Clare’s Cosmos invites us to share our desktop photos. I change my wallpaper every so often, but I always come back with my favorite: Sedona! This is Cathedral Rock, quite well known these days. I took this photo in June 2018 from the campus of my high school, Verde Valley School, a weekend celebrating the 75th anniversary of the school.
Cee’s Fun Photo Challenge this week is: Ground: sand, dirt, paths, walks, trails, roads, etc.
Bridges, paths & walkways, desert and mountain terrains, and national parks – these are some of the places to find interesting “ground.” Sometimes there is an added bonus: a lizard, a flower, or a butterfly, or something ugly, like trash. This challenge is a way to showcase the photos I don’t usually publish in other posts!
Chicago Botanic Gardens: bridges, paths, and walkways
Cuba Marsh Wildlife Preserve (Illinois): walkways and grassland
The Middle East (Egypt and Israel): Desert landscapes, markets and farms
Mountain and Southwest (USA) terrain: ground above & below the tree line and rocks at Rocky Mountain National Park; trails and paths at Bryce Canyon National Park
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week has the topic of hole/whole. And for her newest challenge, Cee’s Midweek Madness Challenge, the topic is orange.
Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah is a wonder of geological formations called “hoodoos.” These orangish sandstone shapes were carved over millions of years through water and wind erosion. Besides being orange, look carefully to see the holes!
Another beautiful national park in Utah is Arches National Park, named for the many arches carved by nature into the orange rocks. The first picture below is an iconic image, which many people have seen on calendars or posters. I had to use my telephoto lens to get a good shot of this beautiful arch, because without an arduous climb we could not get very close to it! The second photo is another of the park’s arches, which form a type of hole due to erosion, out of the whole rock!
Pumpkins, when they carved, become jack-o-lanterns for Halloween. At night you can see the light of the candle glowing through the holes!
Chihuly piece at Museum of Glass in Tacoma
Orange foliage with “holes” between the leaves!
I keep this (whole) water bottle next to my bed.
It has a hole in the top where the straw goes in!
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week has the topic Stacked or Piled Up, so it can also be used for Becky’s Square Up January challenge!
The Alphabet starts with “A” and that is the subject of Lens-Artists’ photo challenge this week, starting appropriately with the amazing letter A!
I have a file of letter-shaped things. I got the idea for it when I saw this cute little ladder in our neighborhood and immediately thought of the letter A!
My brother-in-law sings in a barbershop chorus called The Arlingtones. It is based in Arlington Heights, Illinois.
In Cairo we visited the Museum of Islamic Art. Arabic writing is an art form in itself!
In the spring, swans mate and lay their eggs. In early April, the female has laid 2 eggs and by the end of April, she has laid all her eggs!
I already participated in Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge with the theme orange and green. But later I remembered this beautiful national park we visited two years ago, so I wanted to share some of the beautiful vistas we saw there! Here is a gallery of orange and green at Bryce Canyon National Park! Click on the photos to enlarge. (I had intended to include more photos but the new “Block” system on WordPress deleted all but these when I tried to change the format from “Gallery” to “Tiled Gallery.” Since I had already spent quite a bit of time downloading the photos, I decided to give up at that point!)
Travel Words’ 2020 Photo Challenge theme for September is “point of view” and for this final week, the subject is shoot from above.
There’s snow on the mountain tops in June, at Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado – such gorgeous scenery!
Becky’s Square Tops
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week begins a series exploring the five senses. This week is sight. She says: As the saying goes, a picture worth a thousand words. Think of photos you can take or have already taken that remind you of a fabulous sight. I like to call it “Eye Candy”. Several of the photos I picked out are of animals, which is conveniently the topic of Dutch Goes the Photo’s Tuesday Photo Challenge.
A romantic couple: Swans make a “heart” after mating, in one of our community ponds.
Cheetah mom and cub frolic in Tanzania:
After watching these two gamboling for about half an hour, I decided the cheetah is now my favorite wild animal!
In a close second place are these adorable genets, who reside at Ndutu Safari Lodge. They looked down at us with such curious faces, and sat up there so quietly observing the humans down below.
My youngest “grandcat” Freddie – how can I help falling in love with this guy??
Here is my own beautiful cat, Hazel! This is an early photo of her, but it has always been my favorite.
This is a more recent photo of her, taken in our new house.
I guess it’s clear that I just love cats in general! (Genets are not cats, but they sort of look like cats.)
More eye candy is to be found in the beauty of nature.
A sunset in Tanzania
Cathedral Rock as seen from the campus of Verde Valley School, Sedona, Arizona 
Flowers: at Chicago Botanic Gardens
Dahlia at Point Defiance Park, Tacoma, WA
I love to look at beautiful works of humankind as well.
In St. Matthias Church, Budapest
If I had to lose either my sight or my hearing, I think I would choose being deaf than missing out on the beauties of our world.
We took a boat ride around the islands at Aswan, Egypt, to see wildlife. There were mostly birds. These birds were mostly on top of rocks, so they fit the TOP theme of Becky’s month of squares! I see we have a similar topic today, Becky – except your bird is higher up!
I decided to include these last two bird pictures, even though they were not on rocks! (And I didn’t square them either!)
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