Photo Friday – “Stained Glass Windows”

Today’s Photo Friday challenge is “Old Cars”.  Of course I got my weeks all mixed up and did “Stained Glass Windows”!  Haha!  So, you get stained glass windows today, and old cars next week!

The “back story”…

Not this past weekend, but the one before that, my cousin Julie and I made our best attempt yet to go white water rafting.  Though the weather was grim (to be understated) at home, we hoped that perhaps it was better where we planned on joining other would be rafters in Buena Vista. 

The weather only deteriorated as we progressed along the highway.  At one point we were surrounded by thunderstorms and startled by the voracity of the thunder and lightening.  Oh, and there was the hail and sleet which pounded my poor car as well!  And, despite it being mid-August, it was COLD!!  I was wondering how my friend Vickie was doing in the Ascent – a foot race up to the top of Pikes Peak.  I’d heard that they were expecting SNOW and equally foul weather.

We got to “Noah’s Ark”, the company with which we’d made reservations to do the rafting.  I stepped out of the car and was already chilled.  The thought of getting into a boat and being soaked to the skin by cold mountain river water didn’t much appeal to me.  We talked with this person, and that person.  We were offered, for free, wet suits, waterproof jackets, etc., by the company.  The fate of the trip for me was sealed by the young man who was to be our guide.  “I’m not going to lie…it’s gonna be bad.”  The end.  I didn’t want to be miserable, I wanted to enjoy myself.  I wanted to raft on a hot summer day and enjoy a riverside picnic lunch.  Though “go white water rafting” has been on my “List of 50″ since its inception, I didn’t want to do it this way just so that I could say I did it and cross it off the list.  I wanted to have a good time!

So we decided to take a way home on roads that neither of us had yet traversed.  Our first stop was for breakfast in Salida.  Cute town.  We drove around some and came across a concentration of churches, many with stained glass windows.  It was a fun little exploration, but none of my pictures of those windows turned out.  I’m hoping some of Julie’s did and that she’ll put hers up today!

Near the end of our journey, we happened upon the Holy Cross Abbey in Canon City. 

This is the window in the chapel there:

 

Please visit the other participants entries and leave a comment letting them know what you think!  I’ll add links as they are available when I get home from work.  Yeah, I’m working again today!

Tall Chick Tales

Mrs Nascar

CuriousC

Author

Melanie

Julie

Cordie

And a big fat welcome to EIAIN of My ProZac Cocoon whose first entry is a GREAT one!

I will activate the other links as submissions are posted!

Coming up, on Photo Friday:

5th September: Author’s choice – Stained Glass Windows (or doors or panels – from cathedrals, churches or any other type of building)

12th September: Author’s choice – Step Inside (Pics of inside your own home: they can be of favourite corners, or things, or windows, or unusual features or just unusual angles of somehing in your own home)

Oh!  My friend Vickie?  Well, she was about 3/4 of the way up to the top of Pikes Peak, and was turned around by race coordinators as it had become completely unsafe for the racers to continue!  Sorry ’bout that Vickie!

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Photo Friday – “Hats”

My writer’s block coupled with computer AND internet connectivity problems has done nothing to help me get onto blogging.  I am hoping to be able to finish this one simple post without my computer taking its last breath, again!  Yikes…  Today I must order my new computer.  I can’t stand this much longer! 

This week’s topic is actually one that I should have been able to put something fantastic together for.  See, I love hats.  I have some very interesting and fascinating ones.  Ihave a Mao hat I bought in China, a newsboy hat I bought in Ireland, a crazy orange and purple felt hat I bought in Finland, to name a few of my faves.  I tried to take pictures of them with the intention of putting together a collage, but I only ended up liking one of the pictures. 

I also love cowboys, and horses, and jeans, and cowboy hats.  I actually own a beautiful camel colored Stetson that I have never actually worn.  It seems like a crime to wear it, so it stays in its original box, all nice and clean and pretty…

Don’t forget to check out the “hats” of the other participants!

Tall Chick Tales

SpatulaHandle’s

Idea Jump!

Ivey’s Story Weblog

Just for fun!

A picture’s worth a 1000 words!

A Curious State of Affairs

 

Photo Friday Advance Diary:

5th September: Author’s choice – Stained Glass Windows (or doors or panels – from cathedrals, churches or any other type of building)

29th August: Mrs Nascar’s choice – Old cars (any interesting old cars from rusty scrapheap cars with a bird’s nest under the bonnet, to fabulous vintage or racing cars) 

12th September: Author’s choice – Step Inside (Pics of inside your own home: they can be of favourite corners, or things, or windows, or unusual features or just unusual angles of somehing in your own home)

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Photo Friday – “Wildlife”

I really DO love Photo Friday.  It’s the only thing I seem to be able to post on these days.  I’ve got dozens of drafts started about my summer experiences, but still am unable to get them the way I want them.  Some of them are simply Titles at this point. 

