On The Road

I kind of like starting Mondays with beautiful birds from Albatrossity.  Not to mention the charming stories.  How about the rest of you?  ~WaterGirl

Albatrossity

Spring in Flyover Country continues with some songsters. Warblers and thrashers and towhees are busting out their best songs for the spring season, and they like to show off for the camera sometimes!

Manhattan KSApril 20, 2020

One of the most welcome spring arrivals is the Northern Parula warbler. These are tiny warblers, weighing in at just a bit over the mass of a hummingbird. But they are noisy, especially for their size, and their buzzy trills high in the treetops are definitely a sign of spring!

On The Road – Albatrossity – Spring in Flyover Country # 4Post + Comments (25)

It’s Friday, and we are at the end of our third full week without Alain.  Pretty sure he would have loved these pics; he would surely love that he is not forgotten.

BretH

The recent photos of old warbirds recalled to me my visit to the Military Aviation Museum in Virginia Beach. For any boy or girl who had spent hours making and painting old plastic model airplanes this was childhood come to life. While the exhibits are nice, and the people are fantastic, the jewel is the hangers full of pristine examples of WWI and WWII aircraft. They are jammed in to fit as best as they can and pretty much everything is open for spending leisurely time viewing these amazing aircraft “up close and personal”.

Military Aviation Museum, Virginia Beach, VA

P40 Warhawk (later Kittyhawk)
As my daughter and I pulled into the Museum grounds there was a car-shaking roar from overhead as their P40 was making an approach to land. I must admit my heart was taken from me right then and there, watching the living example of what I had experienced only in books and on the worktable circle overhead and land just in front of us. I had a wonderful chat with the pilot afterward, who basically shook his head at the joy of being able to fly these planes.

On The Road – BretH – Military Aviation Museum, Virginia BeachPost + Comments (19)

I am terrible with geography, but even I can tell this is New York!  New York, where the turtles completely ignore social distancing rules (caught on film!) and sheep are allowed to roam free. There really are sheep; I even googled so I wouldn’t get my hopes up for nothing.  But a picture is worth a thousand words, so take a look for yourself.  New York as we have never seen it.  ~WG

ema

A few shots from a pandemic hotspot. First we have the Avenues: Park, Madison, and 5th (all N/S, looking S).

Park Ave.

On The Road – ema – Pandemic PicsPost + Comments (16)

It’s Wednesday, otherwise known as Billin-Day, at least for awhile!  We have mission #3 today, if I’m not mistaken.  Did you guys know that Bill gets up at 2 a.m. stays up until 2 a.m. on the days when he is featured, so he can be here to interact with all of us?  We knew he was a dedicated photographer, but that’s dedication of a different sort!  Thank you, Bill.  ~WaterGirl

BillinGlendaleCA

I’d been to Mission Santa Barbara before, about 25 years ago with Madame, but I didn’t have any really good pictures. So when the local photography meetup group scheduled a trip (I did have a bit of input into the planning), I signed right up. When we arrived, we found that the interior of the Mission was not open due to maintenance on the power lines in the area. I got some good shots of the mission’s exterior, but really wanted some shots of the interior. A few weeks ago, I decided to see 3 missions in one day, with Santa Barbara being on the way home.

Mission Santa Barbara is known as the “Queen of the Missions”, was the 10th of the 21 Spanish mission founded in 1786. It is the only mission with 2 bell towers in the chapel whose construction began in 1812 and was completed in 1820 (the earlier chapels were destroyed in the 1812 earthquake). The interior of the chapel looks much the same as it did when it was completed in 1820. The bell towers suffered significant damage in the 1925 Santa Barbara earthquake, but were repaired.

Santa Barbara, CANovember 23, 2019

Mission Santa Barbara reflected in the fountain in front of the mission.

