Friday’s fuzzy foliage and fungus

I’m happy Becky’s back doing squares! I’ve missed that challenge. I have two photos as squares for todays’s walk but the other refused to go into a square without losing its fuzziness. Who was I to quibble?

Squares first.

Walking squares 11.25.22

What I saw while walking…quintessential autumn

Walking Squares…11.23.22

Wordless Wednesday

A Monday walk squared

Jo’s walking and Becky’s back with her wonderful square challenge. Life is good. I’m back from my vacation with lots of photos and stories to share, so let’s start walking.

This trip was all about seeing friends but there was a lot of scenery too, autumn colors that I’d been craving. On the 2 1/2 day drive, I’d passed through New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri before crossing the state line into Illinois. Especially in Missouri I drove through hundreds of miles of thousands of trees in their festive bronzes, oranges, reds, and a few luminous yellows. The day after I arrived, my friend and I drove to downtown Aurora, Illinois for coffee and friend time, starting at Endiro Coffee. Although I’m mostly a tea person and my coffee drinks are mochas or cappuccinos, Endiro serves what they call African Coffee (or tea): Easy on the espresso or black tea, lots of steamed milk and light and sweet masala spice. Once when our younger daughter and I were there, she had the African coffee which I tried and loved. That’s what I had this time.

Downtown Aurora has a rather nice river walk surrounded by lots of old, repurposed buildings. I love that they haven’t been torn down but are used just as they were.

I got my autumn color fix too.

It was a propitious start to my two-and-a-half week visit!

Jo’s Monday Walk 11.21.22

Walking Squares 11.21.22

Odds and ends

How odd! The month seems to have flown by, something this dragonfly apparently couldn’t manage. Of course February does have 2-3 less days than the other months, but still…

Unless you look closely (thanks to my photo), you might feel as I did that this empty seed pod is just floating in the air.

Here’s another sculpture from Tonoho Chul using a number of repurposed items.

You can tap maple trees but who knew you could tap cacti? 🙂 I’m sorry to see the odd challenge end but it must go the way of all good things, I guess. Thanks for another enjoyable month, Becky, even if we did get short-changed by a few days. 🙂

SquareOdds 2.28.22

Just looking through a glass oddly

Six-Word Saturday 2.26.22

SquareOdds 2.26.22

Philadelphia odds

A single bird making a landing in the reflecting pool at The Barnes Museum in Philadelphia (an odd number.)

An odd reflection of that same pool.

SquareOdds 2.25.22

Thursday doors…odd and more in Illinois

Let’s start out with an odd door for Becky’s SquareOdds, although I don’t think Dan, our host for Thursday Doors will find it odd. This is the back door of one of the BNSF trains taking passengers into and out of Chicago, in this case to and from Aurora, Illinois while stopping in Naperville where we lived. The trains before 8:30 am came from Aurora, stopped in Naperville, and then went directly to Union Station, taking about half an hour. Catch one later and you’d see every stop between Aurora and the city and believe me, there were lots of them, making your trip somewhere between an hour and an hour and a half. It was well worth it to board early, then have coffee or take photos while waiting for the stores or attractions in the city to open!

Moving on to non-square doors, I want to remind you that it’s not always about the doors themselves.

Although this Naperville house was directly across the street from a ridiculously enormous mansion, it was much more attractive and livable in my eyes and I loved everything about it, from the round window, to the enormous porch, to the attractive door. This house felt like a home; the other looked like an expanded ego in building form.

Chicago odd

Let’s keeping looking for oddities in downtown Chicago. Crown Fountain is a fascinating spot where two 50-foot fountains feature photos of ordinary Chicagoans spitting water at each other. That sounds a bit odd but although not as iconic as The Bean, it’s just another thing that makes the downtown area unique and enjoyable. I encourage you to click on the highlighted link above and read about the fountain.

Here’s bonus, once-in-a-lifetime oddity: today’s date is 2.22.22 or, depending upon where you live, 22.2.22. 🙂

SquareOdds 2.22.22

Flying train

If you’re in downtown Chicago, you might catch a view of what appears to be a flying train. The L (or El) stands for “elevated” because much of the system operates on elevated tracks, making it possible to have a view of a train appearing to fly by. Here it also seems to be attached to the side of the building. How odd.

SquareOdds 2.21.22

Tall

One Word Sunday: tall

SquareOdds 2.20.22