Road Trip from Tucson – Part 2

After a good night’s rest in Carrollton, Texas we headed out for two long days of driving to get to Laurel, Maryland. Our first stop was still in Texas: a Love’s in Mt. Vernon, Texas. We both got morning caffeine: coffee for my daughter and a soft drink for me.

The next stop was a McDonald’s in Hope, Arkansas. I remembered to send a text to my husband that we were on the road. We bought French Fries and Chicken Nuggets which I ate while driving. I eat the French fries first from the container on my lap. Then my daughter hands me my portion of the McNuggets.

The next stop was a McDonalds in Cotton Plant, Arkansas. We felt a little guilty because we didn’t buy anything; just used the facilities and continued our drive.

I was in the passenger seat when we were crossing the Mississippi River to Memphis so was able to take some pictures.

We stopped at a very understaffed Exxon travel station in Arlington Tennessee. I bought another soft drink to keep me going.

The only real rest stop of the day was in Benton County Tennessee.

We got to our stop for the night, an EconoLodge in Lebanon, Tennessee, and managed to park in the shade while we ate dinner (so the tarantula and spider stayed cool enough) and were back to the hotel about sunset.

We had a large breakfast so didn’t stop until lunch time (it came a little earlier because of the time zone change). It was a McDonalds but I got a salad this time. I drove while my daughter ate.

We made a stop at a Sheetz for gasoline…and another soft drink for me.

I started eating my lunch and then took some pictures of the greenery in eastern Tennessee throught the windshield.

The next stop was the only rest stop of the day – in Virginia. There was a dogwood near the building’s entrance with fading blooms.

We were close enough to home that we went for 3 hours without another stop. The car was power washed by some rain showers along the way. The road was drying by the time we got home. We staggered out of the car. The tarantula was out of it burrow and seemed glad the vibrations were finally stopping.

It was good to be home again!

A Walk Around Josey Ranch Lake – May 2017

I was in Carrollton, Texas last week and walked around the lake at Josey Ranch. This is the third time for this year (January and March posts). The coots, lesser scaup, and northern shovelers that were there during the earlier visits have left for their nest grounds in the north. There seemed to be even more Great-Tailed Grackles and I realized how different the females look than the males. My favorite picture was of a pair that were probably giving me the eye…keeping me clear of their nest.

The Desert Willow was in bloom.

The thistles were blooming in almost all the unmowed places around the lake.

Butterfly bush seems to be a favored planting and seems to be mostly contained my mowing except for this one near the bridge. It probably was not planted there.

People bring bread to leave for the birds. Sometimes there is a lot on the grass even after the people leave. The pigeons, grackles, and mute swans seems to be the biggest feeders. The ducks seem to prefer other food although they check the bread periodically.

The Mallard ducklings are about as large as the parents. In the picture below, the mother has orange in her beak…the others are her brood. The father was strutting between me and the group in the photo.

There were three turtles on a log. I thought they were all the same until I got home and looked at them on a larger screen. Two are red-eared sliders. The third one had so much mud and algae on its back that the shell pattern is hard to see; not sure what it is…but definitely not a red-eared slider.

Carrollton Yard

I was in Carrollton TX last week and took some photos of the yard in the lulls between family visits. It is hotter in Texas than in Maryland. The red yucca is a popular plant in the area now but my Mother had it in her garden for over 30 years and it propagates! It was blooming and there were green seed pods already on her plants.

There was a ceramic duck in the foliage – that has seen a lot of freeze thaw cycles and is deteriorating in place.

There were several plants I photographed because of the way the light made them ‘glow’

And others that were highlighted simply because they were colors other than green.

There was an American Green Anole on rooster sculpture! He stayed long enough for a portrait…and then turns so I could photograph the other side.

Zooming – March 2017

I decided against creating collages this month for the zoomed images and tried to pick images I had not used elsewhere. Early in the month there is a little winter weather and I used the camera to create some zoomed images through my office window: snow on maple blossoms and

The top of our bird feeder.

Then it was onto some warmer March days: new leaves on a rose bush trimmed last fall,

Dutch iris in a garden in Texas, and

A cat surveying the neighborhood from the top of a gate (also in Texas).

A few days later – there were lots to zoom items at the Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh: a slipper orchid,

A Chihuly bowl, and

The inside of a tulip.

The following day there were the birds at the National Aviary: an ibis,

Flamingo feet,

A hornbill (with feathers that look like very long eyelashes and a lot of cracks and scars on the bill), and

The complex features of an Andean condor.

Back in Maryland – the bark of a persimmon tree and

The delicate petals of a daffodil that survived snow and ice a few days prior to this picture.

Josey Ranch Lake – March 2017

I saw a lot of the same birds on the lake at Josey Ranch in Carrollton TX as I did back in January. The coots were still around. A pigeons mingled with them in the first picture below. I observed more instances of them running on the water to take off into the air this time (second picture).

The ring-billed gulls were looking scruffy with their feathers ruffled by the wind.

There were several types of black birds making a lot of noise. This one was probably a great-tailed grackle.

A male and female mallard walked right up to me (see the toe of my shoe in the second picture below!). Maybe they thought I had bread for them. The female seemed to be trying to avoid several males that were trying to herd her in different directions.

The male pigeons were intent as well…and the females not enthusiastic about their pursuit.

The lesser scaup were still plentiful. They’ll be heading north to their breeding grounds in the as the season warms. There appeared to be a lot more males than females on the lake. (A coot mingled with the scaup in the third picture.)

There were a few northern shoveler ducks on the lake. The only one I got zoomed close and focused flew off just as I took the picture. The bright orange of the legs and feet are clearly visible.

The swans (mute swans…not native to North America)  are nesting. One was swimming on the lake (a juvenile?) while there appeared to be two more barely visible above the cattails and grasses…sitting on their nest. Hopefully I’ll be back at a time that the cygnet(s) would be out on the lake.

It was cold, cloudy, and blustery morning when it visited the area….I made it quick and headed back indoors…and then flew home to Maryland later in the day.

Memory Prompting Scenes

A row of daffodils blooming between the house and the road – connecting to outbuildings. In the other direction, the daffodils continued and a pear tree was in full bloom. The picture will remind me of the day I flew to Texas and drove to Oklahoma…to visit people that have known me my whole life and are now fragile. Every time I see them now is precious since there might not be another time.

The next night – the moon came up and a big crowd celebrated a birthday. I stepped outside into the cold and quiet for a few seconds for a few seconds…to create the memory scene of the event.

Back in Texas a few days later – a 20+ year old rose bush that was a birthday gift for my grandmother (maybe for her 80^th  birthday) was blooming.

 It has a dense stand of other flowers planted around its base.  The scene always reminds me of her and the gardening she enjoyed. That rose bush is a memorial to her more than the monument is the cemetery further away.

Last but not least - a garden scene...with pieces of travels and earlier times of our lives surrounded by greenery that gets more lush each year. Even most of the plants were obtained from other family gardens...evoking lots of good memories.

Art Seen on the Move

I made a quick trip from Maryland to Texas then Oklahoma…back to Texas and then home to Maryland….and used my new cellphone to take pictures of the ‘art’ along the way.

At BWI airport early in the morning, I noticed the Maryland scenes depicted in mosaics on the floor and on tables that are probably very busy later in the day.

Driving from the Dallas area toward Tulsa on I75, we stopped in Durant for lunch. Salitas (Tex-Mex food) is not far off the highway and has desert murals painted on the side.

After visiting family near Tulsa, we headed to Stillwater, OK for a visit with friends and then headed for home along I35. The rest stop had Teepee shaped structures over the picnic tables! Note that I didn’t take any ‘on the road’ pictures this trip; that is because I was the driver for the entire part of the trek made via automobile.

As I arrived at Love Field for my flight home, I paused a few extra seconds while I retrieved by boarding pass and driver’s license from my bag to take a picture of the colorful mosaic beside the security checkpoint. It’s size and position make it difficult to capture…but I always notice it and celebrate because I am heading home.

Zooming – January 2017

I use the zoom on my camera in so many situations – to look at the details of a façade in McKinney, Texas,

A swan and coot at Josey Ranch.

And then there is the combined strategy of photographing through a window and zooming: crepe myrtle seed pods through the window of the hotel in Grapevine, TX (when it was very cold outside),

Kitt Peak (probably) taken through the window of the plane taking off from Tucson headed to Los Angles, and

A tangle of plum tree branches covered in water droplets in the morning sunshine.

Sometimes the zoom is so great that it makes the picture look more like a painting. I thought this shelf fungus looked like a stylized bird!

Highway through El Paso, TX

The best highway art on our drive between Abilene, Texas and Tucson, Arizona on Interstate 10 was through El Paso. My daughter was driving so I could indulge in photographing some of it. I had remembered some of the structures from previous road trips when I was driving and thus unable to do any photography. There is quite a variety: decorative supports, stripes and medallions on the sides of the decking, elaborate railings, metal sculpture, towers on abutments, and colorful retaining walls. The colors send to be muted…very much like the colors of the surrounding mountains and desert.

The road was in good repair and not too busy on the Sunday (a week ago) that we drove through. The city crowds to the sides of the highway…and the University of El Paso campus is within site of the highway. It is easy to image the interstate as the backbone of the city.

