Monaco

We awoke to a gray day. The sun was obscured by a blanket of clouds. We dressed  hurriedly and were on our way. But first we stopped by the front desk to ask if the clerk would take care of our parking fee. You could only pay for six hours of parking at once. We would be gone longer. We needed help. The day clerk said that he would be glad to take care of it for us. Having solved this problem we breakfasted at a cafe on the way to the train station which must have been at least half a mile down through the zig-zaged streets. Coffee and croissants make a good breakfast when you are in a hurry. Buy it at the counter, sit and enjoy, no waiting for wait staff. The place was crowded with natives on the way to work, reading their newspapers, buying lottery tickets over the din of musical French in a light cloud of cigarette smoke.  It's almost like fast food. I guess it is food, fast. We catch the train for Monaco. It was easier here because there was a ticket agent instead of the usual automated ticket dispensers. It would have been a very nice train ride had it not been for rude Americans. One woman yells loudly, "Is this train going to Italy?" Then complains about all her misadventures and about how they don't do it this way in Dallas. We  spoke not a word and tried to appear European.

The railroad track follows the contour of the land as it meets the sea and we had a beautiful view of the Mediterranean  off the starboard side of the train. In less than an hour we disembark at the station in the principality of Monaco.  We have indeed crossed the border into the only true monarchy in the free world.  Monaco like Villafranche-sur-mur from which we came seems to be cantilevered on the side of a

mountain. We exit one of the four exits of the station into the minuscule country (.75square miles) of 30,000 residents.  It is one of the money laundering capitals of the world. (Infamously known as "a sunny place for shady people") Our goal is to see the changing of the guard at the prince's palace. We tend to like the military pomp of these ceremonies.  Ah, yes, the thunder of drums and flash of sabers! Monaco is the only city we've visited where you can take an elevator between streets.  I often have difficulty getting my head around this idea...but I did it..so...  We have a small map of the city in our guidebook and notice how reality is very different from the printed page.  The page lies flat, the city does not.  It's about ten o'clock in the morning and the ceremony is at 11:55 and we decide to walk to the top of the mountain upon which Palias Princier sits. The climb is steep and I cursed my miserly Scottish ancestry which kept me from the one euro bus ride.

The palace is the home of Monaco's ruling monarch, Prince Albert, whose full name and title is Prince Albert Alexandre Louise Pierre, Marquis of Baux. I'm not sure why he's not a king, since he is the head of the Gramaldi ruling family. The court yard is beautiful and there are great views of the city and harbors below. This would possibly have been a great place to view the Grand Prix of Monaco, an automobile race of international renown. A statue of Francois Grimaldi dominates the palace square.  Old Francois conquered the area in 1297 masqueraded as a monk. Although the Prince is the ruler of Monaco, the country administrator, telephone system, electricity ,water and so on are French.

We arrived early at the palace and got a front row view of the changing of the guard. We spent the waiting time looking at the various cannon on display  and admiring the views of the harbor but avoided the gift shop which was doing a booming business with the burgeoning crowd of tourists.  By this spectacular ceremony you would think that Monaco was a world power. It's quite entertaining with a brass band and pith helmeted palace guards.  I noted that the rifles were M-16's with bayonets.  Bayonet training was eliminated  from the American combat training regimen recently.  After the changing of the ceremony, the guards return to their respective posts and we leave the palace.  And it's all downhill.  We wanted to see the casino.  The most famous casino in the world.



Monte Carlo is a area of Monaco.  (I always thought it was the name of the casino.) Monte Carlo actually means "Charles's Hill" in Spanish and was named for the ruling prince at the time the casino was built.  Over the entrance to the casino reads Casino de Monte Carlo.  It is flanked on the right by the Hotel de Paris and on the left by the Loews Casino.  Casino de Monte Carlo is the gambling establishment frequented by James Bond in the 007 films.  I would have been great to have seen Sean Connery drive up in an Aston Martin DB-5. Connery did not appear but the exotic sports cars were there;  Ferrari, Maserati, Aston -Martin, Bentley and others. This place exudes conspicuous consumption. The casino doesn't open until 2:00 P.M. and we weren't interesting in waiting.

