You should ramble
The Missouri Botanical Garden, a lovely place to ramble! April 2008
“To enjoy scenery you should ramble amidst it; let the feelings to which it gives rise mingle with other thoughts; look round upon it in intervals of reading; and not go to it as one goes to see the lions fed at a fair. The beautiful is not to be stared at, but to be lived with.” — Thomas Babington Macaulay
What little I have read about Macaulay does not particularly impress me, but I think he’s given us an appealing description. It sounds like a fine way to enjoy a beautiful Saturday in May. I wish you lovely weather today, and at least a little time to ramble amidst the beauty of your particular part of the world. If you see something you want to share, feel free to post links to a blog post or share a description in the comments below. If you have a photo you’d like to share, send it to me at defeatdespair@verizon.net and I’ll post it here. Maybe beauty is not to be stared at, but I think it’s always appropriate to capture and share it with paintings and photos! Happy rambling!
- Posted in: Uncategorized
- Tagged: beauty, enjoyment, gratitude, joy, nature, recreation, scenery, springtime, walking
Defeat Despair 
beautiful image!
i’d best ramble on to bed!
zzzzzzzz
Sounds good to me 🙂 Have a great weekend!
Enjoy the wonderful day, Julia! Lovely photo!
Thanks Bindu! Hope you have a lovely weekend!
At the moment I am enjoying the pictures I took recently of some flowers around our town. I featured a few in this blog post: http://inthemidstof.wordpress.com/2013/04/29/lessons-from-ann-voskamp/. Thanks for your beautiful picture!
Thanks for the link, Barb – now I will go “ramble” through your blog!
This looks like a fine place to take a walk. If the weather were fair I think Stephen and I might, though when we came back from seeing the bluebells Stephen had THREE ticks on him. I had none but felt icky the rest of the day. That is the bad part of rambling. How did they avoid it in the days before tick spray? Enjoy your day my friend.
Amy, I have often wondered the same thing but then I remember that long ago, there was no air conditioning and people put up with all kinds of things we can’t stand now. The first time I ever toured Mount Vernon, all my romantic notions about how wonderful it would be to have lived 200 years ago flew out the window because it was so miserably hot and humid that I could not enjoy the beautiful home and grounds and could only wonder how those colonial people could dress in so many layers with it so HOT. My solution is to “ramble” in the spring and fall, or in the cool of the evening, and not to ever live anyplace where it was still HOT after dark as it was in San Antonio. I really loved Texas but the weather in San Antonio is a deal breaker for me!
Julia, it has been a beautiful day here. We spent it outside together doing some overdue lawn manicuring. I told Bill it was a “me and thee” day because we even went to the grocery store together. It was nice. I so enjoyed your blog today. I didn’t know that you had lived in San Antonia. Bill was born there. His dad was an Army doctor at the time. We didn’t ramble today…. maybe tomorrow. With a prayer, Sheila
Hi Sheila, I am so glad you and Bill enjoyed the day together. What you wrote reminded me of a funny saying, supposedly from the Quakers, that has been a sort of motto for Jeff and me all these years: “All the world is mad except for thee and me, and sometimes I wonder about thee.” 🙂 I just love that, it’s so US. There’s a huge Army medical center in San Antonio (Brook, I think?), which is probably where his dad was. Jeff went through his post-doctoral comprehensive dental residency at Lackland AFB, which is where the big Air Force medical center is, Wilford Hall, but it seems as if I heard they were going to combine them. Wishing you a beautiful day again tomorrow! Thanks for being here!
How true Julia. We’ve been across the Golden Gate 3 times now. Once in our car and twice on the red bus, just to experience it and hoping to get the ultimate photo. The Missouri Botanical Gardens looks like a place I could linger for sure, look at all those tulips, WOW. Some year I’m going to plant masses, so awesome.
Alas, my tulips have never grown because the vole always get the bulbs around here, and nothing that I’ve tried has worked. So I just enjoy other people’s! Did you notice that people can also walk across the Golden Gate bridge? We did that one very chilly July 4th! The Bay Bridge (to Oakland) is also beautiful, but only inbound to the city, which is the upper deck. But it also looks beautiful from the shore; hope you get a good view of it too. Thanks for taking the time to visit here during your vacation!
The very first day we crossed, we were traveling to Napa, stopped for pictures but carried on because the ticket machine wouldn’t dispense ? The other times we were on the Red Bus and it was extremely windy and cold. I haven’t anything in my suitcase to wear to be warm. I brought a blazer, a light sweater. Seems ok in the sun but OMG I froze yesterday 😀
Supposedly Mark Twain said “The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco.” But when the areas just inland get unbearably HOT, it’s wonderful to hop into the city and cool off! Just be sure to bring lots of layers next time!
Oh ya, that Mark Twain dude was so right, LOL. Today was brilliant though. Walked up to Coit Tower, walked down to the Piers, walked back up town to Union Square, hopped on trolley to Lombard, walked down Lombard to Washington Square……took a break for G&T on the patio at Original Joe’s and now I’m with you! LOL….my feet hurt 😀
Wow, sounds like you had a great day! I’m so glad you walked up Telegraph Hill. Too many people don’t do it but I loved it because there used to be all these cool little garden spots all the way up, very funky and interesting. I love Union Square especially at Christmas and Lombard is probably beautiful right now; I’d guess the hydrangeas are in full bloom there? It used to be the most hydrangeas I’d ever seen anywhere there. The first time I drove down Lombard it was almost by accident, I was so terrified of going down it but couldn’t back out since it was one-way! SFO is much better for walking than driving. You see so much more that way. Those hills will really give you the exercise! Hope you aren’t sore tomorrow!
oh ya, We actually walked DOWN the stairs on Telegraph Hill after our visit to Coit Tower. Our B&B is literally around the corner. Out our door on Stockton and a left on Filbert. Very easy climb in our direction. There were sure a lot of cute gardens though. Not too many Hydrangea, maybe they’ve bloomed and gone.
Or maybe the residents of Lombard got tired of them and decided to try a different type of flower. But it used to be that the street was just lined with them in different shades of color. I’m glad you are staying where you are. I always tried to discourage people from staying near Fisherman’s Wharf. So many people think of that first if they’ve never been to SFO. That’s fun to see one time, but the rest of the city is more charming I think.
oooppps, it’s a right on Filbert…HA I’m so bad on direction it’s amazing I don’t get lost, thanks only to my hubby 😀 We are at the Washington Square Inn, really lovely.
Yes, I love that part of town. I hope you get to spend some time in Chinatown. I love to stroll around there, it’s the closest I am likely to get to Asia anytime soon!
Beautiful! Thanks, Julia.
You’re welcome! So happy to have you here.
Our Pink Dogwood is in bloom-so will try and send a picture. Going to a plant sale today so will have to ramble some. My kids hated to go on road trips with me as I would stop at every possible roadside attraction. Finally they said I could have two stops.
Mike, this makes me laugh. Jeff gets impatient with me for the same reason. Maybe we need to have an assigned number of stops per trip. I love the Pink Dogwood – we don’t have one but I hope to get one eventually.