It's Christmas time in the village

The Christmas Village, where time stands still. Peace and warm lights. Snow, for sure, but not the messy kind. No traffic. No snarling faces. No fences. No jails. No crime. No run down buildings -- they're all ideal, architecturally perfect.


I was just preoccupying myself for a few moments at my daughter Vicky's house and started shooting pictures of the Christmas Village on her counter.


The Village has been reinforced over and over in our mind from young ages. It lays deep in our psyche. For one moment in time --- a week, a fortnight, a day, a morning -- we drop our defenses, our bickering, our jostling and enjoy the peace of the season with one another.


It's Christmas time in the Village. May yours be Merry and Bright.

Fog focused

A walk along the waterfront in Victoria on Vancouver Island. The fog doesn't let distractions sneak in. You're fully in the moment. Strolling. Sharing the moment with friends. Even the cold seems more of a friend than an enemy. The water is only making soft rippling sounds. The birds are quiet. "Why sing when you don't know what lurks?" they think.


The quiet stillness of fog. One could say the focus of fog.




--steve buser

Ferried away

One of life's simple pleasures -- the ferry boat ride. The water and the waves. The passing ships. The eager seagulls. The sea breezes. Kids of all ages love it And why not. Fifteen minutes off from the regular world into a world which we share with explorers of yore. This is the ferry from the Bolivar Peninsula to Galveston Island, Texas.


--steve buser

WhatChaGot?

Expecting some good eats, the sea gulls zoom in on a lad just wanting to see the ducks down in the water at Kemah, Texas. The Kemah Boardwalk had a bird feed vending machine just behind the rail here, so the gulls knew what the rules are and what to expect. They zoomed in and took a very close look over and over, wondering "what's wrong with this guy?"


--steve buser

Not with a whimper but a bang

And thus it end, not with a whimper, but with a bang. After the jousting match, while the band plays Renaissance songs, the fireworks explode above. The Texas Renaissance Festival closes for another night. The fall festival outside of Houston is an annual attraction for thousands

--steve buser

Spindled sunset

Your guess is as good as mine what the four poles are doing out in the middle of Keith Lake. The lake is one of a handful of shallow lakes just to the north and west of Sabine Pass, Texas. The sun was doing one of its high value shows and so I pulled over to capture it. The black band on the horizon was a front passing through. The sun had to skip over it to find clouds to paint. Thus the sunset colors only start in the middle of the lake.


-- steve buser

Gator baiting

This guy came swimming up to our boat on a swamp tour in Orange, Texas a couple years ago. I think he was hoping one of us would hop overboard. He was about 4 1/2 foot long -- I guess that makes him a teenager or something. Tour guide Eli Tate of Adventure Tours 2000+ had a great command of the ways of the river and bayous and where to find these wild creatures.

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