Florida. I love Florida, can you tell?
These three personable palm trees I photographed at St. Augustine.



Even though this is an osprey, he kept making me think of the song 'Hej Sokoły.' (Polish national song...it means 'Hey, falcon.' Don't listen to it. It's catchy). Anyhow, I took a lot of pictures to get this one.



This lovely gator is technically "the one that got away." I had forgotten my zoom in the house, and subsequently, missed out on a photograph that could have appeared to have been taken from only a few feet away. And I couldn't get a picture of his fascinating tail.

Dragonfly larvae. (I believe).




This is one of my favorites. A boat came through and made these wonderful ripples.
Mist in the early morning.

Here I become rather obsessed with reflection. When I was younger I thought it was bad luck to see my reflection in the lake, so I wouldn't look. It's actually sort of cool. The water was, one evening in particular, just like a looking glass.
Snail eggs. They were a delicate pink color that doesn't even show up as nicely as it did in person.



More reflections...

This is also one of my most mourned photographs. If it had been more centered, the heron and his reflection would have been frame-worthy.





I like this island a lot, as you can probably tell. It has a lot of character. One day I'm going to buy a canoe and go chasing alligators all over it. (It's too swampy to really walk across, though).

So, that is my Florida trip, summed up in pictures. Maybe I'll add my St. Augustine photographs later.

Florida

I'm in Florida! Having so much fun visiting my cousin. June has been packed, I feel like I've hardly seen my family and I'm sort of starting to miss them! Thankfully we'll all be together again soon...
My cousin has a beautiful new baby girl whom I am positively in love with. She was a week old and making eye contact with me - just studying the world. I have never seen anything quite like it. She's so tiny and delicate, like a little porcelain doll. She has the most wise eyes and amazing, smooth skin. It's really unreal. She hardly ever cries. She's just so content. She loves watching the colorful fish in her daddy's aquarium - she just stares and wonders. She just looks intelligent, like she's really pondering all she sees.
Also there is my cousin's little two-year-old boy - he is such a sweetie, so helpful and sweet! He's such a good child. He's going to be the most wonderful big brother, I'm sure they'll be best friends when they get a little older. I feel so privileged to have had this time to watch them. These early days are so precious and formative and wonderful. I have had such a wonderful time visiting with my cousin, and experiencing her young family in a way I never have before. I hope they can all come up and visit us sometime!
Also, I love Florida. I just miss it sometimes. It's nice to see a lot of palm trees, tan people, and chickens running all over downtown like they own the place. (Okay, so that's not a widespread Floridian trait - I'm pretty sure that's just concentrated to our little area).
Also, it's been really interesting to do stuff until you feel it's done - and then have a lot of terribly quiet free time! So different after coming from a big house and a big family. Not quite sure how I feel about it...but I love having uninterrupted time to write, read my bible, and read a little fiction - all in one sitting, uninterrupted! It's wonderful.
I've been reading mainly two things, one of them being Saki's short stories. I got a 'complete works' in Boiling Springs back home. I was at Gardner-Webb University for the Charlotte Mason conference, which I hope to write more about later, and picked up a lot of wonderful books there.
Also I've been reading The Lovely Bones, which my cousin loaned me. I heard a little about the book before the movie came out, but I just wasn't sure if I was into the heavy plot line. Due to my penchant for depressing literature of late, I thought it was very appropriate to have Saki's terse, laugh-inducing short works to counterbalance.
The Lovely Bones starts off intense. I'd compare it to a punch in the gut. It made me feel so entirely unhappy that I put it down, intending to stop reading. (Which is a big thing for me. I'm sort of obsessive about finishing books). However, predictably, I have continued. Because I want to know how it ends! And it better be good.
But wait! Intense books really have no relation to Florida, I just do that anyway. But what is associated with Florida? The beach! I went with my cousins last week. I got a wonderful sunburn, which left me at first a deep, rich red, giving the vague impression of someone in a spandex Santa suit. It then faded off to a dull cherry glow - it was an inspiring color, really - and now I have a light tan.
I prided myself on not peeling. Until this afternoon I looked in the mirror and thought I had dandruff. No. My hairline sunburned, and is now peeling. And managing to pollute much of the surrounding area.
Then I realized my back is a little too. And just now I itched my shoulder. And started flaking. But despite my brash words of before, I've realized that Summer wouldn't be Summer without me flaking like a diseased reptile.
All that aside, the beach was wonderful. The water was unbelievably clear and beautiful, I could see all around me at all times, even when I went in up to my chest. (And this is the part where I do not comment on the oil spill). So anyways, I felt pretty sure I would at least not be surprised if a shark decided to maul me.
And of course we brought the little man with us, and he is a beach loving fiend! He spoke of nothing else for several days, and formed his own sentence around that theme: my cousin and I were talking, and I mentioned that I loved something or other. He suddenly looked up from his toys and said, "I love the beach." You could tell he was surprised and delighted to make the connection. It was adorable!
Okay, enough random post for tonight. My plan of one hour ago was to be asleep by this time.

