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Friday, December 20, 2013

Houston Parks continued, Cullinan Park in Sugarland

Over the past few years I have posted about several Houston parks that I walked while visiting Houston.  Houston has beautiful natural space and I love walking around them, meandering, taking photos.  Now, as a permanent resident, I have joined a couple walking / hiking groups locally, and after many delays, I’ve finally been able to join a couple of the long walks through our local parks.  I look forward to doing more of this walking – social – exercise and sharing them with you as the seasons in Houston change. 
DSCN2809The Houston metropolitan area is laced with waterways.  We are a drainage basin for two major rivers, Brazos River to the west of Houston (i.e. Brazos Bend State Park) and to the east the Trinity makes its ways down from the Texas / Oklahoma border.  These rivers are joined by many creeks, bayous, and smaller rivers as they make their way through the Houston area.  Because of them we have many State and Federal Parks, and nature / bird reserves and estuaries.  All of this lends itself well to nature trails and other hiking, biking, horseback riding, and fishing activities.  My activity of choice is hiking.  Hiking with the camera, of course. 
This time of year and on this particular day, it is rainy, brown and gray, and the sky washes out to a bright white.  I am sure there is a way to edit these white skies or filter them when taking the photo, but I don’t know how so you see what I saw on this day in mid December, close to the first day of winter.  The colors of a  pre-winter day; all fading out as winter gets here in earnest.  In an attempt to get the colors in the photos to be close to the colors I saw, I used an edit special effect of applying ‘oil painting’.  I was please with the results.
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Friday, December 13, 2013

Light up the town….

DSC_0193Houston, like most towns in the USA are lit up at night year around.  This time of year, Christmas time, many homes and businesses add lights to brighten our nights even more.  I decided to not post Christmas lights for what lights up my town, but to show the atmosphere that is around us all of the time.  This particular place is a about 10 miles from home, (Patty’s house) and a great place to go at most times of the year for a hamburger and a beer.  The Fountains, on the Southwest Freeway at Kirkwood, has a string of restaurants along a man-made pond.  Lots of lights, outside seating, warm air, high humidity nearly all year round, blasting music muted by the water and humidity and more bright lights, being absorbed into the atmosphere, makes it just right for a stroll along the water’s edge.

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Saturday, December 07, 2013

FSO – rush hour

This time of year it is all about rushing.  Rush to work, and home; company parties, shopping, children’s plays, recitals, shopping, dinner parties and more shopping. There should be no limit to the possible photo ops and I have found myself with ZERO photos on the camera.  I carried the camera with me all week.  Nothing.  Two days ago I began looking through the Houston archives.  Nothing. 

I suggested this topic.  Surely I had an idea for a photo to post.  Nothing comes to mind.  Last week Patty and I went shopping for Thanksgiving dinner supplies, the lines were miles long, everyone in a rush to get home.  Did I take an interesting photo – NO.  On Thursday night we went to Wal-Mart to see ‘black Friday’ activities.  It was a madhouse people acting like idiots, rushing about then standing in a line that wound around the store, probably  a quarter mile long.  No dollar saved was worth standing in that line.   Did I take photos – NO.  Are you getting the idea that this is a disclaimer?

Right at this moment in time I don’t work.  In fact, I avoid going out between 6 – 8 am and if I do go out, I try to be back at the house or hiding in a coffee shop between 4 and 6pm.  Houston is a ‘get there by car or don’t go at all’ town.  Missouri city does not have any mass transit options.  Avoiding rush hour out this direction is a matter of survival.   Today I took two photo – snap shots really – that can give you an idea of what a society driven by cars means on a daily basis.

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looking south

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looking north on a Saturday afternoon.

and inside a store… we were 10th in line

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