40 WEEKS OF ME- Week 14, FALL

You may be wondering why I'm showing pictures as a 40 weeks post. Well, I'm sharing my love of nature and my love for photography. Autumn is my favorite season. I took these pictures last Sunday during my bike ride. My father-in-law later complained to my hubby that I stopped to take a picture of every tree in the park. Not true.

As you can see, fall has taken its sweet time arriving in Northern California. Not that I'm complaining. That would be foolish.

5 Mile

This is one of the stops on my bike ride where I get some water and stare out over the creek. Today the Tai Chi group were already gone, so I was able to get a picture. Peaceful.



This is one of the many redwood groves in the park. The branches brush the ground so when you're beneath its cover you're in a secluded hideaway that is infested with mosquitos. Enter at your own risk or spray on insect repellant. Pretty though, so in my opinion a little itchiness is worth it.

The last three pictures I have returned to my favorite Teichert Ponds. I took pictures of the area in July. I wanted to show it to you in the fall. Next week will probably be prettier, but who knows what the weather will be like at that time.

Aren't the colors beautiful? I think this last picture is my favorite.

With this being NaNo month, I won't have time for in-depth posts. I'm pretty determined to get my 50k this year. I'll try to keep up with my blog posting since I'm getting better at not going MIA. If I do disappear for a while, it's because I'm lost in my wip. I apologize in advance.

SWAMP THING #1 FAVORITE PLACE

I took these swampy photos during my bike ride on Saturday through Teichert Ponds. The sky and water are this beautiful shade due to the smoke from a forest fire in the foothills. The picture above that I used for the blog cover is my favorite. It's what I imagined when I wrote the opening scene for Juju's Child.

This picture was taken from the bike trail. If you look closely you can see the blackberries on the bush in the lower left corner. My father-in-law and I make quite a few berry halts during our ride. Delicious, yum!

I trampled through the brush to get this picture--risking snake bites and poison oak. No, that's not a snake at the bottom of the page, but I thought it was at first. Yes, I am a little melodramatic.

This picture was taken at the same spot as the cover photo. I can totally picture a dead body floating beneath the water--which is the premise of Juju's Child, no I'm not being morbid for morbidity's sake. The only problem is that the pretty pink sky ruins the atmostphere of decay and darkness that I wanted to convey with this imagery.

It really is a beautiful area...

How often do your surroundings influence your writing? Have you ever found that perfect spot? The one that you dreamt about and lovingly crafted onto the page...and now you've found it in the real world?