My husband and I recently visited the renovated Kansas City Museum. The only building now open to is the Corinthian Hall, which contains memorabilia from the Long family on the first floor and an overview of Kansas City’s history on the second floor. Much of the museum has changed from its incarnation in the eighties and nineties, when we used to visit. But I immediately recognized the grand fireplace in the library, where I took my children to see the Fairy Princess at Christmas time. I’m not a Kansas City native, so that holiday tradition didn’t mean much to me.

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I spent an evening at a local library recently, and from my study room I saw these two fawns and their mother. They surprised and delighted me, but I don’t think I bothered them a bit. They didn’t even look up from their meal. What surprises have you had recently?

Last week I got to walk on a beach for the first time in several years. And it was sunset. This photo was taken at Golden Gardens in Seattle. I hope I don’t have to wait several more years for a repeat. When was the last time you walked on a beach?

In the last week, I’ve gone to the movie theater twice — first time since before Covid shut down the country. I saw Where the Crawdads Sing and Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris. I enjoyed and highly recommend them both! The producers of Crawdads did an excellent job of bringing to life the bestselling novel by Deliah Owens. Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris is a sweet, heartwarming movie and a fun little adventure into the world of haute couture. If you read Crawdads and enjoyed it, the movie will be a nice revisit for you.

Although I prefer the ocean, I enjoy being in the mountains, too.  Mountains show us the grandeur and timelessness of the earth. This photograph is of Olympic Mountains from Hurricane Ridge in the Olympic National Park, where I visited several years ago. You can see the backbone ridges that ran from where I stood out to the peaks, still snow-covered in mid-August. Sun glinted off the glaciers, turning them into sugar-dusted confectioner’s treats. The world seemed large and small, near and far, old and new, familiar and foreign, all at once. The mountains were magnificent. Do you prefer ocean or mountains?

BE ALERT Even when walking down a sidewalk towards your car. Stop to get keys. Notice handicapped ramps, steps, curbs. Don’t lose your footing and break 3 ribs like I did. Ouch! (Doing this in a handicapped ramp is ironic.)

Photographing nature can be tough. I usually snap a picture at the exact time a bird or butterfly flitters away, and I end up with a blurry image. Or, my camera is confused, and I get a lovely, sharp shot of a leaf or branch–and not my intended focal point! But this happened. . . I saw this adorable hummingbird at the feeder and actually had my camera in hand! Do you like to take pictures?

This Fourth of July, my husband and I took a drive in mid-Missouri to see some family farmland. The skies were spacious, though the fields of grain not yet amber. If readers will permit me to mix my song-lyric metaphors, I can attest that the corn was, though not amber, as high as an elephant’s eye . . . and much higher than my eye. What did you do on the Fourth of July this year?

Several years ago on the Fourth of July, my son was traveling in the Netherlands. He walked past the U.S. Embassy in The Hague. Overcome with patriotism, he took this picture of the American flag waving proudly above the outpost of U.S. diplomacy. He wanted another picture, one with the Stars and Stripes unfurled to greater dramatic effect. So he loitered across the street from the embassy, waiting for the breeze to catch the flag. The Dutch police decided he was a threat. They pulled him aside and questioned him. He was apparently able to convince the local authorities that

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