However, to feed the desire take a chance, we entered the Loews Casino.  The machines seem to have in insatiable appetite for euros.  One noticeable difference from Vegas was the absence of free drinks. There is a lot of security here and no cameras allowed in the casino.

After spending the allotted amount on casino entertainment we would catch the train to Nice for an afternoon admiring the artwork of one of the great French masters.

Scanography

Scanography--a new way I've  found to create pictures or images. As an artist I am always attempting to create images, whether in painting, collage, photography, computer generated or other means or a combination of media.  Recently, I discovered scanography. I use a scanner to create pictures. Initially, I simply placed objects on the scanner and scanned, much the same way as you would make a copy or scan images into  an image editing program.  Then I remembered what things were like in the early days of photocopiers. People would put anything in the copier.  Once when I was working at an iron foundry a worker put a one dollar bill in the copier and made a copy of it and  then used it in a vending machine to get a burger.  Once we convinced him he was counterfeiting money, he was terrified. And, of course, there are those stories of the office staff making photocopies of certain body parts.

At first I placed scraps of paper on the scanner and scanned them.  Then I arranged the multicolored scraps of paper in a pattern and scanned.  I added photographs and anything else flat and paper thin. You can compose a picture of these bits.  It's like assembling a collage without the glue. You are composing the picture on your scanner from front to back. The first abjects placed will be at the front of your picture. All the rules of composition work here just like in a painting or photograph. Adding three dimensional objects creates even more interest in the composition.

This is a great way to exercise you creativity. The images created can be printed  or edited with software such as Photoshop.

In the examples below I have used various scraps of paper, photographs, textile fabric, and solid objects to create the image.  One is a scan of a piece woven from newspaper strips with a red paper tear-out added.  Next to is is a scan of my hand manipulated in Photoshop.  In the two scanographs below I have used bamboo leaves with a photograph and autuum leaves with a marker drawing to create the images.

These are merely examples of what can be done. Think of the scanner as a camera. See the scanner as "new"  media!

Paddlin' to the Echoes of Pickers

We were on an expedition to find some roots.  That is, family roots. Or at least to find the lodge built by my wife's late brother.  Her brother, Jim Adams, had gone to Alaska in the 1960's, started a construction business, and while there built a lodge on Lake Louise. We were going to find the lodge and spend a few nights there.  The Internet yielded the website for the lodge and accepted our reservations on-line.  It was a late summer morning when we left Anchorage for Lake Louise. We followed the Glenn Highway from Palmer and  pulled over to the side of the road to view the Matanuska Glacier on the way before getting on the gravel road to the lodge.  The road to the lodge was a well maintained twenty mile stretch of gravel road.   One of the things you immediately notice in rural Alaska is the lack of utility poles.

As we approached the Point Lodge we saw the building housing the generator for the lodge.  If you want any electricity in rural Alaska you have to make it yourself. The area we were in was still being homesteaded in the 1950's, and we would later meet one of the homesteaders.  The lodge sat on a point of land jutting out into Lake Louise, which was named for an army captain's wife. There were several other out buildings, some cabins,  and a nice gravel parking lot.  The lodge was a two-story structure with a glassed-in area facing the lake on a gentle treeless slop to the dock on the lakefront. We entered the huge lobby cum public living area expecting to see a myriad of mounted wildlife heads on the walls, but the decor was more about boats and water related sports.  There was a chubby friendly tabby named L. J. that added an extra touch of coziness to the room.  The lodge was originally named Point of View Lodge by Jim Adams when he built it, but the current owners had shortened it to The Point Lodge. We stowed our stuff in our comfortable upstairs room overlooking the lake, there are only 13 rooms, and went out to explore. There was a collection of small marine engines in the lobby as well mounted specimens of Arctic fox and other small animals, which I found interesting. Over the huge stone fireplace was a painting of a bald eagle.  We found that there were canoes available for use, so we grabbed the PFDs and paddles and went down to the lake. 

The water was like glass on this sunny day.  The canoe sliced through the water as we paddled in semi-synchronicity.  I say semi, because I am not a creature of grace and  prefer vehicles with a bit more stability than a canoe.  It was great, with puffy white clouds overhead and the smell of clean air. Lake Louise had once been the site of  a U. S. Army  recreation area built toward the end of WWII.  In fact, General Dwight D. Eisenhower had once vacationed there.  There is still the recreation area, but it is no longer under the auspices of the U. S. Army. Prior to going to dinner at the lodge (there was nowhere else to go) I took out the canoe solo.  My proverbial black cloud hovered over my head, and the winds blew and the water became rough, and I had to paddle like the devil to keep out of the overhanging shrubs to get back to the windsock marked pier.

When Jim operated the lodge in its heyday folks would fly in from Anchorage for the Saturday night dances. Jim was something of a country music singer and had appeared on Channeel 2, KTVU, in San Francisco.  Although he never achieved fame as a performer,  he nevertheless knew lot of people in the country music business, and he would invite them to play at his Point of View Lodge. The sounds of music and merriment would echo across the lake. Float planes and watercraft would be tied up at the dock.  During this time there were a goodly number of soldiers at the nearby army recreation area, too who attended the Saturday night dances. The Point of View Lodge became the place to be on summer Saturday nights in the Matanuska area.  Jim stayed in Alaska until his death, and in true frontier fashion had his ashes spread across Lake Louise by a bush pilot friend flying low over the placid lake on which Jim had built his dream.

People still fly into the lodge today for a weekend and in winter, before the lake freezes, that is the only way it is accessible. While lounging in the lobby I heard the sound of a high performance automobile.  Once you hear the sound of a high performance V-8 engine you remember the sound, even though that's probably just a "guy thing'.  But what could it be? We were miles from where a car could be going fast enough to make that sound. I sprang to the window to look out on the lake.  It was an airboat with a Chevrolet engine.  A man and a dog came ashore from the airboat docked at the pier.  The man was a big bearded outdoors type, and the dog was what you would expect in these parts, a sled dog. He had come to help the innkeeper with some chores. And Jack, the dog, he just goes where Frank, the man, goes. I had a chance to talk to Frank later about his watercraft, explaining that I had seen many airboats in Florida and other marshy areas of the eastern coast  of the continental United States. He explained that the air boat was really great in winter when the lake was frozen solid, and the boat was like sled gliding across the ice.

Victoria, the innkeeper, prepared a fantastic dinner of  roast pork, sweet potatoes, asparagus, and cheese ravioli.  There was a crisp salad and hearty harvest bread, too. The beverage of choice was Alaska Timber Draft. We shared the cream cake with coffee.  As the only guests we had the choice of view of the lake from the dining room.

Later that evening our hosts had invited a local fellow, Tom Main, to come  over. He had known Jim. The years had been pretty good to Tom. He was of slight build, about five feet ten inches tall , with a considerable amount of grey hair receding from his forehead, and with skin textured by age. Beneath the bespectacled brown  eyes was an infectious smile. Although he hadn't know Jim very well, he did have some stories to tell.

"I homesteaded my place, you know", he said, as he  began a story of how he came to be in Alaska. Tom told how he had been educated in a Japanese internment camp during WWII before eventually going into government service and subsequently ending up in Alaska.  He had been a homesteader on his property on Lake Louise. Tom's first house had been a tent and though the years he had added solid walls and eventually a roof and continued to expand it to its present size.  His home had solar panels for heating water, and electricity generated with a combination of diesel generator, wind power, and solar panels.  I would have liked to have seen his homestead, but we did not have the time. He told us that in rural Alaska  emergency medical care was provided by specially trained volunteers. A person would normally be flown to a hospital, if necessary. Small single-engine aircraft are a common mode of transport in Alaska. It was great talking with Tom.  We learned a great deall about life in rural Alaska, past and present. We said our goodnights turned in for the night.

I think perhaps Alaskans are different.  A few days earlier I had met a nine-year-old boy at breakfast at a bed and breakfast in Anchorage. I found him fascinating.  His mother was native American, but his father was Caucasian from Minnesota, and they lived in the north near Barrow. I queried Clarence about life in Alaska for a boy and was surprised that he had no interest in television or video games.  Clarence's biggest concern was whether the person he left in charge of his trapline was maintaining it properly.  He could not wait to get back to check his traps.  At nine-years-old he traps fox and other fur bearing animals, skins them out, and sells their pelts. He speaks of this as if it is normal activity for a boy his age and probably doesn't understand why anyone would think otherwise.