Wind Turbines in West Texas

Last Sunday, we left Abilene while it was still dark to drive to Tucson. I ask my daughter to take the first driving stretch because I wanted to photograph wind turbines at sunrise as we drove. The timing was good since we started seeing the big turbines almost immediately along Interstate 20 – and they continued for miles and miles. Most of them were set away from the highway but there were a few close enough to see the colorful sunrise light on the blades. The area must be one of the largest (if not the largest) in the US for wind power generation.

There were a lot of RV parks that looked full in the area and I wondered if RVs have become the housing of choice for temporary workers. There were people out and about – buddle up for the cold and working. Ranching, oil, wind….all industries big in the area that require outdoor work even when it is cold and a Sunday morning.

Surprisingly the wind did not bother the car as much in that stretch of highway as it did in the up and down area as we got further along – past Pecos. The terrain channels the wind into swirling gusts that we could feel in the car steering. We watched the big trucks more closely and minimized our time passing them….kept moving along at the speed limit – which is 80 mph for a lot of the drive through West Texas.

Grackles and Mockingbirds – Grapevine, TX

Earlier this week I posted some sunrise pictures taken through the hotel window in Grapevine, Texas. I was at the hotel later one day during our stay and enjoyed photographing grackles and mockingbirds through the second-floor window of our room. It was a very cold and breezy day. All the mockingbird pictures show them looking fat with fluffed feathers. It’s always surprising how much bigger and rounder a bird can look when it’s cold.

The grackles (probably Great-tailed Grackles based on their size, tail, and location in north central Texas) didn’t seem bothered by the cold. They are all sleek and full of assertiveness. They seemed to be aware that they were being watched…and they glared back at the camera! Notice how robust the toes/talons are; they make the mockingbird look delicate.

Birding through a window…the way to go on bitterly cold days!

Josey Ranch Lake – January 2017

I saw some of the same kinds of birds I saw back in February 2015 when I walked around the lake last week. It was cold --- and the wind made it feel colder. We did not dawdle but I did manage to take a few pictures. As if 2015: There were lots of Lesser Scaup (the first picture is of 3 males and 1 female) but they were all over the lake with their oddly shaped heads. These birds are only in Texas for the winter.

The Northern Shoveler is also a winter bird.

The swans were still around too. They stay on the lake all through the years.

This time I also noticed American Coots. All About Birds says they are in the area throughout the year but I don’t remember seeing as many of them as I did this year.

There were the Mallards too – another year round resident.

I spotted a Cormorant too.

Finally – the tail and back feathers on this duck seem to glow. It was such a gray day that the feathers stood out. There are also water droplets on the head and breast. I don’t know what kind of duck it is.

Grapevine, TX Sunrise

I traveled with my daughter to the AAS Conference in Grapevine, TX last week. We didn’t stay in the conference hotel (the Gaylord Texan) – opting for a less expensive hotel near the Grapevine Mall. The plan was that I would drop her off at the conference, visit with family in the area during the day, and pick her up when her sessions/dinner were done for the day. We planned to go down to hotel’s breakfast as soon as it opened each morning. The very first morning we came back to the room after breakfast to a spectacular sunrise as soon as we opened the drapes! These were taken from our hotel window.

The next day – we were a little later getting back to the room…and the sun was already up – muted by clouds. It was a lot more orange...still a nice sunrise.

A good breakfast and a beautiful sunrise. I like to start my day that way.

McKinney, Texas

My sisters and daughter took a walk around the old down town of McKinney, Texas – a place none of us had ever been. It’s a small town that has been around for a long time but is not feeling the encroachment of Dallas. The down town has become a place of repurposed buildings. It has a lot of boutique type shops and eateries. We did our walking around before lunch.

There is a courthouse at the center of it all that has been repurposed to be a performing arts center. Most of it was not open on January 2^nd but we appreciated the outside part of the building. Most of the visible façade was built in the 1920s.

There are also two ‘bank’ facades. When they were built, the thought must have been that they would always be banks!

There are bits of whimsy along the sidewalks too. I’m not sure how many painted frogs there were. I managed to photography two of them.

One store had a metal giraffe with a scarf outside the doorway.

There was a cotton boll wreath in one of the store windows. At one time, the town economy was based on cotton and it was prosperous enough to enable to remodeling of the courthouse to its present form.

The store fronts themselves are interesting and the businesses appear to being doing well enough to maintain them. Unlike a lot of small towns that are overcome by a nearby big city, McKinney seems to be thriving as itself. There were people enjoying a sunny (and warm) winter day all around the square while we were there and the Irish Pub where we had lunch filled up while we were eating our lunch.

If you are in the area – it’s worth spending a few hours browsing the shops and having a meal.