Charleston

In Charleston. With the breeze coming off the water to cool you down under the warm Southern sun. With the flowers, the ones not yet in bloom, buds close to cracking, just as beautiful as those that are. There are small shops everywhere, eccentric and unique to themselves - here, downtown, there are no McDonald's or Super Wal-Mart's in sight.
There are birds of all sort, many of them seabirds - pelicans swoop low by the docks, an anhinga sits low on the surface with the water up to its neck.
The streets in between the buildings are full of the personality and beauty that only time and history can bring. Some are cobblestone or brick. Here I can pass a lawyer's office that was a store in the 18'th century. There are countless monuments - to soldiers from all our wars, to local heroes, to brave politicians, to symbols of honesty and virtue.
I suppose it's obvious that I love Charleston. Even the crowded, too-touristy market is bearable and not as obnoxious as tourist traps are in other places. Because even here the unmistakable flavor of Charleston seeps in.
Today I spoke to a woman weaving baskets. She is nearly fifty and began learning to work the sweetgrass from her mother and grandmother when she was four years old. She says she is still learning, in an art, you are always learning. Her creations were beautiful and artistic, but functional and hardy. We spoke of the ancient art of her craft - she mentioned how even in the Bible it is mentioned, far off from us in ancient Egypt, in the story of Moses in the basket of bulrushes.
Charleston is much younger than Egypt, of course. At least, Charleston as we know it. But here we are all, carrying our ancient ways and crafts to this one place to make it what it is. It is beautiful. Like the baskets, and the men and women who weave them, I suppose Charleston will last forever, in varying degrees and shades of beauty, grace, and transition.

The Blue Ridge

So last weekend we went up into the Blue Ridge. We just wanted to get out, I suppose. We had no idea that the color was going to be so beautiful!

I think that's Lake Junaluska in the distance, but not quite sure.

I thought this cloud was interesting, how it was just spreading over the mountain.

Tunnel picture! We must have passed through twenty of them.

It was so foggy, at one point when we stopped, I walked across the road, turned around, and couldn't see the other side. The clouds just squat and hover, and then spread all over a place. You can almost see it happening.

We walked quite extensively through Graveyard Fields. Of course it doesn't look like a graveyard anymore, after the fire. But since the fire, only scrubby plants like blackberries grow there. They die and decay, and are slowly adding nutrients to the soil, making it richer. And so one day, trees will grow there again. Although I can't guarantee it will ever again truly merit its name. But it was all startlingly low and red and fiery-looking--it's easily recognisable, very different from the rest of the area.

Maura, who is successfully photogenic. That's her insulin pump in her pocket.

The ground apparently collapsed here, leaving a nice little place to walk in between the two pits.

This is Josiah, who thinks he's being photogenic. When you tell him to smile, this is what he does: stands stiffly and uncomfortably, like one of those little disgruntled Victorian children in uncomfortable clothes, and makes this constricted face. He really thinks he's smiling. Of course it's still absolutely adorable.
That was the sun. It was so hidden behind thick fog that it was really shocking to me that I felt any warmth at all.

I wanted to take a picture of this well-behaved little stream, which was flowing so perfectly in the way the NPS want it to go. I was in a hurry, so accepted the fact that my feet would be in the picture. However, my mom pointed out my reflection. So it turned out pretty cool.

This was the only thing that kept me from running down the long wooden walk: sporadic rot and breakthrough, possibly caused by running teenagers. I walked.It was all burnt oranges and scarlets and crimsons and rich browns from light to dark--it only confirms my belief, held by most, if not all, people who have been there, that this is the most beautiful place to spend the fall in. It's almost the most beautiful place in the world, but not quite. The end of the walk. . .whew. That's the fam, waiting for us.

Our drive that day convinced me that Stephen Vincent Benet is not only one who has fallen in love with American names, and also that he missed out on an experience he would gave greatly enjoyed by keeping his name-loving observations to the West. I've fallen in love with American names. . .

. . .the sharp names that never get fat. . .
. . . Cold Mountain. .
. . .Bear Pen Gap, Beartrail Ridge, Doubtletop Mountain, Lone Bald, Caney Fork, Wolf Mountain, Fetterbush, Beartrap Gap. They're alive and adaptable. They always fit.

There is Devil's Courthouse, named for its famous cave. The Cherokees called it Judaculla, Tsul'kălû'. They said that a slant-eyed giant lived in it. The settlers said that the devil kept court in that cave, and that's where it got the name it has today.

There is Looking Glass Rock, so called because when it gets wet the sun reflects on it all around. They say its most of all like a mirror in the winter, when sometimes the water freezes. It looks like one huge rock with a whole bunch of trees just set on the top, like it's a toy train set.

But I have not been able to find out why they call it Cold Mountain. Looking Glass Rock, Beartrap Gap--that all makes sense, but Cold Mountain? Everything else makes sense, but not that. All mountains are cold. Perhaps it was just named that by some dull person. Anyways, there she is, down below.Also, I'd like to know about Wolf Mountain. Why Wolf Mountain? Maybe there were lots of wolves there, but I'd like to think it was named for something of special significance to somebody. Maybe they fought a wolf off all alone there. That would be enough to make me call it Wolf Mountain. Or perhaps they saw a white wolf there, which is wonderful good luck. Of course, it would be good luck to see a wolf of any kind in the mountains nowadays. So I suppose now it's significant enough that it was called Wolf Mountain at all. That way we can say, "Look--see? They were here once."

Someone needs to write some good poetry about it, anyways. Somebody Byronic and quirky and memorable.