Not too, too long ago, I was having a great conversation with Sepi in which the topic of what we really cared about came up.

Music was among my answers. My friend was a tad incredulous.

How much did I really care?

A little over a week ago, I decided to go on a stroll from my parents' house to a park with hiking trails and preserved woodland.

I was interested in the hiking trails.

Then I got to them.

They weren't interesting.

The walk to the woods, however, was.

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It was a little bit of a hectic day.

I needed to mail a relatively bulky package, and being without a car, I needed to walk it to the post office in the early afternoon.

This is a time I'm not usually out. I was sure to bring my camera, because you never know.

And it was a great day for photography, particularly because I got to see this fellow.

It's unusual around this area to see a bird of such a vibrant blue color.

He was also quite small in size, and pretty skittish and distant from me, which made the photography more challenging.

No matter. There's always cropping in post-production, right?

Many, many moons ago in a parent-teacher conference, a teacher told my parents that given the opportunity, I would always choose to stop and smell the roses.

Strictly speaking, that's not true.

I think my mother's more recent observation that "no grass grows underneath [my] feet" is probably more accurate, especially given my tendency to sometimes not spend as much time visiting a place, or appreciating things as I should.

Let's hold that thought for now.

Some people say that lightning doesn't strike twice.

Well, some people are wrong.

Quite possibly my second favorite animal that I had the pleasure of photographing this summer was the box turtle seen in these photographs.

This time, the turtle was younger, more orange, and more skittish.