Mixture of Unexpected Colors from nature to man made. We are camping at a spot in Georgia that has a mixture of color during this month of December. This little bug landed on a board that was covered with raindrops. I do not know what kind of bug it is, but I found the colors to be interesting with its orange stripes and red legs.
This rv campground is also a mixture of trailer houses and spots for your rv. But they made it very colorful by painting all the trailer homes bright colors. Definitely a southern feel to it. We are in the midst of the cold weather down here in Georgia as well as all over the country.
Rhythmic Sounds of Steam Engine, video below. The steam locomotives have a rhythmic sound as they sit idling at a station as this one does below, the #81 in Ely Nevada. I marvel at the engineering of such things as this.
You can see the video by visiting my home page. The videos don’t show up in reader just to let you know.
May the Lord bless you and keep you; may the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; may the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.
I heard this song the other day by Alan Jackson, I found the lyrics to be very fitting.
The older I get The more I think You only get a minute, better live while you’re in it ‘Cause it’s gone in a blink And the older I get The truer it is It’s the people you love, not the money and stuff That makes you rich (video below)The Older I Get Video Here
The older I get The longer I pray I don’t know why, I guess that I’ve Got more to say And the older I get The more thankful I feel For the life I’ve had and all the life I’m living still
The Back Roads in Nevada, we did a lot of exploring when we were camping in Nevada last winter. Every corner we turned was a surprising new landscape to see, something most unexpected at times.
We headed out one morning from the little town of Pioche and saw mountains off in the distance. As the drive started it was flat barren land and not much to look at.
We drove to the base of Horse thief Mountain and as we turned around the last bend these beautiful rock cliffs were surrounding us on all sides.
This part of Nevada has lots of natural springs where water is coming out of the ground on its own and flowing down some of the dirt roads. As you can see here we were driving the back country as fresh water just flowed down the road.
We also came across some old gold mines off on some of these roads, I looked it up and Nevada still has nearly 180,000 active mines. We will be visiting this area again one day.
Here in Georgia cotton is being harvested and baled up. Plus it is Pecan harvest time here as well.
Georgia ranked 2nd in the U.S. in cotton planted acres and 4th in number of bales produced. ● Cotton is the most widely grown row crop in Georgia. ● Georgia had 1.29 million cotton acres planted and produced an average yield of 675 lb/A. ● Georgia produced 1.8 million bales of cotton. ● Market value of production reached $406.08 million in.
Texas is the #1 producer of cotton, about 40% of the product grown there.
We camped at a spot here in Georgia where the owner had dozens of pecan trees around the campground. They had already been harvested but there were still hundreds of them on the ground and he said we can have all we wanted of those. So we picked a grocery bag full of them to take with us. They are so good.
This campground is near Glenville Georgia and if you are ever in that area they have a pecan factory right in town where folks can sell there pecans no matter what size bag you bring in, they will buy them. But they also roast them here and cover them with chocolate, Carmel. You name it they make it and sell it at a little store in front of the factory.
This is a cotton ball, when it is ripe it splits open and the cotton emerges.
South for the Winter, we are still finding areas with green leaves on them here in December. This was one of our campsites down in southern Illinois last month.
We have made it far enough south to see the moss hanging on the most beautiful trees called live oak trees.
Along with it is harvest season for two things here in the south. Can you guess what this is below? I will post it tomorrow.
The Lone Wolf Print I talked about this a few post back, about how you can refurbish some of your photos that may not turn out that well, into digital paintings if you want to save them.
This is the original photo below and it is a photo of a wolf in a nature park that I took. Oh, I only make paintings from photos that I have taken, it means a lot more to me as I create a piece of art work.
But this photo is not that good, the lighting was bad, but he is in his natural environment of lots of trees and thick brush. But I did like his expression, how he is looking at something in the grass. Then it comes down to changing the background and adding textures with the help of photoshop.
Now art work is an acquired taste of what each individual likes. For example, I have been to a few art galleries of famous painters with art exhibits of paintings I just don’t get. Like this photo I copied off of the internet of a painting by Vincent Van Gogh. It is wonderful art, with colors and movement. I can appreciate it for sure and it is done by hand not on a computer. Much more work involved at a level that I cannot create at all.
What is This? What does it look like to you. It reminds me of sponge candy or thick marshmallows. It looks very creamy to me but it is nothing close to that actually.
It is Tuff and Tuffaceous
It is one of the largest geologic formations within Spring Valley, located in Nevada, it is volcanic tuff and tuffaceous sediment of Tertiary age.
Rock that contains greater than 75% ash is considered tuff, while rock containing 25% to 75% ash is described as tuffaceous (for example, tuffaceous sandstone). Tuff composed of sandy volcanic material can be referred to as volcanic sandstone.
Located near the town of Pioche in Nevada, we just happened to go for a drive and ended up here. What a beautiful place. It is loaded with natural springs all through out this valley. Hot in the summers and very cold in the winter.
Merry Christmas, there are a lot of stray cats running around this RV park we are staying at and I was out for a walk this morning and took a photo of this one here. He looked a little grumpy so I added some holiday cheer to his portrait.
Some kind folks feed all the strays here, they won’t let you get close to them but they sit still sometimes long enough for a photo.
Not I nor anyone else can travel that road you are on. You must travel it by yourself to find where your heart is telling you to go.
It is not far, it is in reach. Perhaps you have been on it since the day you were born and did not know it, for the path that leads us to Him, has always been there.
We just need to follow our heart and the rest will fall into place.
On Top of Highland Peak, this was a long drive to the top of this mountain here in Nevada, narrow roads and luckily we never met another car coming from the other direction. There were a few places with snow up here, extremely windy at the top.
There is a short video below showing where I got out of the jeep and walked towards the towers there. Until I saw the signs stating warning, the warning was for high radiation. So I immediately said lets go.
This was the highest mountain we traveled on during the adventure out west. So if you want to travel to the top of Highland peak, well now you can see what is up there just incase you change your mind. The view was spectacular though.
Nevada Landscapes, I will be going back and forth with some photos that I took out west that I have not gotten to yet along with where we are traveling now. Adds a little more variety to this blog here.
This is our first time visiting the state of Nevada and I have to say I was quite impressed with the change of scenery and the diverse landscape out west has to offer.
We stopped in a little town called Pioche, a quaint old western town with lots of history in the mining field. Here is the link to the video that describes more of the town and the museums it has; Pioche Nevada Video by Sandra J
To the north is a state park called Cathedral Gorge, with an unusual landscape formed from volcanic ash that has eroded into what they call Bentonite clay spires.
This is a close up of the Bentonite clay itself, it is like hardened mud and if you tap on it, it sounds hollow inside.
Then travel to the west of Pioche and you have Highland Peak Mountain range, that we drove up to the top of one day, nearly 10,000 ft elevation. I will have a video of that coming out next week. At the top the views are fantastic but it also had radio towers all over the top with high voltage signs everywhere. We did not stay long as there was cables and wires everywhere.
I guess not to many people go all the way to the top, the road was only a service maintenance road and I probably would not go up there twice. But I am glad I took a couple of photos to remember the view.
Sunrise on Ohio River, I arrived early enough to view the blue hour today during sunrise on the river as the lights shined across the calm water from a dredger doing its work.
In a more general sense, a ship equipped with an excavation tool that is capable of weeding off depositions such as sand, gravel, sediments, etc. from the seabed is referred to as a dredger ship or more commonly just a dredger.
Dredgers are of great importance, as they serve the purpose of ensuring the necessary safe bottom clearance for safer voyages and it added a little extra to this sunrise photo today.
Tug Boats and Barges on the Ohio River, we were camping by the Ohio river as we are heading south again, one of our favorite places in Metropolis Illinois.
The tug boats are still running on this river in November where as I heard that the mighty Mississippi river is drying up in some places farther south where the barges are sitting still because there is not enough water to go down stream.
This barge here is loaded with coal and moves down every morning at sunrise.
Earth Speaks to Us, Flowers are the earth’s endless effort to speak to us of the beauty that surrounds us everyday. To grab our attention with bright colors and unique designs. To remind us that creation is a wonderous thing.
Longest Simple Truss Bridge, This is the Brookport Bridge over the Ohio River, one of the longest simple truss spans in existence. It may be one of the longest simple truss spans ever built, at least in the first half of the 20th Century. Video Below
I was taking photos down by the river at sunrise and a car pulled up next to me. A woman got out and introduced herself, she was a local in the area and was excited that someone was taking pictures in her little town. This spot is one of her favorite spots to sit and enjoy a sunrise before she heads off to work.
Well, she continued to tell me about the area and mentioned this bridge here, that it is a historic bridge that you can still drive across and that most people don’t because it is very narrow and old. But thanks to her telling me about it, we had to go investigate.
It is by far the coolest bridge I have yet to cross and take photos of. There is a short video below and yes it was a little unnerving to go across it. Mainly because it is so long, one would hate to get a flat tire in the middle of this bridge.
One of the unusual details of this bridge, is that the largest span is at the southern end of the bridge, not in the middle. The navigation channel was located at the south side of the river. However, there was an additional navigation channel in the more traditional middle of the river, and to accommodate this second navigation channel there is a truss span which at 514 feet long is larger than adjacent spans (measuring 396 feet), but not as large as the 716 foot span.
