National Arboretum – Part 2

A little over four years after publishing the first series of photographs from the National Arboretum in Washington, DC, here’s part two, containing a mix of photos from the outside gardens and various enclosed ones, including the Bonsai Exhibit.

Selected photos from the set are highlighted below and you can find all of them by going through the gallery posted at the bottom. Enjoy!

Bonsai tree, National Arboretum, Washington, DC, USA.

Purple flower, macro, National Arboretum, Washington, DC, USA.

Bonsai tree, stone tablet, National Arboretum, Washington, DC, USA.

A deep red flower with large petals. National Arboretum, Washington, DC, USA.

Bonsai tree, dry and twisted, National Arboretum, Washington, DC, USA.

Green moss, macro, National Arboretum, Washington, DC, USA.

Mint buried in snow, National Arboretum, Washington, DC, USA.

Ice on chain links. National Arboretum, Washington, DC, USA.

Bonsai tree, bare, National Arboretum, Washington, DC, USA.

Pagoda roof pointing toward the sky. National Arboretum, Washington, DC, USA.

Bare branches pointing toward the sky. National Arboretum, Washington, DC, USA.

Dry straw, abstract. National Arboretum, Washington, DC, USA.

Texture of a sculpted rock. National Arboretum, Washington, DC, USA.

Places

An afternoon on the Transfagarasan Road

This weekend, we spent an afternoon on the Transfăgărășan Road, in the Făgăraș Mountains of Romania. (Trans-faragarasan → “Trans” = across and “Fagarasan” = the specific mountains which it crosses.) I enjoyed driving its challenging curves (Ligia not so much) and later we both enjoyed walking and meditating in the mountains. I also took photos (naturally) and I hope you’ll enjoy them.

This is how the mountains look as you approach them from E68, after you pass through a village called Cartisoara.

As we started to climb, these are the sorts of views we started to get. Hold on, the best stuff is yet to come.

At the top, it was fairly crowded. I tried to avoid the crowds as I took my photos. Some people were hiking, others were stuffing their faces. Not sure what it is about the top of a mountain that makes people so hungry. It’s not as if they climbed it — they drove it. There were loads of cars in the parking lot.

This is what the slopes to the top peaks looked like. Although it’s summer, we were fairly high up (above 2,000 meters in altitude) so the weather was foggy and fairly cold (10-15 degrees Celsius).

Since it was too crowded and noisy at the top, and the smell of cooking pervaded the air, Ligia and I decided to drive on past the main peaks and we stopped further down the road, where it was nice and quiet. That’s Ligia hiking toward me.

The views only got better as we went higher up. The black dot in the center of the photo is Ligia.

I’ll let this three-photo panorama show you what I mean. I left the white space unmasked on purpose, to show you everything the camera captured.

Here’s a close-up of the left side of that pano, showing the twists and turns of this picturesque mountain road.

We stopped to meditate and enjoy the tremendous beauty before us where the rock face turned sharply upward and climbing by foot became dangerous (we had no climbing gear with us). As we sat there, fog from the valley rose up alongside the cliff, joining with the clouds.

We climbed down refreshed and clear-headed, and as evening drew near, we wound our way down toward Sibiu and home, but not before taking another panorama of the Transfagarasan.

Here’s another photograph that shows the spread of the road in the valley below.

As usual, if you’ll go through gallery below, you’ll find photos that I haven’t shown here. Enjoy!

Thoughts

Cloudy – the cartoon

This is a super-happy cartoon about the life of clouds. It’ll perk you right up! 🙂

Created by Samuel Borkson and Arturo Sandoval III. Animation by Matías Fernández. Music by Norman Bambi.

Places

Winter in Cabin John Park – Part 2

Here are some more photographs taken in Cabin John Park during winter. Enjoy and don’t forget to check out part one if you haven’t seen it already.

Melting snow reveals a twig buried underneath. Washington, DC, USA.

Partially frozen brook, winter, Cabin John Regional Park, MD, USA.

Cut wood, Cabin John Regional Park, MD, USA.

Lichen growing on rotting tree trunk, Cabin John Regional Park, MD, USA.

Places

Winter in Cabin John Park – Part 1

These hot summer temperatures are sure making me look at winter photos in a whole new light… So for the next couple of days, I’ll feature winter scenes from one of the parks that we visited a lot while we lived in the DC area: Cabin John Regional Park. Enjoy!