Rusted

I went exploring down by the river in St. Paul and was lucky enough to find one of the old buildings open. There were so many old machines covered in rust that I couldn't resists snapping some shots.





I wondered outside and saw these stairs. Be careful! If you stare too long you start to see things like those magic eye posters (except way less cool). I loved the contrast, anyway.



More shots outside.

Devil's Lake (Part I)

Ok. I have so many questions about this place. Mainly, why is it called Devil's Lake?! That sounds so "impending-doom-ish", when really, the only thing I found remotely evil about this place was the katrillion steep stairs we had to climb to the top of the bluff. Otherwise, the place was beautiful.


Mushrooms were sprouting up everywhere.



I tried to make it look like I was climbing up over the edge of the cliff. It didn't work out so well--I couldn't stop laughing, and when I tried to look scared, I actually looked scary. Oh well.

Late Bloomers

I love how this rose seems to be taking a breather--softly resting on the fence. A nice reminder that beauty doesn't come easy.





Check out the detail on this bee.

Trains

There's something about trains that seems so "industrial revolution".



The amount of manual labor that must have been put into setting up the train system is mind-boggling. Each track involves so much wood, steel, and precision in lying perfectly parallel tracks.

A Martha Stewart Explosion

When I make brunch, it typically consists of odd-shaped pancakes being overseen at the table by Aunt Jemima and, if I'm ambitious, a ring of sausage on the side. Apparently this is not the norm, because when my friend Molly makes brunch it looks like Martha Stewart exploded in her kitchen (that would be a very tidy explosion, for the record).

Anyway, I was glad to be a part of ruining the perfection. It was delicious. It was also an excuse to use my new lens, which has an awesome aperature (i.e. ability to blur out the background). I'm still struggling with mastering the focus on it, but I'm happy to practice a lot over the coming weeks...

Cabin Fever.

Last weekend I went up North to a cabin with my family. It was beautiful up by the lake. I snapped a million shots of the sunset, though I think it's unfair to take any credit for sunset photos. They are always gorgeous. I wish everything was that photogenic.



We went adventure canoeing, as well. Adventure, as in there were hundreds of ski boats flying past us, creating a sweet wake for us to "jump". Also, we got really close to some baby ducks, causing mama duck to chase us for the remainder of the trip. It was something out of "The Birds."


We kept extremely busy doing a whole lot of "nothing".



The Disc Golf Nationals course was about 30 minutes away from the cabin, so we ventured out for a game. Most of our time was spent searching for discs in the woods. These frustrations gave me a lot of respect for the PGA golfers' accuracy. Crowds LINE the fairway at that tournament and they never hit a fan. If we'd had a crowd lining the fairway (and I'm surprised we didn't), it would have been tragic.


And some random photos

Assorted shots. This won't hurt a bit.

I've found that hanging out with musicians never gets old. Someone is bound to start singing, which in turn inspires someone to grab the nearest instrument (somehow, they don't seem to care what it is) and suddenly you have a jam session breaking out before your eyes. As a non-musician, it seems like magic to me. Anyway, I got this interesting shot of one of the guitars in action.

Naturally, I pretended I was in a bar (no cover!) and took it upon myself to "buy" the "band" a "shot". (ok, I just got a bit slap-happy with those quotes. Makes me want to mis-use air quotes soon.)

On a totally different note, the other day I met this puppy (below).

The thing about puppies is that I've never seen an ugly one. In fact, I'm quite sure that mother nature was forced to make puppies this cute just so that people would put up with their terrors and let them become full-grown dogs.