Public – WesterBlog

March 14, 2023March 13, 2023

Portugal 2022

After a year long planning effort that started in 2021 we took a trip to Portugal last October to see what this country is all about. What started as a casual conversation with a new friend on my radio ended in a two week cultural exchange. When I was chatting with my new friend he let me know where he lived and while we talked I did a ton of research of things to do near where he lives.

Close to his home there was a monument of some sort but I could not make out what it was. So I asked him. He said that it was a monument to Jesus and his mother Mary that had been placed there over 600 years ago. This thing piqued my interest because the USA has only been a country for 246 years at the time so this monument has been there 2.5 times as long as the US has been a country.

This conversation took place early in the morning when most others in the US are sleeping. When I got up the next day I asked my partner if she wanted to go to Portugal and check things out. I knew this was a place she wanted to go so the answer was a very quick “yes!”. So the planning began.

We knew this would be another “slow travel” event for us. We do not like vacation “packages” where things are all planned out for you. There are certainly a ton of those you can do in Portugal that look very nice but that is not our thing. We planned out the days we wanted to go and the basic route we wanted to take and then went to work to make it happen.

The dates we go are not as easy as you’d think. Because we both still work we have to make sure we are not leaving anyone at work in a lurch while we are gone. There are certain times of the year I can not travel because of work obligations. Same for her. That said, we marked our calendars and “backed in” to the travel there.

Other than the monument, I knew very little about Portugal. I would learn there were so many “World Heritage” sites there with history dating pre-Roman eras. That is kind of hard to wrap your brain around because it is so long ago. Again, the USA doesn’t have this kind of history so this is going to be a good history lesson for us.

Having been there now over 6 months ago the route we took, the maps we used and the places we visited make much more sense than they did during the planning stages. The whole country is about the size of Indiana and is adjacent to Spain and just north of Gibraltar.

Roughly, our plans were to fly into and out of Lisbon and for the longest time that was all we planned. We had days we would be there so we booked the plane tickets round trip. Even though we had no place to stay and no route decided we now had plane tickets to get there and back. That put the planning into a little more urgency than we had up to this point.

Here are my “highlights” take on our trip we took to Portugal. I figured you would want to look at the map and maybe send this information to others. The map makes much more sense to me now.

We did eventually figure out what we wanted to do and the number of days we would spend in each location we would stop for the night. Our itinerary was roughly as follows. I have provided hyperlinks to most of the places we visited.

Fly to Lisbon and stay 2 days around this large city.
Drive to Evora and stay 2 days
Drive to Vale de Figueira and stayed 3 days
We would eat lunch in a mom/pop restaurant in Pinhão (Touristy)
We would spend some time near Castelo Melhor viewing ancient rock drawings there (15,000+ years old).
One of the places I really enjoyed was São Xisto in the Douro River valley. We spent 3 days in this area.
We took a drive up to Gulmarae which is really where Portugal started as a nation state.
Then down to Porto for a couple of days. Nice but super crowded and touristy. Lots of history. We stayed in the old/original city there.
Then Colmbra, Ourém (lunch), Fatima (to see all the Catholic happenings) ending up in an AirBnB in the country.
A friend of mine, lives in Nazaré, sent me a text inviting us to stop by if we had some time. That is the place where world class surfers do their thing on the crazy waves there. Look that up on YouTube. We would visit them in Nazaré for an evening. It was fun catching up with them who we had last seen in the late 1990’s.
That was the end of our journey. From there we went back to Lisbon to catch a flight home.

The flights to/from USA are long but easy. Customs gave us no problems on either side. I have “Global Entry” and an electronic passport which makes going through the system easy and fast. As you know I am a photographer so I have tons of photos if you are interested in what it may look like there. I had problems flying my drone due to regulations that I didn’t not plan well in advance of the trip. Didn’t think it was going to be an issue but it is. They have very tightly controlled air space.

The people are nice and accommodating. We had no issues anywhere. It is a safe country but I’m told there are pick pockets which we never encountered. The people we encountered were all very kind. The larger cities have some of the same issues we have in the USA but felt safe to me.

Get your money in the airport. Don’t wander the country without cash. Once inside, it is very difficult to get Euros with US dollars. Take the hit up front and deal with the exchange rate or have a plan otherwise. I used my credit card everywhere and never had an issue. But some people do not take credit cards.

They do not tip for anything in Portugal. It is hard to get used to but they can be offended if you give them cash outside of a normal sale. Not everyone, but many. We did tip a guide and when we used Uber which they seemed to appreciate. The guide, in particular, only made money from tips so that was helpful for him.

Cost for things is about 25-50% of the USA rates. Food is markedly cheap. The only thing more expensive in Portugal than anywhere in the USA is the fuel which was about $8/gallon while we were there. But you pay for liters so it feels like the per gallon price, just 3 times as expensive.

