Category: lest we forget

Florida landmarks, foggy sky, food, friends, fun, growing old, lest we forget, perseverance, photography, road trip, sunset

The week that was…

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The second day of my ‘old’ friend’s visit, can’t tease her without admitting my own age also, brought us to Longboat Key to visit yet another old friend. Such a lovely spot to sit and talk about life after high school. Another high school friend commented that it must be fun to reminisce about our high school days, but that didn’t seem to be the main topic of conversation. We seemed to be concentrating on what came after high school, raising kids, and grandkids too. And where life has brought us now. How lucky we are to reconnect after such a long time.

Such a lovely view.
It was a nice day to walk on the beach. Our friend said that people were commenting that there were no intact shells on the beach. Most had been pulverized by Hurricane Ian. But this area was spared from major damage.
We decided to head toward Anna Maria Island for dinner but traffic was quite backed up, and the sunset was early, so we stopped at The Beach House and this was our view while we enjoyed our dinner.
I ducked down in front of the sunset watchers to get a few photos. It hadn’t looked too promising to start with, but it just got better. Eventually we all took a few pictures.
Even after the sun had set the sky got more colorful.
Then the stars began to shine through.

The next morning dawned cold, with blustery winds. I headed down to the beach early, to try to capture the look of the surf. It was a bit foggy too, hence the feature photo. My friends chose to try some watercolor painting while I was out taking pictures. Then after a nice lunch it was time to say goodbye and head home again. But there was talk of another visit next year…

The waves were rolling in.
The sun had come out by the time we headed out for lunch. This time the traffic was better so we made it to Anna Maria Island. We got the valet to hold up traffic in order to take our picture. It was too soon to say goodbye…
'scene' along the way, facing facts, fences, history, just imagine, learning, lest we forget, perseverance, photography, reality check, road trip

Remembering…

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I found myself to be more affected by the trip to Gettysburg than I expected to be. Those beautiful preserved landscapes got to me. Looking much like they would have in 1863, it was impossible to imagine the scene as troops met in that peaceful looking place, and so many of them died there.

Fields and fences, beautiful now, as I’m sure they were then. The town was there, and quiet farms, and then the armies came.
The hills, the high ground, sought after by both sides.
I hope you can read this account of the day. I usually zoom in on the signage, but in this place I wanted the landscape to show also.
I used this picture in a previous post, but it does bring the lesson home.
What would it be like to charge up a hill in the face of canon fire?
Another account of battle.
The caption on the eternal flame reads, ‘Peace Eternal in a Nation United.’
Another landscape that I found so pretty, but the monument is in addition to what it may have looked like at the time.
Just as the battle came to the people who settled this land back then, the townspeople now go about their business among armies of tourists who come to remember.

We attended a screening of the movie Casablanca the other day at the Tampa Theater. We did this last August also, but this time the scene depicting the German army occupying Paris stood out to me. Another war, people helpless in the face of armies, and with much different weapons. And then my mind went to the war in the Ukraine, and I’m stunned to think that people are again, or should I say still, experiencing the horrors of war.

courage, death, exploring new places, facing facts, fences, history, learning, lest we forget, memories, perseverance, photography, road trip

Gettysburg…

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If you ever get a chance to go to Gettysburg don’t do what we did. We were going to ‘see’ Gettysburg, only an hour from where we had stayed the night before, and then be on our way back home to Florida. We arrived at a little after opening, around 9:30 AM, seeing the Cyclorama (amazing) and the museum, and then heading out for the auto tour which we only finished by 5PM by rushing a bit at the end. I didn’t ever understand the impact of that battle on the outcome of the war, and my head is spinning as I look at the pictures and try to remember where each one was taken when we have just arrived home this morning. I was as much taken with the beautiful landscape of Pennsylvania itself, as I was by the historical significance of the scenes before me. And yet there are monuments to be seen in the pictures. Three days of battle leaving thousands of soldiers dead and dying in these fields, and a townspeople of less than 1300 to cope with the aftermath. This place is beautifully preserved lest we forget…