Time. Captured. And held on to.

My fingers still remember how they hurt as we walked on the frozen lake shore last evening while my heart smiles as it remembers the sight of the orange sherbet sun as it melted into the lake. Every time I have visited Michigan, I have been lucky to add atleast one lighthouse to my slowly-but-steadily growing collection of these sentries of time. And for that one reason alone I can claim that I lurrrrrrrrrve (that's one step beyond love :D) the Great Lakes State! This was shot at Benton Harbor in South West Michigan, yesterday. This weekend was good for the soul and I am happy about that too :)

Let the sunshine in

As I type from my "igloo" :D, I think I am getting a wee bit tired of this, what weathermen are calling, "Arctic wave" that socked us in the last few days. These images from a tony, cozy cafe on one late winter afternoon, are my antidote to the chill outside.

My favorite pick-me-up: freshly brewed coffee with a touch of roast, a touch sweet and topped with dollops of whipped cream. Java-heaven!!!!!:)

Out in the cold

Time for reality check!!!! Freezing temperatures outside needed a mention before we continue with the trip images....... Remember the stumps? They are back, this time with ermine hats :)

Doesn't Old Man Winter get tired .....painting this pristine beauty across the landscape.....he does it week after week in these parts......

Though I love the beauty of an all white facade of that farm building, I get the urge to paint it red, every time I pass it on my way to work.My fetish for colors!!!!!!! :)

Mother Road continues.........

As we drove further west on I40 towards Albuquerque, there was no way we could have avoided the very towns that were forgotten when the interstates came into place......see if you can spot the famed Blue Swallow Motel (Tucumcari, NM) in the background in the top shot :)

While some motels have been revived, others retain an air of abandonment around them (for the tourist value???)..... I had to smile at that colorful "COLOR TV " sign :)

And finally we took a pit-stop at Santa Rosa to eat at this Route 66 diner..the founding owners smiling from the menu (printed in the format of a local daily) were not easy to ignore, so they too made their way on to my memory card :)
PS: Is it me or does she remind you of Salma Hayek too????

Westward, ho! :)

Finally, the weekend's here!!!!! It's been tough to get into the work mode (or any mode, for that matter) after the break and our home right now is a passionate paean to chaos........don't they have a saying like no one needs a vacation more than the person who just had one? Tell me about it!!!! Hope you are managing post-holiday blues better than me.....

Going back to images from the trip, I haven't had a chance to upload most of them..These shots are from the car as we drove westward from Texas panhandle to New Mexico........Gradually, Texan fields and cattle ranches gave way to harsher and drier landscape and though my sun-phobic skin cringes at the mere thought of temperatures there in summer, Arka loved the big Western sky, the sun-baked land and the roads...........and when he's happy, I am happy too :)

Route 66 Quirks

Halo! We are back from our trip and first things first: thank you for the happy wishes for the new year and our anniversary on the earlier post.......here's wishing you all a very happy 2009 :)

Now back to the trip......it was a memorable one for us and now the mammoth task of uploading and sorting through the thousand odd images begins.......while I am dying to share the photos from New Mexico, for the sake of my own sanity I will try and go through the images in the chronological order (that is, if I can continue to follow my own rules :D)

These images from our second day on road are from Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas. On this trip, we followed much of the Route 66 either on it or on the interstates running parallel to it and every quirky Route 66 photo-op was given the attention it deserved ;D

These ten, graffiti-adorned, half-buried nose-down, used Cadillacs supposedly represent the Golden Age of American Automobiles. Kinda ironical, don't you think, for the present times when the Big Three are in the state they are today. Since the site is open to public without any restriction, the painted graffiti is ever changing. Needless to add, I thoroughly enjoyed adding these to my collection :)