Still working on the remodel…though Myladylove and I decided to play hooky from our list of planned tasks Sunday for a much-needed break.
Instead of painting a wall and a pair of doors, custom building an over-the-stove kitchen shelf, and assembling a pile of Ikea cabinets, we went for a long drive—an all-day, 200 mile loop that took us north and west, along bucolic two-lane blacktops and narrow country byways, around a rather distant large lake I've known and fished since boyhood, and through more than a dozen small towns and rural villages.
Along the way we had ice cream cones from our favorite soft-serve stand, stopped to browse in a couple of craft shops, and ate a dandy dinner at a little restaurant overlooking the lakeshore, where we further indulged with great wedges of homemade pie…peanut-butter cream for Myladylove, rhubarb for me.
Afterwards I snapped a few photos—of gulls and geese and the sprawling autumn landscape below a twilit sky, dramatically lit by the low sun against a band of dark clouds, which momentarily seemed to threaten a weather change. Soon, however, the sun set, the clouds dispersed, and twilight became darkness. We happily zigged and zagged our way south and east to home along a complicated-but-familiar series of backroads.
All told, a fine day's escape and the best sort of impromptu adventure. Today and yesterday, though, it's been back to work. Guilt and desperation see to that…
10 comments:
Good for you, Grizz (in more ways than one).
Sounds great, every so often we need a break like that.
Scott…
I did enjoy seeing the countryside and all the seasonal changes. But time is getting short for outdoor tasks, and I have so much yet to finish.
Penny…
Yeah, I felt bad about skipping my work day, but really needed and enjoyed the time away.
…love the energy showing in that sky. Playing hooky is good--especially during autumn when beauty (and ice cream and pie) is everywhere.
Kelly…
Oh, I agree…playing hooky is always fun—and autumn is a fine time to sneak off. But I'm running out of days to set up my tools and workbench outside, which means I have to hustle to get this remodeling phase finished. So I can't indulge my druthers too often.
The power of that sky is really what makes the image. An out-the-window-while-driving shot, BTW.
Love this photo, Grizz! So impressed it was an out-the-window-while-driving shot! The sky is gorgeous! Pictures like this speak to my heart. I think it started when I was a kid and we all piled into the car for a cross country road trip between Ohio (our old homestead and consequently where many relatives lived) and California (our new homestead). We passed miles and miles of farms and I would imagine what it would be like to live in those farm houses, so far from neighbors. What were their lives like, waking at the crack of dawn? And later, when I was a teenager, we visited my uncle in Washington State and I remember standing in the middle of a field of crops -- the gray sky so vast, the rows of vegetables going on forever, and feeling so incredibly small. I've loved pictures of farmland ever since. Good luck on your home projects!
Brenda…
Thank you, but honestly, it wasn't so much my shoot-while-moving capability as mostly pure laziness—with maybe a bit of safety-first forethought thrown in. We were on the way home. As you can see, at that point it looked like some serious weather might be brewing. It was a narrow backroad, barely a two-lane, with not more than a few inches of shoulder between the pavement and the ditch; no place to pull off. On the other hand, there wasn't another vehicle in sight, and wasn't likely to be, either…and if one came along, it certainly couldn't sneak up. I could probably have stopped in the middle of the road, got out, found the perfect angle and set up my camera on a tripod, and leisurely shot away without worry for as long as necessary.
But I'm glad you like the image—and I understand completely your emotional reaction because I feel much the same way. Such scenes also speak to my heart. Oddly, this isn't typical "Ohio country" in my mind—not the landscape I mentally conjure up. The area where this photo was taken—one I've known since I was a kid, though an hour's drive from my home, and fundamentally quite different from the rolling countryside where we lived, or the big woods, cliff-studded Appalachian foothill country in the southeastern part of the state which we regularly visited—always struck me as prairie-like…a flat, wide open landscape, pastoral, dotted with barns and snug farmhouses, where you could look across a few miles of crops and fields and the occasional woodlot, while the overhead view was filled with big, big skies. And you're so right that such a land does indeed impart its own perspective on your psyche—a feeling or mood, maybe a much needed realization, that you are only a small, insignificant speck in this vast world.
Beautifully said. Yes, I haven't been back to Ohio in a few years, but it does remind me more of Kansas as I think of rolling hills in Ohio. And now that I take another look at the picture, I'm drawn to the golden tones of the hay, the sun creating a sheen on the curve of the bales. Love this photo! Stay safe, but keep shooting out the window! It works for you! haha!
Brenda…
I don't generally like flat country, but for some reason this area has always appealed to me. At least in small doses. I love the long views, especially during winter or late in the day, or when weather fronts are closing in to add drama.
Re. my shooting out the window…laziness only occasionally works. I delete the misfires, just posting my successes. And with this shot, I really regret not taking the time and effort to do it right because it could have been so much better.
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