Pearls & Prose

Back on the Road to Hana

Posted on April 30, 2012 by pearlsandprose

OK, we’re on the road to Hana again. More views of the lush vegetation and incredibly blue Pacific. . . .

I don’t know the name of this plant, but they were all over:

After driving and sightseeing for two hours, we stopped at this place:

See the little purple flowers peeking out from the plants at the base of the sign? Here’s a close-up of one of them. We thought the blossom at the end was so cool. . . .

Banana trees were growing all over the place.

It’s no surprise that Uncle Harry’s sells the best banana bread. It was wonderful.

I couldn’t get over all the plants and how blue the Pacific was:

We followed this red jeep most of the way.

I messed up the numbers–no need to put someone’s license plate all over the Internet.

My friends and I decided to call it quits after four hours. We felt like we’d seen a lot and the drive was just getting tedious. Plus one of us was in the back seat and I couldn’t subject her to more of the same. She was such a good sport!

When we visited a little town called Paia later on, I found this tile and had to get it:

Someone later told us the secret is to reserve a room in Hana, drive there and spend the night so you don’t have to do the entire trip in one day. Good advice, that.

Surprising random facts: Charles Lindbergh made his last flight from a New York hospital to Hana, Maui, to spend his remaining days with his family. He is buried in Kipahulu, about 45 minutes past Hana. If you’re thinking of doing that drive, be warned that most rental cars aren’t allowed to go beyond Hana.

I had good news when I returned from Hawaii: Getty sold a couple of my prints and requested 30 more photos. 🙂

{carole}

Posted in photography | Tagged banana tree, bananas, Hawaii, Maui, Pacific Ocean, red jeep, Road to Hana, road to Hana tile, tropical flower | 11 Comments

The Long and Winding Road to Hana

Posted on April 27, 2012 by pearlsandprose

On the island of Maui, there’s a route called the Road to Hana and it’s fairly well known. I had read that it was pretty challenging, so asked a few friends about it. One replied,”The road to Hana? Oh, it’s easy now that it’s paved!” Paved? At one time it wasn’t even paved? So glad I missed that.

My friends agreed that we would drive for a little while to see what it was like, then turn around if it was too much. I took the wheel and soon discovered what all the fuss was about. Around just about every bend, we saw views like this:

and this:

The problem was, you had to traverse a LOT of bridges like this one:

What you can’t really see in the photo is that the bridges are only one lane wide. That meant we had to watch for oncoming traffic and let them cross first. It wasn’t too bad, but sometimes the other cars would be in the shade and hard to see until we got right to the bridge.

Did I mention the curves? They were constant. I have never seen so many on one road in my life. [I just read on Wikipedia that there are 620.] My speed was from 10-15 miles per hour almost the whole way. Although there were some daredevils on the road, it’s supposed to take eight hours to do the entire roundtrip to Hana and back. Five hours if you make no stops.

Along the way, we saw a lot of cars pulled over to see a guy with a bunch of parrots. I took this photo of a family posing with the birds, then was told I’d better stop or get yelled at by the guy. He’s supposedly charging for photos so he can set up a refuge for the birds. Glad I didn’t get yelled at. I do like that the blue bird seems to be posing for me. 🙂

Our next stop included a woman making baskets out of palm fronds. She was so nice about having her picture taken!

Her baskets:

On to more twists and turns and beautiful views. . . .

We especially liked all the African Tulip Trees with their beautiful orange blossoms against the blue Pacific. . . .

Later on, there were blossoms all over the road.

Here’s a close-up of some blossoms:

To be continued. . . .

Great weekend, everyone!

{carole}

Posted in photography | Tagged African Tulip tree, Hawaii, Maui, old bridge, Pacific Ocean, palm frond baskets, Road to Hana, views | 24 Comments

Back from Hawaii

Posted on April 25, 2012 by pearlsandprose

Hi everyone. . .I’m back, but a little jet lagged and sorting through hundreds of photos. The trip to Hawaii was fantastic, and I look forward to sharing some of the images with you on Friday. In the meantime, here’s a pink hibiscus from Maui. . . .

Hope you’ve all been well. . . .

{carole}

Posted in photography | Tagged Hawaii, Maui, pink hibiscus | 12 Comments

Chinese Snowball

Posted on April 9, 2012 by pearlsandprose

I have heard of viburnum, but not the Chinese Snowball variety. Usually, I find white flowers a little boring, but these blooms have just the right amount of green to make them more interesting. . . .

