I thought I'd share some photos that I've taken since my last birthday, starting with Autumn, my favorite season.
I've lived mostly in AZ, TX, and NC, but always hated the heat. So my perception of seasons is inverted from the standard mythology of "spring rebirth, fall as an ominous harbinger of winter." For me, it's always been "spring as the last gasp of non-hell, and fall as 'woo-hoo, I can go outside!'" Plus my birthday.
Growing up in Tucson, I didn't understand what "fall foliage" was. Yeah, trees have leaves, they fall off, who cares? I didn't experience a real fall until I was 21. The closest I got last year was Arkansas, which is quite beautiful for a couple of weeks.
I missed the peak of foliage in DC by a couple of weeks; but there are other things to see there.
Leaving the contemporary political climate aside for a moment, DC is still my favorite American city. Fortunately, business takes me there frequently.
Winter brings nice sunsets to Texas that I can photograph and still get home in time for dinner.
Since I've posted my best bird photos in the Dawn Chorus diaries during the year, I'm sticking to non-birds for this one.
New Orleans in January:
Spring brought me back to Tucson because my mom made me clean my room.
Spring in Texas:
Though the usually pretty Hill Country was beset with a horrible drought, 2011 brought a bumper crop of bluebonnets to the outskirts of Dallas.
The Hill Country has lots to offer as well, such as Pedernales Falls State Park:
Spring is nice in DC too:
Summer was bracketed by a couple of trips, with the long, miserable, record-breaking Texas summer sandwiched in between. First Baltimore:
Then Florida:
This was actually an excruciating business trip that kept me quite busy. Fortunately, Sunrise came before the action.
And finally, my reward for surviving the horrible summer was a business trip to the Northwest: