Heading home after dinner out tonight approaching storm clouds caught my eye. Lit by the setting sun, they were full of color and backlit translucence. The sky showed subtle streaks of crepuscular light contrasting against a deepening blue sky. Not long after we arrived home and settled in for the night the storm arrived. It was full of lightning, wind, and rain — lots of rain. It can be scary and it can be beautiful when a storm's a'brewin'.
Although it's a Sunday, we consider this the last day of our vacation week. (Somehow it seems wrong to consider Sunday a vacation day but never mind.) We set off on an expected short visit to our own Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. We arrived just before official opening for the day today and hope to plan our visits that way often in future: early arrivals get prime parking spots, no lines at the gate, and the animals are active. The flamingos were more interesting today than at any time we have seen them before, close to their enclosure wall as well. The cheetas were also busy: chasing, pacing, and one even jumped up into a tree — also something we'd not seen before. We were shooting photographs a good part of the time, taking it easy and trying not to overheat in the mid-July sun and humidity. It was in the Primate, Cat & Aquatics building that I got my two "shots of the day." A newly-arrived clouded leopard was exploring its indoor enclosure giving me many opportunities to capture its image. I consider the clouded leopard to be the most beautiful of the great cats. At any rate, I shot many exposures of the animal using my little Canon PowerShot G11 and was rewarded with two pictures that I love: a lovely still portrait and a more dynamic image of the cat. Then we went home to hide from the heat. Tomorrow it's back to the daily grind. It won't take long for the stress to build back up but at least we'll have pictures to remind us of happier times!
We did some utility running around today but eventually wound up at the Lorain County Metro Parks' French Creek Reservation. We took a little hike there on their well-groomed woodland trails. We also visited their temporary exhibit of captive butterflies. The outdoor tent was a bit cramped but it was fun sharing the space with flowering plants, fluttering butterflies, and other interested folks. We ended our outing with dinner at Max & Erma's where we enjoyed spicy black bean burgers with dark green side salads. A long, warm day but a good one!
On our way home from shopping the morning of July 3, She suggested we check out a place in the Summit Metro Parks called Furnace Run. We'd seen the sign at its entry but had never stopped to explore the park. As it turned out, it offers two miles of good foot trails and a fine little pond. The pond, of course, is home to turtles, frogs, dragonflies, and at least one big, black snake! We hiked only one of the two loop trails before the heat began to get to us, then headed for home.
We didn't stay all morning in the West Creek Reservation –the trail system is short, unmarked, and being developed– but thought we wanted a bit more hiking. So we headed south to the Hinckley Reservation and one of our favorite hikes — around the lake. Don't get me wrong, we enjoyed that long hike, but add that to the West Creek walk and factor in the day's rapidly building heat and humidity and we'd pretty much had it by the time we got back to the car. In fact, I think I suffered a bit of a relapse of my cold/flu/whatever and felt bad all evening.
Still, in all, it was great visiting new places and old, even on hot days.
The perennials planted by She Who Must Be Obeyed are thriving. Besides being well established now, the season's weather has provided adequate rain and plant-friendly moderate to warm temperatures. On my way out the door this morning I was struck by the beauty of the morning light shining through the centers of the deeply-colored balloon flowers (Platycodon Grandiflorum). Nearby the crop of yellow Asiatic Lily (Lilium Asiatic) blooms shined from the shadows as if by their own light. And then I had to head off to work.
Just for fun I tried a cell phone photo of Tasha this morning by the dim light of a nearby window; the rest of the room was dark. I didn't expect much but, when I finally looked at the picture, it reminded me of some of the very early efforts in the history of photography.. a Daguerreotype, glass plates, or something. I stripped out the color and darkened the image a bit. I kind of like it. I've also been intrigued lately by the growing interest amongst cell phone and other digital camera users in making their images funky-old looking. Hipstamatic is but one example of nostalgic image software, giving iPhone images a '50s – '60s retro look. Fun, but is it old-fashioned?
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