On The Road – 🐾BillinGlendaleCA – Mission Santa BarbaraPost + Comments (43)

It’s a trip to England for us today!  Great stories.  Green grass and daffodils.  Blue skies and bunnies, even if we only get to hear about the bunnies instead of seeing them.  And of course change, because change has its own cycle, and comes whether we like it or not.  ~WaterGirl

R-Jud

I’ve lived in England for 15 years. For the last seven, I’ve been dropping my daughter at her primary school, which sits in the middle of a country park just outside the southern edge of Birmingham. Our routine looks like this:

• Grab a taxi at 8:20
• Arrive at the petrol station nearest the school at 8:30, purchase a coffee and a hot chocolate
• Drink our drinks while moseying the not-quite-a-quarter-mile to the school gate (parking is so scarce, and the school so awkwardly situated among residential streets, that all parents have to do this)
• Drop the child at the gate around 8:40, dispose of cups
• Run the three miles back home

If weather permits, I start my run in High House Wood, the bit of forest nearest to her school. It’s high on a ridge of hills known as the Lickey Hills. This area can be boggy after persistent rain, is frequently wrapped in thick fog, and will sometimes be thinly coated in snow dotted with animal prints: rabbits and squirrels, mostly, but sometimes fallow deer and badgers. There’s a monument in High House Wood, too– a colossal obelisk most people believe is a WWI memorial. It’s not; it is dedicated to the 5th Earl of Plymouth, the fantastically named Other Windsor (1751-1799), who used to own most of the land around here.

It’s a short jog from the monument over to the Lickey Beacon, where one can look north toward Birmingham, the Black Country, and (on clear days) Cannock Chase or the Brecon Beacons. As a boy, J.R.R. Tolkien lived in a cottage at the foot of these hills. He would ramble in the woods, which are full of immense old oaks looking very like Ents who’ve gone a bit slow.

I take a lot of pictures of this area– because it’s picturesque, because I like to document the changing seasons, because I’m not terribly keen to get to work sometimes. Here are a few from the last school run on March 17th. And I do mean “last”–schools here are closed through the end of the year, most likely, and the Child will head to secondary school in the autumn. If I’m going back to High House Wood again this year, it will have to be a special trip. I’ll miss having it as part of my daily routine.

Lickey BeaconMarch 17, 2020

Here’s a view of the Lickey Beacon. The little castle, which contains a toposcope, was erected by the Cadbury family (yes, them, the chocolate people). They gave this land to the city. There’s a good view of Birmingham and the surrounding area from there. Those long sight lines have been capitalised upon since Roman times, when there was an actual beacon here.

On The Road – R-Jud – High House Wood, Worcestershire, EnglandPost + Comments (29)

Albatrossity

My first new submission to On the Road since Alain’s passing is still a celebration of spring, but tinged with sadness and regret that he could not be here to see the world with us.

Gulls and shorebirds and sparrows are now abundant, and passing through flyover country, but in a northbound direction. Some of these birds have a long ways to go still, others will end up in the prairie pothole region of the Dakotas and Canadian prairie provinces. All of them are in a hurry in the spring, particularly the long-distance migrants, because summer is short in the Arctic and days are precious.

Manhattan KSApril 28, 2018

But first a photo of something that Alain would have appreciated – wild mushrooms. We don’t get the king bolete here in Kansas, but in terms of tastiness, morels are a close second. Here’s a harvest from a couple of years ago. We usually eat some and freeze-dry most of them so that we can enjoy them in stews and pasta dishes year-round.

On The Road – Albatrossity – Spring in Flyover Country #3Post + Comments (29)

In the spirit of On the Road, we are here to take time to live in the moment, to see the beauty and joy around us, and to create peace wherever we can.  Today, we end the week with beautiful photos of what appears to be a very lovely city in Washington!  ~WaterGirl

Mike in Oly

I honor of staying home, I thought I’d share some photos from around my hometown of Olympia, WA.  Olympia, sitting at the southernmost point of the Salish Sea, was incorporated as a city in 1946 but was inhabited by small settlements and tribal peoples long before that. It is currently the cultural heart of the South Sound and has a very lefty political leaning, which makes a strong blue block, along with Seattle and surroundings, that now dominates State politics. I’ve lived here since 1995 and I love this little city of just over 46,000 (tho in reality we’re a tri-cities area with about 100,000 give or take). We have an abundance of breathtaking natural views, beautiful parks, and a thriving downtown core heavily influenced by the arts. Hope you enjoy a peek into my city.

Olympia, WA

The State Capitol dome in springtime. When it was built it was the largest dome of its kind in the US. I enjoy hunting for new angles to photograph it from.

On The Road – Mike in Oly – Olympia, WAPost + Comments (25)

If I had a backyard like this, with deer hanging out, and a hot air balloon overhead… I am not sure I would think of it as “just my backyard”!  I suspect that I am alone in that.  ~WaterGirl

Catherine D.

I find my sorta mowed and ungardened backyard very peaceful. It’s shielded by trees and hedges from my next-door neighbors, and there’s no one directly behind me.