We saw a beautiful sunrise the next morning, said our goodbyes to our hosts, and were on the road again in our rented PT Cruiser after a good breakfast. It had been a good visit to The Point Lodge, once known as Point of View Lodge. I think Jim would have been proud.

  More info:

• Lake Louise Cardboard Boat Races
• Lake Louise Snowmachine Races
• The Point Lodge

Alaska, the last frontier.

Tales of the Gold Monkey ...Flashback

This was one of my favorite television shows of the early '80's.  How could I not like it?  Set in the late 1930's, a time of spies and intrigue, on a tropical island under French jurisdiction in the south Pacific. A ex-military pilot flying a seaplane who has a comic sidekick and a one-eyed dog with a cafe singer for a girlfriend make for exciting television.    And that's just a few of the characters.  With plot lines dealing with German spies and unruly natives things kept getting better and better. Stephen Collins played the main character, Jake Cutter, the owner-pilot of the Grumman flying boat, Cutter's Goose.

I'm a big fan of adventure stories whether on film or in print and this was one of the best. I'm reminded of a character in a Louis L'Amour story who flew a seaplane which had machine guns mounted on it. Maybe the creator of Tales of the Gold Monkey read the same stories. And maybe that is the connection between the best of western fiction  and the best of south Pacific pre-WWII aviation intrigue. At any rate this was a great fun show. Plots were simple and the good guys were easy to distinguish from the bad guys.

Of the actors in this show Stephen Collins went on to  many movies and television series and is probably best known for his role in 7th Heaven. Roddy MacDowall was a well known film actor when he took a part in Tales of the Gold Monkey.  Jeff MacKay would play recurring characters in other television series such as Magnum P.I., JAG, Battlestar Galactica, The Black Sheep Squadron, and Airwolf as well as other adventure shows.

I'm a great fan of  the productions of Donald P. Bellisario, the producer of Tales of the Gold Monkey. Other Bellisario productions include Magnum P. I., Airwolf, Quantum Leap, JAG, and NCIS.  Bellisario was also the writer of such shows as Black Sheep Squadron and Battlestar Gallactica.

Links:

• Gold Monkey fan page.
• Bellisario info
• Stephen Collins

Vaison la Romaine

It was frustrating! We were tired of driving but could not find our bed and breakfast in Vaison la Romaine. We had followed the maps downloaded to our iPod, and they were accurate right up to the barricade on Rue d'Avignon. Yes, the street our lodging was on was barricaded. What to do? On the right we were fifty yards from the Ouveze River and on the left was a  mountain.  But ingenuity and French hospitality paid off.  My tavelmate found a real estate office with two great  women who drew a map on the back of advertising flyers to show us the way. We checked into Hotel la Bastid de Vaison about nightfall. Thank God for French women!   I have said this before for a different reason, which I won't go into now.

Our temporary abode had been used for processing olive oil and was built in the 13th century.  It was quite charming and comfortable as well.  Our host was very helpful and we were quite pleased since we had booked this lodging online without the benefit of the English language. The morning sun came into the room at dawn, and through the window you could see the vineyard on the hillside and the big furry white cat peering in at us. We ventured down two floors to the breakfast prepared by the innkeeper. We don't often eat at our lodging, but this was a considerable distance from town.  Coffee and fresh croissants as usual.  I love 'em.  The patio was bursting with colorful flowers and plants making it difficult to leave the inn.  But there were Roman ruins to be seen.

Soon we were enjoying one of the true benefits of Vaison la Romaine: free parking. Free parking is a rarity in France except in very small villages. But here in Vaison la Romaine not only was it free, but was located across the street from the Tourist Information Office at place da Chanoine Sautel and between the two sites of Roman ruins. This was the first of the often lauded in the guidebooks tourist Information Offices we had found open. So we stood in line to get our map of the city, to find out where to get fuel for our car,  and where the laundry was. And, of course, information about local attractions.  The lady was extremely helpful, although it seems that every place you would want to go to in which ever town you're in is always "ten minutes away".  Vaison la Romaine is made of two towns Villa Basse and Ville Haute.  Ville Basse being the lower town and Ville Haute the other.  The ruins are located in the lower town.