It was really breezy yesterday–that’s why the background looks so windswept.

I’m kind of wishing I had planted one of these in our yard.

That’s all the photos for a couple of weeks. The day after tomorrow, I am leaving for Hawaii! So excited! Hoping to have lots of photos to share with you when I get back.

{carole}

Posted in photography | Tagged blue sky, bokeh, Chinese snowball viburnum | 17 Comments

It’s Kwanzan Time

Posted on April 6, 2012 by pearlsandprose

Can you stand a few more cherry blossoms? This time, Kwanzan cherry trees. Their pink powder puffs are all over the D.C. area right now. . . .

Sunlight turned the leaves into burnished copper.

I like the way the branch meanders on this one.

Have you heard of pixl-r-omatic? It’s a free photo editing program I just discovered. Had some fun with their retro filter called “Aladin” here:

Great weekend, everyone, and Happy Easter to all who celebrate.

{carole}

Posted in photography | Tagged Kwanzan cherry blossoms, pixlr.com | 9 Comments

The Standout

Posted on April 4, 2012 by pearlsandprose

I’ve written about the Eastern redbud tree before. It’s one of my favorites now. I do love the way it stands out with its neon-pinkish-purple blossoms against all the green:

Up close, the blossoms make kind of a soft explosion:

Hope your week’s going well so far. . . .

{carole}

Posted in photography | Tagged blossoms, bokeh, Eastern redbud tree | 12 Comments

Nantucket Revisited

Posted on April 2, 2012 by pearlsandprose

[Today I’m doing something I’ve never done: a re-posting. It’s not that I’m against recycling, I just never thought about it. Until I noticed an interesting phenomenon. I looked at my WordPress stats one day last week and saw an unusually high number of hits for a single post–this one about Nantucket. For one reason or another, people have taken to the image of the flower box. It now has over 10,000 hits on Flickr, the most out of all my photos. I would not have predicted this when I made the picture. But that was before the days of Pinterest. After this shot was “pinned,” it took on a life of its own. The power of social media.

At any rate, here’s a replay of “A Touch of Provence. . .”]

. . .on the island of Nantucket. The sun was setting, we were waiting for our ferry and the shopkeeper was occupied. Right after I took this shot, she came out, sat down and smoked until we left. Timing really is everything.

Just another Nantucket window, and flower box.

Sunset on the marina, Nantucket.

{carole}

Posted in photography | Tagged blue bistro set, boats, flower box, marina, Nantucket, sunset | 17 Comments

Last of the Blossoms

Posted on March 30, 2012 by pearlsandprose

OK, just a few more shots of the cherry blossoms in Kenwood. Enjoy. . . .

(Blossoms in the street.)

Don’t these look like pipe cleaners?

Great weekend, everyone!

{carole}

Posted in photography | Tagged bokeh, Kenwood, maryland, Yoshino cherry blossoms | 11 Comments

Kenwood Once More

Posted on March 28, 2012 by pearlsandprose

Let’s go back to the cherry blossoms in Kenwood, shall we?

Here’s a closeup of a cluster:

There’s just nothing like that spring green color–it’s a perfect foil for the blossoms.

In addition to Yoshino cherry trees, Kenwood has an occasional weeping cherry.

I love their shape and wish there were more of them. Maybe they’re harder to grow?

The cherry trees below form the loveliest arches over the street. . . .

Don’t these look like pom poms?

As I said on Monday, we got there in late afternoon, so the light was beautiful. See how the sunlight plays off the blossoms. . . .

I think Jennifer of ledelicieux.com had it right the other day when she commented that cherry trees look like “fairy trees.”

By the way, Jennifer’s site is a gorgeous food blog. Her photos are guaranteed to make you drool. 🙂

Hope your week’s going well so far. . . .

{carole}

Posted in photography | Tagged bokeh, Kenwood, maryland, sun flares, weeping cherry tree, Yoshino cherry blossoms | 18 Comments

Cherry Blossoms All Over the Place

Posted on March 26, 2012 by pearlsandprose

There’s a lovely neighborhood in Bethesda, Maryland, called Kenwood. Every year, twelve hundred Yoshino cherry trees put on an incredible show rivaling the display around the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C.

We were there last week and saw street after street that looked like this:

Every year, I forget just how enchanted the place looks. I think the blossoms in Kenwood are prettier, because they’re not as faded as the trees in D.C. It’s surprising, because many of the trees in Kenwood are over seventy-five years old.

I like the way some of the blossoms grow right out of the trunk: