Wild Alexandria

Although this scene looks as if I’m miles away from civilization, it’s only a few steps away from dozens of apartment complexes and single family homes. Dora Kelly Nature Park is Alexandria’s largest nature preserve, covering 50 acres. I came at the wrong time of day to find critters. The wildest thing I saw was a group of overexcited school children on a guided tour.

It would have been helpful if the City of Alexandria Parks & Rec website had mentioned that the main entrance near Beauregard and Morgan Streets has no parking lot! Next time I’ll come earlier and I’ll know which residential street to leave the trusty Subaru on.

The first of every month is theme day for Daily Photo bloggers. Stop by tomorrow to see what we’re up to!

Not Passante’s Mailbox

Thought of Passante of Picturing Washington when I saw this, as she uses a butterfly as her avatar. On closer inspection, I was slightly disappointed to observe that the butterflies aren’t actually painted on the mailbox. It’s a metal mailbox slipcover. Chewing that one over awhile, it seems sensible, especially if the homeowner’s artistic talent is anywhere near the level of mine.

Rah Rah

Everything turns into a series with me lately. Bobby Goren would be proud. (For those of you who don’t watch Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Goren is the detective whose specialty is picking out bizarre behavioral patterns that no one else notices.)

Turning now to the photograph at hand, I’ve never cared whether the whole world knows where I went to college. Bought a college sweatshirt once but only because it was on sale. And I’ve never cared about college sports. Call me crazy, but getting excited about a bunch of guys carrying a ball around is just not something I could ever do. Painting my college team logo on my mailbox will thus never enter the top 10,000 on my list of things to do.

Cat Mail

By a strange coincidence, not long after taking yesterday’s frogbox, on my way to do a little shopping at Bailey’s Corners, a shopping mall about five miles from home, I spied this cat mailbox on a road I’d taken many times. Until I had taken the photo of the frog mail box, I had never noticed it.

Unfortunately, I have no clever quotes, puns or tie-ins to add. So there you have it.

Neither Rain Nor Frog Nor Dark of Night

Unique mailboxes are much more a rural phenomenon in the U.S. than in urban areas. I was delighted to find this frog box on Quaker Lane in the West End.

For those of you not familiar with the U.S. Postal Service, their credo goes something like: “Neither rain nor fog nor dark of night shall keep the postman from the swift completion of his appointed rounds.” According to Bartleby’s Quotations, that is a paraphrase of a quotation from Herodotus around 480 B.C., describing the Persian message carrying system. Pretty clever, those ancient dudes.