Musings

Today we left causeway-world. But not before we did important things.

Like playing with the macro lens.

Including looking at an eroded sand dollar, complete with sand grains.

We watched birds, including the cruising small-packs of pelicans.

There was of course lots of laughing and some tale-telling. We read, we relaxed. Life was darned pleasant.

Just as we were organizing ourselves in the parking lot to depart, a rainbow section emerged.

Sigh. And now the salt-water coast is behind us.

Posted at 11:17 PM | Comments Off on Bittersweet ultimate

The title is apt for our day; we did cover some ground. We also kinda went underground through this tunnel. I could not even read the last line of the sign “No trucks except standard height…” because, irony of ironies, truck-roofs had so damaged it that the letters have been bashed to near-oblivion.

We also went through tunnels of trees. The green is beginning to pop. (Apologies for the insect grease.)

Then we made it to the ocean! Yay, Atlantic! Substantial marine layer for after noon…. Thanks, K!

Southbound, we dodged some serious traffic, as the Day-tone-uh race (rrrrrrrr) was underway as we slipped south past it, keeping thousands of vehicles in actual parking lots and not out on the roads. Above we could see the Wingfoot One, but without the customary Goodyear name…and instead a hashtag advertising a Goodyear ad-video that will premier tomorrow.

Safely past the motor mecca, we headed for a place that advertised it’s fine view. Walking through the parking lot, we were glad we found a regular space, as apparently handicapped vehicles get special avian…attention…the kind that can damage the paint job.

Turns out the restaurant gave us seats to a terrific sunset show, and decent enough food. Won’t go back, but it was perfect for this evening.

Tired, we reached our destination. Yawn. G’night.

Posted at 9:08 PM | Comments Off on Covered some ground

Rural small towns in the Deep South: you will find churches, but not usually this large and fancy.

You will also find evidence that there used to be more buildings.

Go far enough south, and you will see Spanish moss (not a moss at all) festooning the trees, often oaks.

Monocropping trends towards trees and…

…cotton (decorative sample). Also pecans and sometimes peanuts (neither pictured).

The soils tend to be sandy, sometimes nearly white. You may see horse hoofprints.

And you know you’re in a small town when the restaurant puts the game to keep the kids occupied out in the street.

* (Chinese) Happy New Year!

Posted at 9:05 PM | Comments Off on Gung Hei Fat Choi!

This story-of-the-day’s-walk is self explanatory and has no plot: Look! A Dekay’s brown snake! Right there!

The other story takes longer to write although I took it in in about three glances. I have no picture* for it—too scary-sad for my personal taste. We were walking down a side street—no traffic, and the road was smoother than the sidewalks. And I saw up ahead lots of small pieces of broken, rotten branches. I said, oooooh, I’m not walking right there; looks like that tree is shedding! Then I realized that the small black car parked along the curb had four star-breaks in the windshield—thankfully, not broken all the way. But.

* In the kale-substitute photo, I quite how the droplets are lensing the sky above….

Posted at 6:58 PM | Comments Off on No moguls here

To me, both of these photos could spur a great story. Several, yes? First, the companionable, colorful, unoccupied chair trio….

And this one…. It’s hard to figure, no? At first glance, abstract shapes, but not regular. Turns out the grayish features are the surfacing, struggling roots of a good-sized tree trapped between a sidewalk and curb perhaps two feet apart—struggling to obtain water, nutrients, and whatever is “goodie” to a tree. Between the roots are moss and pockets of twigs and dried leaves…a forgotten, ignored mini-landscape.

Posted at 6:41 PM | Comments Off on Compose a story

Part of the winter mode includes the dry husks of last year’s maturation processes…in this case a tulip poplar husk.

On the other end of the spectrum—these Daphne buds ready to spring into early…spring.

Posted at 9:02 PM | Comments Off on Time lines

Light and shadow…analogous to the stock market today?

Posted at 9:02 PM | Comments Off on Dunno

Yeah, there’s still snow. And the birds might well be confused…as in: where’re the tasty bits that were here the other day?

Confused about days myself. Monday was a holiday. Tuesday was distorted because it was the first work-weekday (and yet not a Monday), and a snowstorm loomed. The snow came in the Wednesday wee hours and Wednesday…so, city closed down. Today, city still “paralyzed” by snow and ice. But today is supposed to be warmer…and it can only be another distorted weekday. Right?

So, how do you describe this week? The work-week* part of it?

* Are work-weeks real after all? Seems to me that most of my jobs had weekday- and weekend-paced days, but all were capable of being days I worked.

Posted at 7:54 PM | 1 Comment »

It seems to me I used to say we get snow every other year or so here in ATL…our neighborhood anyway. Not this winter…we’re on our second pretty-much-cover-the-grass snowfall. We had a bit more this morning when the snow stopped, but all day it stayed cold—and shady in this location—so the white stuff is hanging around. For now.

Posted at 7:04 PM | Comments Off on Snow garden

We’re looping today…I’m posting a few pictures from the last few days that I didn’t have access to on each day…you see, it gets complicated to remember charging cables and downloading cables…you know, the Stuff that goes with the Things you choose to take on your trip. Or that we did. Sooooo, we neglected a certain download cable, so these are harvested from the camera that I didn’t have access to each day.

This is a log version of one of those square-footprint buildings that we saw in, was it Virginia?

And this is a view from the east side of the National Gallery across an interesting art-inhabited plaza toward what the Goo indicates is the library of the Art Research for the NG. Which I assume is correct. Anyway…I really liked the juxtaposition of the circle of bollard-stubs around the glittering triangle-shapes. And water-features.

In the Air and Space Museum, this was the reflection on a nose-cone? Not sure…but fascinating.

And a fine view of the capitol atop Capitol Hill, showing how builders carved into the hill to make the building’s lower tiers. Kinda like the remaining parts of Nero’s Domus Aurea and various constructions along the lower flanks of the Palatine Hill in Rome. Well, many other places, too, and not only in Rome. Maybe it’s just an obvious engineering solution to occupying a steep slope if there’s plenty of labor and building stone. Maybe.

Sunshine means shadows. And I loved these fence-lines flanking our route across rural Maryland horse-country. Expensive horse-flesh gets expensive fences that are protective, but unlikely to mar or scar that flesh. And safe fences make good shadows.

This pair of water towers once stood over an industrial factory zone. I’m pretty sure. This was in NC, not far from the SC border, if I remember correctly.

We’re glad to be home, but today was a chores day, and limited in the visual capture department…so I rely on a few recent days to…entertain(?) you, Gentle Reader….

Posted at 9:21 PM | 1 Comment »