BLOGGER VS FACEBOOK

Nowadays people have a variety of ways to keep in touch with each other and to share their daily experiences. Personally I don't use Twitter or TikTok at all, but I do look at Facebook almost every day. For me it is a way to keep in touch with friends, family, and a few groups I belong to. But, for me, it is not a satisfying way to record and share our travels or pictures we take.

Black Swallowtail at McConnell Arboretum and Garden

In my eye, this blog is more like a diary or a series of travel articles. It gives us a place to share our photography. A single picture on Facebook works, but adding several becomes a mismash. When I create a post on Blogger, I try to look at it as if I was creating a magazine page layout. 

A feature of the Blogger platform I really like is the ability to go back and see what I wrote in past years.  I don't know how many times I have used the SEARCH function on my blog to verify when we went to a particular location. 

Try that with Facebook!  

I do put links for my Blog posts on Facebook,  so my friends there know when I write a new one. 

 

For now, I want to say thank you, and welcome aboard, to my friends who commented on my first blog of the year and wrote they would be "traveling with me". It makes me feel like I am writing a letter to each of you when I do a post. 

 

 

The pictures in this post were all taken Monday at the McConnell Arboretum and Gardens. It is located in the same park area as the Sundial Bridge.  These orchid-like flowers grew on a tree!

We walked 2.4 miles,  just a little farther than on Sunday. Monday was quite warm, but some clouds kept it from getting as hot as the day before. 

 

 

 

 

 

Splish splash, I'm takin' a bath.

 

Not all interesting things in nature are "pretty". I find the vast range of textures in both living and dead plants to be like eye candy.

This fallen log definitely says: "don't sit on me!"

We will still be in Redding, CA on Tuesday, but do not plan on any outdoor activity. Predicted temperatures are over 100°. There is a bowling alley just around the corner from the RV park we are at. We haven't bowled for 40 years.  It might be fun if our old backs and knees feel up to it. 

Check back for the rest of the story.

 

Count Down To Summer 2019, or To Blog or Not to Blog!

Except for our January trip to visit our son in Myanmar, we have been quite content to stay put on our site at Jojoba Hills RV Resort near Temecula, CA since the end of October.



There really has not been much to post about. We have been quite healthy and at peace. Actually, "lazy" would be the best description of our days at Jojoba Hills.

With this to look at out our side window,  who can blame us!

The Spring weather has been terrific. There was a lot of rain, and in breaking the California drought, it caused a super-bloom of wildflowers.



A single California Poppy is a delicate bit of beauty.




When billions bloom it is a sight to remember.

We went for a hike in the poppy covered hills near Lake Elsinore, (about 20 miles from Temecula) a week or so before they peaked!  It actually got better than this! One weekend there were so many visitors they had to close the road and trails.

We took hundreds of pictures that day. This was one hillside where the poppies were intermixed with pretty purple flowers.

On another day we drove over to Diamond Lake (near Hemet) to their Wildflower Trail.

Although there were some poppies, most of these hills were covered by a sea of yellow blooms.

A view from the trail that would make a great jigsaw puzzle.

Sometimes you have to just look down at the weeds along the trail to see the magical shapes of nature.










I didn't finish the series of posts about our Asian trip, but I plan on finishing that story  as "second parts" to my regular posts over the summer. I was never quite sure writing about our trip really belonged in my RV travel blog, and got a bad case of "writer's block". 

So, on June 3 we will be pulling out again in the Alfa, and will be visiting Colorado, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Ontario, Michigan, and then heading back to California by way of Phoenix and Algodones, Mexico.  Being a very organized person, I have made reservations for most of the trip.  You can see when and where we will be on the side bar, to the right,  under Pages.
Click on: Summer 2019, Locations and Dates.

I hope I can get back in the groove of blogging.  After all, it is a great motivation to take and process our pictures. I do enjoy writing about what we are up to, and hope you will enjoy sharing our new adventures.

Dallas Arboretum

[From Craig]  When we lived in Dallas from 1979-83, we never visited the Dallas Arboretum.  As busy young parents, plants and flowers just weren't important enough.  Today (Thursday) we made up for that.

The Dallas Arboretum consists of two estates on the east shore of White Rock Lake, on the east side of Dallas.  The two houses involved were built between 1930 and 1950.  We toured one of them, which was quite impressive. The owner updated his home with items from a William Randolph Hearst estate sale in California in the 1950's.

As gardens go, the place isn't much behind Versailles in France.  The gardens of the "front" estate, closer to the entrance, put more emphasis on flowering plants as well as AAS "trial" plots where new varieties of flowers are tested.

Perhaps the most spectacular features are two topiary peacocks whose "tails" spread out into beds of flowers.

Typically of Dallas in summer, it was warm and humid.  The front house was said to be the first air-conditioned home in Dallas, but before such amenities, the only refuge from the heat and humidity were well-designed shady places like this beautiful walkway with trees arched over it.

Which led to a delightful courtyard with four frog fountains at the corners. Merikay says this one is for Karen who does not like frogs.

The other estate had fewer flowers but more flowing water and graceful landscaping.

Other features of the Arboretum included displays of bird houses and bird feeders.

Not to mention an owl play house:

Despite the heat, we found the Dallas Arboretum to be a place of beauty, peace, and tranquillity.

From Merikay:  a few more delightful flowers.

And for the other Karen in Wisconsin some Coleus

As mentioned earlier, the day was very hot and humid, but the gardens were well worth putting up with the weather. I knew that there were very few places in the USA that had as perfect  weather as the Santa Cruz Mountains in California, but that's OK. 

Everything has a trade off.  

Re-Learning to See

When I was a young art student, my drawing teachers would often lecture us about learning to "see". Learning to look for the beauty in details. Although I have never been much of a graphic artist, I have tried to "see" the eye candy of the world.

This is one of the things I most appreciate about the photography on some of the blogs I follow.  

Most of the images I include in my posts help tell my story. The following are a few of the little things I saw as we hiked thru the dunes on Friday.

Perfect little plants being buried in the sand

Bird Bones

The only flowers for a mile

Also, when Craig wrote about the thick brush we climbed thru, I don't think he really expressed how awful and tangled it was.

We went thru this kind of stuff and found ourselves somewhat lost and surrounded on all sides without a path to follow. Not a good time! When we did finally break thru and got to the beach there was no indication which way to go to find a way home.

Someday we will look back on this and remember it as an adventure. But for today, I'm just glad we managed to find our way.

No Reason

Craig brought me flowers today.

Why?

No reason.