60 - Directions

I've always said, and feel I truly embody the notion, that I've never really been lost. I don't believe in it. Let's face it, I've never been to the Sahara Desert or dropped blindfolded in the jungles of South America. I may not know the exact direction of where my destination may be, but to me, everywhere I am is where I'm supposed to be and I want to embrace each and every place (slash) moment. I mean, someone lives there (probably) and loves where they live and knows how to get around. I want to experience everything I possibly can while I am here on planet earth. I have plans for specific exploration, but I also feel I should embrace those accidental side trips down paths I would never have chosen but which may be so delightful and enlightening.

There you go. I have me some wanderlust and I don't believe it will ever be sated. And I'm good with that.

Keeping Up

Went on a mini-vacation last weekend. Mister and I spent almost three days in Northern California (Sonoma Valley to be exact) with my BFF and her beau. We were relaxed and stress free and drank lovely wine and ate lovely food prepared by our lovely friends. The days lasted seemingly forever. I think its because we had no timeline, no time pressures, no real reason to look at our watches. We didn't even think about when we needed to be at the airport because our friends just knew when we needed to be there and took care of it. We did things as they came to us and moved on to the next thing when it happened. Without care or thought about what came next.

I really, really needed that. I am writing the bare minimums here because I want to remember that super-relaxed and easy feeling we had while there and also to remember that we did it and it was actually possible. Not sure how to explain that, only really able to write the bones of it.

That's really all. I might have a photo or two in a day or so. Maybe.

On being grateful

Last weekend, Mister and I spent the weekend at the beach. I love the beach. The sound. The smell. The water. The peaceful feeling I get when there. I lamented, a bit, about not being able to walk on the beach whenever I wanted, you know, due to living inland. I used to spend time at the beach every week when I lived in the coastal town where I grew up.

Then, yesterday, on my way home from work, I looked up and saw, as if for the first time, the mountain. Mt. Hood to be exact. I get to see it, albeit from a distance, each and every day. Right now, its blanketed in snow and beautiful.

Its not a bad thing, realizing that life is a series of trade-offs, one thing exchanged for another on a daily basis. Choice. Most of us have it and take it for granted, me included. I hope to be more cognizant of the daily choices I make and what I'm actually trading when making those choices.

Beach Weekend

Spent the weekend at the beach with my brother, his wife, and a gaggle of friends for a surprise 40th birthday party. For one of them, not me. That was a while ago for me (ahem). It was supposed to rain most of the weekend. Imagine my surprise and joy when I woke up early (all things considered) Saturday morning and the sun was shining, there was no wind and I had a couple hours with no responsibilities. My brother's wife and I took off to the beach with the two dogs and spent a lovely, lovely morning walking around, snapping photos, chatting and just generally enjoying a beautiful day at the coast.

I truly miss living at the coast. Could I move back there? I don't know that I could or would. Mister and I have actually talked about it. Crazee huh?! I have always dreamed of living at the beach, only somewhere warm, humid and tropical (please ignore the redundancy). My skin just loves tropical humidity. My dream would be to live on an island where I can go barefoot for weeks at a time, sit with a beer in hand (and I'm not even a beer person) and soak up the equatorial sunshine. That is my goal people. That is my retirement plan. Getting Mister there is the hard part.

Wonderful days to you all.

Ciao!

Just Hiked: Serene Lake Loop

Serene Lake Loop, in th Mt. Hood Wilderness. So, here's how the story goes. Two weekends ago, my wonderful Mister decided to stop my whining and go hiking with me. He's lovely that way. We decided to try to find a hike we had hiked several years ago that we remembered really liking, a couple lakes and some distance out in the forest. We asked Mister's sister if she remembered where the hike was exactly. She copied a page from her hike book and emailed it to us. We didn't think it seemed like the same hike, so we punted and pulled out our own hike book (which we didn't think contained the right hike). We found a hike, in the same general vicinity which also had lakes and made the 2 hour car ride there. The hike book doesn't exactly have precise directions... after the ranger station, you'll take a left.... -park in the pull out before the culvert.... an unmarked trail....curve around the lake... not exactly clear directions. Our first problems started when the mileage given in the book didn't match up to the Jeep's mileage. Not a big deal. The second problem came in when we found no culvert. We drove by the place (which we found later) and neither time did we see the culvert. In fact, it turns out the culvert isn't even visible from inside a vehicle, unless you drive a Mac truck. Anyway, we just happened to see a trail marker, found a pull out and decided to hike. The sign said 'cripple creek' which is near where we were supposed to be. We started hiking and ended up running into a cute, young, couple who were also hiking the Serene Lake Loop. We were hiking in the wrong direction, we know this because they had just hiked up a steep incline for 4 miles, from a parking lot. SO glad we ran into these two. We turned around and got headed in the right direction. (Remember, its Fall and we started this hike at about 11:30ish.)

