To really appreciate that, take a look at this image of the dam on a normal day (taken by one of my Flickr friends).
Here’s a nice little story with really bad timing as I suspect this is probably under water at the moment.
The image below was shot on that very wharf.
Now there’s a slim chance I’ll be passing through there tomorrow. It’s time for the annual girlfriend getaway to PA. But I’m going to be stopping at my girlfriend’s house just north of York en route to eastern Lancaster. Conowingo is not exactly on the way.
I’ve done weirder things. We’ll just have to see if I wake up on the right side of the bed, I guess.
Our house in West Virginia is about 150 miles from our house in Maryland. Depending on traffic, if we stop to eat and how many potty stops we have to make for the dogs and me, it’s about a three-hour drive each way. Some people would call that crazy. We’re used to it. We do, however, like to switch up the routes every now and then. We do this primarily to avoid traffic, but we both enjoy the change of scenery.
Unfortunately, we’ve never actually stopped to explore either town because the girls are always with us. Both seem like pretty nice places. We also go through Sharpsburg, Keedysville and Middletown in Maryland. On the West Virginia side, there’s Kearneysville and Leetown.
Small towns are cool. They have character.You never know what you’ll see, like this lady and her dog randomly greeting passersby through their window.
"Hello, stranger!"
Okay, maybe the lady and her dog aren’t real. But I think they are awesome. They are painted on the back of Vesta Pizza in Boonsboro at the intersection of MD-34 and US-40.
This painting technique is known as trompe-l’oeil. That’s French and essentially means “trick the eye.”
Here’s another view of the same building from a slightly wider angle.
Rear of Vesta Pizza in Boonsboro, Maryland
I don’t know when the painting was done exactly, but it’s been within the last year. The Google Maps street view stills shows the unadorned building.
Hubby told me to make sure I got the cat laying in the sun at the back door, so here it is.
Sleepy Cat
The trompe-l’oeil (pronounced “tromp-lou-e”) technique has been around since the Renaissance. If I’d paid attention during History in high school, I could probably tell you when that was.
Google trompe-l’oeil and you’ll see a very wide and interesting variety of examples, such as:
I’m not sure if you can see this next one without being a Flickr member, but we’ll try. In this picture of St. Paul’s Cathedral, you can see the trompe-l’oeil facade employed during renovation.
Sorry, I didn’t set out to make this post an art diatribe. I just wanted to share a few nice Boonsboro pictures. But the more I looked, the more I learned and the more images I discovered, which of course I had to share.
Anyway… the next time you drive through Boonsboro, don’t forget to look at the back wall of the Vesta Pizza building.
All that talk of travel yesterday got me thinking of mountains. Why mountains? Because I love mountains. Especially snowy ones like these.
Denali National Park (not Denali Mountain)In the Denali VicinityExit Glacier at Kenai Fjords National Park (note the people in the bottom left-hand corner)
The three images above were taken in Alaska. There are lots of snowy mountains there.
Mystery Mountain - Can You Guess Where This Is?
The “Mystery Mountain” is not in Alaska. And we did not actually fly there. I just thought it would be fun to pretend we flew there so I superimposed a shot of Hubby and I with an airplane onto the mountain shot.
Take a look without Hubby the airplane and me.
Mystery Mountain Without Props
Does that help make it look more familiar? No? Maybe a wider view will help…
Mt. Arundel
It’s Mt. Arundel! At about 20 feet (just over 6 meters) tall, it’s one of the taller peaks in the Arundel Mills Range. That particular mountain range is scattered throughout the parking lot of Arundel Mills Mall.
Yep, it’s a man-made snow mountain. It’s been almost 3 weeks since the last blizzard. The snow has been melting pretty quickly. But these giant snow piles will probably be around for a long time. They’re basically harmless in a mall parking lot.
Snow piles in the city are another story. Apparently, the trash collectors in Baltimore City are really having problems with them. You’ll have to watch this video to see for yourself.
Did I have you going with my mystery “mountain” pic?
I woke up this morning expecting to see some snow. At least a little bit.
But there was none.
I suppose later I will have to don my magic snowman pants, and my snowman turtleneck and my snowman sweater so I can go out into the backyard to do my special snow dance.
Hubby says there’s still more snow on the ground leftover from the last storm than we usually get in a typical storm.
Thursday was actually a very nice day. Temps got into the 40s and it was sunny all day long. Of course, I was sitting at my desk staring at spreadsheets all day, which sort of sucks, but a gal has to work for a living, right?
This particular work project I’ve been doing requires a lot of focus, so the days actually go by pretty quickly. Before I knew it, the dogs were begging me to take them outside and/or feed them dinner. Because it had been relatively warm and sunny, the snow was quite soft. It made walking around collecting poo a bit of a challenge. But it also made for great packing snow.
Unfortunately, there was no one around for me to target with snowballs. So I decided to build a snow dude. I was going to build a standing man, but decided it would require moving too much snow. It was starting to get dark, too. So my snow dude is sitting.
My Bumnabul Snowman
Belle doesn’t like him. She saw me building the thing, but I don’t think she ever really looked at it. Once it did get dark, every time she went outside, she barked at him. If she even looked out the door and saw him, she growled. It will be interesting to see how she reacts to him when it’s daylight.
He’s sort of grumpy looking, but I was afraid if I didn’t give him folded arms, they’d end up falling off (melting) rather quickly. Maybe tomorrow I’ll build him a girlfriend. That should cheer him up, right?
My Bumnabul Snowman
The grandkids are supposed to come over on Saturday. Maybe I should build a whole family of snow people…
Does “speechless” really apply when you are typing?
I hope so, because that’s what I am. I just have nothing worthwhile to talk about. So I decided to share pics instead. Some are mine, some were taken by other people.
Those who know Hubby and I well may be surprised to know I did NOT take the toast picture (it is from Adam UXB Smith). Why surprised? Because that is so like something Hubby would do. And it’s a picture I would love to share. If you can’t see the toast picture, let me know.
A Hint of Blue Sky
I did take this picture. Photographically speaking, it isn’t a great image, but I like the way it looks. I was out in our backyard late this afternoon when I looked up and saw what you see above. I just happened to have my point-and-shoot camera in my pocket. Hubby looked at me sort of weird when I said, “Look at this cool picture I got while on poo patrol.” (It was not Photoshopped at all.)
Know what this is?
Crumbs
It’s our biggest birdfeeder. All throughout Blizzards #2 and #3 we were feeding the birds. A lot. I think our feeder was one of the only ones around being filled.
You lookin' at me?
This female cardinal is sitting on one of the other feeders. I love the way she’s got her head cocked looking at me.
There has been quite a variety of birds stopping in to feed, but the large flocks of grackles are what really empty the hoppers quickly.
Just a small portion of the flock is shown here.Fly away home, piggies.
I know the grackles need to eat, too. But they’re sort of ugly. Their numbers are overwhelming. They scare all the cute little birdies away. I do like the next shot, though.
You have just entered the twilight zone...
One of these days I’ll go outside with my tripod to get some good bird pics. Shooting through the sliding glass door just doesn’t work very well.
![[365-157] Toast](https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3046/2999173231_2972d0ff0f.jpg)
