I almost didn't go down to Venice Beach because I knew if I did, I'd end up retaking pictures of the pier. But I went anyway, and I did it anyway. I have this internal dialog in my brain. One side plans, decides, and weighs; the other does the opposite. In the end, all the noise is just that, noise. So this is the pier in Venice, it's a shot I've done before, but each time is a little different. This time I included only the sun's edge, so its presence is felt without becoming the scene's focus. At least that's how my left brain explains what the right brain did without asking permission.
This spot is from a massive lava flow, surrounded by volcanoes on all sides. I wouldn't want to be here when the next one blows. Living in Florida, it's easy to forget there is a healthy amount of volcanic activity in the pacific northwest. It wasn't my plan to visit volcanoes, but little did I realize, most of the mountains in Oregon are. If I recall, Oregon and Hawaii are in the "ring of fire," and we all know Hawaii is quite active. When I first arrived at this spot, I was struck by how fresh the flows looked; I thought maybe they were ten years old. It was more like fifteen-hundred years, which, as we all know, is just a blink of an eye in geological terms. As amazing as it was, I was still glad to leave before mother nature decided to blink again.
I took a picture of this church along one of the lesser-known highways in Florida. I just thought it looked kind of old-school. When driving in the country, I look for things that stand out; this fit the bill. It was, in fact, a Sunday but late enough that it was empty. It doesn't look to me like it has airconditioning so, on a summer day in Florida, it's probably as hot as purgatory inside, give or take a few degrees. Not long after this stop, I started entering the suburbs of Orlando, and from that point on, everything is new-school. The only things that look old are facades made to look that way. So, getting out of the city to see throw-backs is pretty cool, even if it is hotter than the devil's den.