We followed behind the cute couple as they had a topo map and seemed to know where they were going. At a point not too far from where we actually parked our vehicle, we separated from the cute couple (the hike is a loop) because we didn't want to be on their heels the whole way and figured they didn't really want us there either. So, we are hiking, following what we think is our map and end up back at the road, in the pull out near the culvert. We turn around, again, and take another spur, hoping this time to have it right. A few minutes later, we run into cute couple who were sitting on a log having a sandwich. Turns out they also had taken a wrong turn and were backtracking. So, we left them with their snack and took off again fully going in the correction direction, after only 3 wrong turns. (Don't you want to come hike with me!) A while later, we come to a place where in the hike book it says "the trail is hard to find at this point.." The cute couple catch up with us and the four of us find our way to an intersection, we decide to go off in what seems is the right direction. After much hiking, we start going down hill. Something seems amiss. And what do you know, there's cute couple stopped, looking at their map, wondering why they are hiking down, when it seems they should be hiking up hill. We decide that we once again have all taken a wrong turn. It was just one of those days. The cute couple turns around, as they have packs and intend to camp overnight at Serene Lake. Mister and I ponder for a minute or two and as we are pondering, two hunters come by. We chat for a minute and find out the trail we are on, actually leads back to the road, right where we are parked. Nice. Its been a rather long day of hiking in the wrong direction, at this point we don't have the time to make it to the lake and back, much less do the 11 mile loop before dark. We follow the hunters to our vehicle and slink home, defeated. Even though we hiked for hours, it feld like a loss. I told Mister when we got home, that I thought we should go back the very next day and get it right. We didn't.

Fast forward 2 weeks later, which was yesterday now. Our weekend plans with friends ended Friday night instead of going all weekend. That's ok, we punted. Mister and I decide we are hiking the Serene Lake loop, now that we know where it is. We plan to get up earlier than we did the time before so we don't run out of daylight before we get the hike, hiked.

Mister's sister and her husband go with us, we pack food and warm clothing and get to the trailhead at about 11:30 (again). It should be ok, though. Its an 11 mile loop and we average 2 miles/hr (Mister and I like to enjoy the scenery along the way and stop often for photo ops and ahem, the once in awhile relieving of ones self...).

Anway, we start off right where we are supposed to start off and hike the hike like we are professionals. The air is crisp and clean and the trees and bushes are turning beautiful colors.

We get to the top of a pretty serious hill (mountain!!) and this is the overlook. We have a little snack and look at the map again, just to make sure we are where we think we are. At this point, Mister's sister says "this is the hike we did that you were trying to find..." I stepped out, looked at the view and it hit me, yes, it was the hike after all that we originally wanted to hike. We were just hiking it in reverse and starting from the opposite side of the loop.

The view was amazing, there's Mt. Hood in the distance and Serene lake on the left. We hiked down to the shore of that lake and had another small snack.

This photo doesn't do it justice, but the turning leaves on the other side of the valley made it look as if it was on fire. Took your breath away to be there.

As soon as we left the overlook, we started back down the other side of the hill and ran into snow on the ground. Did I tell you it was 'crisp'. Yes, crisp is a good word. When in the wind, it was very chilly. When out of the wind, it was nice in that hiking generates heat from the body.

We ended our hike at 4:30. We stretched, had a snack, then piled into the Jeep to make the 2 hour trek home. The thermometer in the Jeep read 37 degrees. My lungs were hashed and my muscles sore but, it was a great day of hiking. Can't wait until next weekend when we find (hopefully) another great place to be outside.

Why did I take that photo?

I take quite a number of photos. There are a lot of times when I'll be back from a trip or a walk or whatever and be looking through the photos I've taken and come across (more than) a few and wonder, "Why did I take that photo?" Most of them are either deleted or just take up memory on some memory card or my hard drive. They'll be copied over to the screen saver directory and I'll maybe see them flash by, most of the time, not paying much attention.

