Cherry blossoms from the Washington D.C. Tidal Basin.
After attending our friends’ wedding in Chicago during the Memorial Day Weekend, we spent Memorial Day itself in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Neither Meredith nor I had ever been to Michigan, and Ann Arbor is home to Hollanders, my wife’s favorite bookbinding supply store. Since it was kinda on the way home from Chicago, we decided to make the stop.
We pulled in on Sunday afternoon and essentially made a beeline to the Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum (that’s a mouthful), because their peony exhibit was in full swing. They have the largest collection of heirloom peonies in North America, and it was amazing.
When it was all said and done, however, this one stood out among the hundreds we saw. I can’t even believe this is a photograph, it looks so good. So, of course, I had to share.
A couple of gulls. On a Rail.
This weekend we dropped my father off at the airport, following a wonderful two-week visit. It’s always nice having him around, and we did quite a bit around the house: we made a raised garden bed, cleaned out a lot of junk left over from the prior tenants under our back deck, and a whole bunch of odds and ends.
We also did a lot of fun stuff, including a failed trip to the Parkville lanes for duckpin bowling, a successful one to the Brunswick Zone, and a couple of movie marathons when we were stuck inside due to wintery weather (the Nolan Batman trilogy, a few Star Trek movies, etc). Perhaps the highlight of this entertainment extravaganza was introducing dad to Hot Fuzz, though we also let him in on Mad Max: Fury Road and The Martian.
Unfortunately, the nicest day of his visit was the day we was departing. We spent the morning at the Rawlings Conservatory and then met his brother Daniel in Ellicott City for coffee.
Dad and I in Ellicott City.
Alas, he was on his way back to New Mexico sooner than we all would have hoped, but Meredith thought she’d try to brighten my afternoon a bit by exploring a place we’d never been to before: the Middle Branch Park.
I was hoping for a better sightline to the city itself, but the view down there was dominated by I-95. There was a nice little section of the Gwynns Falls Trail there, however, and we spent an hour walking along, laughing at the gulls and feeling bad for the ducks walking around in the piles of garbage. It was a nice day, and a reminder of what we can look forward to in a few weeks when Spring finally shows itself.
Male and two female pronghorn in northeastern New Mexico.
When Meredith and I traveled to Colorado for our minimoon last year, we were forced to take a detour off I-25 north of Wagon Mound. It wasn’t that bad, the road was fine and traffic was light, and we were still making plenty of time.
Next thing I know, there’s a herd of pronghorn outside!
I’m fairly accustomed to seeing pronghorn, since they’re active between Silver City and Deming, but this time I had the long lens I’d rented for our trip to Rocky Mountain National Park. Thankfully, Meredith was more than happy to let me pull over and stop for 10 minutes.
We saw a lot of great wildlife during that trip, but this was the scene that kicked it all off for us.