We bought our tickets to see the Roman ruins and entered through the gates.  We walked to the top of the hill through the ruins to get to a very modern museum exhibiting ancient relics.  Like all the museums we visited in France this one was first class. We paid eight euros each for a map of the ruins and an audio guide in English. Out of the museum we went to discover the 2,000 year old ruins of a town. Only a small portion of it is visible while the rest is still buried under the current city. Here you can walk among the ruins of houses  and see what's left of the walls, gardens, baths, and kitchens of the Roman homes. Wall frescoes are still visible, and we walked on mosaic floors that were over 2000 years old. To me it was interesting to see how the water system worked, supplying in fresh water and taking away waste water.  On one site is a 6,000 seat amphitheater which is used today.  The population of this city in the first century was 6,000 and that is the current population.  However, after the barbarians ran the Romans out, the population declined and has only recently reached its current level. The audiotours are indispensable  for the enjoyment of the ruins.  After visiting the Puymin site we ventured across the street to La Villasse, the other site.  Your ticket has a code which is used to open the gate to this site since there is not a caretaker on site. This has more shops and fewer residences. 

After a bit of lunch it was time to do some chores. We normally do laundry every three days or so, and we had put it off long enough. Of course the laundry was only "ten minutes away", but it took a little longer to find.  The coin operated machines would not take our coins.  (Some things never change regardless of country.)  But my clever wife, with the help of another customer, found the owner and they solved the problem.  While my travel mate was doing laundry I found a gas station and topped off the tank of the Peugeot.  It was kind of frustrating because the pump would not take my credit card and I had to go inside to pay while the waiting line at the pump grew. 

 After the chores were done we were going to dinner in Ville Haute which was the medieval town on the mountain the other side of the river. We crossed the Roman bridge and drove up to the restaurant, an Italian one recomended by our innkeeper.  But, alas, it had not opened for dinner, so we decided to walk around the town. It had the narrow steep streets lined with stone houses.  Flowers seemed to be bursting from every available spot of soil. There is nothing very notable here, but the cobbled streets and many fountains are a delight to behold. It was the onset of evening as people were enjoying dinner, and you could hear laughter and the clink of glasses through open doors and window. As we walked past an open window we heard the voice of a four-year-old, saying  " Bonjour!".  He was a cute little fellow.  Throughout the town there are large black and white photographs of people in the windows of vacant buildings.  From the chateau, which was build in 1195, we walked down to the restaurant where we had left our car and enjoyed a great meal while watching the lights come on in Ville Basse.  Incidently, the people from Ville Basse always retreated  to Ville Haute when attacked by barbarians as the high ground is always easier to defend.

Couldn't help using a little
Photoshop magic!

We had enjoyed our stay in Vaison la Romaine and were continually surprised at the number of Roman ruins in France.

Unsold at Garage Sale

At our garage yard sale there was one item we were unable to get rid of.  This trunk.  We sold two others but not this camel-topped trunk.  There is something about the look of them I like.  Or maybe it reminds me of pirate treasure chests. At any rate I was happy when no one would buy it.  Could I restore it?  It would make a handsome piece. Would it be beyond my skill level?  Could be. Having a professional do the job was out of the question economically.  And, I might add, I was not receiving any enthusiastic support from the other member of the household.  However, throwing caution to the wind I set out to undertake the project with certain budgetary constraints.

My dad and I had found in an out building of our family's original homestead.  The farm house dated from before 1860 and the trunk was about that old.  Maybe.  It is 16 inches tall and 30 inches long and 15 inches front to back and is made of pine and has tincorners,  tin covering and some leather handles.

In the above photo details of the damages are seen. Noted clockwise beginning at 12 o'clock.

• The embossed tin covering is rusted and has holes in it.

• Sever damage to the embossed tin.

• This photo shows the detail of the embossing.

• This lock or latch must be replaced.

• This photo shows the distressed corner. Wood and metal must be replaced.

• Strap caps must be replaced.

• Unseen are the hinges  and stays that also must be replaced.



Looks like I've got my work cut out for me!