Sometimes, I don't even remember taking a photo. (Its those times I realize, that probably Mister took the photo...) Sometimes it happens, we share carting around cameras so we both end up taking photos on the same camera. Not always, but sometimes. Especially on trips, like Italy.

Sometimes.... sometimes... a photo will come on the screen during a screen saver moment and I'll think, Wow, I sort of like that picture. These three are some of those that initially I didn't particularly care for, but they've grown on me. The top and middle photos have grown on me. I actually rather like them a lot now.I also think that Mister may have taken them. For sure, he took that last one of the concrete fruit bowl.

L'Arc de Triomphe

Its the largest round-about in the world. That's all I knew about it before we went to Paris. Oh, and that I wanted, ney, needed to see it. Experience it. It is quintessential Paris. La Tour Eiffel, Le Champs Elysees and L'arc de Triomphe. Don't ask me, its just what has been in my brain since I can remember.

We walked up the Champs Elysees with our ball caps on, it was sunny, and we felt very touristy. At certain points, we actually took off our ball caps in order to better blend in (in case you are wondering, my cap had Crater Lake and I think Mister's had Smith Rock emblazened on them). And, BTW, we didn't blend in. We may as well have spared our eyes and put the caps back on for as much as we 'blended'.

The traffic was astounding and for a city girl beautiful and I had much fun standing in the middle of 6 lanes of traffic taking photos. I'm easily amused though. Don't you worry, there was a little island to wait in the event you didn't get fully across the street when the walk sign changed to don't walk, you can actually see one similar to where we were standing when we took the photo in the photo above.

When you finally make it to the Arch, you have to walk around and around it until you get to the one street that has the underground tunnel that will take you to it. It is large and imposing and sturdy. Sturdy is the first word that comes to my mind when I see it. Like, there's nothing that could possibly topple it. You know. I mean the Eiffel Tower, easily toppled, not this monument.

And it also had something to do with Napoleon and commemorating the tomb of the unknown soldier. I thought about getting all smarty pants and Googling L'arc and giving you lots of fun and interesting historical facts about it, I changed my mind. Here's just some pretty pictures, enjoy and move on with your day. Have a super one though.

Great Pyrenees

This is Berna. While in Orvieto, at the Fattoria di Vibio, a working olive farm, there were these four amazing Great Pyrenees. I'm an animal lover, animals of all types and sizes and these dogs (puppies as I call all dogs no matter their age) were so amazing. These pictures are of Berna, the 2 year old "pup" who followed people around, looking for a food hand out. She was the youngest of the four and the most frisky and playful. Then there was Lucretia, the oldest matriarch. No photos. She was more aloof and had a wound we found out was most likely from a wild boar. Seriously, wild boar. There were two others whose names have slipped my mind. Here's one of them. No, its not snowing, that's dog fur, everywhere. That's all I've got this morning. Large white puppies.

Grand Canal Respite

I really like this photo. Its calm. We, and a lot of other people, were sitting in the shade of a church, out of the hot sun, watching the people meander and the gondolas and the vaporettos (water taxis). It was one of those moments, for me, when I think of the map or the globe and my physical position on it. Amazed that I could be on one side of the world and a few hours later, on the other. That people actually live all around our globe, all the time, each with different opinions and agendas and goals. Yet we can converge in this one spot, or just about any other, if we so choose. Its like when you think of a single word too long, like the words cow or bird, or any other word. If you think about the word too long, it becomes unreal and without meaning. cow cow cow cow cow..... seriously, say that word about 25 times and it will lose all relevance. Anyway, me sitting on that canal, was sort of the exact opposite, everything became totally relevant and meaningful and important.

I hope I haven't lost you here with my rambling.

Happy Wednesday.

Poppies or Weeds - you choose

Poppies are everywhere in Italy. They are like dandelions here in the NW. Well, that's my take on it. They just seemed to grow everywhere, along side train tracks, in huge fields, in ditches, on rocky outcrops. They were just lovely.

This last one is probably one of my favorite shots from the entire trip. I have a handful of favs, this is at the top of that list.

An Italian Train Disaster, Averted

One quick story which is funny now, but not at the time.

