059/365

Woman on Billboard

This billboard is located in north Abilene, Texas.  I can't remember what the billboard is advertising, but it probably is for some woman's cause.  I thought it was interesting and I really liked it when I cropped the words and the woman.

058/365

Painted Fish

This  painted fish is seen on an outside wall of an abandoned 

tackle shop in north Abilene, Texas.

057/365

Roadside Mailboxes

Barely hanging on.

056/365

Drinking Soda

I was wandering around a part of town I don't usually go to with a friend and we came upon a barely used Mexican restaurant.  It had this poster on one of the outside walls.  It's obviously old and worn, but I love the faded look of it.  

055/365

A Building Renovation

This might have been a school once upon a time.  Not sure, but it's been under renovation for many years.  It's seems like it's almost done and it's really beautiful but I don't know what the finished structure will be.  

I think it's really beautiful.

054/365

Gear Sculpture

This gear sculpture is just outside an electric company that has a beautiful mural on the wall on the south side of downtown Abilene.  

53/365

Retro mailboxes in a Retro Post Office

Small town Texas post office with these beautiful mailboxes inside the lobby area.

52/365

Bare Winter Trees

A tree line along a service road not far outside of Abilene, Texas.

51/365

Headstone

On the way home from our photo journey today we stopped at a cemetery and spent some time there looking for military headstones.

It was quite a large cemetery. We only searched one corner of it for stones that were of military members.  Sadly we also saw some headstones of babies, some who died at birth, some who were months old, some who were around two.   The heartbreak that the parents endured must have been awful.

When I saw this stone I cried...and I honestly couldn't speak for a few minutes when I saw the others.

50/365

Large Pond

Texas trivia: 

 There is only ONE natural lake in Texas but this is not it.

Although there are over 7,000 lakes in the state, only Caddo Lake in east Texas is natural.

In comparison, NY state has over 7,000 natural fresh water lakes.

Alaska has 3,197 named lakes and about 3 million un-named lakes.

A friend and I took a photo field trip today.  We were driving down a service road along one of the main highways looking for a photo op.  We stopped to photograph something else, but when I turned around I saw this partially frozen pond.  The temp was about 36 today, but in the previous days it had been in the teens and I guess it wasn't warm enough today to melt all the surface ice.

049/365

Structure at Pioneer Park

This log cabin structure is located within the gates of Pioneer Park in Fairbanks, Alaska. 

It's currently shuttered during the winter, but is still an imposing building.

I liked the red sign on the otherwise brown building.

048/365

Grace Museum Advertisements

There's a museum in downtown Abilene, Texas called The Grace.  It's a wonderful little museum and there's a playroom for the littles on the top floor that's quite impressive.

Outside and behind the building is this wall of advertising and to the left there's a parking area for guests.

I just thought this was really good looking so one day I made several images.  I like the others I took, but this is the one you get to see.

047/365

Backyard Sauna

Seen in the backyard of a home in the hills just outside of Fairbanks, Alaska on a cold winter's day.

046/365

Lone Tree

My photo club assigned topic for Jan was Lone Tree.  It was difficult to find a "lone" tree that looked interesting, so I just scrapped the topic and entered other photos.

The Jan meeting was canceled for some reason that didn't make sense to me and rescheduled for another month, so I guess I have another chance to enter that topic.  While walking around downtown Fairbanks, I saw this tree, and others, that were separated enough from other foliage to fit the topic.  

I thought this tree looked beautiful, so I tried to capture it, but there are still buildings and cars showing.

Really......it's just a snow covered fir tree, nothing special so I'm not sure I'll enter it.

I just think it's pretty against the gorgeous blue sky on a cold winter day.

045/365

Chasing Aurora

There was an incredible display of the Aurora lights last night.  My camera was acting funny so I missed some really good images, but I'm happy with what I got.

044/365

Unknown First Family Sculpture

This beautiful sculpture of a native unknown first family is located in 

the Golden Heart Plaza park in downtown Fairbanks, Alaska.

043/365

Museum of the North~~University of Alaska, Fairbanks

This beautiful building is the Museum of the North at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks.  It's a gorgeous building and I've taken many photos of it in various seasons.  The large bricks are intended to mimic bricks that an igloo is made of.  

042/365

A Hand Up

This sculpture is located in a park in downtown Fairbanks, Alaska.  A Hand Up is a tribute to Walter Harper, a 20 year old Athabascan who was the first person to reach the peak of Denali, the highest peak in North America in 1913.

He's seen offering his hand to help others reach the peak.

The sculpture was created by Gary Lee Price.

041/365

Full Moon

I noticed this full moon surrounded by snow covered tress and a bare birch tree.  I made this image with my phone camera.  It looks ok as a small image, but enlarging it shows that it was a substandard camera and not my SLR.  It's still a pretty scene.

040/365

Mid-Afternoon on a Winter Day

A cold, crisp winter day.  The scene looks fake to me, but it's real.  Almost too pretty to be true.

039/365

Snow on Dirty White Fence

The fence might be dirty white, but I think the scene is pretty.  

038/365

Sauna in Snow

Winter scene of a portable sauna and an outhouse in a snowy back yard.

037/365

Trees and Snow

There are times when I think I should live in the north again and take advantage of snowy scenics.  Then I come to my senses.  

036/365

Broken Window Glass

A pane of glass seen on an abandoned building.

035/365

Railroad Bridge

I took a side road the other day and came across this railroad bridge.  This isn't a common sight here where I live because everything is so flat so I couldn't resist making an image of it.  

034/365

Damaged Mailbox 

This mailbox is on the street for a house that's been abandoned for as long as I've lived here (and probably for many years before I arrived).  

Apparently, from the little bit I know about it, the house was built by the husband for the wife, but then the marriage didn't work out for some reason. 

The last time I saw the mailbox, it was in better shape, but not so much now.

033/365

Curbside

This is the ONLY good thing to have come out of the covid debacle.  If stores already didn't offer curbside shopping, they began during the alleged pandemic.  

I HATE to shop.  Always have and always will, so this curbside shopping is just the thing.

032/365

Abandoned School Library

Today is Feb 1 and I've managed to post a photo a day for the full month of January.

Now I just have to be as dedicated for the month of February.

This appears to be the library of the abandoned school building in Putnam, Texas.  

It almost seems that one day the kids were in school in this building and the next day they were elsewhere.  

I wish I could find the back-story about this place.