Take the Cobbled Way
At the corner of my street, I always turn left, then always stay far right to avoid scraping my muffler as there is a big depression to channel the water coming down the arroyo. Click to enlarge this picture and you can see a small trickle. A few days ago it was like fording a stream!
Wherever you are going as you enter my fraccionamiento, the way is always up! And the way out is always down.
To see more possible ways to go, go HERE
In late October, everything in Mexico is about MARIGOLDS and Dia de Los Muertos!!!!
http://ceenphotography.com/2015/07/01/flower-of-the-day-july-1-2015-dahlias/
The prompt is “Buildings over four stories high,” but there were no buildings that tall in my home town. The courthouse was comprised of three dizzying stories and that’s about as “high” as I got while I was growing up!
There was, however, one towering structure in my town:
And of course, there were other skyscrapers as well:
But, when I returned a month ago, I noticed competition for tallest edifice:
It is a new structure that stores water piped in from the Missouri River 60 miles away.
Brave new world!!!
But, just to prove you can take the girl out of the country, let me share some earlier views from the California portion of my trip.
Views of San Francisco still bring out the neck-craning hayseed in me.
Cee has me checking everythng out in black and white lately, and I prefer these cast in a film noir mood:
But my favorite is this rather sinister edited version that suggests Armageddon:
Off-Season: WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge
Interstate 90 with not a car in sight? It’s definitely off-season when it comes to tourists in South Dakota!!!This is the main route to Mount Rushmore, The Corn Palace, Wall Drug,the Pioneer Auto Museum and the 1880’s Town!
Even as we approached one of the top tourist attractions in the U.S.?– (Well, perhaps in South Dakota.)–definitely off-season!
Does moulting count as off-season? Cee says so, so so do I. What other sentence have you ever seen with three so’s in a row? Sorry, Cee, for being a copy-cat., but there is no baby in mine! This buffalo snapped in Sheridan, Wyoming, that i just left four days ago.
An almost-empty pier in Ajijic clearly depicts the off-season.
But not as much as the completely empty bar stools do.
In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Off-Season.”
If you want to know where I came from, drive about 135 miles east from Rapid City, South Dakota, on Interstate 90 and look for the Pioneer Auto Museum signs!
This is the old Highway 16 that parallels the Interstate and that brings you into town.
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This is the house I grew up in. It once had a very big front porch that extended across the whole front. My dad planted all the trees. My friend Joyce, who bought the house many years after my family left, added the fancy front door, shutters and brick steps.
The old water tower still stands, but two more modern towers now store water from the Missouri River 60 miles away.
The widest and perhaps emptiest main street in the world is not just an optical illusion.
Head out of town past the cemetery and you’ll find the gate to the last house my parents lived in on the left.
What you won’t find anymore is the house, that blew away in a tornado. The little shed is on the neighbor’s land.
The The time zone change between Central and Mountain Time Zones that used to run right down the middle of our main street has been moved to the county line, fifteen miles to the west.
As soon as you leave Murdo, heading west, start looking for the signs for Petrified Gardens and Wall Drug. You won’t be able to overlook them!
Nor will you be able to overlook the beautiful badlands. Veer off the Interstate for a better view. I’m including a few shots from the Interstate.
If you don’t know about Wall Drug, read about it HERE
Plenty of beautiful scenery as you head for Rapid City, The Black Hills and Mount Rushmore.
So, that’s the rest of the story!!! I’m now back in Sheridan after driving thirty hours on the road–1758 miles in 5 days. Great visits with my nieces and older sister, old school friends in three different towns, and my cousins Sharon and Lisa in a fourth town…Talk about a whirlwind tour!!! Rain most of the day for two days–today a rain of insects that almost completely covered the grill and windshield of the car…Always a new thrill in what looks like tame country. Thanks for following along! And thanks, Patti, for doing most of the driving and planning!
You may click on these pictures for larger views. Bet you knew that.
The Prompt: Tell us something most people don’t know about you.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/a-mystery-wrapped-in-an-enigma/
Small Reunion
At the piano, the music chords easily.
The soprano’s voice slides smoothly from her throat
while we others strain until “Dear Heart” syrups our vocal chords
and we slip with less effort up and down the scale–
old friends singing even older songs.
The small dog snuggles in,
balancing on the plush chair back.
The mother of the pianist and the soprano
observes from her frame atop the piano.
All husbands out and about other business.
Old letters reread, old memories pulled from forgetfulness,
each of us left at the end richer–hearts refilled
from a shared past. Every word
a song of its own.
Our notes blending together
into perfect harmony.
Disclaimer: I obviously haven’t mastered the art of taking pictures with my cell phone, so these are terrible, but they do convey a bit of the action and mood, so I’m including them. Unfortunately, I had the camera on video during the entire singing session, so no photos…too bad.
Music is a mirror, not a map. Looking in it we may see what we are and what we were, but looking at someone else’s song as a prediction of our own future is like looking in a fun house mirror and believing it is reality. All representations are a fun fiction–a hope, a faulty remembrance. If you want to know your future, just live it.
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Mix Tape” –-Put together a musical playlist of songs that describe your life, including what you hope your future entails.
The Window
opens onto an empty lot.
Guamuchil trees and wild castor beans
rise from its slope to lift toward
where I sit above, hands engaged
in taking me away to a place
far beyond ideas.
It is that destination dreams only point us to–
that place where, perhaps, I’ll float
after the feared moment
when I’ll leave this world for good.
I dread it so, that zone,
and yet if what my fingers have just told is right,
it’s where I choose to go again and again,
escaping to that little house
down in my garden
where I keep my tools and paint
and ten thousand small objects
all of which have a particular place they want to be fastened.
I am just here to help them go where they want to go.
Where they have, perhaps, been created to go–
taking me with them to the zone,
all of us
headed toward
the inevitable.
“The little house” is my studio, here seen from the garden. The earlier view was of the wild lot next door, seen from the window of my studio.
A message from the zone. Click to enlarge, then hover over objects and click again to see more detail..
The Prompt: Tell us about your favorite way to get lost in a simple activity — running, chopping vegetables, folding laundry, whatever. What’s it like when you’re in “The Zone?”
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 