here are a few favorites:

This trip was further enhanced by laying over in Tokyo 3 nights going and 2 nights returning from Indonesia.  This gave us a chance to see Mari and Hideo for an okonomiyaki dinner,  visit with photographer Takeshi Shikama and and his wife Yukiko on a day trip west of Tokyo (including a snowstorm at their country home) and to spend a wonderful afternoon at the Enoura Observatory, an ambitious art installation park by Hiroshi Sugimoto.

 

On the return, we visited with my cousin Nina and met her boyfriend Keiya.  We didn’t hit it with the timing for the hoped for cherry blossoms though, on either leg.

April

The total solar eclipse of April 8 was the focus of much planning and plotting over the preceding year+.  We had landed on Fredericksburg, Texas as statistically most likely to have a long eclipse and clear skies.  However, the best-laid plans…as the days leading up to the eclipse elapsed, the forecast turned more and more ominous. We hedged our vacation bets by tacking on a stay at a ranch catering to photographers in south Texas, a region known for excellent birding.   The eclipse itself was nearly completely obscured by dark and thick clouds, which rolled in confluently as totality approached.  At about 3 minutes into totality, they parted briefly, just long enough to see the corona.  Steve and Greg managed somehow in those few seconds to capitalize on the fleeting opportunity, but I was still searching for the repositioned sun when it disappeared again.  We did enjoy our stay in the Texas Hill country, new to all of us, exploring San Antonio, Hamilton Pool Preserve, Enchanted Rock State Park and Fredericksburg.  Eclipse day itself found us at a winery near Fredericksburg called The Rhinory, which is home to a rhino named Blake and has quite drinkable wines, made with grapes from South Africa.

Santa Clara Ranch was photographically the more productive of the two segments of this trip. We really enjoyed shooting from multiple blinds on the property, led by a talented young photographer, Cody Mazur.  We also enjoyed the company of ranch owner, Beto and a return guest photographer and friend of Beto’s, Al Perry. As I am hopelessly behind on processing and bird photography is even worse than underwater in terms of the number of images generated, here is a sample of the ranch’s inhabitants:

May

This was the first month we fully exercised our new privileges of being semi-retired.  We took nearly the whole month off, splitting it between New York for most of 2 weeks and Sedona for another two.  We came home to San Diego between, long enough to attend the bienniel MCASD benefit art auction, take Mama to the Flower Fields for her 88th birthday and Mother’s Day and to catch up with friends (Miles and Tatiana at Jeune et Jolie and Ralph and Gail at Nine-Ten). In NYC, we saw a lot of theater (Stereophonic, Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, the Jordans, Sally and Tom and Appropriate).  I also went to the opera at the Met with Mel and Gail for The Hours and saw Message in a Bottle, a dance piece set to music by Sting, with Clarissa and Illinoise by myself. We caught multiple films, including Evil Does Not Exist, Perfect Days and a quintessential New York film, After Hours (40th anniversary re-issue). An artistic highlight of this trip was at The Met, a show of the artwork of the Harlem Renaissance.

In Sedona, we hiked and continued exploring the mountain bike options in the area (searching for trails we’re least likely to sustain permanent injury on).

June

The photographic high point of this month was our week-long friends and family trip to Baja on the Gallant Lady, with Greg, Cindi, Nancy and Gerry, Gerry’s sister Lori and her husband Dennis, Bob and Debbie and their friends and neighbors in Hawaii, Mark and April.  This was largely a snorkeling trip focused on mobulas, known to aggregate at times in large numbers, but there was a slim hope that we might encounter orcas as well.  Nancy and Gerry had done this trip before (actually twice) and knew many charters had successful swims with orcas.

Back home, we had a special party to attend, at which we were the guests of honor-our official retirement party (along with our long-time friend Doug, who retired 3 months ahead of us)!  It was held at Pacifica del Mar.  Embarrassing (some nearly forgotten) stories from the past were recalled during a most enjoyable summer evening. Then, we had just over a week to pack for a long-postponed dive trip to the Philippines.  This action-packed interlude included 3 work days, a catch up dinner with Ralph and Gail at South of Nick’s at El Paseo, La Jolla Playhouse’s world premiere The Ballad of Johnny and June (based on the lives of Johnny Cash and June Carter), a Sunday matinee showing of the Old Globe’s version of Fat Ham (even better than off Broadway!), and watching the Tony Awards with Miles and Tatiana (with The Outsiders scoring the win for Best New Musical).

This trip to the Philippines took us to territory new to us, namely Tubbataha, the Visayas and Dumaguete.  Boarding the Atlantis Azores in Palawan gave some of us (me, Joyce, Andrew and Leigh) a chance to do a day trip to visit a a World Heritage Site, the Puerto-Princesa Subterranean River National Park.  Tubbataha is also a World Heritage Site and was worth waiting 6 years to see (deposits down in 2018, scheduled for 2021, postponed by the pandemic 3 years). Some of my favorite images from Tubbataha are here:

The second half of our 10 day boat journey through the Visayas was equally entrancing. These are my favorite images from the Visayas:

July

Our last night on the Atlantis Azores was July 1, our 35th wedding anniversary, a very special way to mark this milestone.

