cruisingat60: Watah bugs

Graceland, Graceland, in Memphis, Tennessee. I'm going to Graceland.

After leaving Louisville, I plotted a slightly off-course trip to Graceland. A few hours out of my way to visit Elvis seemed a small price to pay.

But in looking at the atlas a little closer, I saw a dotted road, my favorite kind to travel, heading south from Nashville into the heart of Dixie. It was the Natchez Trace Parkway, a 444-mile-long national park that begins in Tennessee and ends in Mississippi, or the other way around. Sorry, Elvis, not this trip, because I decided to drive the Trace.

I have more pictures that I'm still working on, but processed these four tonight and was blown away by these bugs. Little skittery things that move across the surface of a stream more smoothly than I move through air caught my attention and I clicked the shutter with the hope of getting something. Well, here's what I got.

Look how it doesn't break the surface of the water.

Six points resting on the surface.

I think this one shows really well the dip in the surface at the points of contact.

This is my favorite. I never saw the reflection of the trees overhead until I blew this image up. See the right rear leg of the bug on the right? Amazing! Isn't nature grand?

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Thought of the day:

Away, away from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs -
To the silent wilderness
Where the soul need not repress
Its music lest it should not find
An echo in another's mind.

(Percy Bysshe Shelley, "To Jane: the Invitation")

Away, away, from men and towns,

To the wild wood and the downs —

To the silent wilderness

Where the soul need not repress

Its music lest it should not find

An echo in another’s mind.

Away, away, from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs —
To the silent wilderness
Where the soul need not repress
Its music lest it should not find
An echo in another’s mind.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, "To Jane: The Invitation"

Away, away, from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs —
To the silent wilderness
Where the soul need not repress
Its music lest it should not find
An echo in another’s mind.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, "To Jane: The Invitation"

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Watah bugs