Just beautiful, Casey. Sign me up for your next hike!

At a cruise this past weekend. It was at the County Nursing Home. A group from a local church was at hand taking the residents around to enjoy the festivities. All seemed to enjoy it tremendously.

Not hiking, but close enough. My daughter cycling yesterday.

Miniature rock castle with stained glass windows.

This is sort of apropos after the recent discussion about Dangerous Things You Did thread. This is what people abroad are still doing on the streets of Amsterdam. No helmets in sight.

shot during the bike ride with Mel this morning:

Why would anyone fly a stars and stripes flag, in black and white, with a blue stripe?

sabbath7, where is that rock castle?

It's in Calhoun, GA. It's an entire little park full of rock villages, and castles. It's called the Rock Garden. It's on Trip Advisor if you want to see more pics.

Moni, the blue stripe added to the flag signifies support for police/law enforcement.

Ok, but I had NEVER seen a black and white flag before. Thanks Murraysmom!

I wonder about that I know blue ribbons mean that but why the entire flag in black and white? I hhave seen cars with a strip of blue tape on the back window or on the car not sure what those mean either. The blue ribbons are all over around here on trees and signs those are definitely for the police not understanding the flag.

Explanation: That's no meteor. While watching and photographing this year's Perseid Meteor Shower, something unexpected happened: a gigantic jet erupted from a nearby cloud. The whole thing was over in a flash -- it lasted less than a second -- but was fortunately captured by an already-recording digital camera. Gigantic jets are a rare form of lightning recognized formally only a few years ago. The featured high resolution color image, taken near the peak of Shikengkong mountain in China, may be the best image yet of this unusual phenomenon. The same event appears to have been captured simultaneously by another photographer, further away. The gigantic jet appears to start somewhere in a nearby thundercloud and extend upwards towards Earth's ionosphere. The nature of gigantic jets and their possible association with other types of Transient Luminous Events (TLEs) such as blue jets and red sprites remains an active topic of research.

drewsmaga:

Wow! If that is what i think it is, that is a very rare occurrence at this low altitude. It has the appearance of a "sprite" mostly reported by airplane pilots at high altitude. I don't think any has ever been captured from ground level. Sprites are very short duration discharges.