Tag: palm

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A palm tree growing along the column supporting a bridge...and then diagonally sideways until it gets out from under the bridge entirely.

I finally stopped to take a photo of this tenacious palm tree. I’m not sure whether it was planted or if it just took root next to the support pillar back when the Green Line was new two decades ago. It’s clearly not actively maintained, judging by all the old dry fronds still attached, and I keep wondering if it’ll get taken out as part of the construction of the Crenshaw line (this is right next to the Y connector where the new line branches off, and the fences are part of the construction site)…but that construction’s almost done, and the tree’s still there.

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Looking up at the head of a palm tree silhouetted against the sky, blue with a thin layer of clouds. A bright white ring, tinged slightly reddish on the inner edge, fills the frame, off-center from the three, the lower left quadrant roughly aligned with the ends of the fronds.

Have you ever seen a ring around the sun? Or a pair of bright spots flanking it? Or a rainbow-colored cloud? Just as sunlight reflecting and refracting inside raindrops can create a rainbow, sunlight reflecting off of ice crystals can form fascinating and beautiful halos. It doesn’t even have to be cold at ground level: if the ice crystals are high up in the atmosphere, spread in a thin layer of cirrus cloud, you can still see them… even in places known for warm weather like Los Angeles. I have a whole gallery of halo photos I’ve taken in southern California. (Edit: Most of them here on this blog too!) You’ll see them more often than you expect. You just have to look up.

Photo Challenge (WordPress): Look Up

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When we arrived in Hawaii, I posted this photo taken from our hotel room balcony:

View from hotel

What I didn’t mention was that that shot was carefully cropped. The view really looked like this:

Less artfully cropped view

Well, hey, we got the cheap rooms, so you kind of expect that. Still, there was a lot to see right on the hotel grounds. First of all, we stayed at the Outrigger Keauhou Beach Resort south of Kailua-Kona. Outrigger had recently taken over the hotel, and they were in the midst of remodeling. They had to block off part of the parking lot for a couple of days in order to bring in a crane and replace the air conditioner. So I expect any review of the facilities themselves is going to be outdated within a couple of months.

The hotel grounds include a couple of heiau ruins, some tide pools, and a small garden area. Continue reading →