Wordless Wednesday: on the right bus!

Big Apple and more from 30,000'

I took a little care in deciding where to sit on my Baltimore-to-Boston flight last week. And did I ever choose correctly!

The left side of the plane is the one to pick, especially on a clear day. I was able to get some great views of New York City, and was unreasonably pleased with having made this choice. It's amazing to realize that those little lego-looking towers are the massive skyscrapers of the Big Apple!

Here are the rest of my NYC pictures...

closeup of the skyscrapers

closeup of the Battery area; I *think* the red box is the new One World Trade Center

at first glance I was puzzled about the green rectangle...but of course it's Central Park

I enjoyed the view for the rest of the ride, too, and got a couple of interesting shots as we approached Boston.

we skirted the little squall you can see at the right on the horizon

so many boats! how do they avoid collisions?!

What am I doing in Boston? Well, that wasn't my final destination. I'm pretty busy having fun with my little granddaughter in Portland, Maine. But I have taken a few pictures of attractions in this lovely town other than her, and will be sharing those with you in upcoming posts.

...and still more flowers

I'm still walking around the neighborhood, and sometimes on different streets, and I'm still finding lots of gorgeous flowers. So I decided to share a few more flower photos as an addendum to my earlier post on the subject.

The gorgeous morning glories in the photo above (which, in companionship with those bright yellow blossoms, are a beautiful expression of Alamo Heights and St. Mary's school colors!) climb all the way up a streetlight pole...they have really come alive with our generous rains.

Not far from the morning glories are these lovelies...can someone tell me what they are?

This sago palm has two fruiting bodies, and the contrast with the bright red blooms at its foot is stunning...

Many years ago, when I was singing with a madrigal group, we performed "Adieu, Sweet Amaryllis," so I'm somewhat partial to these flashy flowers. This fine specimen is in a yard on my street...

And talk about flashy! This super-daisy is on one of my regular routes...

Even though it's getting hotter by the day, I'm still trying to do a daily walk, so I might find more worthy blossoms. And if I do, keep on the lookout for Part 3!

Wordless Wednesday: Adirondacks South

A good spring for flowers

It's really amazing what happens when we get adequate rainfall! I've been very impressed on my morning walks (which I can take every day now!) with the profusion of blooms in the neighborhood this year.

Our wonderful crape myrtles are reliable bloomers even when moisture is scarce. But they seem to have responded especially well to the recent rains and are outdoing themselves. The tree above and on the right is a few blocks away, on my generic walking route. What a treat, to have such sights so easy to hand.

Going through my photos from the past couple of months, I found good snaps further afield as well. Here are some that especially caught my eye, from far and near...

a lovely exotic on the St. Mary's campus...can anyone tell me what it is?

another lovely I can't identify...on the Trinity campus

yet another mystery...there are lots of these little lilies all over...this was at Trinity

sunflower on a neighborhood walk

oodles of lantana everywhere...these are on the beautifully-maintained Trinity campus

lots of yards in the neighborhood like these showy Pride of Barbados

one of my neighbors has this delightful bit of wild meadow in their lawn

I'm not much of a gardener, but even my poor yard has given us some floral bounty. I've never seen this many blooms on my white althea...

please ignore trim that badly needs to be painted

so pretty!

...and it's been a few years since we've had blooms on these severely-neglected day-lilies...

I'll close with a very unusual "flower" that I've seen all over the neighborhood, although not on our own sago palms. (They might not get enough sunlight to be able to produce these amazing cones.) Impressive, eh?

Wordless Wednesday: Justice

Come high water

Well, we've had an interesting few days in South Texas! Our normally placid (and often almost dry) rivers have gone a little bonkers thanks to a series of severe rain events. Nothing like last Memorial Day (at least, so far), thank goodness, but enough to make paddling, when even possible, interesting, to say the least.

Readers familiar with the Guadalupe River above Canyon lake will notice right away in this photo, from Saturday, that there's a lot more water than usual. Henry figured that it was running about 5 times higher than when we went on the same stretch in February. That was enough to give me pause and think about not going, but I'm determined not to be a timid, stay-at-home retired person, so I sucked it up.

For the most part it was fine, and even kind of fun. The first big rapid we went through made me really wish I had a go-pro strapped to my head—you would not have believed the big water your usually cautious blogger plowed through!

And of course there was the gorgeous green scenery that I've written about before...

High water makes some of the river's challenging aspects actually easier to navigate, since it eliminates the need to steer around pesky rocks and even smooths out some of the rapids and falls. For example, as we neared our takeout at Guadalupe River State Park, there are usually a lot of these wonderful big boulders in the stream, but Saturday, we only saw a few. I still have trouble believing that so many of them were covered by the high water (and it's even higher as I write this! the rocks we saw are under water now!).

biggest of the GRSP boulders

I couldn't help but think the log on top of these almost-submerged
rocks was a resting baby dinosaur! doesn't that look like a brontosaurus neck?

Yes, some features are easier to manage at high water, but if you do get into trouble, the trouble is scarier, and unfortunately I had a personal experience to back that maxim up. It happened at the end of the rapid you can see one of my compatriots entering here (I was next in line)...

Stupidly, I ignored advice that had been given just moments before, when we had stopped for lunch. I celebrated getting through the rapid too soon, and lost concentration while that was still a dangerous thing to do. Next thing I knew, I was in the drink! And there for quite a while, too, since it was hard to find a place to stand and get back in my boat. Fortunately I had good, capable friends downriver who shepherded me over to the bank and sent me my kayak. 

The water was cool and refreshing, but being swept along by current that strong, even when not getting beaten up by submerged rocks and debris, is a little scarier an experience than I usually look for in my paddling excursions. If the group goes out again at this water level, I might just opt to go help with the shuttle, find a nice place to sit and read, and then meet up for dinner afterwards  .

But, as always, there is a lot of neat stuff to see on the river, best seen from on top of your boat instead of beside it. 

Like the limestone cliffs that are now sporting an unaccustomed coat of moss...

sorry for the blurry blotch...my camera had gotten a little wet!

...and other rocky features, like this overhang where usually empty creek joins the river...

(I wasn't able to take as many pictures as I would have liked, since the water was moving so fast. There were several neat waterfalls I tried to snap, but couldn't get anything good from my efforts. Henry was more successful, and here's his Flickr album of the trip, which includes an action shot of me just before my swim.)

We had an exciting paddle, that was close to being too exciting. But little did we know that just a day later things would really get hairy! We're pretty sure the campers here that were set for a fun long weekend at our put-in were going to have to evacuate on Sunday... (you can see some tents on the far left)

We hope they got out ok, with nothing but an exciting story to tell. 

Wordless Wednesday: so I guess this is a thing?