LAPLAND

 

I'm in Lapland, north of the Arctic Circle in Finland, with Lisa and Barbara. Barbara is from Hawaii and is a little freaked out about the temperature in February, but she had also been to Alaska in the winter and loved it. Lisa and I are from California where winters are mild as well, but I'm sure we will be fine. Planning for February travel certainly makes for a pretty big packing list, since the activities are expected to include show shoeing, dog sledding, and midnight Northern Light hunts. Somewhere in the packing is a pretty modest collection photo gear, at least compared to some other trips: Fuji X-T20 mirrorless, two lenses, tripod, and Olympus TG-4 digital waterproof for a backup.

For anyone interested, the flag of Finland is simple and pure, with the blue Nordic Cross representing Christianity. The crest of the northern Lappi province certainly shows they are not timid about showing their independent nature. To add to the discussion, the indigenous Sami people have adopted their own flag which is flown in the north of several Nordic countries. Its modern design takes colors from traditional Sami costumes, and the circle is blue for the Moon and red for the Sun. I'm fond of this one.

We are in Rovaniemi, which is a grey, but practical sort of town - right on the Arctic Circle. Modern buildings and indoor shopping malls. After breakfast we make an initial foray to test our reaction to the weather (cold) and our clothing (too munch for indoors, not enough for outside). But today is relative mild - in the 20's, although tonight it might fall to 0. Lisa and I buy goggles at a sporting good store because it seems like the wind might be a problem at some point. Sun is rising about 8:15, but sets a little after 5:00. The worst of the dark winter is behind the town and the sporting good store seems to be featuring running shoes and bathing suits, in hopes of things to come.

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https://www.johndhunter.com/

Borrego

Borrego Springs is one of my favorite getaway locals. It is sort of halfway between Palm Springs and San Diego, and is surrounded by Anza Borrego State Park - California's largest. In spite of that, the town of 3,500 year round residents gets very little traffic and few visitors except for the spring wildflower season. I am here for a few days to see and photograph what might be a nice crescent new moon.

I arrive at the Borrego Springs Motel - a small family owned business that has been enhanced from its 1950's "bones" to include solar power and new furnishings, but intentionally no TV's, wi-fi or telephones. It is a nice no frills home base. When I arrive, Robin, the manager has left a note on the office door letting me know that I am in room #3, and the door lock combo is the last four digits of my phone. I am the only guest, and I won't see Robin until tomorrow.

 

Not much to do, so I drive around scouting for locations that might be good for viewing the moon setting tonight or tomorrow. Many of the roads are directly east-west and would give a good view to the setting moon, so I sit in the middle of Palm Canyon Drive and consider this, but decide against sitting in the road in the middle of the night.

I also decide against the abandoned camper, because it is just a little creepy and may not set the right tone. 

I find a road I have not noticed before which leads to the community landfill, but there is an interesting small sand dune that I consider, but I decide to keep on looking.

 

Later I go to an area called Rockhouse and think it might be a good location, but tonight the moon is quite low as it gets dark, and there are clouds around that don't help things, but I will try again tomorrow.

On Monday, after meeting Robin for the first time, I go to the park headquarters and discover that it is closed, except for the weekends until later in the season. Oddly, all the restaurants in town stay open all year round so I go to Kendall's coffee shop for a late breakfast and there are only a handful of customers but am comforted to recognize the same waitress that I always see there.  

 

Scouting again, I finally decide on an area that I have visited before that is close to the main road but on a dirt track that won't get any traffic. There are some nice ocotillo plants there that might work well in the foreground of a photo. 

Even though it was in the 80's today, an hour after sunset it is chilly and the wind has come up so the ocotillos are going to be moving around during any long exposures, but I decide to try, and end up liking the results. 

 
Tonight I had been focusing on the moon for subject, but once the moon sets, the stars come out quickly and the Milky Way is always a treat to see. Borrego Springs prides itself as a Dark Sky Community, and away from the heart of town, there is very little light pollution.

The sun is setting later this time of year and after a while I call it quits for the night and am back in my room by 9:00, which is a reasonable bedtime here.

The More Things Change...

Today, I looked back and saw that it has been nearly three years since I last visited Cuba - in February of 2016. I think a lot has changed, but much remains the same. I just landed in Cuba and soon will be visiting Havana as well as new locations in the western tobacco growing countryside as well as colonial towns in the center of the country. I'm here with photographers sponsored by Santa Fe Photographic Workshops and led by Arthur, Kip and Jennifer, as well as talented Cuban photographers Carlos & Jorge.

Back in 2016, there was optimism about President Obama’s efforts to “normalize” relations, Fidel Castro was alive, and his brother Raul was president of the country, but repressive laws remained on the books - even if most Cubans found a way around them. On the positive side, the country was having difficulty keeping up with the surge in tourism and Cuban citizens were scrambling to find a way to capitalize through small restaurants, apartment rentals, or just about anything they could think of. Foreign investors were putting money into badly needed building renovations, and for the time at least, the Cuban people were happy to see American visitors.

A lot was happening then, and quickly.

