Victoria, Queen of England

When I moved into my 1893 Victorian house I began to feel a kinship with Queen Victoria.

(For more about that house and living in it visit Mary in Michigan.)

Engraving From 1873

The Queen in her Robes of State

Queen Victoria Lived From 1819 Until 1901, ruling  as Queen Of England From 1837 Until 1901. That means she ruled the country for 63 years, beginning when she was 18 years old and continuing until she died in 1901 at the age of 82. Amazing!

What sort of person was she? How did she manage to remain in that position for so long, surviving wars, assasination attempts, and domestic intrigue at a time when women generally had no standing as citizens or even as people in their own right? And from 1876 she also served as Empress of India. 

The answers could lead to many hours of research, so here are a few facts just for fun: 

• She was an only child, reared by a single mother. And she herself became a single mother. 
• She stood barely 5 feet tall, but developed a girth of perhaps 50 inches over the years.  
• Her tutor and mentor was Lord Melbourne, who also was her first prime minister. 
• In 1840 she married Albert, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, to whom she proposed.
• She and Albert had 9 children, 4 boys and 5 girls. 
• She was a hemophilia carrier and passed the condition to her son Leopold who died at 31. 
• Two of her daughters were hemophilia carriers. They passed it to Spanish, German and Russian royal families. 
• When Albert died in 1861 she went into seclusion for many years, neglecting royal duties. 
• By the mid 1870's she began to participate more actively again.
• By her Golden Jubilee in 1887 she had fully returned to her earlier popularity. 

Utopia

An imaginary place where life is perfect. Each person's would be unique. What would yours look like?

Here's what the site of mine might look like:

More important, how would it feel? What would I do each day? Who would share my utopia with me? Each person would answer those questions differently.

Look the word up and you'll find descriptions of peaceful societies or communities governed by rules that treat all members fairly, often with communal living arrangements. This wistful notion has roots in the lost Garden of Eden and the Golden Age of Greek mythology, and is reinvented in every period when men dream of a different and better life. Sometimes in various countries they even try to create it.

Keep reading and learn of American "utopian communities" that failed. I have visited the remnants of several: a Shaker village in Massachusetts, the Amana colonies in Iowa, and New Harmony, Indiana. Most are now gone or museum sites, some on the National Historic Register.

But a new effort is under way. In August, 2013, the Huffington Post published an artricle describing nine "alternative modes of living" which are open to new members:  9 Utopias That Really Exist

They are located in several countries with six in continental US, one in Hawaii, a group of 25 "elevated structures" in Costa Rica, and the incredible modernistic city New Songdon in South Korea on Incheon Bay. It is built from scratch, like Dubai, and scheduled for completion in 2015! It's a "far cry" from any in the past, but Who Knows? Maybe this one will succeed:

Flickr: Nicolette_Mastangelo                  

Travel

When I was a girl in the late '40s and early '50s that was something one did by car, train, bus and rarely airplane. It was usually "how you got somewhere" to visit friends or family, or perhaps on business. Then something happened, and today it is an "activity". Like shopping. When I was a girl you "went shopping" when you needed something. Now it's the favorite activity of many women I know, and virtually all the younger women in my family.

For me shopping is still a chore to be avoided unless I desperately need something, and then to get it over with as soon as possible. I do not like it. Travel, on the other hand, has become a passion. When I was a girl I loved "travelogues"of places I could never hope to visit. Now I can visit any place I like, and I do. It's a luxury and pure pleasure.

I still go by car anywhere in the US because I like the freedom of having little or no schedule. When I retired I spent two and a half years touring the US and parts of Mexico in a motor home, towing a small car and carrying a bicycle. (All my belongings were in storage, and an accountant paid my bills.) At every stop I stayed until the options for exploring were exhausted or until I lost interest. When I got to Santa Fe, New Mexico, I liked it so much I stayed for five years!

Later I went on several trips with a small tour company to places in the US, Canada, and Switzerland, utilizing planes, ships, trains, and buses. I traveled the ocean by freighter, stopping in several South American countries and transitting the Panama Canal twice, once at night, once during the day. I toured New Zealand by going around the South Island by ship, visiting a few islands as we went, and stopping in various ports to explore by bus and afoot.

I spent time in England with friends who live north of London, traveled in Russia by waterway between Moscow and St Petersburg stopping at many places between. I spent a few days in Sydney, Australia, after the New Zealand trip. I took a Mediterraean cruise based on travel from port to port at night and tours on land during the day. We spent time Spain, France, Italy, and several major Islands.

