Aerial shots from the tiny plane we flew in while leaving Block Island: The Point Judith Lighthouse A sizable suspension bridge and shortly thereafter, what appears to be military planes at an airfield About midway through the trip the smaller camera that I used for these shots and in the underwater case while snorkeling, somehow got a piece on lint on the inside of the lens, which shows up as a fuzzy dark patch in all of the pictures. On many of the better pictures I was able to edit it out with a photo editing program, but it is a fair bit of work and it is rather annoying.

All around Anchorage, the lamp posts were covered with these flower baskets, in the colors of the Alaskan state flag.

Pretty eggs, but they make me a bit sad. Our bluebirds did not show up for the first time in about 5-6 years. We don't have the ideal habitat, but some years they would even raise a second brood. I miss them.

To correlate with Jemdandy's thread on the Declaration of Independence and freedom, on our trip to Washington DH and I made a point of visiting the Lincoln Memorial. Along with all the other historical details, I was interested to read on Wikipedia that a "popular legend is that Lincoln is shown using sign language to represent his initials, with his left hand shaped to form an "A" and his right hand to form an "L", the president's initials." This is plausible since the sculptor may have wished to pay tribute to "Lincoln for having signed the federal legislation giving Gallaudet University, a university for the deaf, the authority to grant college degrees."