June 1, 2018
City Sunset
The sun sets over Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, one spring evening. The city was founded by Portuguese explorers in 1565 and has been deemed a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Just a warning – our $6000 annual rent comes due next month, I pay a year in advance so that I save $1200/year. So start digging that change out from your couch cushions. I’ll be rattling my tin cup next month.
May 25, 2018
Sunny Days
Off the coast of California, Your Shot photographer Adam Martin was rewarded for his patience. “I sat for 30 minutes and watched an explosion of color unfold before my eyes,” he says. “Bright orange Garibaldi, the state fish of California, bathed in the sunbeams on a warm and sunny day.”
May 11, 2018
Treasure Trove
A barber cuts a young man’s hair in his shop in Mexico. He has worked out of the same shop for more than 40 years, collecting interesting and unique items for his collection along the way.
May 4, 2018
Peak Morning
Sunrise reaches Mount Fuji before reaching the city of Fujiyoshida, Japan. The highest peak in Japan (elevation 12,389 feet) is also an active volcano, which last erupted more than 300 years ago.
By the way, the official TAH watering hole is now open in the nation’s capitol. All proceeds go straight into my pocket. It’s called Slash Run and it’s managed by my daughter. The Washington Post has judged the burgers to be among the very best in the DC Area.
Guest WOT article, from Hondo.
I have a soft spot in my heart for deserts. Many of the most enjoyable – and professionally rewarding – parts of my life were spent in desert environments.
The deserts of the US Southwest are a particular favorite of mine. They’re harsh – but they’re also starkly beautiful. And they have some of the neatest plants and animals on earth.
I’ve spoken of one of those plants in comments here at TAH: fouquieria splendens, AKA ocotillo. It’s native to the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts of the US Southwest and northern Mexico.
Most of the year, it’s a largish but rather nondescript plant. For roughly 48 or 50 weeks out of the year, it’s little more than a bunch of greyish-green stalks covered in huge thorns.
However, for 2 to 4 weeks in the spring, the plant undergoes a transformation that would make the Hans Christian Andersen’s Ugly Duckling proud. It leafs out – then blooms quite spectacularly.
The photos here don’t really do the plant justice; these specimens are probably 3 or 4 days away from peak bloom. Unfortunately, my travel schedule wouldn’t allow me to stay long enough to see them at their best.
Dear Lord, I miss the Southwest. Maybe sometime in the future I’ll be able to move back there.
Have a great Weekend Open Thread, all – and a great weekend.
April 20, 2018
Dust City
At Black Rock City—the temporary city raised in the Nevadan desert for the annual Burning Man festival—camps are laid out as if on a clock. On a street in the 7:30 camp sector, festival-goers bike through the omnipresent dust as the sun sets.
April 13, 2018
New Wave
A wave forms and crashes on Lake Erie. On the boundary of Canada and the United States, Lake Erie is the second-smallest of the five Great Lakes.
