bookin’ on down the road

I’ve always liked my late husband’s description of traveling in a hurry – bookin’. Well, that’s what we’ve done for the last few days. Booked.

We made a marathon of getting from Idaho to Illinois. That meant, of course, lots of drive-bys if I wanted any pictures at all. So most photos from WY, NE, IA, and MO were taken as we drove down the highway.

Getting to actually stay in one place more than one night has been a great thing. We arrived at our Illinois destination just minutes after midnight Sunday morning, instead of 11:30 Saturday night. That was only because our GPS had a momentary lapse in good judgment; she took us all the way through town and had us headed to the next one. Well, we knew that was wrong! I think that shook her confidence a little, to discover that she’d cost us extra time. It must have also stirred up her motherly instincts (can a GPS be a mother??), because on the way back through town, she developed a concern for our nourishment. Instead of directing us to the address we wanted, Ms. GPS decided she knew better, and directed us to the local McDonald’s. And it wasn’t even open!

Poor frazzled Ms. GPS. I almost felt sorry for her. Fortunately my sister saved the day and gave us verbal directions to her house. In the end all was well; we enjoyed our time with them and with my brother. And he likes his oven mitts, thankfully! My sis likes her tortilla warmer, oven mitt, and hot pad too, so that marathon sewing adventure before leaving the house was worth it. But, alas, today is back to work for these folks, so we’re heading on down the road to KY for more visiting, and a chance to use that sewing machine in the back of the car.

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Irises

I love this week’s photo challenge theme of “a work of art.”

We took a long walk last night after dinner – a good thing, since I had more dinner than my tummy is accustomed to entertaining. On that walk, we saw these gorgeous irises – a true work of art! Since my son gave me an iPhone for Mother’s Day, I realized I had a camera right there in my purse! Sometimes these new-fangled electronic gadgets do come in handy.

amazing!

gorgeous!

I have never seen irises of this size before. The purple is one of my favorite flowers (partly because it’s the state flower of Tennessee). I don’t know if these are GMO or not, but they sure were beautiful! And those little wild irises we discovered in our own back yard are lovely too.

simply beautiful!

I’m tellin’ ya what’s the truth with my hand up – there is no artist ever lived or ever WILL live that can outdo the Lord. He is the Master Artist, as these beauties can attest.

outside looking in

Once again, it’s time for that wonderful, mind-bending Friday Photo Challenge. This week it’s about ‘inside.’ There are so many ‘inside’ photos on my hard drive that it was hard to choose. But choose I did – these are a few of my favorites. Each gives an illusion of something being inside something else.

Come on inside – the walk is great!

These red rock hills are in Oregon, and that path looked like it disappeared right inside the hills. We were on the outside looking in . . . it beckoned to us to come follow where it led – so we did.

dunno what was going on inside his head!

This fearless fellow didn’t seem to have a lot going on inside his head. We were sitting in a loooooong line of stopped traffic on the interstate in Ohio, and he came scootin’ up the high-speed lane beside us, trying to get farther up the line of traffic. They even go BETWEEN lines of traffic in California – scared me so bad the first time it happened! If you look at his bike, it looks like we’re ‘inside’ that little shiny thing below his gas tank – see the reflection of our little red car? See us waving and yelling “Hi world”? Oh. Well, pretend you can see us, OK?

looks like one building is inside another

This was in St Louis when we went to see the Arch. As we were walking down the street, I looked up and saw that reflection. It looked for all the world like that building had swallowed up its neighbors.

What says ‘inside’ to you?

summer dreamin’

colors of summer – what I’d like to be seeing

passionate red

exhilarating yellow

(for the weekly photo challenge, threes)

A Shadow of Things Passed

Montana: looked like a bush on fire

Montana: the clouds in front of the silhouette of the mountain – so beautiful.

Montana: ghost town store

Wyoming: incoming

Montana: rainy night, outline of trees and sign

Tetons in the sunset

Friday the new photo challenge came out on WordPress, about silhouettes. I had one immediately that came to mind for my Lovin the Trip blog, but hadn’t really planned on doing anything on this challenge on this blog. Well, I reckon you could say I changed horses in the middle of the stream this morning. I was looking through some photos of trips gone by, and loved these from our trips to Montana and Wyoming. They’re totally shooting from the camera, no Photoshop enhancements. Except for a couple, they were also shot in transit (hubby was driving, and we weren’t in a position to stop for most of them). Hope you enjoy them – just something to brighten up a Monday morning! Or . . . in my case . . . a Monday afternoon. Not that I’m – you know – S L O W – or anything.  🙂