Musings

We joined the highway hoards returning to their nests after holiday adventures (eating, shopping, hopefully laughing), and found these junque-laden Joads on the move. The retired schoolbus was packed and the maroon crossover(?) seemed the spriteliest vehicle of the bunch by far.

Note in this snap and the previous one that the traffic was heavier in the other direction. For something like 50 miles of interstate it must have averaged about 30mph. We only had momentary slow-downs in comparison. Don’t know the temporary migration patterns that would produce this differential.

We stopped in Pascagoula to stretch our legs at a park across from this pier. I surmise that all had been rebuilt after Katrina (now way back) in 2005.

The park had a shallow wading pool with misters that could have been no more than ankle deep on a toddler when activated. Off to the side was a sign: “Please rub top of bollard to activate.” The Guru looked at it and said, “You first.”

We looked for a seafood place along the Gulf. The first choice was up on super tall pillars with a great view, but closed for cleanup (not cleaning). Ooops. But it was next to a marina full of working boats with nets not crab/lobster pots, which of course was very interesting.

We continued along the shore and found this place, not up on pillars, but still with a fine view of the water from the dining room.

These nifty new phones/cameras are wonderful. These are the colors of the sunset. Ignore the insect blotches, plz.

Deciding that it’d be wiser to get a needed car wash before we got to the desert, we went through the Wall of Foam (blue sign), and got the worst of the accumulated gunk (nastiness of oak residue was particularly worrisome on the hood) removed.

There wasn’t any other traffic on the old US highway we took instead of the interstate parallel to the shore, and the Guru stopped so I could nudge the phone/camera into the land of computational photography. It was darned dark out, but it captured the bridge superstructure as well as a few stars in the night sky. Oh, boy, we’ll have fun experimenting this whole trip!

Posted at 4:26 PM | No Comments »

Asters are so autumnal.

Especially aesthetic autumnal.

Warning: change is coming to our weather overnight!

Posted at 6:52 PM | No Comments »

Beautiful shade of purple, and unexpected in a grass.

Assorted smallish tall objects.

BeltLine art and Ponce City Market, the former Sears Roebuck building.

Lantana blooms and berries.

Very small puffballs.

I pondered composing a screed about the inefficiency of bureaucracy, but: too familiar, too boring.

Posted at 6:23 PM | No Comments »

Free library in a churchyard. Did not check the titles….

Mild experimentation with wide-angle capabilities.

Posted at 6:26 PM | Comments Off on Wide

Yesterday our neighborhood Kroger re-opened. Or, at least, there was a Kroger here, but there’s a totally new building now, complete with two parking garages (one underground), and a high-rise apartment building. Far right is an old building on a different property. We made our first visit this morning. We passed on the Halloween swag, tasted a few of the offerings scattered throughout the store, and talked to several kindly and helpful employees. Two of three referred to a map to tell us where things were—Bob’s Red Mill dried-bean soup mix (one only, but not the one we like); organic fresh Italian sausage (none).

They are trying for a new identifier. Locally this used to be called the Murder Kroger (after a parking lot event, if I have it right), or Wino Kroger by the Guru. One edge of the store is the Beltline, so: Beltline Kroger.

Here’s the view from the Beltline. Note the blue bow on the column, left.

While most bins, shelves, and cases were nicely filled, with all items tidily aligned, this prepared-food section was empty. Someone decided that empty containers with post-its was better than totally empty. If the handwriting had been clearer, I could have browsed the offerings-to-be.

The checkout lady—we did serve yourself—was very helpful with corrections…five packages of 12-oz Starbucks coffee were supposed to be $5.99 each, but they rang up at the regular price ($7.99), not even the sale price (apiece)—$6.49. Plus, we were gifted some onions that weren’t in the menu at all.

We came out with assorted fresh veggies (salad stuff mostly), some uncured pancetta, and a few other grocs (e.g., coffee!!), plus their idea of a “Hawaiian” poké salad (fine, not exceptional; made for a more interesting lunch than we were going to have). We’ll go back….

Posted at 6:45 PM | Comments Off on Krogerized

…spider. Duh. Secondarily: the sparkles in the web.

…potted plant. Secondarily: the geometric pillows.

…riotous autumnal shapes.

Posted at 7:12 PM | Comments Off on It’s about the…

Proof that we’re southbound. Also, proof that it was sunny early on.

We drove into rain, and never out. Some stretches had incipient rain, but the perception was that rain would restart any moment.

We made the NC transportation museum our big stop. It’s centered on a roundhouse, but I even saw a dugout canoe and motorcycles. My digital dictionary indicates cow-catcher is hyphenated; coulda fooled me.

Wagon hub. Looks like a fancy locking pin.

Have no idea why forty men and eight horses.

Dusty, chrome-laden car.

Aha! Stone Mountain.

Aha! Atlanta traffique.

Posted at 9:41 PM | Comments Off on Homeward (no angel)

Probably should have used this yesterday with my discussion about textiles. Only this is with cotton or something mimicking cotton.

Almost COLD this morning. Almost autumnal. Yay!

Haven’t heard a prediction on this, but I’m assuming we’ll get some rain here in Big-A-town from the spinning bands generated by the coming storm…Monday? Tuesday?

Posted at 8:38 PM | Comments Off on Please stand by

Among assorted post-trip photo-processing chores, I added selected images to our “screen-saver” collection. Great fun! And we can play the collection…anywhere.

The Guru does the complicated stuff, like geolocating images from the camera that does not support texting or phone calls; that takes real time and know-how!

Posted at 7:30 PM | Comments Off on Techno-missions

I am possibly too fascinated by the patterns I see in nature, especially in plants.

First big magnolia blossom I’ve noticed this year.

White and green is not a reference to MooU. It just looks like it might be.

Posted at 9:23 PM | Comments Off on Variations in white and green