Day 426 - Independence Day

After enjoying the holiday with some friends, we enjoyed a beautiful sunset on the way home.

Day 364

Today, we awoke to more fog. I took some photos while waiting for Alex's bus.

Later in the morning, I had to go pick something up, in the city. Traffic was sparse on the bridge, so I was able to take a photo of the fog on the river and around the train bridge. I'm a very careful driver and after this project, I can take a lot of photos while moving quickly. I didn't take a panoramic. I cropped it, so you didn't see the interior of my car, the road and a lot of foggy sky. Instead you see the pretty part.

Day 360

The varying colors of leaves on the trees are perfect for panoramic photos. In addition to that, my husband decided to stop on a road that went over the James River. There was low traffic and a side walk. I wanted to take another photo of the river, but from a different view.

Day 234

Today John and I went to a river overlook that is famous for the origins of naming Richmond.

Female Tiger Swallowtail butterfly

Cicada

If you look carefully on the left flower, you can see a light colored bee.

Gerber daisy bud

Overlook

Crape Myrtle

Sign explaining how the city was named.

Day 227

Today I took a few photos at Pocahontas State Park when I picked Alex up. On the way over the river, to dinner, I took a photo of the river while John was driving.

Day 156

Today had sporadic rain storms, but that didn't stop us from having fun and from me taking rainy photos.

I love watching the rain from the living room windows. We have huge windows, so the view is beautiful. 

On the way to meet Noah and Jess for brunch, I took some photos through the rainy car windows.

This is the James River and my favorite train bridge.

After brunch, John and I headed to my parents house to take care of their fuzzy kitty children.

When we got home, the rain started pouring harder and streaking the living room windows.

Day 136

Today, we woke up to a light coating of snow and drizzling rain. The snow quickly dissolved, as the rain continued. Snow isn't uncommon in March, in Richmond, VA (we've had heavy cabin fever inducing snow before), but of course no one recalls that when the snow comes in Spring. Granted having nice days followed by bitter cold isn't fun, but that is what Spring is like here. I'm expecting another 2 months of rain. March, April and May showers bring on the flowers here...so expect a lot of wet flower photos...or in this case wet and frozen.

This is a flower from a Dogwood tree in my front yard. I squeezed this one to see if the water was frozen or not. It wasn't, but that would have been neat. Since the flowers were facing up, they are like little cups when filled with rain.

This Rhododendron had ice melting off of it and rain drops on it.

Some of the Vinca had snow on it. All of it was wet.

The upturned petals of the hyacinth had rain glistening in them. This one is so shiny, you can see me a bit.

Since it was really cold outside, I went back in quickly, to warm up. This squirrel butt greeted me.

Later in the morning, we headed to the city to meet some friends for brunch. After brunch, I took some photos from the passenger side of the tree lined streets. Remember when I said, I wouldn't stick the new fancy camera out of the car window. Well, I lied. Really, I just rested it on the window sill and pointed it up.

As we crossed the main bridge to our house, John said I should take photos of the James River. He purposely drives in the far right lane, so I have a better chance of clear photos. This one has been cropped to exclude the guard rail.

These are the train tracks by our house. They are tricky to photograph, so my husband slowed down when we crossed them.

Day 129

Today, I wanted to try out my new camera in some old and new ways.

I like taking photos of the sun. This is the sun back-lighting the Holly tree. This is much clearer than with the old camera, though I still like the bleeding white style too.

We went to the city to have brunch with friends.

This is a Magnolia tree.

After brunch, John, Alex and I went to the Mayo Bridge to take photos.

I think these are Dandelions before blooming.

This is a panoramic view of the city, James River and Mayo Bridge from a river wall. The man on the right, is my husband. Click on the photo to see a much clearer and larger photo.

These were buds from a tree in the center of the ramp to get to and from the wall.

This is a panoramic view of the James River, Mayo Bridge and the city, from the Mayo Bridge. Again, you can see a larger photo, if you click on this photo.

If you look in the above photo, to the left right beyond the wall, there are birds on a rock. My camera is so powerful, that when I zoomed in on the birds, I was able to take this rather clear photo of them. I couldn't see this amount of detail normally.

These are the rapids behind the birds.

There was an field with many of these dead plants.

After the bridge, we went to my parents' house to pick up something and show my dad the new camera. John pointed out this cardinal. I took it this photo through a glass door and screen, so it's blurry. I wasn't able to try for a clearer photo, before the bird few away.

Alex and I waited in the car while John bought some groceries. I took this photo of the white blooming trees and this pretty cloud.

At our house, I noticed these plants had started to grow again. They are odd and one of my favorite wild plants that grow on our hill.