Good old Pine Island. I decided that since I’d been there for so many sunsets over the years and paid nothing, that maybe I owed them so I wasn’t going to complain about the $5 charge to get in. But with sunset after 7 PM I suppose the toll taker must have gone home. The payment window was shut. And, as I always say, Pine Island never disappoints.
I anticipated seeing the mail boxes in the feature photo, but I expected that if they were still displayed this way they would be tired and worn. Instead it looks as if they have recently had a facelift. And it seems like there are more of them than there used to be. Someone in that neighborhood is quite creative.
Once I arrived on the beach I followed my ears to find this young man and his pan drum. A delightful sound, which I expected to find was a stringed instrument. A lovely sound, perfect for the circumstance. And as he played the beach goers were excited to see dolphins off in the distance, much too far out for me to try to get pictures of them. Often the sunset itself play second fiddle to whatever else is going on at the time. In this case it was another photo shoot. The dad on the left, the photographer on the left in back, and the very pregnant mom-to-be in her gauzy robe with her pregnant belly proudly displayed. While I love a fun photo shoot, I really cringe over some of these subjects. I think my age is showing.There were lots of seagulls on the beach, and the people frequently sent them into the air. But what should have been a good photo op lost something because they all seemed to be flying away from me. Not this Ruddy Turnstone though. They are my favorites so this was fine with me.The moon drew attention from the beach goers also.Love an (almost full moon.Back to the parents to be. A more traditional pose.Among all the seagulls I spotted a Willet.And the sunset. It was nice enough, but it had a lot of competition.The end of another fun evening at Pine Island.
If you are at Armature Works for a car show, or just for lunch, then you are on the Riverwalk. The river being the Hillsboro River, and there are lots of places you might like to visit along that river. The easiest way to travel up, or down, the river is by water taxi, and you might choose to get an all day pass and get on and off the boat to explore all there is to see. We, however, just rode one round trip and called it a day. Until next time.
You pass under a few bridges as you travel on the river. The tour guide pointed out that you must make an appointment to bring a larger boat through the bridges, and should you miss your appointment you would incur a $25,000 fine. Plus they would have sent out crews to open the rest of the bridges for you, which might make your fine $125,000. So don’t be late.
The round building is known as the ‘beer can building’, for obvious reasons.At one end of your trip you will find the American Victory ship. Built mostly by women during WW2, it remains fully operational. Tours of the ship are available.The schedule for the Lightning has been released, so we’ll soon be inside, looking out, rooting the team on.Testing the camera’s abilities by shooting these little doves as we sailed on by.I heard the guys sitting behind me talking about a rainbow but I had to go up and join the captain to see it.This picture has it all. The water taxis, the beer can building, and yet another of the bridges. And cranes along they way also, an ever evolving landscape.Are these minarets out of place in an urban landscape? They adorn Plant Hall, which now holds the administration services of the University of Tampa, but was once home to the Tampa Bay Hotel. A visit to the museum here will have to be enjoyed another day.Plant wanted something exotic as a design for his hotel, so Architect J.A Wood designed a Moorish Byzantine style building, which was popular in the Victorian period. The hotel only remained open for 40 years, from 1891 to 1932, but was visited by Theodore Roosevelt and Clara Barton, guests who helped it earn its status as a National Historic Landmark.A nearby church echoes the theme.
What a nice way to spend a day in Tampa. The afternoon clouds were arriving right on time, and we were safely home relaxing when the storm rolled in.
It was quite a drive from where we stayed in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, to Acadia National Park. We chose to do it on the second full day we were there, and it was a bit disappointing to find so much fog in the scenery once we got there. I waited until we were home to process this particular picture in the computer since Lightroom mobile doesn’t allow for processing HDR. Or I haven’t found it yet. I don’t like the resulting picture as much as I thought I would, so I tried it in black and white and liked it better. But that could just be my mood lately.
