There’s nothing quite like the experience of running in a huge road race. The preparation. The nervous anticipation. Excitement builds. And then you’re off!
Into the fray.
You can see other interpretations of “Fray” by going to this blog post and looking through all the entries in the comments. Or you can just check out a few of my favorites here, here, here and here!
Sunday night Katie and I camped in the back yard. We’d done that on Friday and Saturday nights as well, no rain fly on the tent, sleeping out under the stars. Last night’s huge moon hung over the yard all night.
Occasionally I’d wake and gaze up at it. The soft light that flooded the yard, and the tent, was lovely; I wish you’d all been there for the experience.
But it would have been a bit crowded in the tent, and Katie likes her space.
Don’t you know.
I enjoy reading Judy’s blog – she’s a full time RVer and a volunteer this summer at Tamarac Wildlife Refuge in Minnesota. This week she and another volunteer are assigned driving the back roads of the refuge looking for purple loosestrife. It’s an invasive plant that spreads quickly and chokes out the native plants in low lying, swampy areas.
If you live around here you’ve seen a lot of it. Judy says she and her volunteer partner didn’t see any this time, and I told her we had it everywhere over here in Michigan. So when Katie and I went for a walk yesterday afternoon and we saw all the loosestrife we thought of Judy. We decided you need to see this too.
Wetlands being taken over.
The first glimpse we had was from the overlook. Down near the water you can see the purple sheen in the late afternoon sun. Looks pretty doesn’t it. And it is pretty, that’s probably part of the problem. When I drive home from work and the sun hits that purple I can’t help but smile.
Closer view.
Then I remember that what is beautiful is also deadly to everything native that used to live there.
Katie and I found more of it, up close this time near the pond where people fish.
Spreading.
Spreading across the hillside above the water.
Pretty, isn’t it?
The park people have planted other wildflowers there that are just as pretty and not invasive.
Also pretty.
Katie and I spent a long time in the lingering sun photographing the beauty.
Makes you smile, doesn’t it!
In hindsight I should have pulled up that loosestrife along the pond after I was finished photographing it.
Dangerous
Zigzag. I thought it would be hard to find a photo to represent the concept. I didn’t think I’d find it in nature. I thought of a few places to go where I might find something, commercial locations, man-made places. I thought maybe I’d skip this photo challenge because I didn’t have time to go anywhere in search of zigzag.
Then I got out of the car this evening after a long day of work and saw that the hibiscus plant is in bud. And on the still tightly furled buds were…
…zigzagging veins.
Proof once again that if you just slow down and take a moment you can find just about anything.
Right there in front of you.
You can see other zigzags here, here, here, and here. And of course the classic zigzag. Or stop by the original blog entry and look at all the comments with their photos!
Most people were surprised when they learned we were going to Maine for ten days. Why Maine they asked. What are you going to do there? Well, it turned out there is a lot to do in Maine. And I noticed lots of people doing lots of things.
Want to see? Click on any photo to see more details.
They capture the beauty.
They play in water.
They go fishing.
The make sand castles.
They read.
They share the moment.
They put toes in the ocean.
They look for whales.
They search for beach treasure.
They enjoy the view.
They explore mountains.
They watch waves.
They lean into the wind.
And sometimes they text.
I can’t show you everything we saw in Maine. As I’ve said frequently, you need to go there yourself and explore. But here’s just a few more instances of things unique and/or fun that we ran across in our travels.
Did you know that Maine is the biggest exporter of wild blueberries? You would if you visited Blueberry World and talked to the owner for a bit. We noticed her shop as we were heading somewhere else.
Blueberry Land!
It’s kind of hard to miss, or to resist! Inside were all things blueberry. We bought a few things and talked to her for a bit. She and her husband have a few hundred acres of wild blueberries. They used to be university professors, but they’ve ‘retired’ to become blueberry farmers.
She’s concerned that they can’t do it forever, that help to ‘rake’ the blueberries in the field is getting harder to find. She’s worried about foreign investors buying up all the farms. She’s wondering if she should develop her land, turn it into a subdivision. But she’d lose the wild blueberries, the view, her lifestyle. She says the only way they make it is through sales direct to tourists, that the blueberries going to processing plants don’t have enough profit margin.
Buy a pie!
We wished her and her 80 year old husband good luck.
Later in our trip, as we were driving through a small coastal town we saw this:
What’s going on over there?
We learned a long time ago on our travels that if you see a crowd headed somewhere you should just fall in and see where it goes. So we turned around, parked the car and wandered up onto the bridge as well. Turns out the crowd was watching lobster boats race.
Who’s going to win?
Now I ask you, where else but Maine could you see such an event?
And all along the way we saw pretty things, interesting things that just didn’t fit into any particular blog. But I thought you’d enjoy a few more shots. Wouldn’t you?
We saw lots of fishing shacks. Some looked like they were being used.
Anyone home?
And some didn’t.
Long abandoned.
We saw lots and lots of boats on trailers in yards. Some had some pretty neat names.
Resting on land.
I wonder how people are making a living if their boat is in the yard.
We saw beautiful buildings too, a school sitting in a field of clover….
Summer break.
…and a church along a river in a tiny town.
Church bells rang.
And finally, these birds just made us laugh.
Linear birds.
I hope you chuckle too.
Soon I hope to give you an idea of what people do while in Maine. There’s really too much to share.
But I’ll try.
Chainsaw man.
Change Is Hard 