CECILIA CLARK P HOTOGRAPHY

View of Thimble Rock from Windy Point on Mt Lemmon Scenic Byway Mt. Lemmon's summit is 9,157 ft/2,791m high. It is the tallest peak in the Santa Catalina mountain range. Forest Service information says, "Because the road (Mount Lemmon Scenic Byway) starts in the Lower Sonoran vegetative life zone and climbs to the high forests of the Canadian zone, it offers the biological equivalent of driving from the deserts of Mexico to the forests of Canada in a short stretch of 27 miles

Desert Museum Handler and Harris Hawk Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum We flew to Tucson, Arizona, to celebrate Dan's birthday. We've been to Tucson before but never really explored much of the surrounding area. On this trip we began at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum . We went specifically to see the raptor free flight that takes place Friday - Monday at 10:30 am during the winter months. The handlers emphasized that the birds are not captives. They are free to come and go or n

Today is our last chance to see Erbil. We walked the five blocks or so to Old Erbil hoping to tour the 6,000 year old Citadel, but the Citadel is being renovated so the only thing open to us was the view. Today was another post-election holiday, and the Citadel viewpoint was full of other people enjoying the view and taking their own photos. One of the carpet shops below the Citadel The Qaysari Bazaar (visible in the above right photo/right side of photo) is Erbil's oldest l

Derek used his contacts and arranged for an English speaking driver to take us to the mountains of Kurdistan. Our first stop was Korek Mountain Resort at an elevation of 2,000 m/6561 feet. It is November but there is no snow. We didn't expect snow. If there is snow, it falls during November to January. We took the 4 k/2.5 mile gondola to the resort. It takes about 12 minutes and the view below is really lovely especially with some of the trees changing color. It seemed like i

In Mosul, we stayed at the Al-Barone Hotel. After Daesh was defeated in Mosul, the hotel was renovated and has been open for 2-3 years. The backside of the hotel is scar free but the abutting building is still gutted and bears the scars of the battles. Al-Barone Hotel is just 2-3 blocks from the bazaar. Because we weren't leaving for Erbil until late morning, Dan and I walked over to the fish market and bazaar to take a last look. The fish market was already beginning to bust

We began the day with a drive to the Christian/Yazidi village of Ba'ashiqah on the Nineveh Plains. Our first stop was at the home of Abu Mark and his family who are Eastern Orthodox Christians. Abu Mark and his family prepared us a breakfast of makhlama (egg/meat casserole dish), breads, tahini, date syrup, creams from cow, buffalo and goat, local honey and apricot jam. It was delicious. Abu Mark entertained us with stories of his time as one of Saddam Hussein's main personal

Our first stop in Mosul was in Old Mosul at the Syriac Catholic Church of St. Thomas for a tour of the restored church. The church was founded in 1863. It was built in three years and it is entirely made of Mosul marble. After it was completely destroyed by Daesh 2014 - 2017, it was restored to its original beauty in 2022. Daesh smashed the statues and set fires inside the church. Daesh removed the valuable manuscripts and may have sent them out of country. Everything else wa

The Great Mosque of Samarra and the Malwiya Tower (851 CE) Leaving Baghdad for the last time, we drove north through areas once occupied by Daesh (ISIS) to the ancient city of Samarra. At first sight, the most interesting feature is the 1,000 year old spiral minaret and the walls of walls of the ancient mosque. The mosque and tower were completed in 851 CE. Shortly after the founder was assassinated in 861, the court abandoned the area and fled to Baghdad. The Great Mosque w

2019 Protest Art We took a drive through a tunnel decorated with anti-government protest art from 2019. The October demonstrations, spurred by the youth, became the largest and longest lasting uprising since 2003. People were protesting government corruption, unemployment, and lack of public services like clean water and electricity. In the first six months, security forces and paramilitary groups loosely connected to the government killed 600 protesters and injured more than

Our rides into the Mesopotamia Marshlands We left Nasiriyah early because we had a breakfast date in the Mesopotamian Marshlands 1.5 hours away. The Wandering Earl Team passed out keffiyehs for each of us to shade our heads. We all needed help getting them wrapped and secured correctly. Our bus dropped us on the bank above the boats and drivers. Once in the boats we shot off into the marsh. The water isn't so deep as you can see by the cows cooling off in the water. We sped

The drive from Najaf to Nasiriyah was about 4.5 hours. We had lunch, checked into our room at the Somerion Hotel, and then set out to visit the ancient city of Ur. The city of Ur was inhabited for more than 5,000 years by diverse cultures beginning in approximately 5500 BCE with the prehistoric Ubaids and ending with the Achaemenid Persians in 331 BCE. Our first stop in Ur was at the impressive multi-stepped ziggurat pedestal. It is built of mud with a facade of bricks and bi

Valley of Peace There are just three women in our group and the three of us had to get properly dressed before getting out of the bus. Najaf is recognized as one of the holiest places in Shia Islam, therefore, women must have their hair and bodies covered in all public spaces. We each wore an abaya. It was one piece of cloth with a small opening to put your face into while at the same time it kept our hair covered. A little tricky to manage when it is your first time wearing

Today we checked out of our Baghdad hotel and drove the approximately 1.5 hours to Babylon where Mahdi gave us a tour. The photo above is a reproduction of the Ishtar Gate. The original is in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. We saw the Ishtar Temple, procession avenue, grand hall, Babylon Lion statue, and the throne room where some think Alexander the Great died. In the 7th and 6th centuries BCE, Babylon may have been the largest city in the world with as many as 200,000 reside

The Police Escort to Fallujah The drive to Fallujah is about 1.5 hours but also dependent upon how many times our mini bus is stopped at checkpoints. Along the way we passed the notorious (during Saddam's time and later when in 2003 the US Army and CIA took over) Abu Ghraib prison. At the Anbar Province checkpoint in western Iraq we picked up a police escort, with red lights flashing and occasional sirens, that stayed with us throughout our visit to Fallujah. Additional polic

Tahrir Square (Liberation Square) sculpture commemorating the 1958 establishment of the Republic of Iraq On the first day of our tour, our minibus drove past Firdos Square which is where Saddam Hussein's statue was pulled off its pedestal and destroyed in 2003. Firdos Square was lined with political posters of candidates running for office. Political posters and flags were most everywhere we traveled in Iraq. According to the New York Times, there are more than 7,700 candidat

Fatima (right) and her friend We made it! This is our second attempted trip to Iraq and this time we made it all the way. Arriving in Baghdad a couple of days early, we took our cameras and explored some of the areas around our hotel. The first evening we walked along a nearby street with electronics stores and some high-end shops. We met Fatima who came out of a shop and asked me to take her photo, then a photo of her and her friend, and then a photo of a couple of male fri

Itilleq has just 89 residents. The main industry is fishing, and they have a small fish processing plant in the long blue building near...

Looking toward the open air Museum Sisimuit means "residences at the fox holes." It is Greenland's second largest city with a population...

Columnar Basalt at Disko Island Disko Island is the youngest area in Greenland. The rest of Greenland is billions of years old. Basalt...

We woke to another beautiful day with glassy water and beautiful reflections. The view on the other side of the ship was of an active...