So, we are on the train from Venice to Florence. We are sailing along (well, training along), having a nice time, chatting, napping and getting a little snacky. We'd been on the train for quite a while and a couple people in our group had gone to the snack car and brought back a sandwich. I asked Mister if he would go get us a sandwich that we could split. Mind you, the food car is about 7 cars away. About ten minutes after Mister leaves, I take a look at the schedule and realize that the next stop, is OUR stop. Mister does not know this small detail and he is somewhere between 1 and 7 cars away. Well, as soon as I get this figured out, everyone on the train who wished to get off at the next stop is up, in the aisles with their luggage. Its a train, the aisles are very narrow. I grab my backpack, my purse and Mister's carryon and ask the group if they will deal with Mister and my luggage (1 large and 1 medium suitcase... oy) and I take off toward where Mister is.

People blocking the aisles with their bodies and their bags and most don't speak English and all are annoyed with me climbing over them and their bags. "Hello, we all want off, relax American girl, you'll get your chance to get off too." So, I'm continually saying "Mi scusi, Mi scusi, Mi scusi, Sorry! Sorry! Mi scusi" and for those who gave me the super-duper-evil-stink-eye, I had to explain (very quickly) I'm sorry, my husband is 6 cars up and does not know this is our stop.... Sorry! Mi scusi I'm sorry, my husband is 5 cars up and does not know this is our stop..." And did I mention I had 3 bags/backpacks I was carrying. I am certain I smacked more than a few people with the backpack as I made my way through. Do you see how ugly and potentially a serious disaster this was. Fortunately, I ran into Mister about 5 cars up where he was standing, because he could not get through all the people. He was quite curious about why I was there and then a bit irritated when he found out I had sent him on an errand when our stop was soon.

They all were very nice, for the most part, when I explained my situation. I am sure there were many people who did not understand a word I was saying and had stories to tell about the rude American woman who plowed them down on the train to Florence.

That was the last time I'll ever be able to ask Mister for a sandwich on an Italian train, probably any train.

PS - It was a really good sandwich when I finally got to eat it about half an our and a cab ride through Florence later.

Picassa

I added photos to my Picassa. Just FYI.

Pink is lovely in any country

You know I'm obsessed with flower photos and especially macros and bokeh. Well, my version of them both. I could not resist these lovely pink daisy-ish creatures while in RioMaggiore. They were amazing and vibrant and wow.

And now, our saga continues...

This is RioMaggiore. A beautiful hillside village, the southern most village in Cinque Terra. (OK, creepy aside, if you never click out on any link I ever post, click out this once on the RioMaggiore link above. The person who took the photo for the Wikipedia site must have been standing in almost the exact place I was standing when I took the one below. And, how is it possible that it looks like nearly the exact same boats are in the exact same places. I guess it makes some kind of sense, probably the people who live there and use their boats for their livelihood wouldn't move away, they probably will live there their entire lives and store their boats in the same place each night. It was just so weird. You know? Please know, I'm begging you.)

Each of the five villages making up Cinque Terre and on rugged coastline and built on the quite steep shore. I tried to take some pictures that conveyed the steepness, but it really doesn't come through all that well. The first photo below is the view from the door to the place Mister and I stayed. Those stairs you see, well that's the 'street'. The stairs were very narrow, very steep and each step was a different size. Try carrying a 47 lb suit case down these while you have your carry-on backpack on your back and sandals on.

This next photo is from that same landing, looking the other way, down the "street". Ok, granted, its a side street, but a street nonetheless.

Rio Maggiore is famous for its pesto and and the pasta created specifically (as the story goes) to go with it called Trofiette. Its a short, rolled and twisted pasta that hangs on to the pesto like no other. That's what I'm told.

I originally thought I'd do this Italy posting somewhat chronilogically, but it turns out, I need to do it photologically. As I see a photo (i.e. pink flower above) I'll post and then memorialize. I guess this is just how I need to process it. I doubt you care much, but, its my explanation, if you were wondering.

Paris & Italy Photos

Large Ceramic Sundial in a Manorola, Cinque Terre shop. I wanted to bring it home, but, at nearly $200 I didn't want to have to pack and risk breaking it and shipping, oy, costly.

I created an album in Picassa for the better shots I took. I may snag Mister's camera and upload more in later. He took more time with the camera and actually had his camera out most of the time. Mine was just in my purse, taking a nap for most of the journey. Anyway, there's a link on the sidebar, for your amusement. I warned you, not a lot of photos and they are all snapshots. It feels like a shame, but, the past is the past. Hind sight is 20/20. Don't cry over spilled milk. And any other old adage you can come up with about how you can't change the past. Move forward in a positive direction and all will be better.

