Happy Sunday!
My friend Terri Webster Schrandt chose gray as her May color for Sunday Stills.
Online Miriam Webster is not too kind about gray. She calls it, “dull, uninteresting, dismal, gloomy, neutral color, age, silvery, and slate” just to quote a few of her definitions and synonyms. But gray is not all bad.
Pilou Asbae
Life is not black and white; there is some gray nuance to it.
We just returned from a whirlwind vacation to visit several friends in Woodlake, CA. We timed it so we could see some of our Kiwanis friends off to their new adventure moving from Woodlake, California to Oregon. We broke the ten hour drive to California by spending a couple of days in Las Vegas. At first blush, you can’t find a lot of gray in Las Vegas. But if you can’t find it you can make it.
Las Vegas Grays
Most birds are shy when you walk up to them. Not these beauties strutting their Las Vegas stuff on the slate-gray sidewalk outside of the Aria. The black bird chose the contrasting gray tiles to accent her feathers, while the two gray birds chose the softer brown.
California Grays
Cars
Early Saturday morning we all got up and drove to the big Visalia Car Show on Main Street. Since I just did a series on the Prescott Car Show, I’m not going to bore you with a hundred more car photos, but this gray and salmon Desoto stood out among the others. It even enjoyed a privileged parking spot on the corner where you couldn’t miss it.
Windmills
A week ago after reading her post on windmills, I promised Restless Jo I would take a picture of some windmills in Dutch Colony, a rural neighborhood north of Woodlake, California. It took just a second as we drove from one appointment to another to stop at this house where this family had a substantial collection of gray windmills.
Under clear blue skies, the temperature was a pleasant 80 degrees without much of a breeze. None of the windmills turned as I took their pictures. I loved the old platform on wheels but in the twenty years we lived there, I didn’t document any movement. They were more like windmill statues.
As we drove home from California, I took these pictures on Highway 58 going through the Tehachapi Mountain Range east of Bakersfield, California. As the temperature dropped, the wind picked up, the sky got misty and changed from blue to gray. The higher we climbed, we almost felt like we were in the clouds.
According to a 2019 article by Clean Tech Alliance, the small town of Tehachapi is a hub for the wind industry and attracted Amazon to open three wind farm projects. All counted there were estimated to be over 4,700 turbines. That translated to 3,200 megawatts of electricity. A megawatt is 1 million watts. To put that into perspective, “one megawatt of energy generated could furnish power to approximately 2,941,176 homes per second.” (Solar Reviews.com)
The wind industry started in the 1980s. These wind machine blades powerfully turned the wind into electricity. It looks like they had babies. The little wind machines are not smaller because of distance, there really is a group of pint-sized machines laboring right next to their adult counterparts. The shorter ones may be earlier machines. I couldn’t find too much information on them in the short time I had to prepare this article.
It was kind of eerie at first being in the clouds, but soon the sky cleared. We stopped for a doughnut in Tehachapi for breakfast. The wind was not kind to my hair, but you can see that the wind blew hard enough that the blue skies started to peek out. As we drove into the sunlight, we saw some of the larger blades lying on the ground, probably at the factory. I estimated one of them to be about the same length as a semi.
Andre Gide
The color of truth is gray.
The truth is that these gray skies light up the world and gray is not dull at all, but electrifying. 🙂
Coming Up This Week
- One more week to add your comments to the May Story Chat, “Nailing It” by Anne Stormont.
- Writer’s Quotes Wednesdays – This week beauty, coming up – healing.
- A New Challenge Host Interview with Sandy and Amanda from Friendly Friday Photo Challenge.
Marsha Ingrao - Always Write 
56 responses to “Sunday Stills: May Gray Vacay”
One of the best things about blogging is the travel we get to do without leaving home! This was a great example of seeing a different part of the world through someones else’s eyes! thanks for the trip Marsha and the quotes were perfect!
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Yes, but if I ever come to Australia again – or am allowed in – I’m definitely coming to Sydney. Isn’t that where you are?
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Hi Marsha, I am about 6 hours drive from Sydney, we’re actually half way between Sydney and Melbourne. A beautiful part of the world.
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Wow. I bet you have perfect weather, too. 🙂
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Your grey selection is really cool, Marsha!
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Thanks, so much Amy. It was fun and a challenge for sure with super slow internet at my friend’s house. 🙂 I’m way behind – seeing spots before my eyes!!! 🙂
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Enjoyed this. I love gray especially in clothes.
