Our host Patti has challenged us to show what our inspiration looks like. I find my inspiration in the natural world.
In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks.
John Muir
Starting the day by watching the sun rise adds inspiration to any day.
The richness I achieve comes from Nature, the source of my inspiration.
Claude Monet
Black Eyed SusansSunflower on a sunny July DayGulf Fritillary on Mexican Sunflower
The natural beauty found in America’s National Parks never ceases to inspire me.
Grand Canyon North Rim Roosevelt PointGiant Redwood in Redwoods National ParkHot Spring, Yellowstone National ParkHalf Dome in Yosemite National Park, California
If you truly love nature you will find beauty everywhere.
Vincent Van Gogh
Spoonbill and Snowy EgretWhite tail deerGreat Egret
The weekly challenges from the gifted lens-artists hosts Tina, Ann-Christine, Patti and Amy always inspire me to be a better photographer. I’m also inspired by all of the talented WordPress bloggers who respond to the challenge with their wonderful photographs.
Our final guest host for the month of July is Ana Campo of Anvica’s Gallery. Her challenge is Postcards. She writes about thinking about how many postcards were used in the past “to congratulate, as a souvenir of the places we visited or simply as collectibles.” The above image is a real post card I brought back from our trip to Hawaii.
Once upon a time, when long distance phone calls were too expensive, before Facebook, Instagram, WordPress blogs, and many other internet options were available, travelers would mail postcards to their friends and family back home.
I love receiving postcards so when we were planning our first RV trip across the U.S. and Canada I knew I wanted to send postcards to our grand children. I have kept up that tradition for all our trips, whether we were gone for a few months or just a few days. I enjoy picking out the cards, writing to them about our adventures on the back of the card, and even searching for a mailbox to mail them.
The cards usually were 25 cents each and sometimes I could get 5 for a dollar. I still have a collection of extra cards that never got mailed.
Sometimes as I edited photos from a trip I would find one almost identical to a postcard I had purchased! For this challenge I chose to show three postcards and my similar photos. The cards are in the left column with my photos in the right.
I hope my grandkids had as much fun receiving the postcards as I had picking them out, writing them, and searching for a mailbox to mail them.
It was my pleasure to host last week’s Lens Artists Photo Challenge #158: Along Back Country Roads. Thank you Tina, Ann-Christine, Patti and Amy for inviting me to host. Many thanks to every one who contributed to the challenge. Your beautiful photos took me along back roads of the United States and Canada, and around the world to South America, Europe, the U.K, India, Kuwait and many more amazing places. Thank you!
I am honored to be guest hosting this week’s Lens-Artists photo challenge. As I pondered what topic to choose for the challenge I thought about how many of us are happy to be able to travel again. For this challenge I am asking you to show us your images that show your interpretation of going along a back country road. It can be a road where you walk, go for a bike ride, take a scenic drive, go off-roading in a jeep or four wheeler, or a road you take to get somewhere.
To me, a back country road can be any road that’s off the beaten track. The road can be paved, gravel or dirt. It can be one that takes you through farmland, desert, forests, quaint small towns, or in the middle of nowhere. It may even be one with quirky roadside attractions or funny signs you see along the way.
When we go on a road trip we enjoy getting off the main highways for a more scenic drive. Recently, we have even started avoiding interstate highways altogether. The header photo at the top of the page was taken on the Dalton Highway north of Fairbanks, Alaska.
Have you ever driven by a dirt road and wondered where it went? That’s just what we did one time when taking a scenic drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina. We couldn’t resist turning on the road in the first image below. I don’t remember where we ended up but the beautiful stream shown in the second image ran beside the road.
Sometimes the only way to get where we want to go is on a dirt or gravel road. These next three images are examples of some we have taken in our adventures.
The Great River Road in Arkansas follows the Mississippi RiverTop of the World Highway in Yukon Territory, CanadaA steep dirt and gravel road to Cataloochee Valley in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park in North Carolina
On a recent trip to Orlando, we traveled over 1,000 miles without driving on an interstate or major highway. It was heaven not dealing with semis or drivers passing us like it was the Daytona 500.
The roads were paved, two lane roads with little traffic. There were some fun things to see as we drove along.
Bison farm near Darien, GeorgiaWoodbine Fire Museum and Antique Shop on Highway 17 in Woodbine, GeorgiaBusinesses just outside the Ocala National Forest, FloridaI wondered where this road went in the Ocala National ForestLunch was delicious at this popular local restaurant in Salt Springs, Florida
I’m honored to be one of the guest hosts for the month of July while Tina, Ann-Christine, Patti and Amy took the month off.
In your post, please include a link to my original post and use the Lens-Artists tag so everyone can find your post in the WordPress reader. Be sure to check out the first three guest hosted challenges.
Our guest hosts Bert and Rusha Sams of Oh The Places We See have challenged us with the theme: Getting Away.
Henry and I have always enjoyed getting away. When we were both working and raising our family, one of our favorite places to get away was to the Florida Keys. We started off camping in state parks there, first in a tent and later in a pop up trailer.
Beautiful day in the lower Florida Keys
In 2006, we bought our fifth wheel trailer and took off for our first RV road trip with no set schedule and no reservations. For two months we wandered around the United States and two Canadian Provinces. We loved exploring the National Parks and National Monuments and all of the places in between.
Mount Rushmore National Monument
After our first RV adventure we were hooked. We continued taking RV trips until the end of 2019. Our longest and most memorable trip was our four month journey to Alaska in 2013.
Majestic mountains and glacier in Alaska
This year we were able to get way to three completely different types of destinations for three short road trips . Oh, what a wonderful feeling to travel again!
In March we traveled to Cedar Key, Florida for a relaxing and fun weekend. Located on the Florida Gulf Coast in the area known as the Nature Coast, this small town was just what we needed for a short getaway.
After Sunset at Cedar Key
In May we traveled to our daughter’s home in Virginia for Mother’s Day. It was wonderful to visit with family and on Mother’s Day we enjoyed a relaxing walk together around Pandapas Pond.
Turtles at Pandapas Pond
We returned to Florida in June for a week long getaway to Orlando. While we didn’t visit any theme parks we still enjoyed a little Disney Magic with two memorable meals at Disney resorts. We had fun being kids again at a dinner with Mickey Mouse and friends. Another day we had a fantastic lunch with a view of animals in the savanna of Animal Kingdom Lodge.
We’ve had lots of activity in our backyard these first two weeks of July. Bees and Butterflies are frequent visitors to the butterfly garden.
Ruby Throated Hummingbirds and Northern Cardinals are two of the birds we see every summer around our back yard. Snow Egrets are frequent summer visitors to the salt water creek. Roseate Spoonbills first started coming to our area a few years ago. I’ve seen them two years in a row now so hopefully they will keep returning each summer.
Wandering Dawgs 