Video Crossing the Bridge;
The 716 foot span has some additional unusual details. While the roadway maintains the same narrow 19.7 foot width, the 716 foot span is notably wider (distance between trusses) so on this span there is a gap between the edge of the roadway and the truss lines. The reason for this is presumably for stability reasons. The trusses of the bridge are incredibly deep (tall) due to the span length, and the extra width probably helps keep the bridge from becoming top heavy and tipping over in high winds.
Visually this is a spectacular bridge. A must see if you are ever in the area of Metropolis Illinois.
Artistic Bridges, during our visit to my sisters home town, we did a photo shoot of all the children and grandchildren while we were there. We took a day to scope out a location for the shoot and came across this beautiful walking bridge.
I do love the design of bridges, this one with the nice straight lines and white rails and post. I have been to this town many times but this is my first time seeing this bridge.
Horses on the Farm, I grew up with horses so I have a special place in my heart for these beautiful animals. It has been years since I have had horses, but I do get to enjoy them at my nieces farm now as she has 4 of them.
This first photo is her horse and she has some smaller ponies for her daughters to work with, that allows them to learn the responsibilities of caring for animals. Horses are a lot of work, but very rewarding I think to be able to take care of them and see how such a large beautiful animal can be so calming to ones spirit.
This one is her newest yearling filly. I just love her one blue eye.
The youngest child is already taking riding lessons and learning how to be safe around horses and have fun going out on rides. She has a trainer that works with her, which is a great idea f
Intelligent and Adaptable At first glance, the coyote resembles a small German shepherd dog, yet its color can vary from animal to animal. Shades include black, brown, gray, yellow, rust, and tan.
We were walking in a bird sanctuary out west and this little guy was just minding his own business walking along in the tall grass next to us, appeared to be just looking for something to eat. Just living life.
Always take some time to stop and smell the flowers Don’t hurry past the things that make life beautiful Before your life runs down to a few precious hours
Remember to share life with the people you love There’s always someone special, watching how you live
So with those around you, be sure to share your time There’s always someone needing what you have to give
You’re sure to be remembered by the love you leave behind. By Chris Embrick
Harvest Time, “Give thanks for a little, and you will find a lot.”
This is a sample of my digital oil painting below, I picked up these acorns and set them on a picnic table and took a few photos. Adding a warm texture for the background.
Pet Photography, autumn is the best time to take photos of your pets I think. With all the warm colors and crunchy leaves all around. So my Chloee is the subject of today’s post because she poses so well for photos.
I have two dogs and I got them both at a shelter, Chloee is 11 years old now.
This little one below is Deohgee, she doesn’t pose as well because she is a bit on the twitchy side. She can’t sit still, always on the go and she is 15 years old.
I have been learning a new technique in the digital painting world and love how it allows my imagination to come to life when it comes to my photography. I am always wanting to learn new things and enjoy letting my creativity expand beyond just taking a photo.
Hello Again, well I am back to taking photos again. We have had the best time the last few weeks visiting with family and seeing how much all the children have grown in my sisters family. It reminds me of a saying I heard just the other day.
Days are long but weeks are short. One should live in the moment as time goes by so fast. Which I can attest to after seeing how much all the little ones have grown this past year.
My sister and I were talking one day and she said; ” I can’t believe how the generations are changing in our family”, She said her grandchildren asked the other day, ” What is a mall?”. They have never been to a shopping mall, which isn’t a bad thing, but makes her and I realize the changing of the times.
Autumn is being prolonged as we travel south again. My Chloee sits so well for photos, with a little help from husband to keep her attention as I take the photographs.
Winter will be here soon enough so I am enjoying the last of the fall colors here.
We are snow birds along with millions of other baby boomers (those born between the years of 1946 and 1964) who head south each year to reap the benefits of a seasonal migration.
The RV is packed and we are heading south, we have lots of family to visit and spend time with, so I will be taking a few weeks off from writing post to visit and be with all of them.
Not only are we visiting family, but we have a wonderful thing happening next month, my husbands son is coming home from being stationed in Italy for the past 4 years in the Air Force. I have not seen him in so long, I am so blessed to be able to call him my son as well, as some of you may know I never had children of my own. But I am proud to call him my son.
Thank you to all of you for your wonderful comments, I do appreciate it and enjoy visiting with all of you through this thing called blogging. I wish everyone a wonderful season of thanks giving and peace. May our Father shower us with love and may we pass this love on to all others.
I will be back next month around Nov 7th, see you all again soon. Blessings to you and yours.
Rustic Warm Colors – There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of creation—the assurance that dawn comes after night, and Autumn after Summer
