Great Day, Houston

Okay, so I just realized that I loaded these pictures backwards, and frankly, I don't care enough to go and re-arrange them in the correct order. So, you're gonna have to just walk in reverse with me through the day :-) And if you're from Houston, you might recognize a little play on words with the title of this particular post: Great Day Houston is also the name of a local daily talk show.

So obviously my "great day" ended at Starbucks where I downloaded all of the 109 photos I took during the day. Take a breath! I didn't upload all 109 to the blog. That's part of the joy of digital cameras - you can take 16 photos of the same flower to make sure you get "just the right shot".

The last stop before Starbucks was at a community garden at Levy Park. I meandered around there for quite a while snapping shots of the myriad of growing things. I don't know what this particular plant is, but I liked the textures. And I won't bore you with captions under each photo, partly cause I don't know a lot of the different plants, partly because I don't want to type it all out :-) Just know it was really nice getting to walk around the manicured boxes and see all the different colors and take in the different smells. At one point some high schoolers walked in and sat at a picnic table while I had my nose stuck to a lemon tree that was in bloom. I must have stood there for 5 minutes just inhaling the aroma - and they probably thought I was some wierd old grey-haired guy sniffing trees.

A lizard sunning beneath some buttercups.

I think these are onion blossoms - the real ones. Not the ones from Outback ;-)


A robin who turned her back on me the moment I pulled out my camera. YES, I said "her". If it was a male robin it would have minded me taking it's picture.

The flower petals floating in the bottom tier didn't show up as well as I would have liked in the photo.

Can you find the bug on the rod? (probably not without enlarging the photo...)

I think this is an artichoke...

Sweet peas...these things were 8-10 feet tall!

Okay, moving further back in time. Before the community garden, I was getting my haircut (which I'd intended to get a picture of me and Madelon reflected in the mirror). And before my haircut I was at an interchange between me and downtown where a bunch of wildflowers were blooming. And located on that interchange is a now-abandoned YWCA. This mural is on one wall of the YWCA overlooking the park at the interchange. Can I say "interchange" any more times in this post? Interchange!

The old playground weathering as we speak. Or read. Or whatever it is we're doing. There's something sad about this picture.

Okay now, brace yourself, Effie!! (Mrs. Doubtfire). Below is picture after picture of wildflower. Cruise through at your own speed, and I apologize for my obvious addiction to taking pictures of flowers.