The final segment of this trip, a stay at Atlantis Dumaguete, was so productive, I have yet to finish a planned Part 4 to my blog on this Philippines odyssey.  As life threatens to interfere enough that it might not ever be finished, here’s some highlights:

 

Back at home, we resumed work and Steve inaugurated our new fitness device, a Meta oculus headset. A weekend was spent enjoyably catching up with Brad and Lauren at Blue Ribbon Pizza and with Howard and Michele at their house the next night.

We also enjoyed some excellent theatre, especially an extraordinary, gasp-inducing performance at the Old Globe, an acrobatic dance version of Romeo and Juliet called Duel Reality, a return engagement with The 7 Fingers (Les Doigts de la Main) from Montreal.

We did manage to string together 6 days off in a row, enough to justify a trip to NYC.  We met up with our friend Les (who we met diving in French Polynesia) for another extraordinarily acrobatic evening at the theatre, a ballroom version of CATS called “The Jellicle Ball”. We met up at the Apple store on 5th Avenue to visit his former office and its awesome 40th floor view of Central Park from Estee Lauder’s corporate headquarters.  Shopping at the Company store afterwards was fun, especially with his discount easing the sting of the pricey La Mer products.

The subway transported us all downtown to the World Trade Center area where we had an early reservation at Marcus Samuelson’s new restaurant at the Perelman, Metropolitan.  We enjoyed cocktails and sharing succotash, a watermelon, tomato and feta summer salad and cornbread, before our entrees of crispy snapper with a mild curry and coconut rice (me), fried chicken (Les) and a burger (Steve). We all agreed my tequila-based thematically-aligned Jellicle Juice cocktail was the winner among the drinks.

CATS “The Jellicle Ball” was the final offering of Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC) NYC’s inaugural year.  Somehow, despite it playing for 18 years on Broadway, we had never seen CATS, nor had we seen either of the film versions.  This version recast the cats as dramatically dressed ballroom competitors, voguing for an enthusiastic crowd along a long runway. Les and I had corresponded about the Critic’s Choice review in the New York Times while we were still in the Philippines. After securing us tickets, his company had offered complementary seats in another section, so he had already seen this version once and said the crowd was really into it. And so was our crowd.  There was much to gasp about, with acrobatic feats, leaps, splits beyond what the ordinary human body can achieve. Standouts included Andre de Shields (our original Hermes in Hadestown) as Old Deuteronomy, with regal violet velvet regalia and a massive mane of hair, who judges the contestants.  Among the entrants were Baby as Victoria, with cascading blond locks and gasp-inducing moves.  Also extraordinary in appearance and physicality were Sydney James Harcourt as Rum Tum Tugger and Robert”Silk” Mason as Mistoffelees.  Chastity Moore made the house roar as Grizabella singing the iconic Memory anthem.

Our visit also coincided with the annual Japan Society Japan Cuts Film Festival, where we ran into my sister and her husband.  This was appropriate enough, as they were the ones who introduced me to the festival years back. Between seeing Ice Cream Fever and Performing KAORU’s Funeral, we slipped out and had lunch at a Georgian restaurant (Aragvi, on 44th St) with Jason, while Clarissa saw a third film.

I finished listening to the gripping Pirate Hunters by Robert Kurson (whose diving non-fiction thriller Shadow Divers we both loved) on the plane home.

At the end of July, Jim and Jeannette, friends from the annual Sedona International Film Festival, drove in from Phoenix for a theatre-intensive weekend.  We joined them for the Sunday matinee of Jonathan Larson’s Tick, Tick…Boom! at Cygnet Theatre.  We met for lunch first at the Venezuelan Cafe Encuentro, whose sandwiches we fell for during the April Medium Festival.  Sadly, Steve couldn’t order one of their delicious grilled arepa sandwiches, made with a corn flour bread, as he was prepping for a colonoscopy.  He could only have white food, so had to settle for white rice and eggs, while Jeannette and I savored our halibut, avocado and plantain Caribenas.  The cast of three (AJ Rafael as Jon, Leo Ebanks as his life-long best friend Michael and Emma Nossal as Jon’s girlfriend Susan) portrayed a trio of impending 30 year olds, at different stages of trying to make it as creatives in New York.  I had never seen any version of Tick, Tick…Boom! , but really enjoyed the music and performances.

Steve made it through his upper and lower endoscopy without any cardiac complications (he woke up in atrial fibrillation after his prior endoscopy).  He was discharged just in time for us to head up Mount Soledad to a Mingei function, seeing the restored mid-century modern (MCM) home and collection of Gary and Joan Gand.  Our mutual MCM collector friends from Sedona, Gary and Laura Maurer, had told us about the Gands and said they thought we had a lot in common, so this was a good opportunity to introduce ourselves.

A chance conversation at the event led later in the week to an incredible gift.  Althea Brimm was there.  I hadn’t seen her in a while (since before the pandemic).  She mentioned that with her advancing age (she is 91 but looks 20 years younger and is as sharp as ever) she wanted to divest herself of some possessions and asked if I liked the work of Holly Roberts, which I do.  We had met Holly in her home and studio back in 2013 on a short trip to Santa Fe with MOPA.  Althea is an artist who frequently works in collage and she had acquired several pieces over the years from Holly as a student in her workshops at Anderson Ranch Art Center in Snowmass.  I assumed she meant was I interested in buying them and I said I’d be happy to take a look and asked her to send me some pictures.

