Tree and Palace Building (South Korea)

For my final photo from a series taken in a Korean Palace in 1998, I simply liked the shape of this tree in front of the building.

I've got lots more photos from this trip to South Korea ready for Vintage Weekly! And since the theme for the upcoming week is "old" at Tina's PicStory, I'm linking it there too.

Blixseth Park Plants

The last of my shots from our spring trip to Palm Springs shows some plants in the desert Blixseth Park.

This post is for Scenic Sunday.

The official toll for the wildfire is 347 homes destroyed and one dead. The fire is 15% contained.

Thursday's Wildfire Update

The fire is officially at 18,500 acres (approximately 29 square miles, or 75 square km). According to the mayor it has destroyed hundreds of homes; a more accurate count may be available later today. Containment is still at 5%.

These photos were taken early yesterday evening overlooking the Air Force Academy and the far northwest side of the city. You can see the fire getting into a housing development in this next one.

This last one gives a sense of how much is burning - literally miles of the front range around Colorado Springs.

At this time our house is still safe. Tomorrow I'll have a more normal, cheery post to put up for Scenic Sunday.

Nighttime Wildfire Photos

Rumors are that 100 homes may have been destroyed yesterday. Here are a couple of photos I took yesterday evening, both with a telephoto lens. The first one shows the fire beyond the ridge. The photo is straight out of the camera, no editing or special effects.

Here's a photo of a neighborhood from another vantage point. You can see several fires burning. This one is cropped.

Today's supposed to be another hot, windy day.

Wildfire Update

The wildfire on the west side of Colorado Springs got into the city this afternoon and an unknown number of houses have burned. I'm watching houses burn near my office on live TV. 32,0000 people have been evacuated including many friends and coworkers. I want to thank everyone for their concern - we live miles away from this fire and our house isn't in any danger from it at this time, but here's a photo from this afternoon from our deck, showing the plume of smoke rising and drifting over our house. That's all smoke - at times all I could see was smoke.

This is my sad entry for Skywatch Friday this week.

Last Fall's Aspen

This week's theme at Tina's PicStory is "Under the Tree." I'm going back to last fall to find some photos for this, when the aspen were turning. The photos were taken on a hike near the town of Palmer Lake.

Aspen are a beautiful part of my part of the world, so I'm linking these photos to Our World Tuesday too.

Wildfire update (see my previous post for more details) - 3,600 acres with no containment. Weather forecast: very hot and dry. So far no homes have been burned.

Wildfire

There's a nasty wildfire on the west side of our city. It's burned 2,500 acres, and over 7,000 people have been evacuated, including some within Colorado Springs city limits. We can only hope that the weather forecast is wrong - it's supposed to be a windy day with record heat.

This photo was taken near our house, which is on the other side of town from the fire. The office where I work is within the evacuation zone.