Venus and a Delicate Crescent Moon

After dinner tonight we needed to take a quick drive up to Stop and Shop for a few things that our local grocery store does not have.  What great luck. I happened to look out my drivers side window and saw a beautiful and delicate crescent moon in the sky, with the planet Venus very close to it.  It was not in a black sky but rather in a delicate pastel blue sky which made it even more beautiful.

I thought the best photograph would be this close-up so I did this first and then as an afterthought, decided to do a wider angle view with trees and the Moon and Venus so much smaller.  But now I think that wide-angle view was a far more interesting photograph.  Not sure what you all think.

 

The Price of Gas!

Liz was driving us over to Amy's after picking us up at the airport and we were driving up Lincoln Avenue and that's when we went by the first gas station.  I couldn't believe my eyes - $6.49 per gallon!  Unbelievable!  A few days later Liz and I went to pick up some food for dinner and she stopped to get gas. It was a really busy station so I didn't get out of the car.  When we were driving back to the house I asked how much it cost to fill up and Liz said $80.00!  Yikes!  EIGHTY DOLLARS to fill the tank?  So I did the math and she only got 12 gallons of gas.  That's nuts!  I filled up my tank before we left for California and I paid $4.29 a gallon. here in NY.  Poor Californians, with the huge STATE taxes on gas, that is just killing them!  Here are some numbers in cents per gallon:  Connecticut $0.25,  New York $0.25, and California $0.71.  There ought to be a law!

 

A Neighbor's Cactus

The houses where Liz and Sarah live are pretty close together.  I am standing in their driveway, and looking at their neighbor's cactus which is just over the fence in their neighbor's yard.  Such beautiful cacti and beautiful flowers..  I don't know the kind of flowers these are, but they are on separate stalks just in front of the cacti.  I photographed this scene a couple of times before I got this photograph.

 

Such an Unusual Landscape From The Air

Sitting at the window watching the world go by, and then suddenly I saw this.  It looks like something with tentacles creeping out over the landscape!  So this is near Terre Haute, Indiana and this tan and green landscape design was visible for miles.  The dark green tentacles are forested land!  And in between the land with trees are farmers fields and if you look closely you can see their rectangular shape in many cases.  I wondered what crops the farmers grew here and Wikipedia told me: "The landscape around Terre Haute is mostly flat, fertile farmland along the Wabash River valley, which is especially suited for large-scale grain farming.  Historically, the area has long been associated with cornfields and hog farms." How cool is it to know this after seeing the landscape from 34,000 feet! I posted an extra large image so please click on this image to see more detail.

First Sight of Home

We left Los Angeles on an early flight this morning - 9:00 AM.  Whew, had to wake at 5:30 to get to the airport by 7:00 AM.  Beautiful flight home, clear skies for more than half the trip.  We approached New York from the west then at the Hudson River, we turned south and went over Manhattan and then Brooklyn and then 25 miles out into the Atlantis Ocean before turning and heading north.  We went half way to the north shore of Long Island before turning south toward JFK for our final approach.  When the plane banked to head south, there was Hempstead Harbor in the distance!  So it was our first view of home after having been away for the week.  A sight for sore eyes!

 

The Gymnast

Vivian has been doing gymnastic training for two years now, and man oh man, is she getting good at it.  She is now working on being able to do a hand stand, which she is doing here, and then to hold the hand stand for two entire seconds.  I snapped this photograph as she was going through the handstand, without stopping and holding the vertical position.  She is almost there it seems.  What is interesting is that the coach says the handstand is the foundation of all gymnastics!  I did not know that!

 

The Venice Sign

We had dinner in a really nice Chinese restaurant in Venice tonight.  As we left and turned the corner, there was the beautiful Venice sign against a twilight sky!  The perfect time to photograph it!   Venice, California was founded by Abbot Kinney in 1905, and this sign was illuminated for the first time on the Fourth of July.  The sign was restored in 2007 with a modern day replica, and it is beautiful to see.  It is a tribute to the celebrated Venice of years past and a modern day gateway to the world famous Venice Beach.