To the Grand Canyon

I am off later today to the the Grand Canyon. I fly to Flagstaff and meet up with the rest of my party for a raft trip down the length of the Grand Canyon. There will be 15 of us in our group - mostly from Sacramento. Myself, I am a bit of a novice, but I am assured there will those amongst us that know what they are doing when it comes to the odd rapid.

We have contracted with an outfitter in Flagstaff who is providing the rafts and the food and all the miscellaneous bits and pieces. They are going to drive us out to Lee's Ferry on Saturday morning, show us how to load and rig the boats and then leave us to our own devices with a rendezvous some 16 days later at Diamond Creek. All being well, we will pop out of the other end in time to be picked up.

The trip from Lee's Ferry to Diamond Creek is some 225 miles and we plan on taking 16days to complete the distance. No phone, no e-mail, no contact with the outside world, nothing - so I will be out of touch for a while. Actually that is a bit of an exaggeration we will have a satellite phone for emergencies, but we don't plan on using that piece of equipment.

From what I can gather it is supposed to be quite a trip - some say life altering experience - I don't know if I am expecting that but it should be an adventure that's for sure.

Frank Lloyd Wright in San Francisco

To top off the cultural day in San Francisco, after the Frida Kahlo exhibit, I wandered over to this beautiful little building near Union Square designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

It is the only FLW building in San Francisco and is a real fine example of his work. Tucked away down a small side street, Maiden Lane, it now houses an Art Gallery (the Xanadu Gallery). It was closed when I was there but the interior is supposed to be lovely also with many similarities to the curling ramps in the Guggenheim Museum which he was designing at about the same time.

Frida Kahlo at San Francisco MOMA

I went down to San Francisco this last weekend to catch the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) before it moved on. I like a lot of her paintings and she certainly was an interesting character with a much troubled and difficult life.

Of course everyone else wants to see her art work too, so even with timed entry tickets the gallery was very very crowded. It was shoulder to shoulder two or more rows deep so perhaps not the most relaxing atmosphere for appreciating art. Still it was well worth the trip.


There is a nice little interactive presentation from SF MOMA here.

Chalk it up....

Again this Labor Day Weekend (why does America celebrate Labor Day in September when the rest of the world do it in May?), it was Chalk It Up, the sidewalk drawing event in Sacramento's Fremont Park.

Usually there are some outstanding chalk drawings (see my post from a couple of years ago), but this year's event, I thought was rather uninspiring. Not to denigrate the effort that all those people put in for a good cause, but it just wasn't quite as good this year.

Here, in my humble opinion, are the best of the bunch....