Random Collection of Pictures February 2025

I'm liking this new category! Sort of like a visual journal entry.  Well, I accomplished something big time! I cleaned out the junk storage / office space to create more space for the office and purchased shelving for an organized storage space.  Big difference!  So a few pictures are pictures I found scattered all over the junk storage part of the room.

I found an old whiteboard so I taped a bunch of random pictures that I found during the cleanup. This is only the bottom half of the board - the top half has a lot of cute family pictures.

One of our past doggies - Chewy. Very loving dog.

Dad tuning the mandolin. A little bit of Max Hunter history behind the mandolin.

I think this was 1998 Christmas vacation when we went to visit Smith Center and Thornburg. The last time I've been to either place. This is on the old school grounds across the street from the church.

And now to some other random pictures not from the cleanup!

Birger Sandzen painted a lot of pictures from his in-laws land in Graham County near Bogue.
"Creek at Moonrise", "Creek at Twilight", "Pasture Creek" were some of the painting titles inspired by Sandzen's view of Wild Horse Creek. I snipped this picture with the labels Wild Horse Creek and South Fork Solomon visible for context. I bought a print reproduction of one of his Wild Horse Creek paintings.

One of G's and I favorite desserts at one of our most visited restaurants - the blueberry apple cobbler at Logan's Roadhouse.

One of the many rejected pictures for my passport application. That's a whole other story filled with frustration, the better business bureau, and more. Maybe I tell it someday.

What I see each morning when I open my office door at work.

In a new hoodie from G - very comfortable cloth. And my mama's painting in the background.

I bought this at the bookstore located at the Grand Canyon National Park. I was not aware of the number of tribal nations that called the Canyon home.

Occasionally I check to see if Google Maps has updated the view of the old farmstead. It was updated. Look at all of those trails behind where the old barn stood.

I don't know what's going on in Rooks and Smith but wow a lot of mapped earthquakes in both counties from the Kansas Geological Association.

I found this beautiful picture of Standing Stone State Park located north of Cookeville, TN.

February had a lot of sky watching events. One was the parade of planets where 7 planets were visible in the night sky (top picture). Venus remained visible for many days in February (bottom picture).

I keep my ChattState pull over long sleeve in my office for cold days when just wearing short-sleeved polos.

Occasionally I get a feed of railroad or train enthusiasts on Facebook. On Facebook, the picture was angled where it looked like the train was curving around this house. I hunted it down on the Internet. The tracks are like right at the back door!  This is in Tell City, Indiana. 

I have several bookmarked emails about Trail City, an encampment right on the Kansas - Colorado line. Kansas at the time imposed a strict regulation about cattle being driven across Kansas land so a guy got smart and trailed the cattle in Colorado alongside the state line. Trail City emerged as a railroad stopping place consisting mostly of dugouts and a few buildings. It was said that there were more brothels and saloons than places of business in Trail City. The nearest Kansas town is Coolidge, which has a Trail City bed and breakfast. Trail City itself only lasted a couple of years and almost all signs of its existence are gone.

Random Collection of Pictures January 2025

I often capture pictures on my phone that I'm interested in or have a memory attached to them. But they stay on my phone. Eating up cloud storage and lost in the myriad of pictures. I finally realized - duh, I have a blog I can upload a few pictures to and use the captions to explain the significance. So I hope to continue this series of Random Collection of Pictures for the months where there are enough to upload.

Fort Hays during the winter. The last time I went inside the  buildings was with David during 2015 visit.

I served as the webmaster for the Geoscience Information Society in 2024.

I find this map snippet interesting - Mt Sunflower highest point in Kansas, Black Mesa highest point in Oklahoma (both over 4,000 feet) and then scrolling westward towards Raton Pass 3000 ft higher than Black Mesa.

One of those weird things: a State Highway in Kansas turns into a dirt road at the Colorado border and Colorado posted a road closed sign when wet.

The short Kansas State Highway 191 that connects US 281 to the center of the 48 states. I know that county very well.

Pretty cool chart of types of wetlands -- what's a fen or what's a swamp

I came across this picture of me when I was searching staff pictures for the Dean's retirement party. Probably 2010.

I caught this picture of brewing storm.

A very interesting picture from a restaurant table mat. You can see how the Tennessee River carved its way through what is now Signal and Elder mountains. And the depth between the Plateau and Dunlap. You can see Chattanooga listed at the 5:00 position. 

Look at that geology map: the eastern part of the state with several changes of color hues. I mean there are part of the Ozarks, part of the Osage Cuestas, the Flint Hills, and the very abnormal Chautauqua Hills dominated by thick cedars and sandstone. And then about 1/3 of the way heading west - the colors become more similar east to west than the eastern part of north to south. The Kansas River (the Kaw) is the only river in the Great Plains that does not have a starting stream in the Rockies, instead the starting stream is in the eastern plains of Colorado. Also for more interesting stuff -- there's an old rift hidden under the Eastern part of Kansas that is connected to the rift that created the Great Lakes.