Happy 250th.
Lots of challenges on the horizon - will we keep the values that provided for this amazing country or squander them because we don’t know human nature nor history.
Photo is from the Yorktown harbor where the new nation was secured.
Almost the Fourth /
For the Third of July we remember the end of the battle of Gettysburg and the beginning of the end of the Civil War. The flag is from Glacier National Park on Two Medicine Lake.
Nearly the Fourth /
As we approach the Fourth, let’s celebrate the Second with the decorations at the Owners Club at Wild Dunes. Please note the giant blob emerging from the left. I was able to defeat it in hand-to-hand combat. Therefore Jill was safe. Whew.
Pharaoh? /
This rock formation along a hike in the Oak Creek Canyon south of Flagstaff, AZ, reminded me of a mummy that I saw at the British Museum in London. It had a gold band for the beard of the Pharaoh and the wrapped head of course.
Ready for a Close Up /
This is Broken Arch in Arches National Park. Easy to see how it got its name. It is an easy 2.5 or 3 mile circuit hike that you start and end in the last parking area for the campground. Not nearly as busy as most of the park. Highly recommend.
Down East Maine /
The coast changes dramatically once you head east from Portland. Now the coastline is rough, rocky and wild. Great swaths of pine forrest come to the edge of the rocks and often are hit with spray from the crashing waves. Just beautiful.
Sunday Post: Photo is from the Painted Desert in Arizona /
Hiking in Arches /
This trail leads to three arches you cannot see from the highway. It is a lightly visited part of the park that you access from the campground restroom area. There is parking for four or five vehicles. There is little shade on this hike but the day’s temperatures were pleasant. Broken Arch was the main destination for the hike, about 3 miles in total.
Wide Open Spaces /
West Texas feels like the Texas of the old movies, space, wind, wildness and beauty. Take a deep breath.
Monet- ish? /
I really loved this photo taken at Zion National Park along the Weeping Rock Trail. Magical colors and textures. It just feels like the style of Claude Monet, “known for Impressionism that emphasizes capturing light, texture and color in a momentary view of a scene, often painted en plein air.”
Linn Cove Viaduct /
Bridges are an important part of the Blue Ridge Parkway’s design concept. There are 176 bridges on the parkway: 10% of all the road bridges in the National Park Service. Bridges are the largest structures on the parkway and have to be functional in addition to visually appropriate.
Here the beautiful roadway seems to vanish in the mist. From an article on the LCV:
The Linn Cove Viaduct is the most famous bridge on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Design began on the Linn Cove Viaduct in the late 1970s. The challenge was to complete the final section of the parkway around the natural environment of Grandfather Mountain without damaging it. This famous bridge is 1,234 feet long and was completed without a single structural problem. There was not one crack in any of the pre-cast concrete segments.
The Linn Cove Viaduct was completed in 1982 and then work began on curbing and grading the roadway around it. The viaduct was opened to the public in 1987 completing the 469-mile Blue Ridge Parkway.
Tularosa Mogollon /
That is the name given by archeologists for the people and the style of pottery they made that lived in these cliff dwellings, the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. To get to this remote part of New Mexico is a bit of a detour - it is over an hour north of Silver City NM at the literal “end of the road.” And it is a winding mountain road as well. These were not the only people to live in the area or to use the cliffs for protected living but they were the ones who built the dwellings that you can walk through today. It is also the immediate area where Geronimo the Apache leader was likely born. He was born about 1829 died 1909 and was the last Apache leader to surrender to the US.
Bubble /
This is a view of North Bubble from the trail that circles Jordan Pond just a short distance from where the trail splits off toward the Jordan Pond House and Popovers! A favorite spot and easy 2 mile walk around the lake. Up to the Bubbles, North and South, not quite so easy.
Sunday Post: Photo is from Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountain National Park /
Little Disney Magic /
If you are Epcot and standing near the Figment pavilion near the reverse waterfall and can wait patiently, soon a monorail will swoop through the edge of the park and you can take a photo that shows both the waterfall and the train. If you are here while the Flower and Garden festivale is on, you might also get lots of flowers under the monorail structure. Not today, however.
Tree Swallow /
This fellow is easy to ID from here because it is the only Swallow that will nest in man-made boxes. They are brilliant electric blue backed fast flying birds. They eat a LOT of insects, you want them in your backyard.
Marshland /
This is a bit of the marshland you can explore on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, USA. While there are parts of the cape that are built up, lots remain with protected beaches, marshes, shoreline and protected property. Great place to wander across the whole scope of the area, from Plymouth to Providence there are interesting places to visit.
Old Soaker /
That is the name given to this small group of rocks in Frenchman’s Bay off the coast of Acadia National Park. You can hear the wave crash on the rocks even at a distance from the shore.
Sunset East /
Along the Atlantic at Isle of Palms in South Carolina at sunset. The clouds on the east picked up the color from the dipping sun and changed into these gorgeous colors with a nice reflection on the shore. Magical moment.
One of my favorite walks at Acadia National Park /
This is not a long hike, perhaps a mile and a half. It begins at the Wild Gardens of Acadia and goes toward the golf course. But it is a stunning walk between aspens, along boardwalks, groves of soaring trees, a steam or two and lots of ferns and wild flowers. Great way to step away from anxiety or stress, not worry about the length of the hike nor the steepness of a mountain or needed special gear, just a walk in the woods. Peaceful.
