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Big Ben at night: marker, colored pencil & ink doodle

Big Ben at night: marker, colored pencil & ink doodle

I adore London, especially at night.

We toured London by day, and a group of us went out at night:

June 25, 2014

“We took the tube to Westminster, saw Big Ben lit up at night, crossed the bridge to the London Eye in the cool night air. We walked down the Thames with lots of others, sharing our high of experiencing such a beautiful, rich city – a truly global city. We crossed the bridge and headed to Trafalgar Square, where we climbed the lions and laughed at the blue cockerel. We walked through Piccadilly Circus, then through Green Park, laughing and talking in the misty night. We saw Buckingham Palace, unlit at 10:30, and pulled our weary feet towards Victoria Station to the underground and back to bed.”

British Museum, ink doodles

British Museum, ink doodles

The next day we moved through history at the British Museum, beginning with ancient Assyrian statues, Egyptian faces, mummies and scarabs, and the Rosetta Stone.We moved through the Greeks and Romans to the Celts, to the Medieval church, pieces from ancient ships and the oldest surviving statue of a human figure – dating around 7200 bc! It looked like modern art… amazing.

Skipping over a day, to which I will return tomorrow, we spent another day in London as most of the group returned home. Westminster Abbey, the treasures at the British Library, the Tower of London, St. James Park, and losing our way somewhere in Brompton or Kensington, rounded out London with mist and flowers. So much iconic beauty. London is a fantastic city.

St. James Park, London, marker & ink doodle

St. James Park, London, marker & ink doodle

 

Age of the Dinosaurs

Mary Liz Ingram —  September 8, 2013 — 1 Comment

Long ago, in some of my earliest yesterdays, I took a trip. Amidst mouse-eared balloons, sky-painting lasers & flying elephants, we approached the dinosaurs.

My father ushers me into place with the rest of my family. We begin our journey to the Mesozoic Era…the age of the dinosaurs.

Entering in darkness, unsure of what lay ahead, we creep tentatively under huge palm leaves. Something red is glowing up ahead, huge moving shadows warn me of coming doom. Dinosaurs.

These things are huge. They are moving. They are not stationary models, replica skeletons. In my 6 year old mind, with widened terrified eyes, if I’d know the words, I would have been saying “holy s$*#!!” If I wasn’t held in by a lap bar and my dad, I would have been in full on flight mode, running hysterically through the dark in a desperate search for 1987. Horror. Terror. I thought these guys were extinct?! But there I am, trapped in dinosaur land, eyes squeezed shut in hopes I’d survive this slow moving train of death.

All the while, as heart palpitations and sweat consume me, hysteria setting in, my poor Dad is trying in his logical, parental way to force me to look at these monstrous, man-eating beasts, promising they’re not alive.

Um, did you SEE them? They’re chewing on leaves and roaring for pete’s sake!? Not real?! You are kidding me!

Somehow these people don’t understand the situation. We are all going to die. Eaten by dinosaurs at Disney World. Perhaps crushed by a giant foot, chomped by a tyrannosaurus….who knows what horrific end awaits?

Well, so maybe I was mistaken. We made it out alive. Shaken and scarred for life, yes, but alive.

Traveling from the Jurassic period (or Triassic, Cretaceous…who knows?!) to present day, one week removed, you arrive at my 32nd birthday. One night over dinner, the kids asked me if I’d ever seen dinosaur bones. Well, yes, I answered, they are in museums. After a quick google, I announce that there’s a stegosaurus skeleton at a natural history museum an hour away.

So we take a trip. To see dinosaurs. On my birthday.

Call it motherly love, parental sacrifice. I STILL do. not. like. dinosaurs.

But we came, we saw, we photographed, we cheesed, we went. There were more dinos than I expected. Gross.

But the kids were AMAZED. I guess it was cool.

But they give me the creeps. Thanks Dad. 😉

Dinosaur & Hubby, ink & colored pencil

Dinosaur & Hubby, ink & colored pencil

The one and only drawing of a dinosaur I will EVER do…

A few photographs from our adventures at the Anniston Museum of Natural History: