Random Shots of Beauty; Last Month of the Year

With only a few weekends left to post Random Shots of
Beauty, I figured it was time to go back into the photo folders and find some
of the pics I decided to put away for a rainy day.  And since it’s been raining for almost five
straight days around Monterey County, this seemed like a perfect time to open
up the rainy day file.







We’ll start with this one from a remote area of Carmel
Valley:








A somewhat nondescript oak tree that my son and I
encountered on a summertime bike ride; it’s not remarkably different than any
other of the thousands of oak trees around here.  It was only upon closer inspection that my
son said, “Hey – what do you see on that tree trunk?”






To our eyes, it kind of looked like the tree was looking
back at us.  It was very Wizard of
Oz-ish.






Continuing on the “slightly surreal” theme is this shot from
my 11-year-old daughter’s favorite trail running area in Point Lobos State Reserve:






It’s not very often that you encounter a whale skeleton on
your evening run.  At least not that I'm aware of.




*

One final note from the weekend: my wife and I had the
privilege of seeing the Blind Boys of Alabama in concert on Friday night – and if
there’s any better way to kick off the Christmas season, I’d be amazed.  They played a set of their gospel classics,
plus some gems from their wonderful holiday record, including this tune that may be our
family’s unanimous selection for favorite holiday song of all time.




Blind Boys of Alabama, “Last Month of the Year” (click to
play):








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