It’s been a while since one of these. Such a long while that I almost forgot about them, so I can only imagine what a surprise this will be for the few readers of this blog.

What prompted me to author this post? Well, I got annoyed. I read a post on another blog (from which I’ve since unsubscribed) and stupidly commented. Do you know how annoying it is having someone imply you’re a bigoted white Christian? You don’t? Well, let me tell you . . . it’s annoying.

Anyway, I had a choice . . . I could fume and plot the demise of the Human Race . . . but I then worried about all the pets that can’t work a can-opener. So, I decided to relax by processing a few photos and composing this post. I’m not sure I made the right choice, but here we are.

As mentioned before, all the WitW photos are collected in THIS<<link SmugMug Gallery.  Each new post will identify the previous post’s photo. The poll at the end of this post is mostly to amuse and entertain (me), but I name the location of these photos along with a red herring or two. It’s fine if you look up the answer, and I won’t care much which name you vote for because, hey, you might want to amuse yourself as well. It’s open to multiple voting for people who like more than one answer. Let me know if multiple voting doesn’t work.

The location of the photos in the previous post<<link showcased U.S. Botanic Gardens<<link. For them interested in looking at it on Google Earth, here’s a screenshot of Google Earth’s street view. It’s close to the approximate location from where I snapped the 2003 photo, but know that the landscaping has changed (the coordinates are in the lower right corner of the screenshots — click for a larger version).

Here we go with the next offering . . . I shot this photo in June 2007.

That photo and the ones that follow were previously shared in a now-defunct blog. I don’t think they ever appeared on this blog. A few people might have received links to a now-defunct online album via email. That was from a time when I used to maintain a mailing list as I tried to keep in contact with friends.

Unfortunately, a few years after we moved from Michigan, the list was scrapped because fewer and fewer people responded. I’ve moved a few times and I’ve since learned I’m forgettable.

Free Hint: That’s not a beach. And kudos if you noticed the people in the photo.

If it helps, this is the view as you approach the place . . .

Side Note: As usual, I’m using the Block Editor to compose these posts. I previously mentioned the Classic Editor is having issues in the FireFox browser (they promised to work on the issues after the underworld freezes over . . . and they are keeping their promise) but that’s not why I’m using blocks. It’s because now that Trump is mostly gone, I need something else that qualifies as extremely irritating and worthless.

Anyway, you have to admit seeing merengue mountains is pretty cool! Well, you don’t have to admit it, but can you imagine how many egg-whites one had to beat to make those? Heck, can you imagine the bowl they used?

So, I normally share variations of the originals. Paintings made using the Topaz Impression plugin. Well, I was irritated enough to process eleven photos, so I’m just sharing the photos and not the artsified versions.

Aside from the year — which bears no importance — I can tell you the location is in the Northern Hemisphere. That eliminates a few continents, at least, thus making it easier.

The above photos — except the first — and the ones in this next gallery were all taken while approaching the location of the geographical feature. Oh, OK . . . it’s piles of sand! And the place? It has lots of piles of sand.

The reason we visited was to see — besides the piles of sand — this next feature.

So here’s the interesting thing . . . that river is seasonal. It appears only in the spring from the snow-melt from the mountains you can see in the background. In some places, it’s s trickle. In others, deeper . . .

Some might have noticed the rainclouds and bands of rain over the mountains (also visible in the first photo which was also shot from the same location and at the same time as the above two photos). The rain has nothing to do with the manifestation of the river in the sand. The flow is, as mentioned, the result of the snowmelt. Its width and depth depend on the amount of snowpack, hence the river is seasonal. By late summer it’s usually bone dry. Neat, no?

Notice something else about those photos? They look like panoramas, but they are not. That was the beginning of the curtain failing in my-then D100 DSLR.

In this instance, it was intermittently failing — not opening all the way, so the bottom of the photos was dark because the scene was not fully exposed to the sensor. It failed completely while shooting these beauties (LINK). There, you can also read how I damaged my camera.

So here’s another small gallery (I was really annoyed, so I processed more photos than I might have otherwise done) showing people climbing the piles . . . OK, they’re called dunes . . . anyway, people climbing dunes and giving the topological features a sense of scale. 

Before we get to the poll . . . did I mention I was annoyed? So annoyed that I also processed the photos in monochrome. Before I show you the gallery, a small reminder . . .

. . . IF you like to read, and IF you like to vote, THEN you might consider reading and then voting for your favorite of the three “Z” Alphabet Challenge Stories. Links to the stories and the poll for voting for “Alphabet Challenge Z-Stories” are HERE(link). Votes will be accepted until  Noon (Central Time) on Thursday, April 8th, 2021.

And now, here’s the Monochrome Gallery of the above photos. The poll is after the gallery

. . . and here’s the poll . . . I know; pretty lame choices. There’s not much you can do with sand.

That’s it. This post has ended . . . except for the stuff below.

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Note: if you are not reading this blog post at DisperserTracks.com, know that it’s copied without permission, and likely is being used by someone with nefarious intentions, like attracting you to a malware-infested website.  Could be they also torture small mammals.

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