Having to make hard choices, part 2…

You can see that I don't take many pictures of people.  But here's one I really like.  This picture of friends Sean and Ellen was taken last October on our trip to Italy.  We stayed in a beautiful villa along the Amalfi Coast.   And though it was a little cool for me, Sean braved the infinity pool, which is where he is standing in this photo.  I like the mood of this because it reminds me of how beautiful, calm and relaxing the villa was.  I also like that Sean has his hat on.

This photo was taken along the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia.  What a wonderful drive!  We were there in the winter so there wasn’t much traffic, which allowed us to stop when we saw something that I wanted to take a picture of.  I like this photo a lot and spent some time on it getting it aligned properly.

Here’s another one from our travels.  This photo was taken in 2010 on a trip we made to Scotland.  These boats are on the Isle of Mull.  I think they leave them there for photographers like me to ooh and aah over.  I love Scotland.

Sunflowers are probably my favorite flower and I love them in all their phases.  To me, this one looks like it is just waking up from a long nap.

And finally, here’s a photo I took at Three Sisters Sanctuary in Goshen, Massachusetts, on one of the field trips Carrie and I took.  This is a great place to wander around with a camera.  I highly recommend it if you are in the area.  In this photo, I love the juxtaposition of the wild vines and other natural growth against the relative fineness of the stained glass window.  The Unexpected…

Are these my ten “best” photos?  Probably not.  Well, maybe…  Photography is very personal and very subjective.  I suspect that to me, these are the best because they all invoke wonderful things and good times in my mind.  But maybe I will change my mind tomorrow when new things happen in my life.

By the way, we are still waiting for the snow to start in earnest.  We are supposed to get 8 plus inches.  Here’s hoping that they misread this storm and it will all blow out to sea.

Barn along the Blue Ridge Parkway...

Linking to Bluff Area Daily's Barn Charm.

I'm back...

About a month before I had my knee replaced, I saw a article in Travel Section of the Boston Sunday Globe about Apalachicola, Florida.  It sounded to me like the perfect warm weather retreat for Greg and me.  It's in northern Florida so I didn't suspect it would be too hot.  Plus it sounded like it had a lot of cool old Florida charm.  So Greg set about making plans for us to stay for a week to escape the New England cold.

A few days before we were scheduled to leave, I managed to come down with what I am calling The National Cold, because it seems like at least half of my Facebook friends and folks I know around town are in some stage of this miserable affliction.  But, cold be damned...we had plans and having plans means I loaded myself in the car feeling like a deep fried crap sandwich and we set out for Florida.

The good news is that Greg, Olive and I are now here in Apalachicola, Florida, and enjoying our stay.  My cold inches better every day but it is not gone yet.  However, having survived the car ride down I will share with you some of the sights we saw along the way.

The sun begins to set in Pennsylvania.

Hi from someplace in Virginia.

Along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

On a country road off the Blue Ridge Parkway, a couple of guys let us know that we weren't welcome.

This fellow was outside Striplings General Store, Cordele, Georgia.

Olive asks, "Are we there yet?"

Fence Friday: Take me home, country roads…

On our recent trip to Roanoke, Virginia (USA), we got off the highway and did a very nice stretch of road in West Virginia (WV State Rt. 259, I think) before we got on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  I saw lots and lots of fences along the way on that road and on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  I’ll post the ones I like best today.

 

The John Denver song “Country Roads” kept going through my mind as we traveled down through West Virginia.  He calls it “almost heaven.”  They call it “wild and wonderful.”  I just call it beautiful.   There is another place I need to get back to with my camera and time to spare.

And, of course, the Blue Ridge Parkway is just one of the most extraordinary country roads in the whole USA. 

So here they are…fences along some country roads.

Either in Virginia or West Virginia

West Virginia

Along the Blue Ridge Parkway

Along the Blue Ridge Parkway

I'm cheating.  This one is near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania

Linking to Friday Fences.

Cruising the Blue Ridge…

One of the nice things about driving south to Roanoke, Virginia (USA), is getting off the highway and onto the Blue Ridge Parkway.  I could wax eloquent, blather on and take lots of poetic license describing this beautiful drive, but since I’m a thoughtful and charitable type of person, I will not waste your time and will let my photos speak for themselves.

It became apparent why they are called the "Blue" Ridge Mountains.

Standing tall on top of the world.