Ithaca NYDecember 6, 2008

This picture was taken during hunting season in December 2008, when I looked out to see 14 deer lounging away from all the Elmer Fudds. We don’t have nearly as many deer now as then because of a sterilization program.

On The Road – Catherine D. – Just in my backyardPost + Comments (25)

Today we have the second entry in Bill’s “Mission” series.  We saw the first one, Mission San Buenaventura, on April 1st.  We’ll see the third one next week, and will be treated to the final one the week after that.

I don’t know about you, but the last photo below is the room that I would most like to hang out in. I feel more calm, just looking at it, picturing myself sitting there.  ~WG

BillinGlendaleCA

La Purisima Mission is different in several ways from the other missions in southern California. First, it’s in a rural setting about 4 miles northeast of Lompoc California. Second, it’s one of 2 of the 21 Spanish missions that is not still owned and operated by the Catholic church being instead a State Historical Park. Third, given it’s status as a historical park as opposed to a working church and it’s rural location and size, it recreates mission life of the early 1800’s with livestock (cows, horses, burros, and pigs) and less manicured though maintained landscape.

La Purisima was founded in 1787, originally a mile south of Lompoc (now the southern end of F Street with some ruins remaining) and moved here in the early 1800’s after an earthquake destroyed the original mission. This earthquake occurred on December 21, 1812 also destroyed the chapel at Mission Santa Barbara though was separate from the earthquake earlier in the month (December 8) that destroyed the Great Stone Church at San Juan Capistrano and the bell tower at Mission San Gabriel. The mission fell into disrepair after the missions were secularized in the 1830’s. Archaeological digs and restoration were undertaken in the 1930’s with most of the construction being done by the CCC. Many of the other missions have portions that are not open to the public, so rooms may have been repurposed for church business.

This may have been the first mission that I visited, but I would have been about 4 years old, so my recollections are a bit vague.

Lompoc, CAMarch 6, 2020

Pathway to the La Purisima mission cemetery on the left and main chapel to it’s right.

On The Road – 🐾BillinGlendaleCA – La Purisima MissionPost + Comments (23)

A lovely chateau, green gardens, and a floofy kitty, sleeping.  What more could we ask of today’s example of joy and beauty around us?  ~WaterGirl

Auntie Anne

I fell in love with the chateaux de la Loire when I was 14; my French teacher had a series of posters of the chateaux in her classroom. The most romantic of them all in my mind will always be Chenonceau.

In 2017, I fulfilled one of my bucket list items by visiting France, and particularly, the Loire region.

Just as historical context, Henry II gave Chenonceau to Diane de Poitiers in 1547. She had the gallery over the river Cher built, and added extensive gardens. After Henry’s death, his queen, Catherine de’Medici, took over. Catherine added gardens as well.

ChenonceauMay 19, 2017

The approach to the chateau

On The Road – Auntie Anne – Chateaux de ChenonceauPost + Comments (27)

Albatrossity has gifted us with another installment of Spring in Flyover Country.  The third one will be next week.  ~WaterGirl

Albatrossity

Here’s the next installment of images and information from the Flint Hills of Kansas, aka flyover country.

Spring is proceeding regardless, as avian migrants leave here, pass through, or return for the summer. The controlled burning season is mostly past us now, although there are still a few smoke columns on the horizon most days, and the Swainson’s Hawks, freshly back from the pampas, patrol the fire lines and pounce on any rodent or snake fleeing the flames. Trees are flowering, birds are singing, and all in all it can feel like a normal spring when you are out in the natural world. I recommend it, if it is possible in your part of the galaxy.

The Flint Hills of KansasApril 8, 2020

The last installment featured a vista of a lone bur oak in a Flint Hills pasture, entitled “Waiting for the fire”. The fire got here. So here’s the before-and-after. The after image shows you why these hills are still covered in tall grass prairie. The soil is very thin and full of sharp flinty rocks that dissuaded early settlers from plowing it up. The rich soils of Illinois, the erstwhile “Prairie State” had no such impediments to the plow, and that is why prairie disappeared from that state almost entirely. Tallgrass prairie is an endangered ecosystem; compared to the iconic endangered ecosystem, old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest, it has been reduced in size to a much greater extent. I feel fortunate to live here.

