Ten Little Celebrations – July 2017

A lot has happened this July…and it was easy to pick 10 little celebrations to highlight:

A successful first road trip. I finally got a road trip in my Prius Prime. I didn’t celebrate the blow out that happened on the original start to the trip (I did celebrate that the blow out did not cause an accident) but the trip that re-started the day after was so enjoyable that thoughts about by car turned positive again.

A morning walk at Mt. Pleasant Farm. I’ll get around to posting about this walk because it was so enjoyable: temperature perfect for hiking, a flock of gold finches bathing in a riffle of the Davis Branch, dragonflies everywhere, Monarch butterflies in the meadow, a ground hog ambling out of the path ahead of me, a riot of vegetation – including ripening blackberries. It was very much a celebration of summer.

Great Blue Heron interaction with a dragonfly. Sometimes being in the right place to witness the interaction of two very different organisms is a celebration. I could photograph this one. It was a juvenile Great Blue Heron it is seemed perplexed about what to do when the dragonfly perched while the heron was looking for lunch. Eventually the heron moved…the dragonfly moved. This went on for a few minutes before the dragonfly got the idea to find another place to land.

Summer camp photographers at Mt. Pleasant. I celebrated another group of 5-12 year old photographers that took excellent pictures. I have a post planned for early next week about the adventure from my perspective. One of the counselors commented that the campers seemed so engaged with the activity. There is something about having a camera in hand that is almost magic.

Milkweed bug instars. This time of year, I am always thrilled to find a plant with a lot of instars of milkweed bugs. It almost always happens in July. They start out very tiny and almost all red and go through several stages getting larger and larger and ending up as adults that are orange and black…and with wings!

Our street. I am celebrating that the street repaving in front of our house is complete…and it wasn’t too traumatic while the work was going on.

Melons. We are getting melons from our CSA – always worth celebrating so rare we have gotten sun jewel melons, cantaloupe and yellow watermelon. Hopefully we’ll get some red watermelons in August.

Then there were celebrations associated with volunteering a Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy exhibit:

Butterfly laying an egg on my ring. OK – I’ll admit it was a very confused butterfly. But it was magical to have a butterfly become a part of my ring temporarily! I transferred the egg to the host plant afterward.

A 90-year-old birthday girl in Wings of Fancy. The lady was in a wheel chair but thoroughly enjoyed her family’s outing to the exhibit. Everyone that was in the conservatory celebrated with her!

Hummingbird moth at Brookside. I had been seeing the hummingbird moth on the walkway up to the ticket taker for the exhibit…and finally managed to get a picture. Celebration!

Prius Prime – Month 6 – Finally a road trip

I was filled with anticipation last week – ready to make my first road trip in the car: a 3.5 hour drive between my home and my daughter’s new apartment in State College, Pennsylvania.  The trip would push the miles on the car over the 2000 mark and use up the first tank of gas. I took some pictures of the sunflower on my deck before I left at about 6:30 AM.  The unpleasant surprise came about 30 minutes later as I was driving on I70 (at about 70 mph): a rear tire blew out! I managed to get the car off the side of the road and then pulled further off when I looked at the tire. The car does not have a spare and the tire was too damaged for the temporary repair kit to work at all. I called my husband and my insurance company (since towing is part of our policy). Aargh!

While I waited for my husband and the tow truck, I took pictures. I did not take any pictures of the flat (too upsetting); it was calming to take pictures of the roadside vegetation,

critters on the still intact tires, and

closeups of some flowers.

The car was towed to the dealership and the car was ready to drive again my mid-afternoon (paid for by an extra warranty we had purchased when we found out it had no spare). I decided to start out again the next morning; charging up the car again overnight. This time it was more like I expected. I left even earlier – at 5:30. My first rest stop was the South Mountain Welcome Center. There is one on both sides of I70 about an hour into the trip so planned to stop there coming and going.

The next stop was a Sunoco – not for gas yet; it was a rest stop. I did buy gas in State College even though, the car still had about 1/4 tank of gas left. I later calculated that the car got about 2060 miles on the first tank of gas…but maybe for plug in hybrids that is a meaningless metric. Most of my trips from home are short enough to be completed as an EV which is why I decided to buy the car in the first place.

