OTBR: Trail of the Tough in Estonia

Latitude: N 58° 28.584
Longitude: E 022° 12.060

A child on a road trip with his family asks, "Where are we?" and the father answers, "Let's check the map. We're off the blue roads [the Interstate Highways marked in blue on the road atlas]. We're off the red roads [the US and state highways]. We're off the black roads [the county highways]. I think we're off the map altogether." It was always my dream to be off the map altogether.

After the jump, a few of the random places (and I mean random literally) that I visited vicariously last month that are "off the blue roads".

Repeat Tweets: #txhshoops is baaack!

Repeat tweets from December, 2015:

• 1 Dec 2015: Final: Naaman Forest 64, Berkner 52. #txhshoops is baaack!
• 2 Dec 2015: RT @SenTedCruz: "Scientific conclusions should be based on the evidence & data, not the wishes of liberal global warming alarmists." @SenTedCruz is trolling us.
• 2 Dec 2015: What's the difference between the KKK and the Irving anti-Islamists? One is a group of racist bigots and the other wears hoods.
• 3 Dec 2015: MT @cressman: "When you live outside the US you think Americans are nuts regarding guns." Inside the US you *know*.

After the jump, more repeat tweets.

Tree the (rest of the) Town

Remember "Tree the Town"? You know, the program with a goal "to plant 50,000 trees in Richardson during the next 10 years on private and public property." What's up with that?

Dallas Arboretum's 12 Days of Christmas

From 2015 12 30 Dallas Arboretum

The Twelve Days of Christmas, the second most annoying Christmas song ever, celebrates the twelve days between the birth of Christ (Christmas, December 25) and the coming of the Magi (Epiphany, January 6). The Dallas Arboretum celebrates the twelve days of Christmas from November 27 - January 3 (yeah, that's 38 days; I don't think they care). Scattered around the arboretum grounds are twelve Victorian gazebos each filled with animals and characters from the song. The DeGolyer house itself is filled with nativity sets. All in all, the best thing to ever happen to the song.

All photos from our visit to the Dallas Arboretum can be seen in Google Photos.

POTD: Black-Eyed Susan Photo Bombs the Badlands

From 2015 08 15 South Dakota

Today's photo-of-the-day is from the Badlands National Park in South Dakota. The geology here takes center stage. But when a single black-eyed susan sticks its head up how can a photographer resist letting it upstage the multi-colored layers of rocks in the eroded hillsides?