Karen Jacot / the blog » travel

more hawaii–the volanoes

Karen — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 15:45:30 +0000

hawaii in color

Karen — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 22:07:52 +0000

film friday

Karen — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 02:00:30 +0000

Just back from nine days on Hawaii’s Big Island. Incredible vacation. I shot two rolls of b&w film (expired Ilford XP2) while we were there.

What you see that looks like smoke in a couple pictures is actually steam coming out of cracks in the ground from the volcano we were on. Rainwater seeps into the ground and gets heated up by the hot magma underneath. And some of it stinks like rotten eggs.

napa, the other photos

Karen — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 02:33:31 +0000

back home

Karen — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 05:47:05 +0000

I said I’d update once a week, right? And I believe I’m slipping this one in just under the wire. It counts.

Vegas was a blast and I fit in all the things I’d hoped to, including a fantastic spa treatment at the Sahra Spa & Hammam at the new Cosmopolitan hotel there. I want to go back, like, now.

I’m gonna keep this short so I can get it posted before midnight. A few pics, starting with a self-portrait at the Vegas airport, waiting in line for a taxi. (I’m all about self-portraits.)

“Is it time to let the dogs out?”

Karen — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 14:23:55 +0000

This week I am in Vegas. My plans are to see a show, eat a good meal or two, visit a couple spas, and have some good cocktails. And fit in some time at the tables in between that. (And points to whoever recognizes the movie line in my title.)

I really dug back into the archives for this photo…this is from July 2003, looking down the Strip from my room at Mandalay Bay. Shot on film.

new year, new start

Karen — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 18:01:23 +0000

The Most Intelligent, Attractive, and Hilarious Blogger in the State of South Carolina, also known as my friend Stinky, is challenging herself to blog once a week, with a few rules. She’s a lawyer, so she knows how to make the right kinds of rules. I decided to challenge myself to the same thing. Same rules, too, since she already did the work of coming up with them.

I’m starting small. With snowflakes. It doesn’t snow much in Houston. (Understatement.) So I’ve been waiting a while to photograph snowflakes. We spent Christmas in Colorado, and I shot these with my macro lens on my MIL’s back deck as snow fell last Thursday. I used construction paper to catch them for some color & contrast so they would show up well.

wine country

Karen — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 00:40:19 +0000

A few days ago I bought a deal on jasmere.com for a photo book from blurb.com. I’ve been wanting to try them out so their deal–$22 for $55 worth of books from Blurb–gave me the perfect incentive to try them.

So now I have to decide what kind of a book to make. Travel? A week in the life? A month in the life? Wines I try? Photo a day? What would you make a book of?

I haven’t posted here in so long that these photos are technically archives now. From our trip to Napa & Sonoma Valleys this past summer. It was my first time to visit Northern California’s wine country, even though it’s the best known in the U.S. I had previously visited wineries in lots of other states–Oregon & Washington, also known for good wine, but also some more unlikely states, like Colorado, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York. And even in Southern California when I lived there.

Well, people, I absolutely loved Napa. And Sonoma, although we only managed to spend one day there. There’s just so much. So much good wine to try. So much good food. So much good mud (I had a mud bath at a spa–they said it was good for the skin). So much to look at.

vegas 2010

Karen — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 15:59:26 +0000

A couple weeks ago Jeff and I went to Vegas for a few days of playing. We try to go every year…it’s the only place I vacation that I keep going back to regularly. What I love about Vegas is that everyone (on the Strip, anyway) is on vacation, so you’re always surrounded by people who are just having fun. And I love how over-the-top it all is. It’s a surreal week in some ways but it’s so much fun.

mommune 2010

Karen — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 02:27:38 +0000

I’m late with this post (what’s new?). Two weeks ago I took Lyle to upstate New York to hang out with friends for a week. Not just a few friends, but a LOT of friends, from all over the U.S. (and one who came from London). Mostly moms and kids, with a few husbands thrown into the mix, too. At the highest point I think there were 17 kids and nearly as many adults. We slept in various spots in two big houses–the host’s and her mother-in-law’s house next door. We spent the days hanging out and talking. We cooked together and ate together–there was always something happening in the kitchen. The kids played together and loved it–the house full of toys, all the other kids, the snow outside.

Lyle was particularly enamored of a 6-month-old baby who laughed with him the very first night we arrived–Lyle referred to him the rest of the week as “that baby I make laugh.” He also really liked “the boy in the orange shirt,” even on the subsequent days when the boy was no longer wearing an orange shirt.