A Retreat for Peaceful Contemplation

I love hibiscus..the cool thing is they bloom all year..

A lovely evening walk in January through Gig Harbor, WA.

Karina, wonderful picture.  I have to admit that I took a shiver looking at the snow on the mountain, lol.

That mountain, Mt. Rainier, looks different every single time you look at it.  It is amazing.  I grew up looking at Mt. Hood.  One of my favorite things is flying up from Arizona.  In the plane you pass Mt Jefferson, Mt Hood, Mt Adams, Mt St Helen, and then fly close by Mt Rainier.  To the north you can see Mt. Baker before landing in Seattle.  What a magnificent chain of volcanos!  

You are right. That flight in a small aircraft is spectacular. All those snow capped peaks. Totally awesome. 

I took those pictures this fall while flying home on a US Airways jetliner...not a small plane!  They always come very close to Rainier..so cool!  I always feel you can nearly touch it.

Karina, love those pictures.  My son lives in Japan and I have gotten to see several volcanoes from a distance.  There is something about a volcano that really gets to me.  I guess it has to do with its beauty and the power within it, never knowing when.  He did take me to a crater lake and I was in awe as to how huge the crater is and he told me it never freezes.  Ok, it must be pretty hot way down there.

when we lived in Spain, I used to sit in a park where I took this picture and just relax..This is Segovia which is about an hour or so  from Madrid.  I could imagine how this looked to an invaders that came that way...this is where Isabela married Ferdinand..in the 15th Century..

'Troll's Tongue'.....Norway

Awesome photos ladies!!  I've been lurking for a while, scratching my head as to where all my photos went.  I guess I didn't move them from my pc to my new mac a couple of years ago. Have to give it a look see and find them.

We've been having some lovely sunsets, I will try to capture one of them.

That is like a wind sock, but people do go to the edge & take pictures of themselves. Here's a description of how to get there.

"Protruding straight out the side of a mountain, the Trolltunga or Troll's Tongue literally "hangs" some 2,000 feet above the Ringedalsvatnet, close to the towns of Tyssedal and Odda in the Hardangerfjord. There's no way to drive up here—you've got to get up the old-fashioned way, with your own two feet. There are a couple routes up, including one that combines both biking and climbing."

The dog in the picture is my puppy-niece.

I didn't take this. It's nice to know the sun is up there above the fog---in more ways than one!

'The Tunnel of Love' in the Ukraine: