Shipwreck Hike at Lands End

Last week, I got up well before sunrise to join a hike taking place at Lands End -- the rocky north-western edge of San Francisco. The early morning hour was due to an extremely low tide that would enable us to see the sunken ships that line the coast of San Francisco.

Since the Gold Rush of 1849, hundreds of ships have sunk along the coastline. Some were shipwrecks, and some were ships abandoned by crews in search of gold.

We set off at 6:30 AM to the sound of fog horns calling to each other in the early morning quiet, as the sun was beginning to rise. The hike was gorgeous, but with one problem -- it was too foggy to see the shipwrecks!

I suppose it should have occurred to us that there was a reason there have been so many shipwrecks along those rocks. Foggy photos are below.

--Gigi

Gargoyles on Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament

Across the street from the gargoyles at Westminster Abbey in London, some gargoyles with a more whimsical feel line the Houses of Parliament.

I shot the photos below during a trip to the UK for my 30th birthday. I'd only recently switched to shooting with a digital camera. The color photos below are digital, and the two black & white photos at the end are scanned negatives.

  

--Gigi

The Gargoyles of Westminster Abbey

Some of my favorite gargoyles are the ones on Westminster Abbey in London.

These are true gargoyles -- the kind with water-spouts for mouths -- but that's not why I like them so much. I love that these gargoyles sit on the side of the Gothic building right underneath saintly statues.

Westminster Abbey is located next to Big Ben and Parliament, both of which boast their own gargoyles, as you can see in the photo below. The gargoyles on the Parliament building are much more whimsical than the frightening fellow directly above. I'll post some of the gargoyles of Parliament next week.

--Gigi

Gargoyle in the Garden

We spent the weekend building a new path in our garden. Our garden gargoyle watched over the process.

The garden photos below don't show the garden gargoyle, but I took these with my lens baby lens and liked how they came out -- they look more like a bouquet than salad.

--Gigi

Angels in Santa Fe

I'm home from the Left Coast Crime mystery convention in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I only brought my point-and-shoot camera, so initially I wasn't thinking I'd post any photos from Santa Fe. But then I remembered my own advice that the camera itself is much less important than what you see through the lens. And I did see some very cool things in Santa Fe.

The angel sculptures in Santa Fe weren't the typical type of angels I photograph in cemeteries, but I found them intriguing all the same. Here are a few of them below:

Angel sculptures along the waterfront of the Santa Fe River.

A sculpture in front of the St. Francis Cathedral in Santa Fe.

A different angle of the same angel sculpture in front of the St. Francis Cathedral in Santa Fe.

A depiction of heaven and hell inside the Santa Fe Folk Art Museum.

--Gigi

The Long and Winding Road -- And a Castle Staircase, Too

I'm oh-so-close to finishing this draft of my latest mystery. The good news for my hopes of finishing the book in a timely manner is that I'm heading out to Left Coast Crime, a fabulous mystery convention where I'm sure to be inspired by mystery authors whose books I love -- and who I only know about because they managed to let themselves type "THE END." 

Winding roads and labyrinthine staircase photos are in order for my current state of mind:

The middle of nowhere (officially)
AKA the dead of winter in beautiful Cornwall, England

Mont Saint Michel, France

One of my favorite mystery novels of all time takes place at Mont St. Michel along the Normandy coast in France: OLD BONES by Aaron Elkins. The tides that surround this fortress set the scene for the mystery featuring "skeleton detective" Gideon Oliver.

As you can see in the photo above, the island can be reached by a narrow man-made road that sits above the tide. But it's much more fun to think about the quickly-rising tides that cover the quicksand that surrounds most of the island. And when you're on the island looking out at sea through the fog, it's easy to imagine a time when the tide would trap you on the island abbey.

A castle in Wales with winding staircases to nowhere.

(I know, I know, I wanted to do this blog so I could organize my photos, and "castle in Wales" is hardly descriptive. Promising to post photos is definitely helping, but I've still got some gaps in my notes)

--Gigi

Passageways

I've been having trouble finishing this draft of the manuscript I'm working on. It's the draft that counts. Not my beloved first draft where I'm having fun exploring ideas and characters and plot twists, or even the enticing second draft where I'm putting the pieces together and can see them take shape. No, this is the one where I have to make all those ideas work, and the one I'll be sending to my agent in a short time.

I can almost see the light at the end. Almost.

To help me get there, I've got some photos I've taken of passageways. These remind me that it's the journey that counts -- and that yes, I will indeed get to that end.

Brompton Cemetery in London

An alley in Edinburgh

A grove of trees at the Claremont Colleges

I didn't take this last one -- it's a photo of me taking a photo of a cemetery passageway.

--Gigi