A few days later, Althea texted me and made it clear she was looking for a good home for the pieces and wasn’t selling.  We arranged a time for me to go by on Saturday afternoon to pick up the pieces.  When I arrived, she had located another piece, for a total of 6!  Holly was one of the first artists to combine painting with photography and Althea’s works of hers ranged from 1999-2020.  What a thrilling gift!

As it happened, we hadn’t yet seen Holly’s current show at the rebranded MOPA (now MOPA@SDMA), so the following day, we headed to Balboa Park earlier than necessary for our 2 pm matinee at the Old Globe, a feminist steam punk version of Sherlock Holmes, Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson-Apt. 2B, in order to see Holly’s exhibition. The pieces Althea gave us and the works I remember from our visit and Holly’s prior work exhibited at MOPA were notable for their combination of color, collage and whimsy, so it was a surprise to see earlier work (mostly from the 1980s) which was much darker in theme and tone.  Those works were painted on photographs, most of the photos being barely discernible if at all.

August

Covid struck again this month!  This time, I was the only victim and my symptoms were milder than the prior bout.  I did recover in time to attend the fun book launch party Tatiana and Miles hosted to celebrate publication of Tatiana’s gripping autobiographical tale, A Woman Under Surveillance: My Fight with the KGB to Free my Husband from the Siberian Gulag. Many friends were there (Ron and Lucille, Ellen and David, Geri and Don, Lev and Irina, Nadya) and we met Tatiana’s dear friends from Paris, Katia and Patrice.

I took advantage of the enforced isolation recovering from Covid to start a 90-day on line intermediate French course with Carlito of Instagram fame.

September

Southern Atlantic right whales (SRW) were the focus of months of preparation and armed with a newly acquired 7 mm semi-dry wetsuit and a heated vest, I was off to Argentina, to meet up with Greg in Buenos Aires (BA) and our guide and trip leader Adriana Basques a few days later in Peninsula Valdes, along with Argentine naturalist and government official Hector Caisin. Steve declined to voluntarily dunk himself in 50 degrees F water. He spent the two weeks doing a road trip to southern Utah, centered around Hanksville, followed by home repairs and mountain biking at our house in Sedona.

 

 

 

We had a wonderful time in New York, catching up with friends  (Danny and Julie at Mission Ceviche, Roz down from Bovina, Mayde up from Florida, Chris and Janice at their apartment, with Delia and her husband Joe)) and family (ran into Clarissa in Brooklyn at BAM’s Harvey Theater, our first time there, seeing a musical version of a cult film, Safety Not Guaranteed; subsequently, we met up to see a raw, intense and interesting Classic Stage production of a play by Tadeusz Slobodzianek, Our Class and ABT’s Coppelia, a charming classic comic ballet, in which a boy Franz (ably danced by handsome Chun Wai Chan) is distracted from his true love (Megan Fairchild) by a life-size doll, Coppelia).

Safety Not Guaranteed was a funny and touching musical, based on a film we enjoyed by Derek Connolly.  An ambitious journalist, Darius (Nkeki Obi-Melekwe) investigates an intriguing want ad, soliciting “someone to go back in time with me”.  A nerdy and twitchy Kenneth Calloway (Taylor Trensch) is behind the classified.  The music is by Guster’s Ryan Miller.

Our Class was based on a true WW II story of 1,600 Jews massacred in the small Polish town of Jedwabne in the summer of 1941.  The playwright tells the story by following over decades the fortunes of 10 classmates, half Polish and half Jewish, whose relationships are mortally altered by WW II, as Poland is occupied first by the Soviets and then the Nazis. The cast was excellent, particularly Gus Birney as Dora, whose life and that of her baby are brought to a horrific end by her former classmates.  Also outstanding as Rachelka, a Jewish girl whose life is saved by marrying one of her classmates and converting to Catholicism, was Alexandra Silber.

We also took the ferry to Staten Island to catch up with Sarah and Aaron.  Our visit coincided with the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center.  Roz joined us for a screening of Dahomey, a documentary centered on the repatriation of artifacts from France’s Quai Branley Museum to Benin and dinner afterwards at Robert, on top of MAD at Columbus Circle.

Over the subsequent days, we attended more of the New York Film Festival’s offerings, including A Traveler’s Needs, by Korean film maker Hong Sang-soo, the third collaboration between the director and French actress Isabelle Huppert, with a surprise appearance of Huppert at the screening, followed by a Q & A session with festival director Dennis Lim.  An excellent new Mike Leigh film, Hard Truths, was attended by him, with the star (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) and a young actor playing her depressed, failing to launch, 22 year old son (Tuwaine Barrett).  One day, we took in two films: Four Nights of a Dreamer and All We Imagine as Light.  All We Imagine as Light is the second film of Indian director Payal Kapadia, who was present for an excellent Q & A which followed the screening, along with her French producer. It rightfully appeared on multiple Best of 2024 fim critic’s lists, including the NY Times.  The last of our New York Film Festival screenings was Misericordia, a French murder thriller set in a gorgeous remote village surrounded by forest aflame with stunning fall color.

Both of our theater outings were to Roundabout, which long-time La Jolla Playhouse artistic director Chris Ashley will assume the reins of next year.

