lavendertook

Happy Birthday, Shirebound! May it be a wonderful and peaceful year for you and the whole Shirehousehold!!! <3 and hugs!!!



This pic is of one of the blooms on the ginormous rhododendron bush in my backyard last May. (-:

I hope you are both having a great one!




These are rhododendron blossoms in my new backyard back in May. (-:

*hugs'n'<3*

My Eclipse Trek was a short 3 day there and back again kind of trip that I started hopefully planning through google wanderings 2 months ago and really came together the end of July when Debra agreed to come with me and introduced me to her petsitter D at her party. I read an article on the upcoming eclipse, probably from the Washington Post 2 months ago and learned the term the "Path of Totality", that the eclipses I saw as a kid were only partial, and that all kinds of cool special effects I missed could be seen only if you are in the Path of Totality. So my desire to see this astronomical wonder only started then.

The closest route to the Path of Totality was straight down I-95 to South Carolina. I knew motels in the Path of Totality would have been sold out long already, so I looked at availability in Florence, SC, which also had the advantage of being on the cross roads to the closest point of totality straight down I-95 to Santee, SC, east to Charleston, SC, or west to Columbia, SC. I'd aim for Santee, but tried to do research for good viewing spots around Columbia and Charleston if clearer skies were predicted that morning in either of the latter places rather than Santee. Florence had plenty of vacancies in July, but started filling up fast in August.

I made a reservation 2 weeks before at the Thunderbird Inn , a basic economical 2 star hotel, much like most of the places my family stayed at during our family vacations. It had definitely seen better days, but was plenty comfortable, and yet seemed to put a lot of its budget into landscaping, which was a big attraction for me, because seeing palm trees out the window in the morning would be my solace if clouds spoiled the view we were traveling to see. I could take palm trees and Spanish moss as my consolation prize, as it's been more than a decade since I've seen them. Stretching my back swimming in a pool looking up at palm trees would help make the long drive more doable.



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Happy Birthday to the talented and kind shirebound!!!!


May it be filled with pretty sweet scented flowers . . .




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I'm so sorry this is a day late post, hon, but I wanted to wish a very happy birthday to my dearest friend mererid!!! I hope the birthday dinner was excellent and you're having a good Sunday. I still have many pics from my trip out there last February that I haven't posted yet, so here's a couple:


Sabino Canyon in the Catalina Mountains, northeast Tucson.



A little barrel cactus in Tucson Desert Museum Park.

*many hugs* <3

Happy Belated Birthday, hederahelix!!!! I hope it was the beginning of a great year for you of good health, fun, and way better air travel karma, my friend!!!


Here are some rose of sharon blooms to put on your cyber table. *hugs*

Happy birthday, romeny and ladysnaps!!!


Here's some ElijahBlue reflected skies in Greenbelt Lake to brighten your day.

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Happy Birthday to Bilbo, Frodo, and especially, oft forgotten, early draft Bingo!!!

I went on a very Shire-like hike on Saturday morning in the Middle Patuxent Environmental Area in Howard County, and saw some things that should accompany the Bagginess on all their hikes.


Woods full of ferns and mosses gentle on the feet.

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Moo and Tuxie planned to do a little dance for your birthday, febobe, but as you can see . . .


. . . they are very, very busy cats. It takes a lot of work and dedication to prepare to win the only feline Olympic sport and they are working very hard at their form here. They hope to bring back the gold in the synchronized team division.



Happy Birthday, dear febobe!!! May you have a gold medal birthday with fun, yummies, and love today with your folks!!! (((((You)))))

A very happy birthday to dear mews1945!!! I hope today is filled with love and all good things and that you feel a little stronger each day. Here are some pretties and fuzzies from around Greenbelt Lake, and thereabouts for you.


A sweet william in all their variety of colors that was blooming in May by the lake.


A deer in the woods behind my apartment building who was very fascinated by my talking to him in baby talk--so many critters seem to just love that.


A squirrel by the lake feasting at a lakeside house's yard where they put out bird seed.

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"Oh no!" says Moo, hiding her head under a pillow:


"It's past midnight where julchen11 is and surely she's gone to bed and we missed wishing her a happy birthday!!!!


"Well, maybe she won't mind seeing birthday wishes when she wakes up," says Tuxie, "so I'm going to say, Happy Birthday, Julchen, no matter how hard spell check tries to change her name to I don't know what!!!


"I guess you're right, Tuxie. Happy Birthday, Gulches! Gulches? It's Julchen, you stupid computer--I said, Happy Birthday, Gulches!!! Oh, it did it again--STOP that!!!! JULCHEN!!!! Happy Birthday, Julchen!!!"


We brought you some mountain laurel blooms and hope you had a lovely day!!!!

Also posted at http://lavendertook.dreamwidth.org/197801.html with comments

Happy Birthday to two very wonderful hobbit folk, my dear friend jan_u_wine and addie71!!! I hope it is a fine one and you have a great long birthday weekend! Here's some pretties and critters in your honor I saw the past week:


Mountain laurels--opening a little late this year due to our cold rainy May until this week.


A very mellow frog I saw today who wanted to send birthday greetings along.

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Also posted at http://lavendertook.dreamwidth.org/197317.html with comments

Happy birthday to the wonderful hanarobi!!! Here is a rose from beside the Youth Center in Greenbelt to tide you over until your roses start blooming soon.



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Very Happy Belated Birthdays to blslarner and kittyfosterami!!! I hope it was a great birthday week for both of you.

I'm sorry I've been so absent lately. Things have been feeling hectic and busy--some good things, but a lot of stressful things.

But of the good things was the beautiful weather the last couple of days, and the gorgeous hike I went on today with the fun company of zlabya and a local women's hiking group to the McKeldin area of Patapsco Valley Park, about half way between Baltimore and Westminster.


So let me take you on the trail:

It's lined with little wild flowers, though you can't see them too well in this pic--lots of violets and spring beauties, among others.

And here's the Patapsco River we walked along most of the way:


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Most Happy Birthday to the wonderful shirebound!!! I hope it is full of love, fun, and puppy snuggles and as sweet a day as you are, dear friend!!!! Here are some pretties that have shown themselves around the lake here the past couple of weeks that I hope you will enjoy seeing. ((My apologies on the lousy formatting of my posts of late--for some reason DW or LJ is not allowing me space between paragraphs and pictures and I haven't figured out why or how to reset it. *grumbles*)) Redbud tree blooms: ( Read more... )

I had a great trip for a couple of days visiting my awesome and lovely best friendmererid. She picked me up in Phoenix and drove me down to Tucson to stay with her and her excellent partner R and their exuberant and well-coddled quaker parrot, Baby. Sunday we drove into the Tucson Mountains southwest of town to the Tucson Desert Museum.



There we saw nicely landscaped local flora, and fauna in enclosures, but I especially enjoyed seeing the fauna not in enclosures, and I'll show you lots more pics in another post. My hobbit dolls had fun there, too. We also drove around some of the neighborhoods of Tucson and its signature murals.

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Happy Birthday to my dearest mererid!!! I hope you have a wonderful birthday weekend full of fun and relaxation to make up for having to work on your bday. *hugs*

And here's the Greenbelt Lake Blue Heron last week sending birthday wishes.


I'm not sure if it's the one who has been around for 20 years, or a new one. But apparently they're like Highlander--there can only be one.

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Happy Birthday, zblaya!!! I hope you're having a great day! Here's some pics from our beloved lake:


This was autumn a couple of years ago--a brighter one than the last 2.

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Back in July, on our first full day, Saturday in Laramie, our gracious host hanarobi took some of us in the afternoon to a place east of Laramie called Vedauwoo, pronounced Vay'-de-voo, or rhymes with "Made a zoo." It was a picture perfect day, so it was easy to make lots of post-able pics.


This pic is actually from the end of the visit through the car window, just to give you the long vista.


And here we are--big impressive rocks surrounded by beautiful aspen and fur trees, and other flora.


We took a path part of the way around the cliffs.


Mallorns Aspens--oh how I love them!

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Happy Birthday, darling febobe!!!!


I should have taken a pic of the feast in hanarobi's backyard in Laramie for you, and my hobbit doll feast pics are not he old laptop, but since I don't have any good food pics, here's a peony at the National Arboretum in DC from a hike I did there this spring for you.

I hope you're having a fun, food, and love filled day! *squooshes*