A Somewhere Day Trip and Critters

Hello friends it's Saturday once again so please join me with another Saturday's Critters posting.

Lake Harriet in lovely Linden Hills.

SATURDAY'S CRITTERS 

Rusty is the happiest pup ever as this backyard project means lots of company joining him for long periods outside in his private playground.

It's a wonderful learning experience for everyone too.

"Risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing." Leo Buscaglia

I'm also posting to City Daily Photo, beginning with last Tuesday my day off and one that normally I create a post, but the day slipped away far too quickly, and it was wonderful and unusually busy with most of it spent at my youngest son's house with his latest building project underway.

Isn't he just the cutest?

How about the day trips. (Especially when gas is out of this world lately. Often on Tuesday I'll check in with a few of my favorite towns close to me, and where I have special cafes to have lunch! Always a treat.

I've brought you to The Hideaway in Northfield before. Scrumptious is the best description.

From an antique shop along the way.

This sweet little gnome hails from Lake Elmo but he resides with me!

From Lake Harriet in Linden Hills.

It's a wild and wonderful story and someone has to tell it! Go for it Danny Jr.

This is one capture of several taken for the prompt, Parachute another Instagram post.

So many special events happening too.

It was a Happy Birthday 13th birthday for Lyra on the 12th!

More on critters.

Always a treat some delightful horse drawn critters to brighten your day while offering rides for others. They are all from Mackinac Island in Michigan today and moons ago.

"Dare to love yourself as if you were a rainbow with gold at both ends."

Author and Poet Aberjhani

If you desire seeing a rainbow, you'll have to welcome the rain.

"We look up, if only to see if we're to be rained on. The sky calls attention to itself, whether scored by herons, cranes, or wires; illumined by sunsets, Perseids, or ballparks; broken up by the twig work of oaks or maples, painted in rainbows, or just primed in the pale gray of my '52 Ford. If we are truthful, the sky is never neutral."

Robert Michael Pyle

This next photo below is from my #icad2022 Instagram post, and our prompt was Postmark.

(Write more letters and mail more cards)

"I've always felt there is something sacred in a piece of paper that travels the earth from hand to hand, head-to-head, and heart to heart."

Robert Michael Pyle

"Life is a paradise for those who love many things with a passion."

Leo F. Buscaglia

"One of the secrets of a Happy Life is continuous Small Treats."

Iris Murdoch

 "I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things I play with leaves I skip down the street and run against the wind."

Leo Buscaglia 

It's Bugs and Emme!

I'll follow you anywhere.

Window shopping in Northfield.

"Life is like a mirror. Smile at it and it smiles back at you."

Peace Pilgram 

and "If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought."

Monday, we celebrate The Fourth of July.

Land of the free. Home of the brave.

"Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better."

Albert Camus

So far, still here.

Thanks for stopping in your visits are so special for me.

Take good care of you.

Tonic for Life

Welcome I hope you'll enjoy my recent visit to Faribault, Minnesota about 25 miles away from my house. I'm posting to City Daily Photo.

Faribault Minnesota 

The Wahepkute Nation of Dakota Sioux Indians, they were the earliest occupants of the region around Faribault. Minnesota arrives from the Dakota word for Mni Sota the river that reflects the sky.

Grab a refreshment and carry on with me so you can feel like a tourist as I do every single time, I wander to cities near me.

"We will be known for the tracks we leave behind."

Santee Sioux Tribe

From the City of Faribault

For those that have the time this story tale walk is so worth the wandering.

I had so many unexpected surprises this trip and rewarding like in a bead shop where the owner is downsizing and she gave me so much free stuff I still can't believe it. The next photos are from a different shop, that another store owner told me about. The retail shop owners in Faribault are truly interesting and sharing people, what day brighteners they all are.

Seriously though, there's something to be said about buying local and skipping the big box stores. It's like a family connection.

Please step inside.

The Nook and Cranny

If you have the funds, buy the church. They will come.

and so she did.

Through these doors it's not only a shop but the architecture that draws you in. These are the kinds of places that are top on my list.

Life is a journey.

"Life is so full of unpredictable beauty and strange surprises. Best of all when someone says something or writes something that often brings you to tears or belly laughter that point when you know you've been changed, appreciated, and actually seen for yourself, and you wonder what did I do to deserve this? That is the point of renewal by wandering about and meeting folks along your path." Me

Kindness is what opens the door to another glorious day of not only new and invigorating adventures but also personalities that can shape your day like no other.

We learn from others.

"Elegance is a glowing inner peace. Grace is an ability to give as well as to receive and be thankful." 

Mystery is a hidden laugh always read to surface! Glamour only radiates if there is a sublime courage and bravery within: glamour is like the moon; it only shines because the sun is there." C. Joybell C.

Aren't symbols and trinkets, especially vintage trinkets invigorating to your soul and vital for your imagination?

Sometimes when you slow down, breathe and let the day take you away, you'll capture the essence of an old soul linked to a vintage heart and a beautiful mind that is willing to bring you inside.

Listen.

"Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. unfold your own myth."

Rumi

Back home again and a view of my favorite spot, some may refer to as a jungle. 

It's the view I see from my computer desk.

and from one of my garden Frogs below he offers this advice.

"We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down." Kurt Vonnegut

"The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt."

Sylvia Plath

"Around here, however, we don't look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we are curious...curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.

Walt Disney Company

Thanks for stopping in, your visits make my day.

Take good care of you.

Fantasticness

Welcome everyone to another beautiful day in Bloggers-ville I'm hoping it's good for you as well.  I'm especially relating this post to the topic of Mood Boards (there are so many variations to that title) and my prompt for Instagram today is simply that. Mood Board. Although instead of actually putting these photos on a board or paper I'm posting photos here that set my mood to high-happy-energized emotion, of pure fantasticness, or rather fantasticalness! I'm also posting to City Daily Photo.

"We are the thoughts we choose to keep."

A. D. Posey

Below is my Mood Board for Instagram.

"Life is a sea of vibrant cool. Jump in." A. D. Posey

"Sand lines my soul which is filled with the breath of the ocean."

A. D. Posey

"A toy cannot save a life, but it can save a soul."

Robert Dinsdale

"Can you see me?" Harry asked still grinning and waving his wand.

"The world, and everything in it, is just this extraordinary outburst of the imagination."

Robert Dinsdale

"It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view."

George Eliot

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle.

The other is as though everything is a miracle." Albert Einstein

Let it Bee! "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Muhammad Ali

"Life seems to go on without effort when I am filled with music (and nature)."

George Eliot

"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"

Douglas Adams

What to my surprise this lovely blossom opened today!

Although one could say there is a Lego dude enjoying a leaf. Photobomb? 

"You can't give someone the world if their mind 

is only ready for the city."

"The bad news is time flies. The good news is you're the pilot."

Michael Altshuler 

Sometimes you just need to-

"Adopt the pace of nature."  Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Hideaway is my special getaway. 

I don't go there just for the food although it is delicious!

It's my rewind lunch stop.

Fight fire with fire.

"Set your life on fire! Seek those who fan your flames." Rumi

"Where there is ruin there is hope for a treasure. - Rumi

On this day, June 14th.

Happy Flag Day America!

Thanks for stopping in

 and for your comments, they are special to me.

Take good care of you.

"It's never too late to have a happy childhood."

"Music fathoms the sky."  Charles Baudelaire