On the day that I photographed the junker car, I was wandering about looking for other shots. I noticed a tiny white flower tucked into the bark of a large tree.
But wait … A flower wouldn’t grow there. And besides, it was late November and snowing at the time. I took a closer look. I was amazed to discover it was a perfect snowflake caught on a nearly invisible strand of spider’s web. It drifted about in the wind as I spent several minutes taking close up photos. Here are my best ones.
I went for a walk this evening after supper. At dusk, I was strolling through an affluent neighborhood when a Coyote appeared from between two houses and crossed in front of me, about 30 feet away. When it got to the other side of the street, it stopped on the sidewalk and stared at me.
Normally, when I see Coyotes, they are scraggly woebegone-looking beasts, but this was a large, muscular, beautiful animal. I walked along my sidewalk until I was directly across from it. I stopped and stared back. After a few seconds, it walked about 10 feet farther along its sidewalk. I did the same on mine. We stared at each other again. Then it walked a little farther. We repeated this four or five times. Finally it turned and disappeared down into a swale in somebody’s side yard. I walked on, but after a few steps I turned around. The coyote had stopped and come back. It was on the lip of the rise, staring at me again. I walked toward it and got two or three steps into the street before it turned and walked back into the yard. Even then it stopped when it got to the back of the yard and watched me until I walked on and could see it no longer.
When I got home, I drove my daughter to high-school group at a local church. On the way home a Red Fox ran across the road in front of my car when I was just a few houses down the street from home. It came so close I had to brake to avoid hitting it. It stopped in someone’s yard and gave me a good look.
I didn’t have my camera for either of these encounters, of course.
I’m pretty sure this breaks my all-time record for most number of wild-dog species spotted in a single day.
We left the botanical gardens and went searching for a gas station. We drove over half of San Antonio before we finally stumbled upon one a mile from the airport ($2.39/gallon). We arrived in plenty of time for me to buy a sandwich in the terminal from a woman who tried to short me .50 change. She was not at all pleased that I caught her at it.
There were about six empty seats on the plane, but one of them was next to me. I had a window in front of the wing and had a great view of Texas as we flew north. We passed over a very large city, which I assume is Dallas. (Feel free to correct me if you know otherwise.)
Soon after I took this photograph, clouds obscured the ground, which was fine because I was falling asleep. I woke up just as we were flying over the Mississippi. The sky was cloudless. We must have been ahead of schedule because the pilot descended, slowed down and zig-zagged his way across Illinois.
It was a stunning day. I could see Chicago and Lake Michigan when we were still way, way out. I spotted two corn mazes, a wind farm (I lost count of the windmills somewhere around 50) and a high-school football game in progress. The leaves were in full fall-color display. And my camera memory was filled. I wanted to take some pictures, but I couldn’t bring myself to delete Texas photos to take pictures of Illinois. So I just sat back and enjoyed the fantastic view for 45 minutes or so.
We gathered our luggage and called the limo. This time we just got a town car — and a driver who was an absolute lunatic. It was 5:30 or so, peak rush hour in Chicago, but he had apparently never experienced traffic before. He took off in a rush and never settled down. In the 20 miles or so between the airport and our drop-off spot, he must have changed lanes 42 times. And I’m not exaggerating. An opening would develop in the next lane and he’d cut over, only to be stopped short within seconds. He’d slam on the breaks and throw his hands up and mutter, then watch for another opening. My sister and I chatted in the back seat and called Mom on the phone to tell her we were safe — even though at that point it was still an open question. We tried not to notice, and were very happy when we finally arrived — in pretty close to the same amount of time it would have taken us if the idiot had just picked a lane and stuck with it.
But all’s swell that ends swell.
pyrgus communis
Tuesday, October 21, 2008 — 11:28 am
San Antonio, Texas — San Antonio Botanical Garden
It was almost time to leave for the airport. I was standing in the formal gardens listening to some older women who were tending the flowers and complaining that the government was taking over the garden and everything was about to go downhill (amen!). I spotted this distinctive skipper resting on a leaf.
And that’s it. It just rested there. I took this picture and moved on to other things. It may still be there, for all I know.
