Random Collection of Pictures July 2025

Pixel and her mommy came down to visit us in July over the Independence Holiday. Pixel just turned 5 in June!

I didn't see the cake but here is a picture of it!

We had a great time with Pixel and her mommy over the holiday weekend and the following week. We went hiking at Red Clay State Park.

Red Clay state park is beautiful.

We went to the dog park in East Brainerd and had a picnic at the city park. Pixel was tired running around in the Tennessee heat.

We went to Nashville for my Tennessee PTA board meeting and Pixel and her mommy left for home from Nashville the next day. But G and Pixel had fun looking out the hotel window.

Meanwhile at work, July is Park and Recreation Month and I had another awesome display of pictures submitted by my colleagues and me.

G and I went to South Pittsburg, TN for breakfast at Big Bad Breakfast. We left home at 11 am but got to eat breakfast at 10:30 am. lol time zones! Then we went to nearby Bridgeport, Alabama to check out the Trail of Tears bridge that runs alongside a train bridge. As I suspected from previewing the site on the Internet, it didn't feel safe walking around there. So got some distant bridge pics.

I used Google Street View to go down the alley behind the old Tennessee PTA office. Guess whose car is still pictured (I guess they don't update the alleys too often).

The TNLA Executive Board roster was updated in July. You might see a recognizable name.

A beautiful picture of Suck Creek Road which is just across the river from downtown Chattanooga. Sure changes fast from city to rural. 

The High Plains Aquifer is losing its saturation. Not good news for Western Kansas. This was the 1997 map.

A friend of mine was lucky enough to see the Dakota Badlands. It's been a while since my last visit.

A picture of the people lined up in Stockton for a police officer funeral procession.

This picture popped up in my Facebook memories. Wow do I miss my dad and mom. Ten years ago would have been July 2015 - Burton Family Reunion, meal with mom's sister and our family, staying in Hays. And less than a year later afterwards - Dad was gone. 

Random Collection of Pictures June 2025

June was uneventful as far as trips or family meetings. Which is ok because sometimes we need to sit back and enjoy where we are now planted.

I did make a trip to Sparta for the June board of directors meeting for the Tennessee Library Association. Whew - that was a long meeting (contracts, bylaws, etc). Caught a view of a cloud inversion over the Sequatchie Valley on the way to Sparta.

In June, I prepare for Park and Recreation Month by visiting a local park as a focus point.  I chose the Sculpture Fields at Montague Park. I took a few photos of the sculptures for my guide. Also a good view of Lookout Mountain in the background.

 

A random selfie I took while walking on campus

I found this interesting guide to storing condiments.
 

G and I go to Western Sizzlin occasionally in the the next county to our west - which is also in Central Time so we can leave late and still be early for lunch. Here is the view of the Southern Appalachians from the parking lot.

I dug up one of my columns from Tennessee PTA newsletters to share with incoming officers about what I learned about leadership - specifically the differences between leadership and management.

 I ordered more Sandzen note cards from Lindsborg, Kansas. There is a Sandzen gift shop located there.

Father's Day was in June! Got a nice ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins. And G took me on a road I took before from Stevenson, Alabama and over the top of Sand Mountain to Trenton, Georgia. A nice short day trip. I took a bit more time to admire the Snodgrass bridge structure over the Tennessee River near Stevenson.

 

 

I added text to a picture of Teter Rock for my Instagram account. 

The City of Lawrence corrected a wrong and did the right thing - the Sacred Red Rock was returned to the Kaw Nation. Now it took a while to get the stone prepared and moved and reinstalled. The “Sacred Red Rock” is a twenty-eight-ton red, quartzite boulder of long-held spiritual and cultural significance to the people of the Kaw Nation. The stone was moved from its original location to Lawrence in 1929. Now the stone is in Kaw Nation. A picture of Kaw Nation Memorial.

The Kaw Nation Memorial is adjacent to the Flint Hills Trail State Park. The trail was honored as Rails-to-Trails Conservancy's Hall of Fame in August 2025. 

Random Collection of Pictures May 2025

One of my favorite new things to do - explore the random pictures I save to share here. For the month of May there are more article clippings than in the previous posts.

From the year 1955, a sentence about moving houses to make way for the creation of  Webster Lake.

A dark cloud overhead on campus. Will be nice to wear short sleeve shirts again!

We went to nearby Dunlap to see if there was any water flowing at the Cagle waterfall - very little was streaming.

The Chattanooga area is blessed with cool sculptures. This one is at a city park near the Tennessee River.

Probably something I will never see, Teter Rock, a human made monolith used in the past as a guide for travelers but now as an off-road adventure to check-off for many. Located in the Flint Hills of Greenwood County.

Railfan me. I think this is just a stunning picture of a train in the Nebraska sandhill region. A promotional picture for a YouTube video about the train moving through this part of Nebraska.

I found this blurb fascinating about US Highway 72 which begins/ends nearby me in Chattanooga. It begins in Tennessee, goes through Alabama (Huntsville) and then through Mississippi, and returns to Tennessee to end/begin in Memphis. This is my go-to route to travel to Memphis and avoiding the Interstate (Nashville). It is a four-lane highway for the entire trip.

Not aware that US Highway 83 is still a Canada to Mexico highway and is called a road to nowhere. Looking at it on a map - it does avoid a lot of big cities. Been on it a few times (Oberlin, Oakley, Garden City, North Platte, McCook, Valentine, Pierre).