Winter Light

Stairway to Pinebank Promontory overlooking Jamica Pond, part of the Emerald Necklace Parks designed by Edward Law Olmstead.

Ether Monument / Good Samaritan

This 40-foot-tall monument in the Public Garden near the corner of Beacon Street and Arlington Street commemorates not a person, but a medical breakthrough: the use of ether as an anesthetic. The first public demonstration of ether anesthesia was conducted at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1846 by Boston dentist William T.G. Morton and Doctor John Collins Warren. Morton administered the ether, and Warren then removed a tumor from an unconscious patient. Ether had enormous benefits, allowing doctors to work more closely and carefully, and giving patients a respite not only from pain, but also from the anxiety associated with surgery. Atop the monument, two figures sculpted by John Quincy Adams Ward enact a Biblical story about the relief of suffering. The Good Samaritan is shown caring for an injured stranger he met on the road.

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Description from Boston Arts Commission

The Rusty Rim

When we first visited Cedar Key in December of 1988, the Rusty Rim was a well-established restaurant on the Dock known as The Captain's Table. Down through the years, the Captain's Table disappeared and other eateries came on the scene. The last of these was called The Rusty Rim. Back in the good old days, a pier jutted out from the restaurant into the Gulf of Mexico. We loved to sit on that pier and watch the sun go down while drinking frozen margaritas.

We can't do that anymore. Due to various storms and a fire which occurred a couple of years ago, there isn't much left to the building. In fact, that's what you see in these photos - what's left. It's sad, but time moves on, and we're hoping that some other entrepreneur will come along and open a new, Florida-style restaurant. If that happens, we'll be at the head of the line.

Brewer Fountain: Detail

The Drakensberg Amphitheatre

The Amphitheatre must surely be the most recognised and best know feature of the Drakensberg and looked down over us while we were camping in the Royal Natal National Park in December.  

The Amphitheatre is over 5 kilometers in length and the cliffs along its entire face is about 1 220 meters high at average.  The source of the Tugela River is up in this section of the Drakensberg and the Tugela Falls, the second highest waterfall in the world after the Angel Falls in South America, plunges 948 meters over the side of the Amphitheatre.

I took the photo from the dam close to the Royal Natal National Park Reception building early one windless morning.