The Counter was a freebie, thanks to accumulated points.  It proved to be an excellent 3 person play by Meghan Kennedy, taking place at a nondescript diner counter in upstate New York.  Waitress Katie (Susannah Flood) and early morning regular Paul (Anthony Edwards) gradually become friendly enough to share their secrets with each other. The only other character appears briefly, the town’s pediatrician Peg, played by Amy Warren.  Excellent direction was given by David Cromer (The Band’s Visit and Tribes being works of his we admired).  The following evening found us at Yellow Face with Daniel Dae Kim as DHH (David Henry Hwang, the playwright), Francis Jue as his immigrant and ambitious banker father and Ryan Eggold as Marcis, an actor DHH hires who isn’t Asian, although to further his career, he plays along. It was a clever and highly amusing riff on representation and race relations.

From New York, we launched a new chapter in our torrid and ongoing love affair with Paris.  Six months after first considering purchasing a share of a new fractional apartment being developed in the Marais, we were being oriented to the apartment by Rik, a long-term transplant from the US and the rue roi de Siclile (RDS) apartment concierge.  This was our first stay in the apartment, which proved to be as beautifully appointed as pictures and video (courtesy of one of our American friends in Paris, Patricia) suggested.  We knew the neighborhood from prior stays in fractional apartments owned in the past by our friends Cindy and Gerry, as well as an earlier exchange.

A Paris by Mouth neighborhood food tour re-oriented us to sources for bread and pastries (the gorgeous Christian Vabret patisserie Au Petite Versailles du Marais) and introduced us to some new local gems, especially Les Trois Chocolates, owned by a third generation Japanese chocolatier.  Patricia came over on our first full day in the apartment.  After lunch at a perennial favorite, Breizh Cafe, where we shared a pitcher of the house cider and enjoyed savory galettes (mine Savoyarde, with reblochon au lait cru (cheese), poitrine grillée (chicken breast), pomme de terre (potato), salade verte et vinaigrette au cidre ), she helped us stock the apartment, navigating through BHV (exercise mat and strength bands, slippers, Apple watch charger ), followed by foraging for dinner in shops near the apartment (Comte from Laurent Dubois, baguette from the patisserie)  A meal at home of roast chicken, potatoes, haricot verts and dessert from Les Trois Chocolats was accompanied by an excellent champagne brought over by Patricia (Veuve Olivier, Secret de Cave) .

Over the ensuing days, we walked and walked, hosted two aperos, made some new friends and spent some crowded (Musee d’Orsay and Centre Pompidou) and quality (Musee de la Chausse et de la Nature,  Musee Picasso and Musee Luxembourg) time in museums. Greg popped over for a weekend from London on the Chunnel, arriving in time for all of us to attend the vernissage of Art Basel Paris. A multi-course dinner at another ongoing favorite, Verjus, was as delicious and satisfying as ever. Greg also accompanied us to Maison Guermont, the “total work of art” of our artist friend, Milène Guermont, who collaborated with 100 artisans on every custom made detail of the apartment in the Nouvelle Athene neighborhood of Paris.

Milène inadvertently introduced to one of our favorite museums in Paris, le Musee de la Nature et de la Chausse (Museum of Hunting and Nature). Years back, we first visited it when she had two pieces on display there.  On this trip, we spent a delightful afternoon at this a jewel box of a museum.  I was again amazed how marvelous a museum filled with taxidermy and antique guns can be.  It is devoted to animal related art and artifacts and is set in a magnificent hotel particulier.  The mix of traditional and contemporary depictions of animals is enchanting.  The featured contemporary artist on this visit was Tamara Kostianovsky, who upcycles old clothes and textiles into birds, sides of meat, tree stumps and other works which paired beautifully with the museum’s extraordinary collection.

A favorite museum we re-visited is the Picasso Museum, also housed in a spectacularly restored hotel particulier.  An additional attraction to the comprehensive collection of Picasso’s works through his long and varied career was a show of Jackson Pollack’s early work, which drew parallels between the influence of surrealism on both artists and posited the influence of exposure to Picasso’s work on Pollack’s nascent drip painting style.

 

Interesting but less successful (too crowded) museum visits were to the Centre Pompidou for a giant surrealism show and to Musee d’Orsay.  The headliner show of Impressionist painter and collector Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894), Peindre les hommes or Painter of Men, was a madhouse. The exhibition focused on Caillebotte’s depictions of men in his circle, including his brothers, workmen employed by his family, and friends sharing his enjoyment of canoeing.  He was a rich young bachelor in a unique position in the milieu of the Impressionists.  Unfortunately, the very popularity of this show detracted from the enjoyment of it.  Despite the timed ticket entry, Greg was able to enter without a pre-reserved ticket at the exactly the same time and there were just too many people.  I resolved to buy a membership (enabling a pre-public entry at 9 am!) before our next visit, also good for visiting the Orangerie.

Frustrated by the throng, I found myself taking refuge in another exhibition, which was a great surprise and pleasure, that of a Norwegian painter named Harriet Backer (1845-1932)  entitled La musique des couleurs.  This offered a much more tranquil viewing experience. Backer was well known at the end of the 19th century in her native Norway but is virtually unknown elsewhere. Her genre scenes, especially of women at the piano (her family was quite musical and a sister was a renown composer) were especially charming.

Another show we enjoyed was at the Musee Luxembourg.  We took advantage of it being open late on Monday night to see an exhibition of a modernist Brazilian painter, Tarsila do Amaral. Ironic that two of the exhibitions I most enjoyed in Paris this trip were of two female painters I had never heard of before.

