Palace of Fine Arts

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Here's another batch of old SF photos, this time from the famous Palace of Fine Arts, one of the few surviving structures from the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, a World's Fair highlighting the city's recovery from the 1906 earthquake.

Although, strictly speaking, this isn't really a surviving structure. The fair's elaborate faux-Roman buildings were meant to be temporary, and were built cheaply out of wood, plaster and even burlap. The elements took their toll on the surviving buildings, and in 1965 the original palace was demolished and replaced with a more durable copy made with steel and concrete. I'm not sure why, exactly, but this story has always struck me as kind of hilarious. It stands to reason that a few cultural theory papers have been written about this, with the words "simulacrum" and "pastiche" used liberally, and many citations of midcentury French philosophers. I mean, I can't possibly be the first person to think of that.

Anyway, here's a Bollywood number filmed in part at the Palace of Fine Arts, from the 1999 hit film Biwi No. 1.

Jekyll Island, GA

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Here are a few old photos from Jekyll Island, Georgia, a barrier island on the Atlantic coast near the town of Brunswick. The island was developed in the late 1880s as a resort for northern robber barons -- J.P Morgan, various Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Goulds, and their ilk. The island's fortunes waned (so to speak) after the stock market crash of 1929, and the state of Georgia has owned and operated it since 1947. A number of the original "cottages" (i.e. vacation mansions) still survive, as does the central clubhouse building, now a hotel.

You may have gathered this is not a comprehensive photoset about the place; I took these in the late 90s, and I had no idea at the time that I might need a bunch of photos for the internet someday. In any case, I could never muster a lot of enthusiasm for the extravagant lifestyles of ultra-rich oligarchs, so if I did have a bunch of interior photos I'd probably just snark about them anyway. The island's beaches were beautiful, though. It's worth a visit just for the beaches.

Hunting Island, SC

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Here are a couple of beach photos from South Carolina's Hunting Island State Park, a barrier island on the coast about 15 miles from the town of Beaufort. The island's dense palmetto-filled forest comes right up to the beach, like something you'd see in a movie about remote South Pacific islands. I would have liked to have better photos of the forest, and the rest of the park, but I only have these two photos. I think I may have run out of film after this pair of photos, come to think of it. I also had a crappy camera at the time, and (more importantly) I had no idea what I was doing. I realize I keep trotting that out as an excuse when I post old photos, but it's true. I ran across a forum thread with some great photos, if you want a better look at the area.

I wish I'd still had some film left when we ran across an alligator, asleep and sunning itself at an inland pond. Not an enclosure, not an exhibit, just a pond with a wild alligator. At the time, we lived a couple of hours north and inland, and while alligators were known to exist in our area, there were far more rumors than sightings. And of course coming from the Northwest we weren't used to even that degree of alligator-ness. So stumbling across one here, out of the blue, was kind of a big deal. Any locals who saw us gawking and pointing must have found it hilarious. It probably wasn't even that big of an alligator, thinking back. Still, I could have walked over and touched it if I'd wanted to, which I didn't. Nobody else seemed to want to pet the gator either.

Bulloch County Courthouse

Here's an old photo, snapped from a moving car, of the historic Bulloch County Courthouse, in Statesboro, Georgia. Or most of it; I had an old point & shoot 35mm camera back then and my aim wasn't that great, as you can probably tell here. A few years after I took this, the courthouse was restored and the exterior white plaster was either removed or painted over, so it's mostly a red brick building now. I think I liked it better before the restoration, to be honest. I thought it was kind of an interesting building, though not quite interesting enough for us to stop and look around the town. I know it's a college town and supposedly is a bit more culturally lively than your average county seat in rural Georgia. Which admittedly isn't saying a lot.

If the name of the town sounds familiar at all, it might be due to the classic blues song "Statesboro Blues" by Blind Willie McTell. If you aren't familiar with it, his original version and the famous Allman Brothers cover are out there on the youtubes. Though I admit that after listening carefully to both, I'm still not sure if it's good or bad when somebody has a case of the Statesboro Blues, or maybe if it's a little of both.

Grand Canyon (IV)

Grand Canyon (I)

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I assume the Grand Canyon needs no introduction. I think I'm going to spread the photos across several posts like I did with Yosemite, since a single post with 20+ photos gets to be a bit much. Enjoy!

Grand Canyon (III)

Grand Canyon (II)

spring, mojave desert

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A few photos from the John Wilkie Rest Area, on I-40 near Fenner, CA, in the middle of the Mojave Desert. These were taken in early springtime, and many of the desert plants were flowering at the time. It's hard to tell in these photos since I wasn't really equipped to take close up photos back then, but the scenery was pretty striking and I figured these were worth posting even if you can't really see the flowers very well.

At the time I took these, I didn't make a note about where I was, so that took a little detective work. I rememberd this was at a rest area along I-40 in California, east of Barstow, and it turns out there are only two of those, so I fired up Google Street View and compared scenery with my photos. So I'm pretty sure this is the Wilkie rest area and not the other one, which is just a few miles outside of Barstow. I'd stayed the night in Barstow, so I can't imagine I would have pulled off the highway to take photos so soon after hitting the road for the day.

Little Colorado River Gorge

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Some photos of the Little Colorado River Gorge, which the Little Colorado River flows through on its way to the Grand Canyon. As you've probably gathered already from the photos, "little" is a relative term in this part of Arizona.

Puʻukoholā Heiau

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Old photos from Puʻukoholā Heiau National Historic Site, a ruined temple on the west coast of the Big Island of Hawaii. A video from Big Island TV shows a historical reenactment of ceremonies at the temple.

The park also includes an underwater temple dedicated to the shark gods. I didn't think to look for this at the time, but apparently they regularly swim just offshore, as seen in this YouTube video I came across.

Please note that when a sign in Hawaii says "kapu" (i.e. "forbidden", and there are several such signs here), this is an actual no-trespassing sign, and they aren't just doing it to be cute.