Colonial Beach, Memorial Day Weekend

Touring the shoreline at Colonial Beach in grand style, courtesy of Seville Cruise Lines (also known as tagging along with Rick and family on their pontoon boat!)


A sea osprey guards its nest on a shoreline channel marker--a common nesting site for these small raptors. Poetry in flight; alight, they have a slightly wild-eyed and frazzled look--they remind me a little of Wiley Coyote.



On Rick Seville's pontoon boat: Rick stays the course, while his wife Laura, daughter Shawna and granddaughter Jordan sunbathe; Drew enjoys being a relaxed passenger, for a change!



Images of Colonia Beach taken from Rick's boat: One of many beautiful old private homes that hug the shore; the red place on stilts was washed away in a fierce storm a few years ago--recently rebuilt; I love this sweet yellow Queen Anne house--Alexander Graham Bell's house--that's my fantasy home, and not because of AGB...


This is a view of Rick's community's private beach. In the water, Drew, Rick, and Rick's extended family.

Rick's neighbors have turned their old boat into a backyard fountain.

Garden in May, 2007

Catch the roses while they are new, in that fragile moment before the blackspot sets in and the beetles begin to nibble...still a good bit of dead rosewood to cut out, but aren't cameras wonderful? They have no peripheral vision! Here you see Buff Beauty, Weisse aus Sparrieshoop, and Supurb Tuscan.





In other news, the garden is dug and weeded and nudged into life--everything, even lettuce is planted now, but the bean trellis not up yet...catnip in deliciously smelly bloom already...

Bike Week, Myrtle Beach, SC--By Night

Bike Week by night takes some careful editing to maintain this site's PG rating. Sufficient to say--it is glamorous, dangerous, sometimes ridiculous--and well worth staying awake for: here, a late-nite glamour girl with a glitter-cycle...


Burn-outs can erupt anywhere--in the parking lots and streets, as well as in the "burn-out bars." This one was at the Red Rooster, right around third set...




We heard and saw some great bands--here are "Those Guys" of Ft. Lauderdale.





Mechanical bulls bucked off the beautiful and--well, everyone, eventually...





A shooter girl at the Red Rooster with one of her victims--uh...customers!


Sharon and Mike joined us at the Red Rooster...


Drew and me at SuckBangBlow--
















In the small hours of the morning,
a veteran rests up before finding his way home....

Bike Week, Myrtle Beach, SC---By Day

Yes, In Myrtle Beach, during Bike Week, even the Smoothie machines rumble!


Seafood is delicious and ubiquitous...




Motorcycles are everywhere--in the streets and in the sky...


You can ride a mechanical rat at the Rat Hole (can you tell that I'm about to bail?)...


This is Cathy and Chris Wenk at a relatively civilized on-the-water bistro. The music was live and Irish, as I recall...


Every sort of two and three-wheeled conveyance you can imagine,from Rat Bikes



...to this pair of vintage (1930s?) HDs...



Pudding wrestling at the Rat Hole and a wonderful view of the SC beach from Mike and Sharon's hotel window!

We connected with friends--here Duane, Drew and Jim brood over the wonderous-ness of Jim's custom chopper...

And, occasionally (only occasionally, mind you), as is par for the course on great adventures, we managed to get ourselves lost: "We should've hit that street by now..."