Although we definitely took advantage of having a kitchen, we of course sampled a nice cross section of Paris restaurants, trying several new to us (Miznon, in the neighborhood; Ellsworth, little brother restaurant of a perenniel favorite, Verjus, in the 1st; Lebanese lunch at Kubri ; a fantastic 4-course final dinner at JJ Beaumarchais) and revisiting favorites from visits past (Le Tagine (Moroccan). Le Tagine has been in business for over 40 years. We think we went there on one of our first trips together to Paris.  In my recollection, the restaurant was very small and dark.  We were seated on a wall with a banquette forming a string of 2-tops and were practically in our neighbor’s laps.  At the time, neither of us spoke any French, but we were able to understand almost one half of a conversation taking place next to us between a man and a woman, probably on a date.  We couldn’t understand a word that he said, but her half of the conversation consisted of “Oui, oui, oui!”

Le Tagine of today is small and attractively decorated with a canopied ceiling, perforated lights and mosaic tile covered tables and was nearly completely full when we arrived. We were seated in the center and enjoyed a white burgundy and spicy carrots while our orders of Pastilla au Pigeonneau and farm-raised chicken with olives and preserved lemon were prepared.  The pastilla is a starter, so our waiter looked concerned that we hadn’t ordered enough food but it proved to be exactly the right amount for us.

Our lunch with Greg at Datil, a multi-course vegetable focused affair, was a mixed bag. This name was appearing on multiple Best of lists.  We enjoyed ourselves but were not as wowed as many reviewers.   We did enjoy the pear cider selected to accompany the meal. We were full enough from the many tiny courses (5 course tasting menu 85 E) that we never did muster enough appetite to have dinner, despite procuring a roast chicken and potatoes for it.

Paris, like New York, is a paradise for film lovers.  There still are tiny movie houses with varied programming.  We discovered on this trip that Christine Cinema Club has two venues, one on rue Christine (where we saw for the first time (part of a Cary Grant festival) Elle et lui (better known in English as 1957’s An Affair to Remember)) and one near the Pantheon (another first, seeing Martin Scorsese’s critically acclaimed and influential, 1973’s Mean Streets, starring Robert de Niro and Harvey Keitel).  An Affair to Remember features Grant as an international playboy who meets Deborah Kerr on a trans-Atlantic crossing. Both are engaged to others but vow to extricate themselves and reunite in 6 months (coincidentally, on July 1, our wedding anniversary) on top of the Empire State building.

Walking past an MK2 multiplex theater near the Pompidou,  we were amused to find we had already seen 3 of the 4 films being advertised,  namely Dahomey, Miséricorde ( Misericordia (Mercy)) and A Traveler’s Needs, all screened earlier in the month at the New York Film Festival. We did take advantage of another MK2 theater, near the Rochard Lenoir market, to see (with a full French audience), the new Kate Winslet movie Lee, based on the life of photographer Lee Miller.

Attending this film in Paris was interesting.  First, the small but not tiny theater was nearly completely sold out for a 5:10 pm showing of an American movie.  Admittedly, much of the action takes place in France and the subject lived for several stints in Paris, including 3 years with Man Ray.  The only times I’ve been in recent years in near full movie theaters in the US are at film festivals. There was a tiny gender neutral bathroom on one side of the room, and an exit directly onto the street.

Having an apartment in Paris also enabled us to entertain. Our partner Ugne had connected us via WhatsApp with her longtime friend Michelle.  Over the 15+ years we’ve worked together, Ugne had mentioned Michelle repeatedly as a friend dating back to high school, also half-Japanese, who has lived in Paris for decades who she thought we’d like.  She was right, we had a great time getting acquainted with Michelle.

We also hosted an apero with Patricia, who was entertaining art loving friends from NYC and Chicago,  Mary Ann, Claire, Karen and Scott.

Of course, we did a little shopping, mostly at Agnes B for clothes.  One delightful late afternoon, we visited the apartment studio of Margaux Gripon, a talented, self-taught young jewelry designer who has launched her own line, Okan.  I selected a few of her unusual ear cuff designs in sterling silver as very portable souvenirs.  Margaux seems to be headed soon for bigger venues.  She mentioned I would be among the last to see the collection at her home studio.

Our final day in Paris was a busy one.  Michelle invited us to lunch at her place in St. Germaine en Laye, so we walked to Chatelet midday to catch the RER train.  Her friend Chris greeted us in the courtyard.  Both grew up in Solana Beach with our friend and long-time partner Ugne. Chris is recently installed in Paris and learning French while Michelle has lived there for decades. Both of them work remotely.  We had a great time chatting over a delicious lunch of soup and lentil salad with Michelle’s homemade sun-dried tomatoes.  All too soon, it was time for them to work and us to head back to Paris for our first owner’s meeting.  We had just enough time to stroll through the garden fronting St Germaine-en-Laye’s castle to see the view of Paris in the distance.

Coming back, we laid over in NYC for two nights. We walked through a gloriously golden Central Park in late afternoon to meet Les for dinner at Cafe Un, Deux, Trois, which we heard about from the New Yorkers we hosted at our apero in Paris. My beef bourgignon compared favorably to the two versions I had in Paris, and their tarte tatin was excellent.

