All of the trees were still wearing their summer coats of green when I wandered off to England just over a week ago. I was more than a little surprised to see patches of bright red leaves on my return home. Yes, I know, the autumn equinox was last week.
While I love to watch the changing colors, I'm really not ready for the move into much shorter days and cooler temperatures.
I had enough time before a flight on September 19th to seek out the recently dedicated 9/11 memorial at Boston's Logan Airport.
A glass cube surrounds glass panels containing the names of the passengers & crew of the two flights that left Logan Airport on that fateful day. The outside of the structure is made up of thin slabs of glass, alternating in placement, each panel offset from the next. Looking up, there are floating pieces of glass. Two simple benches stand within the structure, a place to sit in quiet contemplation.
A place of peace in a busy airport...
Wandering in new places is a good change of pace. Today is the day for me to head to England's Lake District for a week of walking and camera play.
There probably won't be any new blog entries for the next week (plus), but I still plan to play with words. If you'd like to watch over my shoulder as I wander, follow the words in my journal Fells, lakes, wonder.
A walk through the Boston Common and the Public Garden this afternoon led a few scattered images to jump into my camera.
From the magesty of a beautiful building, to a duck blurring her head as she satisfied an itch...
I'm finding it a little hard to believe that my January dream of a vacation is almost here. I'm headed for the Lake District in England to wander, and to attend a photography seminar. Two more days until I fly...
I'm excited. A little nervous, but excitement outweighs my slight case of nerves by far. Caroline and I will finally get to meet in person after having online conversations for a long, long, time. She's the person who told me about the seminar, about Light & Land, and about Charlie Waite, the landscape photographer who will be sharing his knowledge with us.
It's almost time; time to cross the ocean, to remember to drive on the left, to walk over hills, to capture images. Time to dream...
I opened the latest issue of American Bicyclist this morning, and the reprint of Henri Boulanger's blog entry titled "Just Ride" jumped off the page at me. He talks about enjoying cycling - not getting pulled in by things, but about riding, enjoying the moment, looking around.
Henri's observations apply to more than bikes though. I find myself riding or walking, always looking, absorbing life around me. Yes, many times I have a camera in my hand, but not always. I wonder if my wandering on a bike at a slow pace, or wandering with a camera in my hand... have these activities trained my senses?
I highly recommend that you read Henri's blog entry Just Ride. Yes, read it, even if you're not a cyclist. And as you read it, realize that it was written by a 13-year-old bicyclist, someone who is very in touch with his thoughts and his surroundings. We can all learn from his words.
A deep blue sky decorated by clouds called to me as I headed out for a late day walk. Blue and bright white, sections of gray, sun sinking lower, painting the clouds with color, constantly changing...
It was pure luck. I had a camera in my hand as I walked late in the light part of the day. I kept stopping to let images of flowers gone to seed jump into my camera, fully expecting that none of the photos would be keepers. The wind was light, but it created lots of movement.
But look! I was so lucky, a wisp of a seed stuck in a spider's web, how amazing.
The edges of the day are pulling inward, shrinking.
Funny, the change in daylight usually doesn't jump out at me until closer to the winter solstice, and we're just creeping toward the equinox. Yikes! I hope that doesn't mean that the real dark later in the year gets to me more than normal. I suspect that part of the slap in the face is that I just spent a week in the western side of the Atlantic time zone, and I live in the eastern side of the Eastern time zone. The differences in the times of sunrise and sunset between those locations is noticeable.
Now? It's dark when I get up to start my day... Sunrise today is at 6:21, sunset at 19:01. That's still a lot better than what will come in three months at the winter solstice, when sunrise is at 7:11 and sunset at 16:14.
It's no where near winter's early darkness, and I'd better adjust my mind to what is today. Before much more time passes I'm going to need to pull out my flashing lights so I can walk down a dark road and still be seen.
Ah, a new unsafe activity...
I was driving home tonight, driving down a 2-lane road with not much of a shoulder, a road with many cars, busy, at the end of the work day. A man was walking on the side of the road. He was (properly) walking facing traffic. He was walking. He had a briefcase by his side, and in his other hand he was holding an open book. His feet were wandering down the road. His eyes were on his book, reading, paying no attention at all to the ground under his feet or to the cars around him.
I'm not sure why I was surprised to see this, but I was. Somehow, mixing walking and reading a book doesn't make much sense to me. I'd say his behavior was a bit odd, wouldn't you?
I was rolling down the road on two (bicycle) wheels, enjoying the sunshine, the blue skies, the warmth. I stopped to see if there was anything crying out to jump into my camera, and...
I saw this beautiful bird sunning himself. I think he was waiting for me because when I pulled up and leaned my bike against a rail, he was sitting, back to the water, staring up at the road, at me. I was quiet, moving slowly, hoping that I didn't scare him. He stared at me, stared some more, and then he turned and settled in, watching the water.
What's that noise? Skittering, something close but hidden, skittering...
I went for a quick walk in the early afternoon, escaping into the woods behind my office. I was walking down a trail, a canopy of leaves over my head. I heard something. Quiet, but something moving. I stopped and looked up. There was a chipmunk on a (bending) branch, just in front of me and above my head, seemingly just out of my reach. I looked at him, he looked at me, and then he bounded from the tree to the ground. He was gone, running.
Then this evening I was walking close to home. I passed under a big tree, and I heard a noise. I looked up. Nothing visible. I looked down, and there were remnants of nuts or pine cones all over the ground. I still heard noises, and then I saw things floating down from the tree. I don't know who was hiding in that tree, but more than one creature was up there, eating, tearing pieces, throwing things. My guess? Squirrels or chipmunks or both.
My trip to England is jumping out in front of me, just over two weeks away now. I stashed a reminder to myself (in the back of my mind) to order another RoadID before my trip, and tonight I realized that I'd better get that done.
Why? I wear a RoadID when I wander on my bike, when I walk, and when I'm traveling. Biking and walking - it let's me walk without carrying ID and my health insurance card, just in case something happens. Yes, you can say that nothing will happen, and it usually doesn't. But something did happen to me a few years back, and since then I've been careful to have easy access to emergency information on me.
My RoadID has both a web address and a phone number that can be used to access that information. The phone number is an 800 number that only works in North America. At first I was going to rely on any emergency personnel having access to the web, but then... I went ahead and ordered another RoadID tonight. I called them (instead of placing my usual web order) to request that they put a non-800 phone number on it.
Done! And I should have it next week, in plenty of time for my trip.
I wandered the three coasts of New Brunswick, seeing beauty, finding yet another place that I'm going to need to return to again. One visit definitely wasn't enough. Some day...
If you'd like to see some of the sights that flowed by my eyes during my recent wanders, please visit my A tale of two photo galleries. And if you prefer words over pictures, you can wander through my words in my journal.
A sample from each of the galleries is included below. Click on any picture to be transported to the gallery where it resides.
The northern edge... Bathurst to Acadia:
