Another shadow photo. Love the abstract quality of the lines. Madison is a big biking town with well maintained bike paths and routes nearly anywhere you may want to go. In this day of the $4 a gallon gas, there are even more bikes on the streets than ever before. There are even those hardy souls who bike year round, – yes, even with an annual snowfall of over 100 inches – but I prefer to think of myself as saner and wimpier, and my bike stays indoors when the snow flies.
Me and My Sherpa
Today is one of those milestone days, the special ones people celebrate because so many years ago on this certain date, a special event happened.
Today is a special day for my Sherpa and me.
My Sherpa is the guy who hangs around with me and lugs my camera gear when we go on our weekend photo shoots. I’m the one that gets to ooh and aah and click the shutter, and my Sherpa is the one that cheers me on. He’s also the one that usually pulls out the checkbook at the camera supply store and signs the receipt. He’s the one that says, “Go for it!” when I get crazy ideas.
Sometimes we get tired and feel rather down on the ground and spend days searching for the best way to climb all those stairs that make our knees ache. But together we climb to the top, and it’s doable because we don’t have to go it alone. We struggle upwards together.
Other times we’ve made it to the top and we stand together and cheer. Cheer for the really good parts of life and cheer because we are lucky to share our lives this time around. Cheer because we’ve fought the hard parts and survived – and survived to smile again.
32 years ago today, it was 90 degrees in central Illinois and together we stood in a packed church and while I sobbed and he cracked jokes, we both managed to say “I do” at the right time. We both made a promise to do our best, to live our lives together, to be there for each other – good times, bad times, sickness, health. So far we’ve done just that.
And so today we celebrate . . . because life is good. Together.
Flowering Shrub atop Sand Dunes
The sand dunes along Whitefish Bay on the northwestern shores of Lake Michigan are sporting all types of shrubbery and small trees. These white flowers provided contrast against the dark red foliage of a 10 foot tall shrub and the deep blue sky, photographed on an early June hike in Whitefish Dunes State Park on top of Old Baldy, the tallest dune in the park.
“Soprano” Vanilla Spoon
Brocach – The Badger Den
For those of you not intimate with University of Wisconsin sports, the UW-Madison teams are the Badgers. As in “Go, Wisconsin Badgers!”
Brocach is the Gaelic word for Badger Den. What a great name for a Madison pub on the Capitol Square, just across the street from the State Capitol building.
This wonderful bagpiper was playing at Saturday’s Farmers Market.