Today, both the US and Cuba have new presidents, and future relations are uncertain. Most of the US diplomats have withdrawn from Havana due to the “brain wave” thing, but US commercial airline flights are now allowed and cell phones from the US (may) work in many parts of the country. Visits by US citizens are still permitted, but rules have reverted to a time when access was more controlled. I have a few forms and a visa for travel that I need to carry, and the Cuban government adds a surcharge to my plane ticket to cover medical insurance. On a hopeful note - last month, Major League Baseball has just reached an agreement with the Cuban baseball authorities to allow Cuban players to sign contracts with US teams without defecting, and allow return travel to Cuba by those players (I think this is a positive development, but there's still a strong possibility that the deal will blocked by the US government).

And recently, Cuba has drafted a new constitution to be voted on by the people in February. When it passes (I can’t imagine that it wouldn’t) changes will not be earth-shattering; Cuba will remain a single party communist government and will continue to control major industries – manufacturing, sugar, mining, tobacco, rum, etc. – but changes allowing private ownership of property and business will be adopted. There will even be age limitations on the presidency – no older than 60 to initially occupy the office. Worth noting that the current president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, is 58 and is eligible to be (re)elected by the Assembly under the new constitution. He sounds pretty bland in the Wikipedia  description as "a party technocrat who was little-known to the public before becoming president. Policy experts expected him to pursue cautious reform of his predecessors' economic policies, while preserving the country's social structure."

So, a lot is happening now, but a little slower.

I look forward to seeing what's up for myself in the next weeks.

Discoveries Close to Home

It's a beautiful day for an adventure close to home. I’m driving west from downtown Long Beach - ahead is the huge combined Port of Los Angeles + Long Beach and I am heading to explore it with my grade school buddy, Tom. The port is actually so close that I can see every day from my window, and I normally have no cause to go there, but we hope for new discoveries. I have a few high tech sites I hope to explore, but we will probably just do a lot of wandering. We drive towards Terminal Island and the route's a bit convoluted by detours around the construction of a new bridge to replace the existing bridge that is too old (only 1968), too narrow, and too low for the next generation of cargo ships - a huge project.

Making our way out of the construction zone, we turn off into the port and come across a huge white tent structure surrounded by fences and razor wire – it is the temporary home of the audacious project by SpaceX (Elon Musk) to build a huge starship for sending people to Mars. We drive in circles through the parking lot and I would love to peek inside but we see the guarded entrance and decide to continue on our way. Now we're driving on the Navy Mole, a large man-made peninsula that sheltered the former LB Navel Shipyard and we're between the waterline and an endless siding of train cars loaded with thousands of cargo containers on their way to who knows where. We stop for pictures and to soak up the sun.

 

At the end of the road is the now quiet home of the Sea Launch floating rocket launching platform – someone’s crazy, but once successful, idea to float rockets down to the equator in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for a better angle to launch communications satellites. It is quiet right now because after financial problems, I think it has been sold to a Russian company and they are gearing up to continue operations next year. Interesting.

It is Saturday but there is still truck traffic on the roads, but few cars. I keep wondering if we're somewhere we shouldn't be and I keep glancing in the rear view mirror to see if we are being tailed by port security, but almost all roads are open to the public. Areas that are off limits, and there are quite a few, are protected by security gates and guards - Coast Guard station, shipping company yards, water treatment plant, oil storage tanks and the like - even a federal low security prison. As we drive, Tom and I are sharing rambling memories of youthful exploits, catching up on what old classmates are doing, and sometimes moving on to our feelings about ageing and death. A lot to consider, but the conversation is easy going and often interrupted by discoveries along the way.

Along the way, in the middle of the busy port, we come across a small memorial and statue commemorating the site of a fishing village that was inhabited by Japanese Americans before WWII. At the start of the war the residents were removed from their homes and relocated to internment camps - the village bulldozed when the government took over the land. Recently, someone has placed fresh flowers. We see there are two other people here – a man and his wife, visiting from Chicago to celebrate her mother's 90th birthday, and I offer to take their picture. We chat a bit and they tell me that they came across the memorial by chance and they share the story of his parents who were relocated to a camp in Arkansas during the war. Some of his relatives moved west after their release by his family stayed in the Midwest. A poignant connection.

Moving on, I am looking for another spaceship venue that I had heard of but we discover that the SpaceX rocket landing platform, brilliantly named “Just Read the Instructions” after a sci-fi spaceship, is apparently not in port. Or maybe I am just lost. I had hoped to see it because it is an amazing project allowing rockets to be reused by returning and landing, Buck Rogers style, off the coast of Vandenberg Air Force Base. Instead, we see a gull watching a giant cargo ship being nudged towards the outer harbor by two tugs.

Soon, we come across a Los Angeles Fire Department fire boat station near the battleship USS Iowa, and we all the doors are locked but we can peak through windows into its shelter. It is quite a machine and we can see a few people in the pilot house, maybe having coffee. The boat’s main water cannon proudly boasts that it can furnish 11,000 gallons of water per minute. I do some mental division by 60 to get seconds and I am duly impressed.

On the way home, we stop at the Queen Mary in hopes of joining a tour of the engine rooms. Only a few problems – the tours are booked up until three hours from now, and the cost is $45 to even get on board. Disappointed, we look up at the side of the ship and imagine the effort it took to drive the thousands of visible rivets that hold it together.

A rewarding day, but I think we have just scratched the surface. I get home and look up information about the port and discover that the port of LA is the largest container port in the US and the LB port is second largest. But another remarkable fact is that the two of them combined only make up the 9th largest port in the world (ahead of them are ports in Singapore, South Korea and SIX from China, including #1 Shanghai which, on its own, handles almost three times the traffic of LA/LB). Food for thought.