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Gray clothes look stunning on you. On me they make me look ancient. I still wear them because I like gray! 🙂
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Hi, Marsha – Great post! Gray is honestly one of my favourite colours. I wear lots of grey clothing, and I love its use in homes and design. (I’ve also spent the past 18 months allowing my hair to find its natural gray).
You have represented this colour gorgeously!!
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Donna, I never used to like gray. Now it is popular everywhere. It is the new tan. Covid was very bad for hair dressers across the world. I have let my hair go natural and most people can’t tell the difference! It was lighter and lighter blond. I miss the blond but my husband insists that it is still there. I’m sure your hair will look young and fabulous no matter what the color. Thanks for the lovely compliments. 🙂
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Too bad. The comment field is compromised for me, and I can’t write on your blogs. I especially loved this blog. I usually abhor gray. I won’t wear it, won’t paint my walls with it, won’t eat at a restaurant with gray walls. Reading your blog has made me wax philosophical about the color.
It was so good to see you both. Kind of like a mirage or smoke and mirrors. Now you see them——now you don’t. LOL
xoxoxM
>
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Thanks, Monica. You comments come through loud and uncompromised on this end. I’m not sure what you are experiencing. I wouldn’t go with gray hair because yours looks fabulous and you still have way too much color in it. But I’ve been enjoying my gray hair. I love gray in houses especially in kitchens with white and chrome and gray backsplashes. It’s not a color I used to like, although that wig I lost on the skating rink when I was in my teens was streaked gray. Who knows why I bought that! BTW, Cindy lives on Smoke Tree Lane, and I never knew what a smoke tree was until Jean and I walked the garden. Olga told us what it was. Today I saw the hundreds of smoke trees planted along the road to Cindy’s house. We had a great time on our trip. It was so hard to leave. I’m glad we had pickleball lessons to look forward to when we returned, otherwise, I might have clung to the door frame when Vince tried to get me to the car on Sunday morning. 🙂
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Thanks for mentioning our blog challenge, Marsha. Your trip sounds fun and I’d love to see the windmills one day.
It is so good to see that wind energy is establishing itself in that area. Beneficial for the environment and for us.
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Hi Amanda. I wrote you both an email with some next steps. I’m looking forward to working together and promoting your blogs. I love windmills, but I’m not crazy being out in that kind of wind. We arrived home to strong winds, and it’s been cool and breezy here today. We should have the wind industry here in Prescott, too. 🙂
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If it is windy in Prescott, there is a need for wind turbines. Perhaps they will come in time. Is it big on solar in that area?
Re the blog post. Yes I have received the email reply. Many thanks. Looking forward to it being published. Let me know if you need more photos.
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I’m going to have to download the photos and save them. They come up with an empty attribute other wise. Yes, it’s super windy here. I’m not sure where they would put turbines because property is so expensive. But where there’s a will there’s a way. The cost of electricity is so much cheaper here than it was in CA. We paid $20 last month for electricity and we paid over $100 in CA with about 30 solar panels. It is not quite as sunny here as it was in CA, but you see quite a few newer houses with solar panels.
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The difference between electricity prices is curious. Is the a reason for the disparity?
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Part of it is that we had a house with a pool and we paid for the electricity to run our two cars and used a lot of electricity living in the country in a hot climate. The other is that now we live in a downstairs condo and the HOA fees pay for the electricity in the garage which charges our car. So we used a lot more electricity before, but even so, we were shocked at how low our bill is here. Even in a condo downstairs in Portland, which has a mild climate, fifteen years ago, the bill for my mom’s place was probably four or five times higher than ours here. So I don’t know why this is so low. I love it, though.
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Shocked in a good way, Marsha. We found pools do suck up a lot of power at our last house. No pool now, we have the ocean!
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I much prefer the ocean. We don’t have that, but there are 4 lakes here within about 5 or 6 miles. We have at least one pool at our clubhouse and lots of swimming aerobics classes to go with it. We pay a fairly large home owners association fee, but the benefits are worth it.
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We don’t have such fees here although the are some common maintenance fees that cover external walls, roofs and common areas of townhouses or flats.
The lakes near your house sound lovely .
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We enjoy it. It is a no-maintenance place – the fees cover just about everything.
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That is good to hear Marsha! Sounds like you are there for some time yet?
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That’s our intention right now. It’s perfect for us. 🙂
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That Desotos is gorgeous! They sure don’t make cars like they used to. Great examples of gray… including the turbines against the gray skies. I’ve always marveled at how huge they are.
