THE SUN WAS SHINING AND....

 it was lovely going outside and seeing the trees full of blossoms.  At least once a week we eat out, usually at a fastfood restaurant.  This time we were feeling like a chicken sandwich and shared some waffle fries.  I bring my own filtered water from home as I don’t like sodas.  I have my reusable drinking container which I always take with me when we drive around.  It stays nice and cold. 

At busy times of the day, instead of placing our order through the ‘talkie-box’, there are two lines of cars that make things smooth sailing, with staff who take our order. There is a single line to begin with, which can sometimes lead out of the parking lot.  They do such a good job of getting people through, that line never puts us off because of how they are organized.  It's impressive!  No, not too exciting but I don't need an excuse to take photos, and we find even the mundane interesting when re-reading old posts on our daily activities.  

As we neared the register after the staff had taken our order (and they are always incredibly nice and polite young people), to our left was this lovely sight.

and many more lovely sights as we made our way home.

I love the look of gnarly old trees with the blossoms decorating them.

We drove by the building (below) where my dear other half's office was for many years.  He enjoyed his job immensely and found it very rewarding.  

He had worked in Washington DC for several years before that, where the commute was two hours plus each way, depending on traffic. He also traveled a lot on business, so wasn't there all the time.  In fact, he made me laugh as on one occasion and the first phone call to me that night, he said he got off the plane and said to himself, where the heck am I now, this before his destination clicked in?  That said a lot about how often he was on a plane going somewhere.  However, when he was in this office and not traveling, he was only 15 to 20 minutes away from home.  We both loved those days but his company moved him to yet another building in Washington DC, where it was back to a long commute again, and still traveling.  He was there until he retired nine years ago.  Another lifetime before that he had been in the navy, so even though he traveled a lot, it was quite different from those six to eight month deployments when he was out at sea.

Anyhow, even when we don't have rush hour, we still have loads of traffic in this area.  I used to dream of moving to the country but truthfully, we learned to work our way around the pros and cons.  We enjoy living where there is much to offer within a short car ride, an overabundance of parks, gardens and nature reserves, churches, hospitals, doctors and dentists, theaters, numerous supermarkets, many other amenities.  It is also wonderfully multi-cultural.  And as for the traffic, we try to avoid rush hour as much as we can.  We know a lot of short-cuts!  Now, that's not to say that I wouldn't want to live where many of you do, out in the country or places like Hawaii!  But we have enjoyed every destination where we have landed. I don’t think we will be living anywhere else at this stage of our lives and are very happy with that.

As we passed by one of the shopping centers, there were lovely displays of tulips and pansies at all the entrances and other areas of the parking lot.

It is such a beautiful day, we are going for a short ride, one that we cancelled because of the rain.  We decided on Burke Lake Park but more on that next time.