Our evening at the theater was highly entertaining, Teeth, by Michael R. Jackson (A Strange Loop) and Anna K. Jacobs. Alyse Alan Louis played Dawn, a religious teenager who has taken a chastity pledge as a Promise Keeper Girl, but struggles with her burgeoning sexuality in her relationship with her jock boyfriend (Jason Gotay).  Andy Karl played a vastly different role than Rocky, as the Pastor of a church and Dawn’s stepfather. He also was hilarious as a smarmy gynecologist. This comic send-up of the mythical vagina dentata featured severed members dangled from the ceiling.  Plastic ponchos were provided for the splash zone (the first two rows).  We were in the third row and despite ponchos, were nailed by abundant fake blood.

Back home, there was one piece of good news in the many weeks worth of work emails I waded through.  It was disguised in a new spam screening program implemented by Scripps while I was off.  I was elected to be a FACR (Fellow of the American College of Radiology), considered a high honor for our profession, conferred on 15% of radiologists.  Of course, many great rads, like Steve, may simply not want to have bothered with the cumbersome application process.  I did it at Gil Boswell’s urging back in February.  In addition to listing my accomplishments in the field (publications, teaching, etc), I had to get two Fellows to vouch for me (my old partner Shelly did the honors, in addition to Gil). Steve had converted his ACR membership status to retired already and was no longer eligible.

Our return to work was a little rough.  Originally, we weren’t schedule to work at all the last week of October, but were solicited at the last minute to work Thursday and Friday.  Steve picked up the Thursday and I volunteered for the Friday, as well as elected to pick up a mammography Saturday at Rancho Bernardo that Ryan had put up for sale. The phone rang at 7:30 am after Steve drove up to Jefferson-he had forgotten his glasses.  There was no help for it-I spent an hour in the car round trip ferrying his glasses to him. On the way up, I finished listening to the book selected for our next book club session, Fire Exit, by Morgan Talty, set on an Indian reservation in Maine.  The long-kept secret of a girl’s paternity binds two neighboring families together.  On the return trip home, I started another book by a new favorite author, Percival Everett,  Dr. No.

Back home, I tuned into an on line French conversation group.  There were 7 or so students and the instructor, Timothee, divided us into two virtual groups.  I was paired with Dot from Montreal and Sara Nugent from Rhode Island.  All of a sudden, Sara recognized me-from medical school,  38 years ago!  Presumably,  she made the connection more based on my unusual last name than on my appearance.  Even more amazing, I learned she spent the summer between first and second years of med school in a small village in Normandie, that she liked so much she later bought a home there, where she has been vacationing with her family ever since,  Even more astounding, she was in the process of buying an apartment in Paris near Gare de Nord and moving permanently to France!

November

The preparations for this momentous month had been going on for over a year, ever since Donna Cosentino, Director of the Photographer’s Eye Gallery in Escondido, asked us to mount a joint exhibition. The first task was to select a title.  After much deliberation, we decided on Inner Space as conveying the sense of other worldiness of the underwater world. Our deadline for selecting, preparing and arranging the fabrication of 30 images was back in August, thanks to my Argentina whale trip in September and the advent of the Paris apartment adventure. We had arranged to have the images printed on metal by a local lab, Impact Visual Arts, to avoid the mountain of packing material which we’d have to deal with if we used our customary lab in Scottsdale. While we were away (and after Steve did a spot check), the images were delivered to the gallery.  We returned from NYC and Paris in time for the opening at the end of October,  our first time to see what arrangement Donna had contrived.  As during my exhibition in 2020, she did a great job, grouping black water images together in gallery 3, with colorful macro and coral reef scenes in gallery 2 and whale and Steve’s bull sea lion image from Baja holding court in the front room, alongside his “Big Eyes” blenny and “Lipstick” tang.

The reception turnout was a reunion of friends, beginning with Lynn Weston and her husband Paul and her sister-in-law.  Lynn purchased “Shy”, the name we gave to Steve’s adorable clownfish in a green anemone. Meg Richmond and her husband also came early, ready for Halloween. Our partner Amy came with her husband Joe and friends of theirs. My bookclub was represented by Catherine, Pat and Steph, who came with their husbands.  Mingei director Jessica and mid-century maven husband Keith were there, along with Dave and Gayle. Hector and Caroline mingled with these mid century design enthusiasts, along with Joan and Gary Gand. Dave purchased Steve’s Headdress ( a comb jelly image). Our dear friends Gail and Ralph and Miles and Tatiana visited with Gad and Suzan and Monica and Charlie. Gail selected Steve’s Ojos to add to their collection and Gad and Suzan added Joust to theirs. Denise and Elyssa (mammography technologists I have enjoyed working with for years) came together and Denise decided on my Wunderpus for a place of honor over her fireplace.  John Venekamp was taken with a grouping of black water images for possible placement in his New York apartment. Additional visitors were Nancy and Steve Ross, John and Joan, Inge (who later selected one of my images, Reaching) and Bob and Brian Caldwell, who leads bird photography excursions at Lake Hodges. It was great to see Ugne and Jonathan, who came on the heels of a Saturday trip to LA for Lithuanian school for the kids. I made the mistake of admiring a silver ring Ugne was wearing, resembling a sea anemone-she whipped it off her finger and onto mine, insisting I keep it. Mike and Margie came in the final hour, as did Lauren and Brad, after which we all went to dinner at nearby Bellamy’s (our first time there, very tasty carrot hummus and scallop special).

