Photo du Jour... Good Friends

A friend asked me which is my favorite of the pictures I got on the month-long driving trip.  Traveling almost seven thousand miles enjoying America the Beautiful, we drove through California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, The District of Columbia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and then back home to California. I think my friend expected me to name a photograph of a famous or spectacular place, perhaps a picture of family in the Hamptons or of Nancy and Margaret on the steps of the Supreme Court… or another place of historical significance.  I was tempted to name a section of the Painted Desert or spectacular Colorado mountain peaks… or the New York skyline…

...but the picture that has kept crossing through my head for the past couple of weeks, is one that pleases me when I think about it and has sent me often to my computer file of pictures for Friday, May 9th.  On that day we met Donna Parry at Hillwood Estate in Washington, and as we walked to the Visitor’s Center, I stopped and snapped some pictures of a bed of tulips clearly past their prime. One of those pictures I’m going to print (maybe 20 X 30 inches) and hang it where I’ll see it every day to remind me of a very good month.

I'm not sure what the parable is in the image of these fading, retiring tulips; but I'm confident there is one.