Travel theme: Grasses…not for smoking

I’m a bit late to this party, but Ailsa’s travel theme this week is “Grasses“, I wanted to participate after seeing some of the beautiful entries. Here’s my entry from the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming.

Phoneography and Non-SLR Digital Devices Photo Challenge: Black and white…airport au natural

I hope you didn’t expect from my title to see a shot of a nudist airport. 🙂  The “au natural” refers to an unedited (except for copyright) photo shot at the Phoenix airport while waiting for our Southwest flight back to the land of winter.  Even while tired and still sick, I was captivated by the shapes, shadows, and reflections in a black and white segment of a world that normally appears in color and had to grab the shot while I could.

“I suppose there has been nothing like the airports since the age of the stage-stops – nothing quite as lonely, as sombre-silent. The red-brick depots were built right into the towns they marked – people didn’t get off at those isolated stations unless they lived there. But airports lead you way back in history like oases, like the stops on the great trade routes. The sight of air travellers strolling in ones and twos into midnight airports will draw a small crowd any night up or two. The young people look at the planes, the older ones look at the passengers with a watchful incredulity.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald

“It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on Earth has ever produced the expression “as pretty as an airport”. Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the result of a special effort. This ugliness arises because airports are full of people who are tired, cross, and have just discovered that their luggage has landed in Murmansk (…) and the architects have on the whole tried to reflect this in their designs.
They have sought to highlight the tiredness and crossness motif with brutal shapes and nerve jangling colours, to make effortless the business of separating the traveller from his or her luggage or loved ones, to confuse the traveller with arrows that appear to point at the windows, distant tie racks, or the current position of the Ursa Minor in the night sky, and wherever possible to expose the plumbing on the grounds that it is functional, and conceal the location of the departure gates, presumably on the grounds that they are not”.”
~Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

And your feelings about airports and flying?

Travel Theme: Pink

Looking through my photos for something pink for this week’s Travel Theme, I realized that apart from flowers, there aren’t as many pink things in my stash of photos as most other colors.  However, one of my favorite photos from our 2011 trip to Provence is replete with pinks, so I offer it for your enjoyment.  If you’d like to see more travel photos, tomorrow I’ll be participating in the Phoneography Challenge (and my entries will feature travel), so feel free to stop back in, especially if you take photos by non-traditional means, such as with phones or an iPad, in which case, you might like to participate.

Travel theme: Fragrant

This week’s travel theme is one dear to my heart: Fragrant.  The fragrance of the mountain air is one of my most precious fragrances, but here are some others that I cherish just as much.

The fragrance of tea.

The fragrance of bread and additionally, in this case, the fragrance of friendship that sent me a dozen bagels all the way from New York City.



There’s not much that is as fragrant as a bowl of fresh peaches, warm in the summer sun.

The fragrance of leather.

The fragrance of a horse.

Travel Theme: Connections

Connections are everywhere, between and among many things and people.  “Connections” is the theme this week at Ailsa’s “Where’s My Backpack” blog.  Here are just a few of the connections I see and love.

“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.”
― Chief Seattle

Connections between human and animal

“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity…”
― John Muir

Connections between man and nature

“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.”
― Herman Melville

Connections among people and families

Travel Theme: Delicate

As I’ll be on the road again tomorrow, a travel theme seems appropriate.  Ailsa’s theme this week (yes, I’m a bit late, but posts about Ben Franklin got in the way) is “Delicate.”  My photos this week aren’t necessarily from exotic locations, but I did travel somewhere to find them and I think they’re delicate.  What do you think?

This first photo is from Yellowstone National Park, one of God’s most amazing places.  If you’d like to see more photos from our trip there this summer, find the “Travel” category on the left side of my site and join the many people who shared our summer adventures there.

For this delicate photo of shadows, I traveled to our dining room.  🙂  I hope the journey wasn’t too far for you.

Our final destination is the front yard of our former house on the east side of Cleveland, Ohio.  This natural grass had very delicate and beautiful fronds.

Travel Theme: Stone

Everywhere you travel, you can find stone. There are even countries where people, especially woman, are still being stoned. Hopefully that type of stone that will disappear soon, although I don’t hold out much hope for that. But there are many beautiful examples of stone, made by God or man-made. Here are few examples from my travels, for the travel theme of this week, “Stone.”

This stone provides an excellent view of the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming, a view we cherish every summer.  Elevation here is around 7,000′ and one of the special joys is that there’s no cell phone coverage unless you get closer to the edge of the mountain range, down the road and to your left a short distance.  There is now, however, internet, albeit slow internet, which makes my blogging life while on vacation much easier.

Imagine you’ve gotten rid of almost everything you own, packed the rest in a covered wagon, made your hot, dusty way across the Great Plains and as your team of oxen pull you slowly through South Dakota, you suddenly spot all this stone–the Badlands.  While it might be better and easier to get around or through than the Rockies, I can’t imagine it brought joy to the hearts of the pioneers.  However, it brings joy to a variety of animals and all humans who take the time to drive through and appreciate its beauty.

Glimpsed through a gap in an old Provencal wall, is a sight familiar to fans of le Tour de France. The top of Mont. Ventoux,  Windy Mountain, is bare due to trees being taken for ship-building, beginning in the 12th century.  Although areas are being reforested, the bald top rises majestically above everything else in the area.

When in Provence, it behooves you to visit at least a few wineries.  Our favorites, at least so far, are located in the appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC), “controlled designation of origin”, of Gigondas and Châteauneuf-du-Pape.  During  visit to  Chateau la Nerthe, I spotted this bit of stone in the courtyard.  It was unfortunate that we could only bring back a few bottles of their outstanding wine, but they have begun importing to the US, so perhaps you’ll be lucky enough to find some for yourself.  If not, I highly recommend a trip to Provence to buy some.  🙂

Travel Theme: Height

Waiting for the weekly photo challenge is getting longer and longer so, in the meantime, this travel challenge showed up. “Height” is the theme and here are my three choices, all from nature.  The first is from our recent visit to Muir Woods just outside San Francisco, the iconic redwoods.  The second is Devil’s Tower, Wyoming, an “an igneous intrusion or laccolith in the Black Hills near Hulett and Sundance in Crook County, northeastern Wyoming, above the Belle Fourche River.”  I would include a link but since the government is shut down, it appears the websites are shut down too. About that I’ll say nothing.  The third is outside Yellowstone National Park, also in Wyoming, on our way to Cody, Wyoming.  Enjoy a bit of the grandeur and height of nature!

Travel theme: Multicolored

I’m trying a new photo challenge today, although I hope to get back to more writing soon.  This unpacking a house takes time!!  Anyway, the theme for this week is “Multicolored” (with or without a “u” in “colored.)  Since Mammoth Hot Sprigs was already taken, I headed further east, first to Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia (or somewhere in Provence, if you exercise your imagination), then to near Coloma, Michigan, at Grandpa’s Cider Mill.

To see the rest of the entries, click on the highlighted word and get ready to travel.