We also conducted two well attended Saturday walk-throughs of the show. My college friend and former roommate, Alisa, came into town from Sacramento for the weekend of the first walk-through.   The turnout was gratifying, including a repeat visit from Monica and Charley (with another couple in tow).  Clarissa and Jason brought Mama and Claire.  Bram and Sandy ventured inland from Del Mar and afterwards, Sandy enthused about the show to our book club as “DAZZLING, SPECTACULAR, MIND-BLOWING” (The caps are all hers!)  Bram bought Jefe, Steve’s image of a bull sea lion at Los Islotes, parting a silvery curtain of anchovies. Sweet Alisa bought my Duo, depicting a pair of companionable lionfish in Indonesia.  Friends from the Eye for Art era came, including Karen, Mary and Kathleen. Scripps was represented by former head nuclear medicine tech David and his wife Trish and Drs. Jan and Helaine Fronek.  Eric and Margi drove down from Orange County. Afterwards, over dinner at Trattoria Positano near the house, we caught up with them and Alisa on their comfortable heated patio.

We rounded out Alisa’s weekend visit with lunch with Clarissa at Cafe Athena, followed by Hadestown at the Civic Theater and finished with my book club at Sheila’s, discussing Fire Exit.

Mid-month, my cousin Nina came from Japan for a visit, timed to coincide with our show and with Clarissa and Jason’s extended sojourn in southern California. While Steve and she walked in Torrey Pines State Reserve, I had my hair done and  lunch from Saffron with Vivian (whose appointment followed mine) and Mayling (our mutual hair stylist). Afterwards I jetted up to Escondido to see our long-time photographer friend Susan Kanfer, who drove 2 hours to come from her new home in the desert to see the show. We caught up over coffee at Manzanita, across the street from the gallery.

On Friday, Clarissa, Jason and Jason’s mother Claire (now 94 but still cheerful and stylish, now getting around with the aid of a rollater) came over for dinner to see Nina.  I had ordered Q’ero’s Peruvian food (empanadas, aji de gallina, salads) and sangria.

We all spent the weekend in Palm Springs, which was new to Nina and enabled us to catch up with friends who have moved there.

Saturday morning saw us driving north and inland in time to meet Susan in Rancho Mirage at a restaurant (Si Bon) for lunch.  Afterwards, we toured Susan’s house in Palm Desert, which we hadn’t seen yet, even though she moved from Del Mar 2 years before!  We dropped in on David Skelley at his Palm Springs mid century modern shop just before closing.  Joan and Gary Gand gave us a tour of their stunningly decorated mid century house, complete with fabulous collectables, before we all went to dinner at Alice B (helmed by the chefs from Two Hot Tamales fame).

On Sunday morning, we brunched on the shaded patio of Spencer’s, a Palm Springs institution, with David and Kurt.  Nina and I shared the fried oyster appetizer and the corn beef hash with poached eggs.  We whiled away the afternoon with a little shopping and a visit to the Palm Springs Art Museum.

To top off our weekend in Palm Springs, we indulged in a prix fixe 3 course meal at The Farm, where we had enjoyed brunch before with David and Kurt on prior visits. Nina and I both enjoyed the New Zealand blue nose fish preparation.

We had to head back to San Diego on Monday, as Nina was flying out that evening.  We routed ourselves home via Idyllwild, where another set of mid century enthusiast friends, Bryan and Debbie, had moved from Carlsbad.  They scored a fabulous Japanesque house in the pines, where their mid century collection now shares space with plein air paintings and vintage Idyllwild knotty pine furniture.  Lunch was at Idyllwild Brewery.  Knowing we were going to send Nina off to the airport with hamburgers from Ocean Beach’s Hodads, I had a salad with salmon.

On the drive home, Nina called her father, who told us Uncle Shigekazu died in September.  He was Mama’s oldest brother. Now two of the 6 siblings are gone.

Our final walk-through was at the end of the month on the last day of the exhibition. A diving friend we made on our summer Phiippines trip, Andrew, flew down from the Bay area to see the show and purchased Steve’s boxfish image (Polkadots) for his wife Leigh for Christmas. We were also pleasantly surprised that Laura, another friend from the same trip (and priors) drove down from Long Beach!  Phil Colla and his wife Tracy came, as well as multiple friends from work, including Rosa, Vivian, and Crystal.  Our longtime friend from SDUPS, Denise Lew, was there as well as Gary and Susan Spoto, friends dating back to when Vivian, Gary and I were all fellows at UCSD. Fellow photographer Lev Tsimring came, along with artist friends Deanne Sabeck and Jeffery Laudenslager.

For anyone who could not make it in person to the gallery, you can see my exhibition images here and Steve’s here.

Interspersed with all of the exhibit related activity, we attended the opening screening of the 25th SDAFF (San Diego Asian Film Festival) of a hilarious world premiere from Japan, Cells at Work, featuring a cast with 7500 extras as white and red blood cells, coursing through the body of a teenage age girl, Niko,  diagnosed with leukemia.  The director, Hideki Takeuchi, flew in from Japan and entertained questions from a captivated full house.  The film is based on a manga series with multiple spin-offs.  Mei Nagano and Takeru Satoh star as red and white blood cells who frequently encounter each other as they strive to perform their duties.  Sadao Abe is very funny as the widowed father of a teenaged Niko (Mana Ashida), who tries to keep her dissolute but well-meaning father in line before she falls ill.

