Jan's Travelogues

I'll be in BC to see you soon and want to bring you a pin. I have no idea which you'll like best, so have a look and pick your pin!

Here are you choices, in no particular order. Take your time! You have until November 8 to decide.

Love,
Jan

I have no idea what the pin back is made of -- it was a flea market find -- but I love the gear and the disc saying "discover" right next to a key.

This is a vintage silver filigree pin to which I appended a snowflake and an eiffel tower.

This one uses my beloved Egyptian motifs. I can't guarantee the stability of the wings, though. I glued them down as tightly as I could, but the do stick out.

A lovely animal mask and really nice colours. This one is heavy, though, because it's backing is a stone disc. I think it would only work on a coat.

I used some Indian silver stars for this one, along with coral and lapis beads.

A bronze locket that I got in Seoul and upended to make a pin.

Very Steampunky, with a compass attached!

Bigger than most, but quite light in weight.

This is one of my favourites, but sadly it's in colours I don't wear or I'd keep it myself. It's very light and has some lovey-dovey French words on the backing.

I have one very like this that I wear often.. I love the juxtaposition of the gears and the escaping bird.

"The Wave" on a clock face, with sea birds flying below.

The back on this is shinier than it looks in this photo. It's got lots of gears and clock innards and a really pretty multicoloured bead below.

Six layers of gears, with the Eiffel Tower, a ball (NOT a wrecking ball, although I suspect that there's a Sreampunk novel somewhere in which the Eiffel Tower gets destroyed! ) and chain below.

This is another one I'd like to keep, but I just don't wear silver. The backing is a turquoise disc.

Another of the silver Indian stars, this time with pearly blue beads and a nice key pendant below. There's a blue clock face under the star.

This was one of the first pins I made. It's very clunky to hold, but looks nice when worn. It's a pin with pressed flowers inside to which I attached the hand and the crystal.

Sea Isle City was as beautiful as ever -- sunrises, seashells, birds, and this year, surfers!

I've been taking photos of the birds on the beach for years and I see pretty much the same ones year after year. Sometimes kind of funny, like this drowsy, rumpled early-morning gull who looks like he really wishes he'd stayed in bed.

This year, to my surprise and delight I saw three new-to-me birds.

A black legged gull:

This sleek, bright-beaked bird;

And this small sand bird that's much whiter than the ones I usually see.

My favourite bird-related event was an actual bird fight. Two of the small sanderlings -- who normally are tightly focused on feeding -- went at each other with beak and claw.

I was also interested to see that other people are watching these birds too. This one is number P90.

Sea Isle did a major beach reclamation after hurricane Sandy a few years ago and a side effect of this has been a notable lack of shells on the beach. But sunrise has a way of illuminating even the fragments that get washed ashore.

Sea Isle has waves, but I rarely see surfers, especially early in the morning. This year I got a chance to play with my zoom lens to admire the form of this very far off surfer. I could barely see him with naked eyes, but the camera got some lovely close-ups.

Sea Isle's beach is beautifully maintained, in part though the relentless and pretty much unsung efforts of the garbage guys and the beach groomer. They're out before dawn every morning and always wave.

The garbage guy, taking a photo of the sunrise, I think…

…and the groomer, on his daily back and forth trek.

I'm surprised every year by something new. This year, besides the new-to-me birds, there was a Street Food Fair which allowed me to use my shooting-at-night setting.

One of Steve's always spectacular moon flowers. I wish you could smell it!

Speaking of the moon, one of my ambitions was to see the moon rise out of the ocean, just like the sun does every morning. Unluckily, moonrise always seemed to be early while we were visiting -- by the time it was dark enough to see the moon, it was already high in the sky. This year, moonrise was at 10:15 PM and I had my chance. It was truly spectacular -- a bittersweet-coloured moon rising from the sea. Sadly, the colour was so dark and rich that it didn't make a path on the ocean, so what my photos show is an orange blob on a black background. I'm including it because it's a pretty accurate representation of the moon's colour. I took this shot just as the moon cleared the horizon. You'll have to imagine that the black under the moon is ocean and the black above is sky.

A rare sighting of the Wood siblings, taken by the kind waitress at Ric's Diner: from left, George, Steve, me, Robbin, and Sheila.

This year, I've left the sunrises for last -- there are a lot of them and I harbour the fear that not everyone shares my fascination with them. As ever, I try to find a balance between sharing the things that interest me and helping you feel like you've been there without subjecting you to all 569 photos!

Jan