The good, the bad and the ugly

... in general terms. I won't get into too much ugly. Or, at least I'll try not to.

THE GOOD My favorite thing about this trip was talking with the Parisians and the Italians in their language. Well, me trying to speak French and Italian, as appropriate. I took French in high school for a couple years and then a couple years in college. Having an actual place to use it has never come up. I was so excited to be able to at least understand some of what was being said to me while there. And I understand much more than I thought I was going to. A lot of it was context, but whatever works. When we arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport, a woman came up to me and asked me, in French, where some terminal was. I, of course, could not answer her, but I at least knew what she was basically saying. I then had to tell her, Je parle un peu de francaise, et je ne comprende pas. I remembered tons of French while there using it and I learned tons of Italian words and phrases. I made it a point to learn at least one new word and or phrase each day. That would be my most fav part of the journey, the language(s) remembering, learning new and using them.

Cheese. If I were a superhero, I would be Lactose Intolerant Girl. One day, while quite hungry and unable to really find anything substantial that did not have cheese on it, I just ordered the panini and knew the consequences would come later. Later, I realized, no consequences. So, I tried again. Again no consequences. I then began to enjoy all the cheese my heart desired, within limits that is, and ate cheese at will. Nary a problem. I won't be repeating the test here in the U.S. as I know where that leads and its not a fun place for me. Fun and tasty while it lasted though.

Italian and Parisian espresso. Mmmmm, let me count the ways I love thee. Americans have no idea how to make good espresso. From what I experienced, European espresso is nothing like any espresso I've ever had in the States. Ok, now that I've typed that, there was one exception. There used to be, for years and years, an authentic-ish Italian restaurant very near my office, Allessandros (now closed for business due to the economic downturn our country is experiencing). They had amazing espresso. In Italy, I would walk up to the cafe bar, order una espresso e una croissant mela o albicocca, per favore. Sometimes they would give you a carbonated (frizzante) water as a 'back' and sometimes not. I'd pay the 1.80 euro and have the most pleasant experience. I will think of that often.

THE BAD

Food. Bad. French and Italian food, very bad for Mister's and my digestion. I don't generally eat pork, but mostly what's available is cured pork in one form or another. That and bread and pasta and cheese and wine. Vegetables, difficult to find. The only reasoning I can come up with is that maybe eating out is different from cooking at home. Maybe they eat more veggies at home. Fresh veggies were few and far between in restaurants, at least all the ones we patroned / patronized. Whenever I could find a market with fresh greens, I would buy them and onions and tomatoes and uovo (eggs) for breakfast scrambles. So delicous.

Cheese. I'll miss the cheese. It had no right to make me remember the love affair of our past, knowing I would again have to leave it in Italy as I traveled back to the U.S. Ahh, melted cheese panini with tomato and basil. Oooh the caprese with fresh basil leaves. Wahhh, parmigiano-reggiano lightly shredded onto my pasta al pomodoro. Ok, I'm good. I'll be ok.

THE UGLY

Even after walking for miles and miles and miles, literally, each and every day, after blistered and bruised and aching feet and legs and back, I gained 5 pounds. Yes, yes, it could have been worse, but, I'm still not happy about gaining. I normally lose weight on vacations. Seems all we did was eat, when we weren't walking that is. I'm hoping that getting back to my regular food type and quantity intake will take those pounds off, and quickly.

OK, now some snapshots.

Here is Paris, well, a portion of it, from the plane. I don't know if you can see it or not, but just about centerish, there are two islands in the river, our hotel was on the one on the left. When the shuttle driver drove us up to the front door, he says, "nice hotel". I was very happy he approved, as you never know what you are going to get when you book online.

And this, of course, is La Tour Eiffel, where we would be walking later that day.

So, this is the first of the Paris photos, actually, just snapshots. I'm a bit bummed and irritated with myself for not taking photos. Our entire trip was wham-bam. For the majority of the vacation, I felt rushed and like I didn't have time to savour much. I like to savour when I take photos. Its a time consuming thing for me and I just didn't feel like we had the time if we were going to see all I wanted to see. So, my own fault, there you go. This is the street where our Paris hotel was located. No actual photo of the hotel though...

We were very near Notre Dame, pictured below.

Home again, Home again, Jiggety jog

A carousel near La Tour Eiffel.

What can I say... not much at this point, still processing. It was a whirlwind 2 weeks. Amazing in so many ways and yet, I could have done with out so much of it. Traveling with so many people, we had 15 at the peak, is a bit too many. Everyone, pretty much, for the most part, got along swimmingly. Its just me. I need me time and I need to be the center of, at the least, my own attention. I did not get to spend as much time focusing on me and my wants on this vacation as I would have liked. Now, that may sound a bit, um, selfish or childish, but I don't see it that way. I'm not asking for anyone else's undivided and absurdly inappropriate attentions, its just that I don't get a lot of vacation time so when I do, well, I'd like to spend it on me (and Mister, too that is). I spend an inordinate amount of my time, doing the job that pays my bills 40+ hours a week, taking care of other people. Its what I do and I try to do a bang-up job of it. When time off comes around, I don't want to take care of everyone else. It becomes all about me, as I think it should. Does that make sense?

Also, I had very little interest in taking photos. I did take quite a few snapshots, but my artisticness or creativeness or whatever "ness" you would like to call it, got left at home. So, lots of pictures, not much in the way of "Wow" photos. They'll be forthcoming, right now, my brain is still in Italy, drinking a nice Poliziano Rosso di Montepulciano, listening to the crickets.

Glad to be home.

Italy

Have I told you Mister and I will be going to Italy in May?

Mister and I will be going to Italy in May. Mister's sister is getting married there so, we'll be there to celebrate with them. I'm medium excited. Strange huh!@? I'm sure I'll be more excited as the time gets more near. But, I am excited right now for one little portion of our trip, we'll be staying one night in Paris. La Ville-Lumière. The City of Lights.

Photo from Wikipedia

We'll be there on my birthday and I am extremely excited about this one night. We have 24 hours in Paris and I have every minute of it planned. With the caveat that I know anything goes. We'll walk up the Avenue des Champs-Elysees, through L'arc de Triomphe, to La Tour Eiffel back down the Seine to the Ile de la Cite to our hotel.

I've always had this thing about France and Paris in particular. I don't know why, I just do. I want to eat a croissant and drink cafe au lait and soak up, what I've been told over and over again, is the "I'm better than you because I'm French" attitude. It will be great. It will be amazing and wonderful and oy! I can't wait.

By contrast, I've not made one single arrangement or plan for the two weeks we'll be in Italy. I should probably get on that.

Challenges

When Mister and I were at the beach celebrating our one year anniversary (yeah us!) we had a lovely, lovely evening walking on the beach. The weather was spectacular, there were lots of people on the beach, walking and writing their names in the sand and bird watching. The sun was setting and it was a low-low tide. Everyone converged on Haystack Rock to check out the tide pools - starfish, sea urchins, little fishies, mussels and whatnot. It was very nice. We had Mister's camera with us, for some reason I've averse to mine these days. Or maybe I've just become lazy, whatever the case, we had Mister's camera. I saw this rock in the sand with a moat around it, as the waves came slowly rolling in, they would fill this little mote with a riffle. The sun was setting, it was this phenomenal little world all unto itself with the setting sun sparkling on the surface. The sand was doing that thing, you know, where it is flooded with water and when the water ebbs away, the sand slowly lets go of the surface water, you know what I mean? Anyway, it looked like such a wonderful little photo-op moment. The sun dropping in the background, mountainous rocks in the ocean background - - the only problem was (see the first two photos below) that I couldn't (or rather wouldn't) lay on the sand to get the right angle on it. The pics just weren't turning out like the vision in my head. I then remembered a challenge from the ShutterSisters website from a while ago - - I don't exactly know how it went, but it was something to the effect of, you don't have to look through the view finder to get great shots. Lift the camera over your head or hold the camera by your knees - - you get the idea. So, I did. I held the camera low, pointed it in the direction I thought was somewhere close to what I had in mind and **poof** I think this photo was literally the best one I took all day. It had all the elements in it I wanted, sun in the sky, rocks in the ocean, riffling moat with sparkles in the foreground. There you go. My best shot of the weekend. And, here's one I really like of Mister with Haystack Rock in the background. Shoot from the hip - - that may have been the ShutterSisters challenge. I should probably look that up for you and link it out. Ok, OK!!! I'll think about it. Welcome to Monday friends. Alright, I linked out, it wasn't shoot from the hip (although that sound familiar, like I've read about it somewhere quite recently, anyway) it was "Get a new perspective". Its linked out above. Check it out.