Driving is easy but the streets are TINY. Signs are easy to adapt to but some of them are weird. I recommend reading up on the signage before you leave to have that in your head before you start driving. There are so many 1-way streets that I tangled with some while we were there. Parking in big cities very hard. Pay in advance, reserve your spot for easy in/out. I can see why people would not want to drive there yet we did not have any issues. If you are comfortable driving a manual transmission and have good situational awareness you will find driving there quite easy.

We were there to chill. And chill we did. Never in a hurry. Never rushed.

As I mentioned above, what started all this for us was a guy I talked to on my radios back in 2021. We did end up meeting him and having a nice long conversation with him. Super nice guy. We did this on our last night there. I got to see the monument I had seen on Google maps and met my new radio friend at the same time.

We were quite the spectacle in his neighborhood. It is a tiny place and all the neighbors came out to see what we were about. they helped us reach out to Tony who was not home when we arrived. He had no idea we were coming so him not being home was not a surprise. When his neighbor called him he insisted we stay and meet with him at a coffee shop in his town. Which we did.

Tony claims we made his whole year. He was over the moon that we dropped by and spend a couple of hours with him. Really, that was what Portugal was about. It was an uneventful, history laden, quite, relaxing time with kind people everywhere we turned.

Someone has a sense of humor in downtown Porto

We enjoyed Portugal and would like to go back someday if this life allows us the time to do so. In the meantime, we are working on the next International adventure that we hope to take sometime this year. It is about the same distance away but currently with a little political unrest. Still, we’ll keep on planning and probably go there anyway.

April 12, 2021April 12, 2021

Warm spring rain.

Before the sun went down today I wanted to get some grass cut. When I started it was warm and dry but on the horizon I could tell it was raining. The rain didn’t really look like it was going to come meet me but about half way into my task it really started to rain.

It was one of those rains that wasn’t overcast; just showery. I was thinking, “Why don’t I just park this thing and be done with it for the day?” I was soaked all the way through all my clothes and getting cold riding on the mower. “Just another 15 minutes and I’ll be done,” says my internal voice (like it always does).

Then I looked up and saw a full, very bright and vibrant double rainbow. By the time I got my phone out, figured out how to get into the camera app in the rain this was all I could capture:

Just like that, the sun went back behind the clouds and the rainbow was gone.

I was sitting next to my bees, in the rain with nothing more important to do.

I’m reminded to slow down and enjoy the moment. It may not seem like it but little bits of nirvana surrounds us all the time. Everything is as it should be.

Today nirvana was a rainbow sitting in the rain at the end of a busy work day. All I had to do was look up.

March 12, 2021March 12, 2021

Down time

Kind of. We decided to go down to Florida to change the temperature for a week.

St. Augustine, Florida — Windy yet placid

I didn’t take the week off from work. Instead I just worked in Florida. It’s one of the cool things about my job. Technically I can work anywhere as long as I have good Internet access.

On this day I sat in a vehicle near the ocean and watched the wildlife while I worked. I saw things I don’t normally see. For 15 minutes I watched a family of dolphins body surf the waves. I really wanted to take photos of them but I was presenting in a meeting which did not afford me that opportunity. It was so interesting and deliberate. One of them would go on its back while the others on their bellies. They were clearly playing with each other.

Then a few minutes after that I noticed a seagull testing his scooping skills. It would pick up a stick, glide up in the wind then drop the stick. As the stick fell it would swoop down and try to catch it before it hit the ground. I watch them try to get his seagull friends to join in but none did. For 20 minutes this game continued.

One of the days it was 85ºF and we were able to ride a motorcycle all around St. Augustine. The other days it was chilly and cloudy so we decided to stay “inside”. It was nice to slow down, eat seafood and camp in another State Park. Go here for a map of Matanzas State Forrest.

December 17, 2020December 17, 2020

First Snow Storm of 2020 Winter

Yesterday we got our first big snow storm of 2020. The night before I set up one of my cameras to do an 8 hour time lapse to capture the weather all day long.

A cool time lapse of the storm from start to almost finish.

Predictions were all over the place but at the end of this we got 8 inches of snow with layers of ice in between. Today it’s very heavy and wet yet cold enough to still have ice in the trees.

This morning’s sunrise.

After the sunrise and after I got done with most of my work I set out to clear a path so we can get out of the house and get some exercise.

The sun will do the rest but the ice and snow are here to stay for a while.

December 8, 2020December 8, 2020

Christmas Star

This is truly a once in a lifetime event. More accurately a once in many lifetimes event. Jupiter and Saturn will be extremely close together. As in view them both in one eyepiece or a pair of binoculars close together.

Without visual aid they will look like a single very bright star – some are calling this the “Christmas star”.

And it is interesting this will also be the Winter Solstice for 2020. Every day is longer from this point forward until the middle of summer.

Looking west/soutwest 45 minutes after sunset

This is where I’ll be on Monday evening December 21.

December 8, 2020December 8, 2020

Winter has set in

December 21 is the solstice and the days will get longer. I look forward to this day in December every year.

December 21 is also the night that Saturn and Jupiter will align and create a “Christmas Star“. That will be fun to see this year.

Look up!

