Paul in Jacksonville
Final Round on sunrise and sunset.
Sunrise. Gatlinburg TN, 2018, with a small patch of fog.
On The Road – Paul in Jacksonville – Sunrise, Sunset ReduxPost + Comments (16)
by WaterGirl| 16 Comments
This post is in: On The Road, Photo Blogging
Final Round on sunrise and sunset.
Sunrise. Gatlinburg TN, 2018, with a small patch of fog.
On The Road – Paul in Jacksonville – Sunrise, Sunset ReduxPost + Comments (16)
by WaterGirl| 24 Comments
This post is in: On The Road, Photo Blogging
Images from just over two decades. from the mundane to the (imho) the remarkable. Collection 1 of 2.
Sunrise Boca Raton, FL 2010, taken from a bridge over one of the hundreds of man made canals designed to drain the Everglades.
On The Road – Paul in Jacksonville – Sunrise, SunsetPost + Comments (24)
by WaterGirl| 9 Comments
This post is in: On The Road, Photo Blogging
Part 2 of a week-long stay in Arizona back in April 2022. Memories of lots of pollen, but photos of some interesting architecture, landscapes, flowers and a few birbs…
Having shown an image on the path to the Agate house in the prior post, I realized that it would be remiss of me to not also show the Agate house itself for completeness – so here it is. Made out of petrified logs of varying hues, it is definitely worth the short walk to see, even if some horned larks distract along the way. Constructed around 900 and occupied for about 400 years, it seems built to withstand anything.
On The Road – Winter Wren – April 2022 in Arizona – Part 2 (of 2)Post + Comments (9)
by WaterGirl| 14 Comments
This post is in: On The Road, Photo Blogging
The first trip that involved air travel that my wife and I took after “peak” Covid (or at least so we hope!) was to visit Arizona for a week. It was pretty much our first real vacation in over two years, although we had done some commuting by car to FL to break up the dreary New England winters. Maybe the blogfather will be inspired by these for some local travel before the Arizona heat gets oppressive.
We spent part of our first day in Phoenix before heading to Peoria. I took the opportunity to hike a trail to Piestawa Peak, which has great views of downtown Phoenix (pictured here). The trail was very crowded mid-morning on Saturday and it was getting hot, so I didn’t feel too bad turning around right before the top (where it also got a little too steep for my taste). In the foreground is a Palo Verde tree, which were blooming prolifically at this time and to which we soon found ourselves to be extremely allergic (after initially suspecting that somehow we got Covid on the plane ride from MA).
On The Road – Winter Wren – April 2022 in Arizona – Part 1 (of 2)Post + Comments (14)
by WaterGirl| 18 Comments
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Looks like we have a beautiful week ahead!
(click below for a bigger, non-blurry version)
Last weekend Elizabeth and I, as well as three of the students in her Wild Literature class, traveled to Nebraska to view the greatest wildlife migration spectacle in North America, one million Sandhill Cranes massing along the Platte River and bulking up before they continue their journey to Alaska, Canada, and Siberia. I have made this journey many times in the past, but, like the cranes, somehow I have an urge to return year after year after year. It was a good trip, so I’ll take a brief hiatus from chronicling our westward trip in 2015, and pick that up again next week.
It’s nearly spring, even in Flyover Country, but it snowed in central Nebraska the day before our scheduled trip to view cranes from a blind on the north side of the Platte River. This was a bit alarming because we were planning to camp near Grand Island. Elizabeth and I had the teardrop trailer to keep us off the cold ground, but the students only had tents and ThermaRest pads and sleeping bags. Fortunately, we found some snow-free campsites, and the students were still game for the camping adventure (it would definitely give them something to write about in their journals!), so we set up camp and headed to the Crane Trust facility for our next adventure. Click here for larger image.
On The Road – Albatrossity – Cranes along the Platte River, 2024Post + Comments (18)
by WaterGirl| 31 Comments
This post is in: On The Road, Photo Blogging, Quebec City
Late last Spring we found ourselves with a graduation at Mount Holyoke one weekend and a wedding in Buffalo the next. We looked at each other and said “ROAD TRIP!” and, as the song says, got out the map. We wanted to go somewhere new and thanks to the Louise Penny books I learned about from you all, I floated the idea of visiting Quebec.
We headed from MA to Quebec City for about 5 days, then wandered down to Lake Placid overnight and Buffalo for the knot-tying festivities. These photos will focus on Quebec City and later we’ll tour some areas upriver. Quebec City was very European in character, yet we loved not having to do the whole overnight flight thing to get there.
People were very friendly (love me some Canadians) and there is a nice mix of natural beauty nearby plus great restaurants and patisseries. So grab your passports, fill up the tank, and let’s head to Quebec this morning. We could use a nice croissant about now, n’est-ce pas?
Let’s start with the Quebec parliament building, shall we? Late May was lovely in this part of the world, not too hot but with brilliant blue skies. Walking all around this building is possible and encouraged; Quebec City is highly walkable, and there are rental bikes, but you won’t need them near the city center because it’s not gigantic if you stay near the old town or within the old city walls.
by WaterGirl| 13 Comments
This post is in: On The Road, Photo Blogging
Just up the hill (OK, 1000 feet of elevation change) is The University of the South. It’s situated on top of the Cumberland Plateau and it has a lot of bluff views into the coves below. It maintains a very nice walking and biking trail called, not surprisingly, The Perimeter Trail. One section of this is below a north facing bluff and is home to a profusion of wildflowers. This section is called Shakerag Hollow and today I walked about a mile each way (in and back out) looking for the early show. It was really early because we’ve had a pretty cold winter. The onset of Spring can be really variable here. Anyway, here’s a few shots with my substandard Galaxy S8 from the walk.
Shakerag is way back to the right in this picture. The plateau in the distance keeps on narrowing that cove until there’s no more farmland and the mountain side forms one side of the drainage and the bluff above this trail forms the other.
On The Road – HinTN – The Perimeter TrailPost + Comments (13)