Lily Pond Lake of Fire / Arboretum View

My husband and I had a big list of things to accomplish on this day, but I'm happy to say that a bunch of them were fun. We went to town. We picked up library books at the Way Fruit Farm book lockers; just another week and they'll be done, as that service is ending with my township's asinine refusal to help fund our local library services. I bought old-fashioned fruit slice candy there too. (Alas, only TWO orange slices in the whole bin!)

Our loyalty card was full, so we got a free lunch courtesy of C. C. Pepper's cheesesteaks; hello, coast-to-coast cheesesteak, fries, and refillable drink. We picked up a cake at the Penn State Bakery for my birthday, which is coming up on Saturday. I visited the Arboretum. I bought grilled stickies ice cream at the Creamery. My husband got groceries and gas, and ran at a local park while I sat and read my book in the sun.

Here are two photos from the three hundred pictures that I took on this day. The Arboretum's lily pond is my favorite spot in the entire gardens, and even in winter, it is amazingly beautiful. Above is a "fire and ice" scene, with a tiny ice floe floating on a lake of fire. The "fire," of course, is a reflection of gold grasses near the edge.

In the extras, you may see a picture of the gardens from the upper left corner near Schreyer House. There's a sort of duck blind there, with golden Adirondack chairs. Whenever I've been there, there's always been someone there ahead of me, sitting in those chairs. But on this day, I had them to myself, and here's the view from there! In the upper left, you can see the new Palmer Art Museum. To the middle right is the interestingly shaped hexagonal bee structure. And in the far right distance is East Halls, a student dorm complex.

I have two photos, so here are two songs for this very good day: For my lily pond which is a lake of fire, here are the Primitive Quartet, with Send Down the Fire. I heard it on the radio a week or two ago and just loved it. For my photo of the pretty gardens, and for this day, here is Ryan Toby from the film Sister Act 1, with Oh Happy Day.