                                                      Nova Scotia - one of my favorite places                                   
                                         Halifax Dock                             Halifax Train Station                                    

I haven't decided where to go next. It may be Alaska, the only state I have not visited. 

Sierra Nevada (aka What's in a Name?)

In Spanish the word sierra can refer either to "mountain range" or to "saw". That double meaning is known as "disambiguation" (a new word for me), but let's not go there! We are interested in a mountain range, and translate Sierra Nevada in the western US as the "Nevada Mountain Range".

But wait - we're not done. Nevada in Spanish means "snowfall" or "snow clad" in English. So the full meaning of Sierra Nevada is roughly "Snow-Covered Mountain Range". I think that is beautiful. (If Spanish-speaking readers are cringing I hope they will put a correction in the comments.)

That's the end of the cultural vocabulary lesson. I set out to write a little something about what I call the Sierra Nevadas but immediately ran into all that information. I share it with you because I feel that knowing the "back story" of anything adds a dimension.

So "without further ado" I introduce the Kiersarge Pinnacles of the Sierra Nevada, named for the 1861 Civil War vessel USS Kearsarge, which was named for Mt Kearsarge in New Hampshire. 

There are dozens of pictures showing the beauty of the range, but I was drawn to the one above for its eerie "other-worldly" feel. For geographical interest as well as beauty some examples are . . .

         Mt Whitney, highest peak in the range            and                    Yosemite Valley  

The mountain range encompasses a vast area of land, much of it owned by the Federal government. It includes 3 national parks and 2 national monuments, plus many towns and communities such as Carson City, South Lake Tahoe, Truckee, Grass Valley, Mammoth Lakes, Sonora, Nevada City, and Portola.

* * * * * * * * * *

Finally, a bit of geologic history:  20 million years ago there was major volcanic activity in this area. (Granite from that period is visible in places.) After millions of years, a crust began to form which tilted slowly westward. Rivers cut deep canyons on both sides, some of which filled with lava, and over time eroded to "table mountains".

Then the earth began cooling. Glaciers carved out U-shaped canyons, while the tilting or "uplift" never ceased. The result is two opposing forces of nature, invisible to us but forever reshaping the landscape. This uptilt makes an especially dramatic view on the eastern side as seen in the "Sierra Escarpment" below.  Measurable only with scientific instruments, the relentless movement is often responsible for today's earthquakes.

Rainbow

Getty Images has 82 pages of rainbows so the choice was hard but very enjoyable.  

When I lived in Santa Fe there was one in the western sky each day around 5 pm above Los Alamos in the Jemez Mountains. Sometimes there was a pair. But if you want to read something poetical about the beauty of a rainbow you're in the wrong place. My nature is more scientific, so here you'll get as brief an explanation as possible.

A "rainbow" occurs when sunlight shines on and interacts with drops of water. The keys are that . . .

• Rain and sunshine must be in different parts of the sky, 
• The observer is between the rain and the sunshine, and 
• The angle of light hitting the raindrops is between 40 and 42 degrees. 

When those requirements are met each raindrop will be refracted to produce one color, slightly different from all the rest. Together those millions of raindrops produce a rainbow in its well-known cascading shades.  That's all there is to it.

Growing Our Food: P Is For Peas

Growing Our Food: P Is For Peas - an AtoZ First

I just visited this interesting blog on AtoZ. It offers something I've not seen before: a way to post its address to my own blog. I tried it and this is the result.

Quetzalcoatl

The feathered serpent of ancient Mexico was a main god in Mesoamerica for most of the 15th century. But when the first Spaniards arrived in 1519 their leader Hernan Cortes, in his shining armor and plumed helmet, looked like the Mexicans had imagined their god. So they revered him and welcomed his army, thus sealing the fate of their civilization. 

Here is how the ancient Aztecs carved Quetzalcoatl in stone.



This is how we imagine him today from descriptions the ancients left us.

Knowing the story of the god and the sad mistake by the ancient Mexicans I was eager to visit Chichen Itza when in Mexico to see the famous Mayan pyramid and surroundings. Despite a miserable ride in a bouncing bus and the relentless heat I was not disappointed: 

The history and myths are too long and complicated for this post. So if you are not familiar with them I suggest a little internet research. I guarantee you will enjoy the journey to ancient times and culture.

Wikipedia has a very nice summary to get you started:  Wikipedia on Quetzalcoatl  I recommend this because so many sites about this myth are meager or have copyright requirements. This one has lots of good information and splendid pictures.

Enjoy!