Come Take a Ride With Me

My buddy, Catherine, who I take photo jaunts with, has been out of town on vacation for a couple of weeks.  I just happen to run into her yesterday when I stopped to get a smoothie (that was absolutely delicious by the way).  She had returned the evening prior and when she spotted me the first thing she asked was if I was ready to take another trip to the country to capture one of our favorite subjects....barns.  Yep, always ready for a trip to the country.  But this time not only is Catherine coming with me but so are you.  Ready?

First on the agenda is a stop at McDonald's...Catherine orders a large iced tea, no ice, unsweetened with a 1/2 inch of sweet tea on the bottom.  Took me awhile to remember all that, but I've got it down pat now.  I usually get an egg burrito...easy to eat and just enough to get me through until lunch...wherever that might be.  And then we are off.  Where we are going or what we may see, we never know.  We usually head west and then turn down whatever road that might look interesting and then the fun begins.

Today we found some wonderful treasures....let me show you a few.  The first barn we came across was this beauty with it's grey siding, white trim and red roof....isn't this just about perfect?!

We continued down the road, turning at an interesting gravel road and came upon a field of horses, grazing silently in the fields.  The golden rod is now in bloom which has turned the countryside to a golden yellow.

The purple blooming thistle is a welcome brightness among the brown dried heads....

With Fall is beginning to make an appearance .....

It is pretty darn flat in Illinois, but we do have a few rolling albeit small hills....well, I guess you could probably just call them bumps and not rolling hills.

As we drove we saw more and more horses and it became obvious that this area was horse country.  There were several horse farms for boarding and training in the area....Beautiful horses and all very well cared for. 

You know the proverbial "grass is always greener"...obviously this horse seemed to think the grass must taste greener on the other side.

Another couple of barns we stopped to enjoy.

This one looked like it had just been freshly painted...it was such a bright red.

And to put icing on the cake on this wonderful drive in the country...we came across a small field of sunflowers.  Oh do I love sunflowers.  The sky had become quite blue and the sunflowers were absolutely glorious.  Nothing says summer quite like red barns and bright golden sunflowers.  

I hope you enjoyed our ride in the country.  Catherine and I do this quite often in all kinds of weather. We never seem to take the same path twice, although sometimes I wish we could find some of the barns we have seen in the past in different seasons. (note to self, take notes)

Do you enjoy taking off to places unknown, not knowing exactly where you are headed?  Treasures await...you just have to find them.

Our month of "barns" is almost over.  I encourage you to post on our flickr page any barn you find on your adventures, you just may be featured here as our "photo of the week".  Thanks!!  And don't forget our linky party that posted yesterday.  Come join and play.

"While the right friends are near us, we feel that all is well.  Our everyday life blossoms suddenly into bright possibilities."  ~  Helen Keller

Until next time......