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Isn’t that car something, Janis? It did not have a price tag on it AT ALL! Some of them did. There was one car there that was a one-of-a kind Studebaker with quite a story. I’m looking forward to telling it some day soon. I loved the windmills, too. I don’t know why I’d never taken those pictures in all the times I’ve gone by both sets – the home grown ones and the Tehachapi ones. They are huge! I did a post on the San Bernardino ones a million years ago when I first saw wind machines. The size of the wind farms overwhelmed my senses. https://tchistorygal.net/2012/11/27/sunday-post-natural-resources/
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I’ve always liked the color gray…
quite a contrast between the windmill collection and the wind farms…
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Isn’t it, though. I haven’t done research on windmills, but they’ve been around for centuries. Then suddenly in 1980 a couple of guys get the brilliant idea of using them to produce power. It’s interesting that the smaller wind machines look like the old prototype windmills. Farmers also use wind machines similar to those to heat up the air in the winter to keep oranges from freezing.
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such a versatile piece of machnery!
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I’ll see if they have any extra. Do you get any wind there, Jim?
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I guess we have normal wind patterms here…
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Well that won’t work, Jim. My offer is off the table! LOL No wind machines today!
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Oh well, I guess I’ll have to stick with my fans…
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Yes, and I’m sure you have many of them! 🙂
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🙂
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I had forgotten you were off on an adventure last week, Marsha. What a great road trip and some new photos to share! I bet it was fun being back “home” but Vegas looked fun too. I love those wind turbines around Tehachapi, shows how windy it is there. It’s a good drive through area, the road we’ve taken many times from Norcal. The little windmill farm was also cute, not enough wind to blow them I guess. I had to tell you my dad had a red De Soto complete with batman tail fin wings! Glad your trip was fun and you are home safe!
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There were two Desotos at the car show. Both of them were pristine. As we drove home towards the clouds I grabbed my cell phone and thought, “GRAY!”
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I love your grey selection Marsha, particularly those on your road trip. The grey car is a bit special too!
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Thank you Cathy. The car was spectacular inside and out. I didn’t take as many pictures of it as I should have! 🙂
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That was a ‘grey’t look at grey/gray. I found there was far more of it around me in terms of visual reminders and the ways in which great constructions are made, for example, the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I have been to Las Vegas. Yes, city of colour and lights. I found it of great interest and a wee bit over the top but took a day trip with a group to view Hoover Dam and learned a lot from that mini excursion. Denyse
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Hoover Dam is an education all by itself.I’ve seen pictures of the Sydney Harbor Bridge. Sydney is a beautiful place!
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It was amazing visiting Hoover Dam because I got to step into another State!
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Nice grey collection! It looks like you had a wonderful time away.
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We did. It was hard to leave, but we have some pickleball lessons in the morning, so we had to get back! 🙂 I’ll talk to you more tomorrow. 🙂
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Sounds good. 😁
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Ah-ha! I see exactly what you mean now, Marsha! 🙂 🙂 Beautifully done, the whole thing, from the use of the slider onwards. Many thanks for the shout out and have a great week!
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Thanks, Jo. I’m glad you like them. It’s kind of a hodge podge yard, but it stood out in my mind after I read your post. It was fun sneaking in these shots. The gray fence adds to the grayness of the post. 🙂
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Glad you had such a great trip Marsha!!!!
Grey is the new blue and the way to go show by your fabulous clicks.
sorry you missed the sun though… It’s been gorgeous my way.
💖👏👏👏👏
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It was fabulous in Woodlake, too. It was hot one or two days, but Saturday was gorgeous. We were outside on Saturday night and I needed the jacket I had brought. What a shock. Getting home this evening in Prescott was windy and cold. Brrr.
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It sounds like a whirlwind of a trip and glad you got a mirage of weather for good pics💖
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Thanks, Cindy. Yes, it was unusual. We got home and our son says, “Why didn’t you tell us, we would have come down. Way too busy!!!
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lol and of course who know what’s really true with our kids but hey it’s the gesture that counts right!💖🤣🌷
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Exactly! They tell us they won’t come here until September because they are so busy. It is so far to come, I understand. You wouldn’t think retirement is so busy, would you? Now that travel has loosened up a bit, we might be able to get up to Sacramento easier than they could come either to Woodlake or Prescott. We just weren’t sure with Covid that they would be too happy to see us. 🙂
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Not that your children aren’t complete angels.. Lol!
How does retirement get soooo busy but I totally get it now for sure. Oh I do hope you get to see them soon 💖❣️❣️❣️❣️
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Me too. They are supposed to come here this fall.
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👏👏👏👏
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