On The Road – Albatrossity – Spring in Flyover Country #2Post + Comments (38)

Today we have…  Poppies!  I doubt that satby will be the only one who will be ecstatic seeing all these gorgeous orange flowers.  ~WaterGirl

Dmbeaster

Despite a slow rainy season, late season rains were enough for a gorgeous poppy display this year.  The poppies grow from both seeds and multiyear tubers, and the tubers can flower well in drier years.  The wildflowers that frequently accompany the poppies are more dependent on the rains, and are more muted this year.  But the poppy fields were very nice.

The Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve is located in the far western extent of the Mojave Desert, about 20 miles west of Palmdale and Lancaster on the north edge of the Transverse Ranges.  The Reserve itself was closed due to the pandemic, but the flowers extended well beyond the Reserve boundaries.  These pictures were taken from a dirt road traversing an area a few miles east of the Reserve.  But there were views like this throughout the area.

On The Road – Dmbeaster – Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve, April 5, 2020Post + Comments (40)

With only one photo and no description, it’s possible that this was a test submission from Sharks. But it’s such an absolutely gorgeous picture, who cares?  If we see it again as part of a larger set, I won’t mind a bit!

Our celebration of beauty and joy continues, let’s make the most of today.  ~WaterGirl

Sharks

On The Road – Sharks – Beau Bois Castle Comfort DominicaPost + Comments (20)

Our celebration of beauty and joy continues – let’s make the most of today.  It’s Wednesday, and Bill is taking us somewhere we haven’t been before, on a hike (alone) with his Dad!  ~WaterGirl

BillinGlendaleCA

Just prior to the current unpleasantness shut down most activity in California, I paid a visit to the town where I grew up. I’ve not been back much since we sold off the house I grew up in after my mom’s passing in the late 80’s, but I wanted to return for a hike to Paradise Falls.

Paradise Falls is along the north fork of the Arroyo Conejo about a mile before it joins the south fork in Hill Canyon. The area was pretty undeveloped and being used for westerns (one season of Gunsmoke was filmed there) until the eastern portion was developed in the late 60’s. The western portion was acquired by the city as open space, now known as Wildwood Regional Park. There was even a fort at the eastern access to the arroyo.

In my teen years my dad and I explored the heights of Montcleff Ridge, the Indian Cave and often visited Paradise Falls. I believe the last time we made this hike was in 1977. I didn’t hike much after I went off to UCLA and dad passed away during my senior year, and I never really got back into hiking until recently.

This hike has been on my todo list for a while and I’ve not done it mainly due to traffic on weekdays and the prospect of crowds on weekends. With California pretty much starting to shutdown third week of March with traffic being almost non-existent, I decided to go. I took the same route that we took the last time we hiked there 43 years ago and not much had changed. Some of the arroyo crossings were a bit more developed and the area around the falls has a few more railings to keep folk from falling in the drink.

As Vice President Biden said, the thought of your (loved one), brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye. Dad seemed old then, now I realize after completing that hike, I’m older now than he was then.

Wildwood Regional Park, Thousand Oaks, CAMarch 18, 2020

Path down the middle of the plain between Montcleff Ridge on the north and the Arroyo Conejo canyon to the south. Lizard Rock looms in the distance.

On The Road – 🐾BillinGlendaleCA – Paradise Falls – Hiking Alone (with Dad)Post + Comments (33)

cckids

The Skagit Valley in Washington is known for their gorgeous tulips and daffodils. I never knew so many types existed before moving here, but have made an annual trip north of Seattle each April to view the carpets of colors and varieties. That, sadly, won’t be happening this spring, but I thought I’d share some of the lovely array of flowers that are there.

Most of these are from the gardens at RoozenGarde; a local floral Disneyland, with acres of blooms, a windmill, and about a dozen meticulously planned and planted garden areas, each one unique and stunning. And of course the gift shop, where you can get bulbs or tschotkes to your heart’s content.

The company was founded by a Dutch immigrant who came to WA in the 1940’s; his family has been growing tulips since the 1700’s; it is still run by his descendants, and employs hundreds of locals. So, if you’re in the Western US, buy some tulips!

I’ve never made it there when the sun was shining, which would probably make the colors even more vivid, but despite the clouds and my lack of photo skills, it would be hard to not capture some of the beauty that is all around.

I love walking through the fields; the rows of color stretching away are impressive, like bright fluffy soldiers. Here’s an article about the tulip festival (cancelled, natch) with drone shots of the fields, like the world’s biggest rainbow flag.

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