November 9, 2020November 9, 2020

Virginia Fall

The weather in Virginia continues to be near perfect with temperatures in the mid 70’s and barely a cloud in the sky. Tonight we took the opportunity to ride bikes down to the Potomac river near Brunswick, MD after work. And we get another day before it rains this week. I’m kinda digging the weather this year but know this is not going to last forever.

July 27, 2020

Comet Neowise 2020

2020 has been an interesting year to say the least. One thing that hasn’t changed is the Universe. I work to keep that in mind as I live from day to day.

From my front porch every evening this summer Jupiter and Saturn have been some of the brightest objects in the sky. Using Gloria’s telescope I’ve been able to clearly see the rings of Saturn and the storms of Jupiter along with many of their moons.

Even with nothing than a regular set of binoculars Jupiter is so close to Earth that the moons are clearly visible without much aid. With a zoom lens, camera and tripod one can take a picture of them without much difficulty.

Then there is comet Neowise. This one snuck up on us. Somehow we can put landers on the moon but not know when a comet is orbiting the sun. Granted, the last time it was here was 6,766 years ago. And it won’t be back for another 6,766 years.

That being said, I wanted to find this comet and see if I could capture it from my own front yard. The biggest problem I have with some of the astronomy stuff is that it happens at like 5 in the morning. That’s not always appealing to me. I’ll do it but it would be way more convenient if it was like around midnight.

And, as it turns out, that was going to happen. All I had to do was wait a couple of weeks and I could get a view in the northwest sky as it set with the sun after 10pm.

The first time I saw it was with binoculars. It was so much larger than I was expecting that I had overlooked it for 30 minutes. And it was much more faint than I was expecting especially as it was dodging in and out of the clouds. With my older eyes and the less than ideal viewing conditions this was going to be challenging to take a clear photo of this thing at night.

With a 600mm lens I knew that I could only keep the shutter open for about 5 seconds to keep the blur at a minimum. That means the ISO has to be fast and the aperture wide open. This is going to produce a grainy/noisy photo and if it’s not tack sharp it not going to come out well.

Focusing in the night sky is not easy. Because my eyes are not the best at determining the focal distance like they were when I was 16 I have to use the camera to help me by focusing on stars in the sky and getting them sharp and then assuming that the comet will be sharp in that background. One tiny camera shake and the photo will be ruined.

300 images later, I picked the 3 I liked the best.

The color image above shows the green core of the comet against some of the stars on a very cloudy night. I was never afforded a totally dark sky view of the comet while it could be seen from here.

Color image of Comet Neowise just above the horizon.

When the comet was behind the clouds I turned my camera around to see if I could take a decent photo of Jupiter and maybe some of it’s moon. Keep in mind I only have a Nikon camera and lens on a tripod so this is not a telescope or anything fancy.

The picture of Jupiter doesn’t look like much at first glance. But I was shocked that I could get such a good photo of the planet and some of it’s moons. If you zoom into the photo you will see that one of the moons is blue. I think this is Europa which has high water content.

If you didn’t get to see it this trip around the sun unfortunately you are now going to have to take my word that it was there. Or use better camera gear than I have.

It was a fun evening I shared with my family. Interesting time in an interesting year looking at cool astronomy objects.

If you get bored, look up. The comet is about gone but many other object are up there. The sky can offer some interesting things to think about. Maybe give you break to think about other things for a while.

June 15, 2020June 16, 2020

Making hay June 2020

This cathartic video from above shows 5 minutes of the process of making hay on our farm. There is no music or narrative. Just make it the size of your screen and enjoy the process.

We gathered 34 round bales of hay in this first cut of 2020.

Things generally slow down this time a year. With the virus things are REALLY slow right now. Everything I’d normally do in the spring, summer and fall is cancelled. There are no vacations planned or other distractions that would normally happen in a summer. This doesn’t look to change before the end of the year.

Health, Family, work and hobbies; I’m blessed to have all these near me.

After the hay bales are wrapped they have to be moved to a place they can be placed on a trailer and placed under a barn roof. This hay is for horses so it must be kept dry.

For some reason I am drawn to the engineering of making hay. There was a time when it would take 5-6 people to do this work and it would take 2-4 times to get the same amount of hay off the ground. Now 1-2 people can do it in a day.

Hopefully we’ll get 1-2 more cuttings this year. The air is cool and we are getting plenty of rain. The grasses love this grow environment. So if the trends of cooler summer and consistent rain continues the hay yield will be high this year.

June 11, 2020

Sunrise June 11, 2020

We live in Narnia.

We have such interesting weather here in between the mountains. The original farm here was named “Crosswind Farm”. I didn’t think much about this until we moved in. The winds come from all directions all the time.

The Coriolis effect is very pronounced here. It’s very easy to see the cloud layers moving at right angles from each other.

It’s been very sunny and warm lately. Thankfully. I was pretty done with winter temperatures around here. It can get cold and stay cold here for half the year. So it’s nice to be in the 80º’s again.

A front came through and brought these clouds, some rain and lightening storms. The grass and trees are uber green. Summer is well on it’s way.

I hope you have a good day.