Friday, August 29, 2008

Beauty of Nature's creations

During my recent visit to California we stopped by at the Malibou temple. The temple is a beautiful white structure built as per South Indian style of architecture. But this post is not about the temple, it is about the antics of a squirrel I saw in the temple parking lot. This little creature was enjoying the summer prancing around the cars, bushes and trees in the open. It was a delight to watch this creature enjoying itself in nature without a care in the world. I tried to capture some of its interesting antics in my camera. Here are some of the better pictures...

The first sighting: squirrel looking for food scraps in the parking lot

As soon as the squirrel saw us walking, it scampered across the tarmac for cover

Stopped on the ledge ready to spring, waiting to see what we were upto

Trying to take cover or looking for food inside a car bumper

After roaming around parked cars, the squirrel came back to pose for pictures

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Lonely highways and oil wells

Last week as we returned from Los Angeles on I-10 and I-20 through vast tracts of uninhabited wilderness and open country, I noticed several new machinery and different types of sights along the road. The most common sight around Midland, Tx was hundreds of oil and natural gas wells. These were working away incessently drawing natural gas from the depths of the earth and sendint it for consumption.

These oil wells go as deep as 10,000 ft or even more into the earth. But on the surface what is seen is a small metal contraption which keeps turning round and round day in and day out without stopping for any rest or respite.

For those of you like me who haven't seen a real oil well here are some pictures of the oil rigs I saw in Texas.