A few days later I headed home and stopped at the South Midway rest area on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. I like it better than the other options. This road trip is one I will make frequently enough that it’s worth it to find places that are easy on/off the highway and open all the time.

I stopped at the South Mountain Welcome Center and

Noticed the rocks on the façade of the structure and the encouragement to venture off the highway. Maybe I do that next time. As I came down off South Mountain, I got the only bug splats of the trip on my windshield!

Previous posts: My new car – a Prius Prime, week 1, month 1, month 2, month 3, month 4

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!

Road Trip from Tucson – Part 1

I decided to take pictures at every stop we made along our four-day trek between Tucson, Arizona and Laurel, Maryland. The first one was at the Texas Canyon rest stop – still in Arizona – that we’ve stopped at every time we’ve made the long drive over the past 6 years. It’s the most scenic rest stop of the drive – rocks, blue sky, and

Desert plants.

We didn’t stop at all as we traversed New Mexico – holding out until we reached El Paso, Texas and a Love’s for gas, coffee for my daughter, and a soft drink for me. El Paso has the best highway art (overpasses and abutments) along the drive. The area is very dry – makes Tucson look lush.

The next stop was a rest stop near Van Horn, Texas. It is one of the old style in Texas: not air conditioned or completely enclosed….but beautiful with historical themed mosaics and colorful sandstone walls.

The area is still very dry.

The first day out was a long one so we had another stop at a Love’s in Odessa, Texas

Before heading on to Abilene where we stopped for the night. The sun was going down by the time we picked up our dinner. We parked in the shade and decided that the temperature was dropping enough that we didn’t unload the plants or tarantula that we had in the car.

The increasing amount of available water makes the eastward journey greener and greener. By Abilene there are even some trees!

As we headed out the next morning there were some clouds.

We stopped at a new rest stop. It opened in Spring 2016. It was museum like…air conditioned…no mosaic.

Shortly after the stop, it started sprinkling and then we got waves of heavier rain through Fort Worth. It was misting and then just cloudy for the rest of the day. We arrived in Carrollton…visited with family. I took another picture of the red yucca in bloom…and the sunset. We were glad that the drive between Abilene and Carrollton was a short driving day allowing us to rest up a bit for the next 2 long drive days….which I will post about tomorrow.

Leaving Tucson

After 6 years of graduate school (and completing PhDs), my daughter and son-in-law are leaving Tucson. I went to help them pack the apartment (see moving in containers part 1 and part 2) and then drive with my daughter cross country in a very full car (upcoming posts). I was too busy to do any touring but I did take a few pictures around their apartment and then as we left Tucson for the last time.

They contributed a plant to the landscaping of the apartments; a solanum plant on the ledge of their patio dropped seeds everywhere and one of them grew quickly enough to be large enough (and blooming) that the apartment grounds crew evidently think it is part of the landscaping!

The scenes around the apartment were familiar: The lantana was blooming,

The tall palms caught the morning sun before the rooftops,

The screen of tall evergreens acted as a screen,

The fountain made watery sounds that could be heard inside the apartment if everything else was quiet,

The pinks and oranges of lantana…the shaggy bark of eucalyptus…all part of the walk down to their parking space, and

Crepe myrtle blooming.

We thought we would leave just after sunrise, but Arizona is not on daylight savings time so that became too early. It was still early and the streets of Tucson were mostly vacant as we started our road trip.

We might go back to Tucson someday on a vacation, but it won’t be the same as these past 6 years.

Road Trip to Pittsburgh

Our Maryland neighborhood was snowy when we started out after the morning traffic. The roads were clear and my husband savored the adaptive cruise control in his new car once we got on the highway.

We’re becoming more familiar with the South Mountain rest stop in Interstate 70 these days. The walks and roadways were clear but there were piles of snow everywhere else. It was cold and breezy at the place….this picture makes it look a lot warmer than it was.

I liked the side at Pennsylvania Welcome Center further on. By this time in our drive, the clouds had come in. The closer we got to Pittsburgh the colder it seemed to get and at one point it started to snow sideways (because of the stiff breeze).

