Morning Walk
I’ve mentioned before that Ann and I generally keep to a photographer’s schedule and wake up really early so that when we’re back on the road again, getting up early to photograph won’t be so difficult. At least that’s what we tell ourselves. And, hey, it certainly worked for me on the Terrell Brothers Road Trip earlier this year. Then again, I’m honest enough to admit that naturally getting up early is what old folks do and we’re getting to be old folk.
Regardless of the reason why, Ann and I tend to get up early. Four-ish early. Our routine is pretty standard. Get up, split a pot of expresso (2 to 3 cups each, depending on which of the espresso cups we’re using) while we cruise the news, then head out on a morning walk.
As with Braga, Ann and I have settled on a standard route that takes us by farms, a local pond and through some forests. It’s just at 3 miles, pretty much every morning. It’s a good way to start the morning.
Well, earlier this week I had an easy work day - just a couple of extra hours to finish up a project and then nothing on the plate. So I didn’t set the alarm. We’d been preparing for a trip to break in the Bimobil (story to come), so we were a bit pooped and actually slept in. I think we got up around 5. What that meant was, we didn’t get out until after 6 and, for once, the sun was actually up.
To be blunt about it, the skies were amazing and the fields looked incredible. So I had to pull out my iPhone to make a photograph.
Oh yeah, and the light was stunning!
So what we thought was going to be a quick walk, turned into a longer walk time-wise compared to usual. I couldn’t resist making images, even if I did forget to focus the iPhone. Yeah, the only camera I had with me was the iPhone.
Waking up a bit later made our walk all the much richer that morning.
As we made our way along the pond, we thought that the sun had risen enough to lose its nicer qualities. But as we turned northward, past the DVC ’26 Didam Football Club complex, we came across a pleasant surprise. We’d known that one of the farmers had planted some sunflowers along the east side of their cornfield, we hadn’t realized that over the weekend the sunflowers decided to open up.
When we’d returned from the US, the corn was about waist-height. It’s now over our heads. And the sunflowers have gone from ankle-height shoots to waist-level flowers and buds.
And from the look of it, there are going to be a lot of them. Which is particularly nice since sunflowers are Ann’s favorite flower. A sure go-to to gain brownie points when I know I’ve done something stupid.
As I said, the light was quite nice that morning. And given that there were thin cirrus clouds that morning, the sun kept its softness and yellow glow for quite some time. Even enough to keep the corn stalks interesting.
We pass quite a few horse farms on our walk. Usually the horses don’t show any interest in us (I’m sure they don’t know what to make of English, or maybe it’s just they know we’re a couple of crazy Americans). Anyway, that morning a couple decided to come on over and give us a good look.
Now if we can only convince the short, long-haired horse to come visit us!
That was it pretty much, a lovely morning walk in the early morning light. Not bad for sleeping in late.
My apologies for being behind a bit on the posts. We’ve been having some computer issues and . . ., you lose a lot of time when you rebuild a computer only to find out it is defective and have to send it back, and then rebuild it. Hopefully those delays are out of the way. Because I have US trip Oregon photos to work on, new neighbors photos to work on, and our first Dutch bimobil trip photos to work on and I need the new machine to do that. Each, of course will have their own stories. They’re coming . . . I promise.