My January is half melancholy, half relief. I slip back into well-worn patterns, and find comfort in the familiar. There is beauty there, and surprises too. Ailsa’s Travel Theme, Routine, made me think of these — glimpses of other people’s ordinary moments. 1. Early commuters streaming to work in São Paulo. An hour earlier, I ambled through the sleeping city to São … Continue reading
I love this week’s travel challenge by Ailsa: Waves. So many memories come to mind, but here are five favorites. Smooth waves of petrified sand at Antelope Canyon, with its neighbors Owl and Rattlesnake Canyons easily the most breathtaking landscape I’ve explored, ageless and intimate 2. Sinuous streaks of lava on Hawaii’s Big Island — … Continue reading
This week’s travel theme, “Below,” made me think of the serenity I felt while looking down on Harpers Ferry, where the Potomac and the Shenandoah rivers meet. It was a fine autumn day, and we decided to explore Maryland Heights, the highest of the mountains overlooking the town. Here’s what we saw: Your journey can begin … Continue reading
It is almost time. It may snow next week, but — no matter. The trees are waking up, the earth sighs with its first blooms, the birds are looking for mates. Spring is about to burst. And in DC, spring means Pink, like Ailsa’s Travel Theme this week, the pink of the cherry blossoms. My … Continue reading
This week’s Photo Challenge is Object. Here’s mine — an object I almost overlooked: the Golden Plover of the Ahu’ena Heiau, the temple that Kamehameha the Great chose as his own when he returned to the Big Island a king of the Hawaiian archipelago in 1812. It perches atop Koleamoku, the god of healing, the tallest of the heiau’s carvings. … Continue reading
This week’s WordPress’s Photo Challenge is Juxtaposition. Here are some images that sprang to mind: 1. Two soldiers lost in conversation at the Gettysburg 150th National Civil War Battle Reenactment 2. An idyllic statue of James and Dolley Madison against reconstructed slave quarters at their Montpelier estate 3. A colorful kite against the weathered walls of El Morro, … Continue reading
I love this week’s travel theme from Where’s My Backpack: Fragrant. Just think of the fragrance, and the memory comes alive. The musty smell of fallen leaves is the foggy morning at Rijster Bosch, Netherlands: Warm aromas of hot cider and burning wood are this gentle sledding hill at the Blackwater Falls State Park, West … Continue reading
Cee’s photo challenge is Two. Here are mine: 1. A mountain and its reflection in the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, in winter 2. Two benches, shrouded in cherry petals along the Tidal Basin, last spring 3. Two fully open lotus flowers at the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens in summer 4. Bison, resting on Antelope Island in the Great … Continue reading
Ailsa’s travel theme challenge this week is Connections. Here are some of mine: 1. Locking eyes with an osprey at the Dyke Marsh Wildlife Preserve 2. Reliving the past at George Washington’s Mount Vernon 3. Listening to sheep cry out to each other in the fog near Rijsterbos 4. Watching for our destination on the Grand Canyon Railway … Continue reading
I have been gone for far too long from this little page of mine. Ailsa’s weekly challenge is here to the rescue: This week’s theme is Deep. Deep like the tunnels of San Cristóbal in Puerto Rico. Down-down they go to the dungeon, with its walls peeling, grooves for explosives over your head, and–the centerpiece of … Continue reading
Dance is this week’s travel theme from Where’s My Backpack? So, here we go, a collection of colorful frolicking from the months past. A king and the Maypole at the Maryland’s Renaissance Festival: Montresor and Fortunato, doomed by Poe long ago, stumbling over the bones at the Westminster Hall & Burying Ground: Performers practicing backstage at the DC Turkish … Continue reading
I did not have to travel far for my contribution to this week’s Travel Challenge: Pale. Spring is taking its time to reach the garden this year. But, at long last, one of my woodland favorites is here: Jeffersonia dyphilla is venturing its first white blooms. This lovely native wildflower was named after Thomas Jefferson … Continue reading
This week’s photo challenge is Home: “share a picture that evokes HOME for you.“ Apart from my family–the one I was born to, and the one that grew around me over the years–my home is the garden that embraces our house. When I garden, I imagine myself the Little Prince, tending his planet against the catastrophe of … Continue reading
“Walls,” this week’s Where’s My Backpack travel theme challenge, made me think of Barboursville Ruins, tucked away along Virginia’s Monticello Wine Trail. This yawning brick skeleton is all that remains of the grand mansion designed by the local demigod, Thomas Jefferson, for his friend James Barbour, Governor of Virginia and, later, the US Secretary of War. The … Continue reading
This week’s photo challenge is Love. As I close my eyes and think of it, several images assemble, each a memorable moment from someplace that comforted or surprised me. Here are five of them. 1. The feisty old goat Crackerjack snuggling with his friend at the Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary, one of my favorite peaceful places. 2. The … Continue reading
Transplanted Tatar 