Galloping water steeds

The Aquarium in downtown Houston is the home for these two gallopers. The Sea Horse tank is at kids' eye level, so you will always see little faces pushed against the glass is wonder.


-- steve buser

Late gate wait

You've been there. The plane waits at the gate for clearance. You wait for the plane to board. The sun doesn't wait. When it's tired it slips below the horizon. It will be a dark flight through the night back home. And then a dark drive to your house.


Travel. The destination and the journey are not the same -- that is never more clear than when you are suspended in twilight time.


--steve buser

Jumble, bumble fun

Okay. Here's the scenario. You take a large tube and spin it and then tell a bunch a kids to walk through to the other side. I suppose the idea is to give them a sense of what their clothes go through in the dryer. Anyway, it turn instantly into a jumble of arms and legs and body parts that come flying through.

The scene is a fair in the parking lot of the mall in College Station, Texas.

--steve buser

Driving down the sun

It's getting late. The sun is sliding from the sky. The road is getting longer. You're out over the Atchafalaya basin -- the 25+ miles of bridge with virtually nowhere to get off. Up ahead the bridge at Whiskey Bay rises straight into the sun... what's left of the sun.

It's going to be a long drive through the night.

--steve buser

What's missing is the message

It's just half the mountain it was when I was a kid -- and that's what's so fascinating about it. Unless you're a member of the X-generation or Y-generation, you remember how it lost half of the mountain in a huge explosion in 1980 -- the most significant event in recorded history (this link has a fascinating tale of the event). In the foreground, the two travelers do what people do every day -- stop to take a shot to remember it by.


Here's a full view inside the crater. You can click in the image and move side to side to spin around 360.


The drive up to the mountain is a wonderful history and biology lesson in itself. If you haven't already done so, put it on you life's list to make the visit to Mt. St. Helens.


--steve buser

Fogged in

The fog has set in. The wind just doesn't feel like pushing it around. So your sails are useless. This will be a day on land. The scene is the harbor at Victoria on Vancouver Island near Seattle. We cruised over on a ferry boat for the day. Fortunately, the fog lifted around 1 p.m.

--steve buser

I never left

There are places you never leave. You may get back on the boat. You may climb aboard your plane. But you never leave. This is one of the. A beach on the ocean side of Cozumel. A part of me stayed behind in one of those chairs. It sits and lets the ocean breezes massage my cheeks every day. It's waiting for the rest of me to come back. Soon.


-- steve buser

Recycled sunshine

The City of New York reflects the sunshine onto St. Patrick's Cathedral spotting it all up and making the venerable old church seem almost liquid. The corner stone for the famous church was laid in 1858, the same year the first transatlantic telegraph was sent.


-- steve buser

Spin me up, Scottie

It's the big one. It's in town. You've been waiting, now it's time to cut loose. The State Fair is here.


Get your body ready to spin, tumble, fall, and swoop in the hands of mechanical monsters. The lights, the food, the screaming music. It brings us all together. The exhibits, the animals, the contests, the bands. State Fair time.


This one is the South Texas State Fair, in Beaumont, Texas from a couple years ago.


--steve buser

Teach the steed to heed

Bread always falls butter side down. The parking spot is always on the other side of the street. Laws of the universe. Another law of the universe, seldom cited, is that when a ersatz cowboy climbs aboard his steed on the merry-go-round for the first time, he will always choose the wildest stallion in the bunch. He'll have to hold on to tight to bring his speeding galloper under control.

Our grandson, Sullivan, stills his steed with the a steady hand and a fancy footwork. The ride goes on. The scene is at a parking lot fair in College Station, Texas

--steve buser

Sunrise serenity

Sunrise fishing. You, the pier, the water, the fish.... and serenity. This is the pier at Walter Umphrey State Park at the lower end of Pleasure Island in Port Arthur Texas. The fish swim in from the Gulf here and their drama with the wily fishermen begins.

--steve buser

Lazy, glazy

Oh, those lazy, glazy lakes of summer. The Boomtown Lake in Vidor, Texas, is right on the I-10 which makes it a draw for campers. The lake is a former borrow-pit -- the dirt is "borrow" for construction projects. In this case, I'm guessing that the dirt ended up being used to raise the I-10 when it was first built.

That boat laying there looks awful temping. I didn't notice it when I shot this picture a couple years ago, that there was chair on the deck on the right. I'm pretty sure it has my name on it.

--steve buser