Opelika


7
Mar 16

Just some pics

We went over to O-town for dinner on Saturday night. I took a picture of the railroad tracks and the overpass and the sunset. It seemed emblematic of something or other:

Those are not planets or UFOs, but simple light reflections in the phone’s lens.

We had a steak and okra last night. The Yankee makes good okra, especially since she, ya know, ain’t from around these parts:

Allie, The Black Cat is hanging out on the guest bed today. It has nothing to do with that big pool of sun she’s in:

I like to think of that look as “You are disturbing me, but I won’t make direct eye contact to let you know it.”


11
Dec 15

Most don’t remember their first roasted marshmallow

We went to a meet the merchants event in the next town over. We do a lot of shopping in that town. It’s a lovely place, a railroad town turned blue collar, until the jobs left, and it has recently come back as a great example of small town revitalization.

It is the kind of place where you drive around the square to get to the courthouse, where people point to the old storefronts and say “That’s where my dad used to hustle pool.” And then they could turn around, point in the opposite direction and say “That’s where we got married.” And then just a block away is the piece of railroad intersection that made this entire area boom in the 19th century. And to the left of that is an Irish pub, an Italian restaurant and a cajun joint, all on the same block. It is a neat place for a small town.

So we were there tonight, because the weather was nice and it was a good place to unwind and because we know some of the business owners. One we knew was doing S’mores out of her storefront. We stood and talked and had more than our share. I might have had three. Perhaps I had more.

And this lady brings her daughter, like so many other parents with their kids tonight. Only this little girl, this was her first roasted marshmallow:

She liked roasting them, but she found that she preferred them uncooked. And also the chocolate.

Here was one of the trees downtown:

Nice leaf turn, if a bit late. I’m sure we’ll see more this weekend.


4
Aug 13

Catching up

Aside: I wrote my first blog posts 10 years ago today. They weren’t especially insightful or useful, but they gave me something to do on slow afternoons after work. Ten years is a long time to do anything, it is fairly old for a blog. But this one is still moving along. Here’s to the next 10 years!

And now we continue on with the Catching up feature. This is the 112th edition of Catching up, where we normally share leftover photos that didn’t land anywhere else during the week. The time frame this time is a bit longer as we get back into the swing of things. With that, let us begin.

This is the lock on one of the doors in the Churchill War Museum in London. It protects Room G, which is Plant Room No. 7. During the war this room provided power to the underground offices and was restricted to H.M.O.W. staff only. Now it is part museum piece, part banquet hall that can be rented out.

In the little cantina in the Churchhill War Museum. The cup on the right sat on every table and held sugar and other sweeteners. The one on the left held my vegetable soup, which was essentially a pureed squash with a few other ingredients:

You see crazy things on public transportation in the U.S., but we didn’t see anything like that on the Underground in London. This lady was the extent of the eccentricity:

It rained almost the entire day we were on the Aran island of Inishmore in Ireland. But the water that came into the cove that protected Kilmurvey Beach was beautiful even still. You’d love to see that water on a clear day. Several rare plant species are listed in this area and the birds are of “international significance.”

One of the few things about Ireland that was a bit frustrating was that there were so many ancient things that didn’t come with great descriptions. But ancient is relative when you’re showing off 4,000 year old churches and forts. Who knows what this building, near the bronze age fort of Dun Aengus once meant:

This was the doorknob to our restroom in the hotel we stayed in outside of Dublin. It was a fancy place:

In the future all bacon will come from a machine like this:

National Geographic included Auburn’s Old Rotation in a list of the world’s longest running experiments. This is a mini-bail commemorating the 100th anniversary of the experiment:

An interesting use of wine bottles at Warehouse Bistro in Opelika:

This is the Roasted Vegetables with Basil Pesto crepe from the Crepe Myrtle Cafe in Auburn. It has roasted tomatoes, mushrooms, squash, zucchini, caramelized onions, red and green roasted sweet peppers, parmesan cheese and basil pesto sauce. It was delicious.