The Turtle Back Miracle

I haven't added to this blog in years, yet it still exists. It's become an artifact in my life's history, yet it remains in the present somehow. What to do with this ethereal object of manifestation that is always there, left wanting for more. I've traveled so much and haven't documented any of it. What is the point of it? How does it change/effect anything? It's not even being read by others because I haven't performed the necessary updates or kept up with developing search engine key words or other advertsing/marketing strategies.

Where's the passion that once was? What happened to the drive to create, to imprint, impress, sometimes to impersonate this woman I am, or think that I am, or want others to see me as I think I am, when describing my experiences.

I want to change the Title of this Blog to The Turtle Back Miracle...

Good thing we ride on the The Great Turtle's back -- turtles live a long time, they are ancients among us, they carry the history of our kind, they sweep over the earth's sands and under it's deepest streams and salted waves of this great beast we all share called earth. The Turtle is carrying our tresspasses on it's back, the great beast of burden and of creation. Where will she take us, when will we find the miracle?  How do we choose to get there. We know it's there; we are all looking for it, some unconscious, some looking for the light in the miracle, some looking to take the light out.  If we crawl too far to the edge of Turtle's Back, will we slide, roll, or tumble haphazardly off and be turned under by the sands and the sea of her slow crawl toward death...

Death; maybe that is the miracle.

The Hunting Castle of King Charles

Here is our day out in the Czech countryside to King Charles' Hunting Castle. We passed "Amerika" on the way. Why they call this deep mining area "Amerika" I cannot say. Click on the photos to get a better view of cairns that caravaners leave behind and check out the cave chairs. And do you think it's safe to call this hunting camp a castle? It was, by far, the best daylight for photos during my entire European trip.

A Castle for the Palace: Praha again

Here we are in and around the Palace. I especially like the sculptures on the gate, forward of the Adam and Eve painting. Finally I have posted a photo of my crazy wind surfin' kayak paddlin' hikin' travelin' drinkin' Czech buddy who generously invited me to stay with her family in her homeland. This was my second day after having taken the train from Dresden and having met her in Prague. Did I mention what a beautiful trainride along the Elbe it was?

So what was life really like for kings and queens in this city? I have only ever been inside a castle once before - in the highlands of Scotland. But it was in ruins and no care was given to repair or maintain it. The rough stone made for some fantastic bouldering though.

Say, what is the differene between a castle and a palace anyway? Although it was beautiful and profoundly ornate, I found no warmth inside the manicured slabs of this Palace's walls, columns, gates or spires. But I'm sure warmth and physical comfort were much less important to Kings and Queens in a time when homes were designed to keep them safe and secure from constant hostile threats.

On this day, my friend and I exerted ourselves on a long walk up a very narrow stairwell to the top of the Palace tower. Despite the fact the stairs were packed with slow moving, gasping people, I could still experience the romance of the place by reliving childhood imaginations of being an imprisoned princess in just such a castle or palace as this. If I were a lovely princess in this palace, I would have made conversation with the ugly gargoyles. I can't deny that Praha is a magical place architecturally, from the pebbles laid meticulously in the walks, to the gold inlays in the eyes of the snake wrapped around the tree of knowledge. We simply do not have anything like this in the States - nothing as ornate, ancient or original that is.

I've gone retrograde

Okay. I haven't written in weeks. I haven't finished writing about my trip to Europe and I am months behind in current events and future plans. So, here I am finally, sitting down with my laptop and Blogger.com says it'll be unavailable for maintenance at 10:00. This means I have 30 minutes to write something of worth and without much thought. What timing! Well, my whole week has been a series of bad timings and just plain clumsiness all around. Like mercury, I do believe I've gone retrograde!

First thing: it's April 12 and I still haven't done my taxes and I when that will happen is still in question seeing how we just got whomped with another round of fluffy snow for another great weekend of riding! Monday I started out by being very late to the vet. Last night, I washed my very expensive, light gray, faux fur-lined Burton snowboarding jacket with a bright blue jel ink pen in the pocket. That was not fun. This morning, I left the coffee pot on and had to return home a hour after arriving to work to turn it off. When leaving work at the end of the day, I jumped in my car, started it, jumped out to wipe the snow off the windshield, went to jump back in, only to find I locked myself out, yes with the car still running. I missed my daily work out because of this so I went food shopping instead. Okay. I get home, find I left the wash in the washing machine and as I am hanging it to dry, I discover I have tortured yet another expensive article of clothing — a fine wool sweater shrunk to a negative size 2.
After dinner, I took the compost outside only to return to a locked porch door. Okay, what else?I've probably forgotten. Don't even let me begin to talk about work. It's been pure HELL. Well, the one good thing to happen: the shrimp I purchased was $1 less than the register said it was. I made the girl go back to the deli for a price check and yes! I was right damn it! You see, there are good days and there are bad. And some days you just run out of time and say the heck with it all; because there's always tomorrow....isn't there?

More Praha

Soon, I will post photos of our day trip to Karlovy Vary and the hops fields and sights along the way. For now, here is more of Praha... the city without end. I do believe Praha is the largest city I have ever been, well except for NYC, but you can see the limits of NYC; whereas, Praha goes on forever and forever. Be sure to click on the photos for detail closeups. Character is found in the gray slabs of stone chipped and cracked and repaired hundreds of times over. The city is covered with orange terracotta roofing and along the bridge you'll find random spots of gold laid in statues and worn by the touch of visitors' hands who caress it for luck and for love.

At top is the Little Quarter Bridge Towers with the smaller of the two towers being one of the oldest parts of the original Charles Bridge built in 1357. The Bridge has 30 sculptures, with one being lifted out of place for repair at the time of our visit. It's quite an ordeal to move these monolithic Saints off their perches, using cranes and other big equipment and with hundreds of people underfoot — not the safest place to be in the city.

Praha in Pictures

November 2006

The night I stepped out of the Metro and into Prague, Bach filled the air in the Old Town Market Square, at the Church of Saint Peter and Paul.

The next day, my Czech friend and I ventured over the Vltava via the Charles Bridge and up the steep stone cobbled streets to Prague Castle (not yet pictured)
and the Cathedral of St. Vitus, St. Wenceslas and St. Adalbert. My favorite photo from this early part of the day is of the canal. Click to enlarge the view of the Pilsner Urquell Boat and the sheep skin covered chairs at the cafe to the right. I'll tell you, between their chair coverings, cat belts, svarzik, grog and "super coffee", the
Czechs sure do know how to stay warm.

Don't eat the snow. It's worse than yellow.

What a snow storm. One week later, and I'm still being trapped in the driveway by city plows. Several days after the storm had ended, the plows came through again, and not only toppled the snowbanks back into a 2 foot-high blockade at the end of the driveway but also destroyed every household's recycling container and recycling that was resting on top of the 6-1/2 foot high snowbank along the entire length of my street. What a surprise for anyone who had to drive to work that morning to find they had an hour or more of shoveling to do and maybe a second shower to take before finally heading out.

Here in Vermont we greet, with glee, only "natural" disasters at 7 a.m., NOT man-made ones. And we take pride in the kind of yankee ingenuity that unsticks cars from 7-foot high snowbanks by using floor mats under the back tires of powerful four-wheel drives. We certainly don't appreciate the wreckless, "get the job done no matter what" mentality demonstrated by a public tax-funded snow removal service. Fortunately, I was able to leap, tuck and roll over the end of my driveway and walk to work and not be late. (Yes, I left the digging to my neighbors. Irresponsible I know, but I had to get to work no matter what.)

The snowbanks are so high that the city has become a maze of tunnels that are terribly fun to play hide and seek in . You can't get hurt if you fall or get slam-danced into the snow. I should damn well know. And there are some people who just get so excited by the almighy white stuff that they can't contain themselves. They become one with the snow; writhing in it... inhaling and slurping it and, yes, eating it, as seen demonstrated here by a patron outside Burlington's finest, locally-owned flatbread and beer-making establishment.

From Snowplow drivers and snowball fighters, to rider and skiiers racing to the mountain with zero visibility just to be the first down that 3-foot blanket of powder snow. What is it about this deep slippery stuff that inspires such unusual childlike, wreckless and irreverant behaviour?

I can only imagine what the bottom of my street is going to look like in spring once the snow melts: broken glass, dented cans, newspaper, bags, cereal boxes, milk jugs and who knows what else! The city will have to pay the cost of replacing the recycling bins too. What a wreckless waste of resources.

Piece of advice: Please don't eat the snow on my street! It's worse than yellow.