Where I went this past weekend

Hey all, I'm back!

So... sorry about the lack of posts. Ran out of time before I could write them. But hey, I think they'll be pretty good, so at least you have something to look forward to this week. ;-)

In the meantime... I thought I'd share a few pictures of where I went. They're not all that good, because the good ones will become paintings, so you'll get to see them later. ^_^

If you're wondering, that's a telephone pole and a nest at sunset. No... ostriches didn't start to fly. It's actually a communal nest, where hundreds of birds live together because there aren't any trees in the are. They can apparently be quite a nuisance, because they mess up the phone connections. So yeah, this bit is pretty dry, since it's well on the way to the Kalahari desert. About a mile further on, there weren't anything to see except telephone poles, grass, fences and shrubs. But the moon was full and the grass almost white, so the earth seemed to glow. Sadly it didn't show in the pictures.

This was taken at a restaurant inside a nature reserve. The rock hybexes were so tame that they scurried past under the table to get to the delicious green plants. At least I assume they were delicious. Thankfully, this little guy stopped munching and posed for me to take a picture.

Quiver trees, so named because the Khoi-San used to cut them to size and hollow them out to carry their arrows.

The real reason to go up north this time of the year: Flower-time in Namaqualand. Interestingly, this wasn't taken too far away from the nest picture above. About a thirty minute drive south from that spot leads to much greener pastures. And orange... And yellow... and purple. If you're wondering, yes. This picture is of thousands of daisies in bloom.

Basically I spent this weekend surrounded by various types of beauty. It was truly inspiring and REALLY has me wanting to pick up a paint-brush...