SYW: Cooking (or not), Driving, Saguaro Cacti, & Childhood Memories

Di at Pensitivity 101 is subbing for Melanie’s Share Your World challenge this week.

  1.  When you’re on holiday, do you prefer self catering or a hotel/B&B?
    On road trips, I will pack a cooler with necessities for picnics, such as bread, cheese, fruit, and beverages. But we rarely use them. It’s just easier to go to a restaurant. The last time I remember having a picnic on a road trip was the day we went to Devil’s Tower in eastern Wyoming, five years ago. After visiting the monument, we found a picnic table near the entrance to the park, and I set out our picnic fixings. It was about 6 p.m., and just as we were starting to eat our picnic dinner, it started to rain! We finished our sandwiches quickly, then headed back to the car just in time before it started to pour!
  2.  Do you have a favourite meal you cook for yourself or order when out?
    We live at a senior community, and one reason we moved here was so we wouldn’t have to cook anymore. We get our own breakfast together and for lunch, eat salad or leftovers from dinners the night before in the dining room. In the evening, we eat in the dining room, and I must say the food is usually quite good.

    That said, my husband makes great omelets, customarily on Saturdays, but it could be any day he feels like doing it! The omelet always contains tomatoes, onions, kale (from a friend’s garden), sometimes luncheon meat, and cheese. It might have other veggies, like broccoli. We have freshly squeezed orange juice (this is done at Mariano’s supermarket, we just buy the bottles of it!) and either a bagel, a muffin, or toast. That is the most elaborate meal we cook for ourselves these days!
  3. In the current fuel crisis, have you made a conscious effort not to use the car unless absolutely necessary?
    I think about it sometimes, and I at least drive a Prius (hybrid), but we don’t drive a lot anymore. We are both retired and our regular trips consist of to and from a golf course weekly (my husband, with his Subaru Forester), doctors’ appointments and shopping, usually in neighboring suburbs, and some activities I do with friends in the city we used to live in, which is only five miles from here. It takes several weeks, usually a month, for my gas tank to get low enough to buy gas. I get 50 miles to the gallon, which is better than most cars on the road in the U.S.!

4.  If you were to compare yourself to a plant, what would you be?
I’d be a saguaro cactus. I love these majestic giants and sometimes they have many arms in a variety of positions. They look awkward sometimes, and I can relate!

GRATITUDE:

I am lucky to have a lot of happy memories from my childhood. Please share one from yours.
Most of my friends during childhood lived in my neighborhood in our hometown in southern Wisconsin, so we played together outside when weather permitted. We’d ride our bikes, go to our local beach (a man-made pond with a sandy shore), or play in the woods behind our houses. In the summer, we’d stay out as late as our parents let us – it was perfectly safe then, even after dark. In the winter, we’d go to each others’ houses, but usually ended up at mine. If one of the kids left a scarf or hat at my house, I’d smell it and then I’d know who it belonged to!

SquareOdds: Odd Cars (and Other Vehicles)

I haven’t had the time to use my computer much less blog! I’m involved in so many things, I guess. That is why I am grouping my “odds” in subjects so I can post several at once, for Becky’s February Squares: SquareOdds.

Unfortunately, I can’t find my photo of a car with eyelashes, or it would be in here! But have you ever seen a VW in a tree? Maybe someone in Bethlehem (Israel) put it there to be considered “art”!

Baby car hitches a ride on mama car in some small Iowa town – they’re ready to go! Pretty spiffy, though!

An abandoned van in the desert along Route 66 between San Bernardino and Kingman.

I just had to take a photo of this ironic bumper sticker. It’s one of the best I’ve seen! Also this car has an odd number of bumper stick-ons! I don’t know who this car belonged to, but it was parked in the parking lot behind a high school in Sedona, Arizona.

Now here are some real oddities: outer space cars?? You will find them in Baker, California!

Here’s a side view of the above, although I could not make it square. Galaxy Peace Patrol? Sort of ironic that it is “armed” with missiles!

This is a picture of my absent car – it left a snowy outline of its space, because the driveway was shoveled around it. It’s an odd picture – I don’t know why I took it!

CFFC: Twists in Nature and Man-made Swirls

The topic for Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week is twisted & squiggly shapes. Many are found in nature, such as twisted trees…

…and saguaro cacti, which can be quite humorous to look at!

Artists have used the patterns and fractals found in nature since ancient times, such as

petroglyphs

and modern sculptures,

and a swirled “mane” on a Chinese lion statue.


And here’s one more…try to guess what it is!

CFFC: Nature’s Patterns

Patterns are everywhere in nature. Indeed, humans have imitated nature in creating patterns. Patterns in Nature is the wonderful topic for Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week.

Flowers make many patterns.

I love photographing mushrooms, which appear in many shapes and sizes.

Tree branches, leaves and trunks make their own complex patterns.

It is always worthwhile to stop and admire small leaves and plants – often they surprise you!

Some animals have patterns on their skin, tail, or feathers.

Layers painted rock formations over millions of years. In Arizona, there are many examples of this, at the Grand Canyon, the Painted Desert and in Oak Creek Canyon in Sedona.

CFFC: Bridges

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week has the topic of Bridges.

One of my early photos in high school, when I was learning how to take and develop photos. This is a bridge on my high school campus.
Amsterdam, taken from a boat tour
Pegasus Bridge in Normandy, France
This bridge in Cologne, Germany had a fence covered with padlocks, which represent love relationships.
That same bridge in Cologne, Germany, at sunset
Bridge and kayakers in Bamberg, Germany
International bridge at Panama Canal
On the Chicago river, this low red bridge is in the district of Chinatown.
Another bridge on the Chicago River
Devil’s Elbow Bridge, in Missouri
On the St. Lawrence River near Quebec