Westward Bound

2017 First Sunrise Over Iowa Farmland

2017 First Sunrise Over Iowa Farmland

The Japanese have a custom of watching the first sunrise of the year.  My first year living in Japan friends took me to a Buddhist temple at midnight on New Year's Eve and then to a beach at sunrise.  I really like this custom.  So this morning shortly after 7am I took my camera and tripod out onto the frosty ground and watched the sunrise over an Iowa cornfield.  You can see five jets already streaking to far off destinations so early in the new year!

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Gateway Arch in St Louis - Westward Bound

Gateway Arch in St Louis - Westward Bound

Kiki and I suddenly left Florida one Saturday night in early November.  I had long been wanting to do it, but with such things sometimes they just happen all of a sudden due to the sudden rising of circumstances.  We did have a destination though when setting out -- Iowa.  To get there it brought us through a few U.S. landmarks that I had never been to before.  One of them was Gateway Arch in St. Louis.  This will be the first post in a series called Westward Bound.

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