I attempted to get pictures of ice flows that were on many of the roadcuts through the Allegheny Mountains. My favorite is the one with the truck since it demonstrates how big some of the icicles were.

More posts from our time in Pittsburgh over the next few days….

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.

A Jaunt to State College PA

Yesterday my husband I drove to State College and back to see my daughter and son-in-law…and switch cars. We’re replacing both of our cars (mine was already replaced with a Prius Prime…more on the replacement for my husband’s car in the next few days) and decided to give them the better of the two cars; the other will be traded in when we buy my husband’s new car. It was a 6-hour round trip; it rained most of the time.

We did a little looking around State College since it could become the place my daughter does a post doc – drove buy two houses that were ‘for sale’ that I’d seen on a real estate site and had lunch at Wegmans. Both houses looked nice from the outside and the Wegmans was very like the one I shop at every week – a little smaller, but still very familiar and not a place I want to be during peak grocery shopping hours!

Then we met up with my daughter and son-in-law at her hotel. While my husband and son-in-law did the car switch (set up of nav system with new addresses, etc.), my daughter and I walked to the Penn State campus following the route she would use to the building where she would be giving a talk and meeting with people for the early part of the week.

And then we were back in the car we would trade in and heading back to Maryland! The rain was lighter on our drive south but the clouds were low and sometimes reached the ground. I was glad the temperature stayed above freezing all day.

Texas Canyon Rest Area

About an hour east of Tucson on Interstate 10 is the Texas Canyon Rest Area. I almost always stop there – whether I am headed to or from Tucson. Last week, I was headed to the city after a very long day of driving from Texas. It had been very cold when we left the Dallas area and still cold when we left Abilene…but the day had begun to be warmer by the time we passed through El Paso and we were glad to leave our coats in the car. The stop as Texas Canyon was very pleasant and I took a few pictures of the rocks.

It was sunny afternoon with enough clouds to make the sky more than a blue backdrop – if I didn’t zoom in too much. It was the desert in winter – but the rocks are the highlight of this landscape all the time.

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.

Road Trip to Texas

I started 2017 on a road trip to Texas. We (my daughter and I) left while it was still dark the morning of the 31^st from Maryland and arrived at our destination near Dallas on the 1^st. It was cloudy – misty – rainy both days. Fortunately, the temperature stayed well above freezing. We did see a dusting of snow on the hills as we drove the ups, downs, and curves of the Interstate in southwestern Virginia…the Appalachians.

The route was through the backbone of Tennessee on the Blue Star Highway: Knoxville, Nashville, Memphis. The rest stops in Tennessee are probably the best along the route.

My daughter drove as we crossed the Mississippi River at Memphis into Arkansas. It’s difficult to get a good view of the river with the high railings of the bridge….safety first rather than view.

We made good time both days. Most of the route was good highway and the construction areas were not active on the holiday weekend. Traffic was light to medium. We encountered one accident along the way that was on the other side of the highway. The flyovers on some the newer interstate connections approaching Dallas were almost too high for comfort; I focused on the road rather than the scenery!

And we arrived about when the nav system predicted.

2017 Begins

I always like to get up early to see the sunrise on the first day of the year. This year will be no exception but I will see it somewhere along the road between Dickson, Tennessee and Dallas, Texas. I’m writing this post a few days ahead of time and scheduling it to come out on the 1^st - including a sunrise from a few days ago. Being on the road at the first of the year is as different as our trip to Conowingo was on Christmas morning.

When my daughter was young, we had a tradition of going down to the Smithsonian on the 1^st of the year. All the museums along the Mall in Washington DC were open. It wasn’t very crowded. I remember when my daughter was only 4 months old and I tried to get her to notice the elephant in the rotunda of the Natural History Museum! She doesn’t have a conscious memory of the experience, of course…but I’ve always wondered if she has a subconscious impression. When she was in elementary school, she spent a long time in the section of the Natural History Museum that displayed skeletons. She liked the Air and Space Museum but spent more time in the Natural History Museum.

So – something beautiful to start this New Year.