Later in the month, we were the featured speakers at the monthly meeting of the North County Photographic Society.  When we last spoke at their meeting, they met at the former Quail Gardens in Encinitas (now San Diego Botanic Gardens).  They now meet at the Senior Center in Carlsbad.  We delivered an updated version of Wonders of the Underwater World, which we had prepared for our presentation at the Sedona Camera Club in February.  In addition to members of the club (the only one of whom I knew was membership director Nancy Jennings), our radiologist friend Gil brought along a friend, and James’ mother Robin (who we had never met) and Nancy and Steve Ross came.

We also ventured north one evening to a music venue new to us, but which has been a fixture in Orange County for decades: the Coach House.  Doug and Mini told us about it, so it was appropriate that Doug came with us (Mini was in New Zealand).  The headliner was a favorite of mine, Rufus Wainwright.  The opening act was an interesting trio: Adrian Bourgeois, Ricky Berger and Gal Musette.  Both of the women played multiple instruments, including the harp (Ricky sporting a crown on her long blonde hair).  It was a rare concert experience to enjoy music that didn’t threaten one’s hearing.

Just before Thanksgiving, Howard and Michele Hall came over for dinner, a date we set way back in August when we last saw them at their house.  They were just back from DEMA and would leave within a week for the Philippines. The menu was simple:  Ottolenghi wild rice and chicken salad, with a side of spiced delicata squash and almond flour vegan brownies and coconut milk ice cream for dessert.

We kicked off our Thanksgiving weekend with La Jolla Playhouse’s production of Your Local Theater Presents: A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, Again by Anna Ouyang Moench.  In the green room of a theater in Philadelphia, a changing troupe of actors in A Christmas Carol age and assume different roles over the years, lamenting the fact that their survival as actors hinges on the perennial popularity of this seasonal production. The small cast was excellent, with Miles G. Jackson as Eddie, a character who provides the throughline as actors age out and come and go over the years.

Thanksgiving itself did not go as planned but turned out well.  The week before, at work at Fenton, I decided minutes before the deadline to order the holiday Blue Apron box.  At least, I thought I did…when the box failed to show on Wednesday, we couldn’t find any record of my order.  Maybe I failed to hit the final confirm button, being in a hurry at work.  Instead, we came up with an alternate menu of sous vide and pan seared duck, stuffing and red cabbage sides, with Jane Brody’s apple and cranberry crumble for dessert.

The only guest we knew for sure was coming was Doug, as Mini was returning that day from New Zealand and probably wouldn’t make it back in time.  Late afternoon, Doug texted that she was renting a car at LAX and driving back to San Diego.  Unbelieveably, they made it to the house by 6 pm, after the quickest turnaround in history, Mini returning to their house in La Jolla just before 5 pm!  After so many years of attending their large Thanksgiving feasts (with their extended family and members of the MSK radiology section at UCSD), it was nice to return their holiday hospitality.

December

After all of the activity and houseguests connected with Inner Space, we were ready to decompress in Sedona the first half of December.  From there, Steve arranged a several day road trip to southern Utah, which he had explored and enjoyed twice already by himself, most recently in September, and was eager to share with me, especially now that there was a better alternative in which to stay in Hanksville, the Muddy Creek Mining Company cabins. While in Sedona, we did some mountain biking and finally made it to the Birthing Cave.

The landscape around Hanksville is truly other worldly and really lends itself to drone photography.

It’s a long drive from Sedona to Hanksville, albeit with some spectacular red rock scenery along the way.  With 93 miles to go, we only had 70 miles of gas left in the tank and very minimal information available as to the location of the nearest gas station.  Rather than run the risk of running out of gas in the middle of a sparsely populated area, we made a detour toward Blanding and Bluff to fill up the tank.  I was annoyed, as this wasn’t the first time we’d been in this situation in the Southwest, where gas stations can be few and far between.

We stopped en route to fly the drone over an arched metal bridge spanning the Colorado River, with the light quickly evaporating.

I had cause to be annoyed again later, discovering when we arrived after dark to the cabin in Hanksville, that my clothing bag wasn’t with us.  It was, of course, nearly filled and still unzipped, sitting ready to go at home in Sedona on our bed.  Luckily, the toothbrush was in Steve’s suitcase, with toothpaste and dental floss devices.  Thankfully, my jackets, include a very thick and warm red down hooded coat, were with us.  It certainly simplified dressing for the next two days.

In the afternoon, we made a valiant effort to find an interesting looking area called Little Egypt which we’d seen pictured in the Photographer’s Trail Notes on Hanksville.  We found the road (we think) which was dirt and rocky and rough, but the Notes didn’t give us much guidance as to which of a series of forks to take.  We even flew the drone (at least Steve did, as I realized at that point I’d left my controller charging back in the room) as reconnaissance but didn’t locate anything resembling the goblin field.

After retrieving my controller from the cabin, we spent the afternoon flying over and photographing the striated Rainbow Hills beyond the private Mars Desert Research Center.

For our final shoot in the area (Steve having already vetoed the idea of another sunrise session prior to our 6.5 hour drive back to Sedona the same day), we again headed down Coal Mine Road to a pull-off with a view of the front side of iconic Factory Butte.

 

 

 

 

I think these many words and images attest that we’re adjusting beautifully to the increased flexibility afforded by our semi-retired status.  Now if our joints, limbs and hearts can hold out, we’re going to continue to do our best in 2025 to stay healthy and continue our explorations of all our world offers while we can…à la prochaine!

-Marie