I also liked it better when I saw the world in black and white. Right or wrong. The news, the political ads, the ugliness out there feels like an invading army to me. I seem to have misplaced my rosy glasses…
I’ve been disappointed in myself lately. I haven’t been out for as many sunrises or sunsets. Maybe I was just too lazy, I thought. Or maybe, just maybe, the morning coffee with someone to talk with was the reason. And chatting over dinner might just result in the sunset happening right outside the window and I never noticed. So I’ve given up one obsession for another, well, maybe not obsession, but certainly a lovely distraction. I feel very lucky. And those sunrises and sunsets keep happening, so that when I do head out the door there they are. The big question on this day, which was last Monday, was whether we would reach Edgewater Park before the sun sank totally beneath the horizon. Traffic was annoyingly slow, and we were actually heading to a photo editing opportunity in Clearwater, so we weren’t stopping for the sunset. Nope, I was just shooting out the window of the car as we now seemed to be whizzing past. I was happy to see that I managed a couple of usable shots. And a selfie!
I have become a bah humbug sort of person. I don’t say that proudly, or lightly even. I grew up with a reverence for the day we celebrate the birth of Christ, and I loved making Christmas for my own kids through the years. Growing up in a big Italian family there were many treats to be had at Christmas that we didn’t see for the rest of the year. As the daughter of a fireman and a nurse I spent the major holidays at my aunt’s house, with my working parents coming and going, plus lots of relatives dropping in to visit. Special times that I couldn’t have appreciated at the time what treasured memories they would turn out to be. So when I got married and moved away I did my best to recreate the holidays I treasured. I made lasagna for Christmas dinner, something the family had switched over to some time in my preteen years when they decided that they were ITALIAN, for goodness sake, and weren’t going to duplicate the Thanksgiving dinner at Christmas anymore. I made the Italian cookies that are flavored with anise. I made strufoli, the tiny honey balls we only had at Christmas, and, when I could find it, I bought Torrone, a nougat candy that came in individual boxes that were exquisite little works of art in themselves. For many years Christmas was a wonderful time of year. But those days are long past, the kids are grown and gone, and even the grandchildren are grown. It feels like the media has taken over all aspects of life, including the holiday, and you can’t escape the pressure to be HAPPY, to spend more and more money. The meaning is lost, hence bah humbug.
With my bad attitude I have disappointed the new special person in my life who still treasures Christmas. Our first Christmas together and he didn’t expect my usual light-hearted self to just want to get this whole thing over with. We will visit his relatives for Christmas, and when a discussion of what to have for Christmas dinner came up my offer to make lasagna was accepted. That perked me up a little. It really warmed my heart when my daughter said that she is making lasagna for her crew too, and she is making strufoli for the first time in years! Now I will make strufoli too. I collected all my recipes yesterday, and my friend wanted to stop at the nice Italian deli near him, and I wondered out loud if I might find Torrone there. Boy, did I ever! Torrone in the little boxes. Torrone cut into wedges like a slice of layer cake, some topped with chocolate! Torrone packaged in the shape of Christmas trees! I stood there with my mouth open, and possibly drooling, as every where I turned I found Torrone. So, yes, I did find Torrone, and I think I might have found my Christmas spirit too.
The feature photo is a display of containers of strufoli, larger honey balls than the ones we used to make, but it made me happy to see my familiar treats. I wrote this post early yesterday, before a heart-warming (and tear-jerking) message from my daughter showed up online. I was already on my way to finding that elusive Christmas spirit, and now I’m happy to say that my strufoli is made, and my lasagna is coming together. So let me wish a Merry Christmas to all with a happy heart. And the new year? Well, there is always hope…
Continuing the theme of life along the Blue Ridge Parkway long ago we have the Puckett cabin. Home to ‘Aunt’ Orelena Hawks Puckett, who’s story left me astounded. Here is a photo of the sign that left me so amazed.
In case you are reading on your phone and can’t read the writing on the photo, she began her career in midwifery after age 50, and delivered her last baby in 1939 at age 102. She rode horseback or walked to care for her patients. The sign says that she never lost a mother or baby through her own fault. But, most upsetting to me, is the fact that she bore 24 children and none lived past infancy. I can’t help but wonder what the reasons for that were. And to realize that she was a hostage to her own body to have become pregnant all those times, which would have been enough to drive anyone over the edge, but she served her community all her days. To say that life was hard in those days is such an understatement.
To be honest I can’t remember if this photo was taken before or after we saw Puckett cabin. Not that it matters, but you can see that the scenery along the way had changed a lot from the scenery along Skyline Drive. We stopped for other displays along the way, more mountain homes, and a pond at which I spotted the white butterfly.
A Snowbird's Life Through the Lens 