So, having just recently returned from Africa, I thought it fitting to share pics of some wildlife I saw while I was there.  These were taken “on safari” in the Liwonde National Park in Malawi.  Oddly, I don’t love very many pictures that I took this summer.  I do, however, love this one.  Not because it’s a great picture or anything – far from it.  No, I love it because there are four species captured in the one frame.  The hippo, heron, and impala are easily visible, but do you see the warthogs as well?

Did you know that members of different hippo pods have different “highways” that they each use?  I didn’t.  And hippos of one pod do not use the highways of hippos of different pods!  The things you learn when you are on safari! 

And here’s one of a warthog upclose.  Seems there was a warthog “highway” right in front of our chalet at the safari camp! 

The yellow at the bottom of the photo?  Normally I would have cropped that out.  It was my front porch.  I left in in as a reference to the proximity of the trail to our accommodations.  This highway was actually a hippo highway as well.  This was one reason we were all strongly warned to never leave our chalets alone, and to stay on the people pathways.  Those hippos were loud at night, too!  You couldn’t have PAID me to leave my chalet after dark, even if I wasn’t alone!  Even if I had one of the armed guard with me.  Hippos are some scary creatures!

More on our safari weekend in a later post…IF I can ever get the post to feel right! 

Click on the links to visit the entries of the other participants!  Drop them a comment and let them know what you think.  There are new participants since I left for Africa.  A big hearty and belated welcome to them! 

Tall Chick’s

Iveystory’s

Melanie’s

CuriousC’s

Author’s

Here’s what’s coming up on Photo Friday in the weeks ahead…

Photo Friday Advance Diary:

22nd August: Julie’s choice - “Hat Day” (a picture of someone’s hat, that’s funny, pretty, or a self-portrait of us wearing our favorite or funny hat)

29th August: Mrs Nascar’s choice – Old cars (any interesting old cars from rusty scrapheap cars with a bird’s nest under the bonnet, to fabulous vintage or racing cars)

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Photo Friday – “Reflections”

My first Photo Friday in some time!  Today’s Photo Friday is Author’s choice:

Reflections (in lakes, rivers, puddles, ponds or even windows etc.)

For this entry, I decided to go with a slightly different interpretation than perhaps is expected:  the reflection of light off of a surface.  As luck would have it, I came across this amazing little arachnoid after leaving CostCo the other day.  My nephew espied the half-inch leg-spanned creature busily weaving on the rear of his mother’s (my sister’s) truck.  At first glance the wee beastie looked white.  On closer inspection we saw that it was actually silver!  It caught the sun much more brightly than I could capture on film.

Lookie!  You can see two strands of silk extending from the spinnerets!

Get a look at the creepy skull-like head!  Scarrrryyyyy!!!

Now the skull is screeeeaaaammmming and has fangs!

Any body out there have any idea of what sort of spider this is?

Please visit the other participants’ entries and see what they are reflecting upon this day!  I’ll add links as the entries are posted.  However, I am back to work today after a three month’s absence (blech!) and won’t be able to add the links until later in the day…my apologies!

Here they are!  Breaking the rules and going on line at work, but at least it’s lunchtime! 

Melanie’s entry

Iveys’s Weblog

A Curious State of Affairs

Tall Chick’s

CuriousC’s

and a late entry:  Just For Fun

Here’s what’s coming up on Photo Friday in the weeks ahead…

Photo Friday Advance Diary:

15th August: Tina’s choice – Wildlife

22nd August: Julie’s choice - “Hat Day” (a picture of someone’s hat, that’s funny, pretty, or a self-portrait of us wearing our favorite or funny hat)

29th August: Mrs Nascar’s choice – Old cars (any interesting old cars from rusty scrapheap cars with a bird’s nest under the bonnet, to fabulous vintage or racing cars)

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Why Not Start With a Famous Foot Picture?

I have drafts on about a dozen posts about my summer.  I’m still trying to figure out how to get back to blogging.  I thought maybe I could kick start my creativity by posting one of my “famous” foot pictures!

We were wrapping up our summer with a “debrief” in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  While out souvenir shopping with my group, I came across this manhole cover (most of the sewer accesses we saw did not have covers and did not have any sort of warning that there was no cover- an American lawyer’s DREAM!) and dragged my group over and forced them to take part in my picture!  They think I’m weird…what else is new? 

 

Wait until I start showing you some of the souvenirs I brought home!

The cover says “MUNICIPALITE ADDIS ABEBA”.  I like this one.

The goat wandering by on the street also thought I was weird…

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Coming Soon!

I am no longer in absentia!  I am HOME!!!  One day soon, I’ll be back to posting here.  I have soooo much to write about and I just don’t know where to begin.  Once my brain cools off I’ll put fingers to keys and get down to it!

Looking forward to getting caught up on the blogging everyone else has been doing for the past two months!

See you soon…

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