mountains – Second Wind Leisure Perspectives

Sunday Stills: Song Lyric Photo Challenge–Summers of My Dreams

August 8, 2021August 8, 2021Posted in leisure, photography, weekly photo challengeTagged cellpicSunday, climb every mountain, home, Lens-Artists, mountains, photography, song lyrics, summer, summer rain, Sunday Stills, wedding anniversary, windsurfing, WQWWC99 Comments

Welcome to the first-ever Sunday Stills song lyric photo challenge! This type of challenge is not new to bloggers but I thought it would be fun to try it. This theme was a challenge for me because I love all types of music, but I wanted to choose songs that made sense in my own life.

The idea of this challenge is to match images related to your favorite song lyrics. If this is unclear, it might be best to think of your favorite song(s) and highlight some lyrics with your new or existing photos. Here is an example from Marsha and my example from 2017: My Favorite Things.

Also, to avoid copyright infringements of published lyrics, only post a few lines rather than the entire song. If you write poetry or your own songs, you can certainly use your work for this theme!

Summer Rain, All Summer Long

Today, to help inspire you with appropriate images, I chose Summer Rain by Johnny Rivers, a popular song released in 1968. According to Wikipedia:

“Summer Rain” was written by Jimmy Hendricks(!) and performed by Johnny Rivers on his 1968 LP Realization. The song reached No. 14 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, No. 6 on the U.S. Cash Box Top 100, and No. 10 in Canada in early January, 1968. “Summer Rain” is a song about lifelong love during “the summer of love” which refers to the phenomenon of Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco between 1965 and 1968.
Wikipedia

Think hippie culture and free love. Despite the song’s origins, I simply like the music and the words.

I was 8 years old in 1968. I may have remembered hearing the song in the car on road trips at that age. I suppose it wasn’t until the early 80s upon hearing it again, how much I enjoyed the idea of the lyrics as a celebration of summer. Later as I became a windsurfer, I started to appreciate the types of wind, coming from the four directions, east, west, north, south that the song mentions.

Here are my images for Summer Rain. Imagine the song is written is from my husband’s perspective. I apologize in advance for any subsequent earworms on the part of the reader!

Summer rain taps at my window
West wind soft as a sweet dream

Hans Schrandt Executes Big Jump — Hubby with a Big Jump!

Windsurfing-Woman — Hubby with a Big Jump!

My love warm as the sunshine
Sittin’ here by me, she’s here by me

All summer long, we spent dancin’ in the sand

And the jukebox kept on playin’
Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

She wants to live in the Rockies
She says that’s where we’ll find peace

Happy on our half acre — First look at property in Washington, May 2020

Settle down, raise up a family
To call our own, yeah, we’ll have a home

House and Shop — Waiting for Shop Doors (taken 8/6)

The snow drifts by my window

North wind blowin’ like thunder
Our love’s burnin’ like fire
And she’s here by me, yeah, she’s here with me
Let tomorrow be

Summer Wedding, Climbing Mountains

I’m also sharing for Marsha’s Writers Quotes Wednesdays Writers’ Choice “Writer’s Choice” or Mountains this week.
Summer Rain is a celebration of my 8th wedding anniversary on August 22. In two weeks, we will be in the Sedona, Arizona area over a long weekend.

For our wedding day in 2013, I chose Climb Every Mountain from the 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music as the song in which I walked down the aisle with my daughters. This is one of my favorite musicals.

Wedding photo credits © Kimberly Washington 2013

This verse is my entry for WQWWC this week:

“Climb every mountain,
Ford every stream,
Follow every rainbow,
‘Till you find your dream.”

Climb Every Mountain lyrics © CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC

I’ve always wanted to live in the mountains and we do!

Rural Mountain road — Street view of home

Next Week’s Monthly Color Challenge

Next week’s photo challenge is the Monthly Color challenge exploring the color “burlywood”—a light shade of brown, kind of like khakis. By this time of year in the Northern hemisphere, this color should be seen everywhere in nature!

Sunday Stills Moves to Canada for Three Weeks Beginning August 22

Many thanks to Natalie of Natalie the Explorer who will guest host Sunday Stills while I take a break and travel a bit. You may know her Weekend Coffee Share Feature. Natalie has chosen the themes for Sunday Stills which are as follows:
8/22 In the Garden
8/29 Afloat
9/5 Colorful Murals

Throughout this post, I share various images for the following challenges:

Johnbo’s Cellpic Sunday and Lens-Artists Challenge hosted by Patti this week.

Bugged Blogger Links from Last Week

Sunday Stills is a wonderful community of bloggers and photographers who desire to connect with one another. Below are the last week’s links from bloggers who shared their favorite insect and bug photos.

Cats and Trails and Garden Tales

Cee’s Photo Challenges

Deb’s World

Denyse Whelan Blogs

Easin’ Along Image shared in comments—you gotta see it!

Equipoise Life

Graham’s Island

Geriatrix Fotogallery

Heaven’s Sunshine

Hugh’s Views and News Image in Comments

Retirementally Challenged

Retirement Reflections Image shared on Instagram

I’m looking forward to your creativity with song lyrics or poetry this week highlighted by your photos! Have a great week! Join me next week for the monthly color challenge before I go on my break!

An Autumn Moment Captured

October 22, 2015October 21, 2015Posted in Leisurely ThursdaysTagged autumn, John Muir, lake tahoe, leisure, mountains, photography, quotes, trees27 Comments

This photo was our view in Lake Tahoe as we rode our bicycles. I have more photos to share in later posts, but for now, please enjoy this Sierra Nevada autumn moment brought to you by John Muir.

Mt. Shasta: Sunday Stills

June 29, 2015Posted in photographyTagged leisure, mountains, Mt Shasta, Sunday Stills, white19 Comments

White is the theme for Ed’s Sunday Stills. The challenge? No clouds! Bummer.

Here is a photo of Mt.Shasta as seen from Highway 5 in Northern California, taken in late November.

No Room; But There’s a View

April 7, 2015April 8, 2015Posted in Writing101Tagged beauty, camping, inspiration, mountains, Tuolumne Meadows, vacation, Writing101, Yosemite43 Comments

I never get tired of visiting Tuolumne Meadows in the high country of Yosemite National Park in California. My parents traditionally took their two-week vacation to the Sierra Nevada mountain range, which from San Diego was about an 8 hour drive. By the time I was eight years old and my brother was five, we were old enough to finally go with them!

I have been to Tuolumne Meadows 23 times (twice in 1979). “The mountains are calling and I must go.” ― John Muir. Muir wrote volumes about Yosemite and referred to the Sierras as the “the range of light.”

Unicorn Peak overlooks Tuolumne Meadows — Unicorn Peak stands watch over the meadows

Although I am not nearly the writer as John Muir, I am still staggered by the beauty of the high country of Tuolumne Meadows. Nearly impossible to capture in a photo, the sunlight shines off of every pine needle, validating the incredible glow as the stately Lodge pole pines reach toward the cerulean sky.

Adding to the light are the granite peaks reflecting their surreal splashes of what one might believe is water. Tens of thousands of years ago, the entire continent of North America was covered in ice. As the Ice Age ended, massive avalanches carrying untold tons of giant boulders and debris scraped and shaped the domes, creating vast, shining sheets of polished rock.

At sunset, the remnants of glacial polish reflect the fading sunlight, back-lit with an effect known as alpenglow.

At nearly 9,000 feet in elevation, even the night sky is ablaze with the light of billions of stars. The Milky Way is so bright it looks like clouds have made their way over the meadow.

A day or two before our family vacation, my mother would schedule a trip to the library where we would check out a stack of books to take along. It was probably then I developed my love for reading. There was the 8-hour drive in which to enjoy a great book, as well as plenty of leisure time in between hiking and fishing trips. Laying on the meadow among the sedges, listening to the Belding ground squirrels’ high pitched warning whistles, with the gentle breeze whispering in the pine trees, created an imaginative setting for whatever I was reading. As I grew older, I was inspired to write in my journal about whatever teenage troubles I experienced.

The Range of Light has infused inspiration into my soul since I walked these meadows in 1968 as an eight year-old. While the camera has its limits to what it can capture, my eyes see the miracle of the incredible beauty that John Muir saw. What scenery he described and illustrated in the late 1800s, I can now capture on my phone 125 years later. That in itself is an inspiration and a step back into time.

As a leisure educator, I revel in these special leisure spaces. Without them, humankind would certainly shrivel and die. I never tire of visiting, whether we stay in the campground or motel camp in nearby Lee Vining. Even more fun is when we go with people who have never been there, and experience the awe and joy through their eyes.

I have been invited by Tiny Expats to share this post on “Show Your World.” Please enjoy my backyard 🙂

Summer Rain, All Summer Long

Summer Wedding, Climbing Mountains

Next Week’s Monthly Color Challenge

Sunday Stills Moves to Canada for Three Weeks Beginning August 22

Bugged Blogger Links from Last Week

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