Morning Delight

In the past several days, my wife has been following me on my morning trip to send our D to her school. Invariably, the return trip is always via the Bayshore Boulevard skirting the west bank of Hillsborough Bay, a body of water that abuts the Tampa Bay at its upper part. On those trips, a faithful companion that we always bring along is the digital cam that we bought last year on Black Friday (read here), Nikon Coolpix L6. Many an image that has graced this blog is the output from this handy camera.

But on these morning trips a different photographer is at work, namely my other half, as I have to do the driving. And here I would like to share some of her handiwork taken on different days, each capturing a different mood.

Let’s start with the overcast morning. The road was wet, and the air was damp. You can see that railings had been erected on the road median in preparation for the Gasparilla Invasion to be held on January 27, a once-a-year extravaganza when the City of Tampa is taken by swashbuckling pirates in full costume piloting droves of quaintly decorated pirate ships. But more on that later when I will blog on the festivity.

And here is one such pirate ship, looking quite forlorn actually. Maybe the pirates were taking a leave of absence to stock up on supply ready for the next voyage or shall we say, raid.


Then a cold front hit, the temperature dropping, and the air becoming crisp. The morning sky was a tapestry of different hues, the palm trees only visible in outline. This is the only still shot, literally, when we were at a traffic light. The others are portraits in motion, the shooting part I mean.

It was opportune that the sun was just peering beyond the horizon, or rather the low plain fringing the opposite bank of Hillsborough Bay. So we got our sunrise shot, an orange blob against the backdrop of the azure sky. [Compare with an earlier shot here.]


While I’m at it, I might as well throw in this great shot by my elder D taken during her visit to Busch Garden last December. It’s an albino peacock, which seems to be more stunning than its colorful brethren, primarily because this is my first sighting, albeit a pictorial one. Quirk of nature? I don’t know. [Update: Just read this in wikipedia: The White Peafowl is frequently mistaken for an albino, but it is a colour mutation of Indian Blue Peacock.]