Saw one of the most magnificent mushrooms I've seen in a long time, a few doors up from where we live.  Looks suspiciously like the dreaded phalloides variety that will quickly induce liver failure, but I have to check a little more. If anyone has any clues, please speak up:

Now reading Anna Karenina for the first time, dealing once again with the travails of a long Russian novel.  Tolstoy, in this and in War and Peace, gives one a lot of book for the money (especially as this is a free Kindle book!) I hope I never have a book out with so many character names that an index is needed.  This is about a month's project at the progress I am managing, as understanding the novel instead of glossing over it requires some investment of time and effort.  A study guide is invaluable and I printed out both Cliff Notes and Spark Notes to help me.  Another excellent historical  novel is Kristin Lavransdatter, a story about medieval Norway. It is a major treatise, too, earning the first Nobel prize in literature for a woman; in this case, Sigrid Undset.

 

Still home and processing our trip pictures in Lightroom (missing a few deleted by loose canon guards at Reidsville Prison, of course--note the blog before this one).  We have some really good sunrise and sunset pictures from the Outer Banks.  The Inns we stayed in were superb.  The 1812 in Macon was the most gracious and antebellum in character.  In Charleston, the Ansonborough Inn was spectacular with an entire suite on the first floor, near the water and all the restaurants downtown. 

At Nags Head and at Hatteras we were on the Pamlico Bay and well positioned for both sunrises and sunsets. It was The Inn on Pamlico Bay in Hatteras where we were facing the intracoastal waterway and just far enough in the water to see both sunrises and sunsets.  I had to use a Singh-Ray reverse filter for these.  These kinds of filters are indispensable: http://www.singh-ray.com/reversegrads.html

This is an in-camera panorama sunrise (Fuji X-E1) with a Zeiss 12/2.8 lens taken at about 6 AM after the first night. The morning colors were awsome, which apparently is common here:

And, how about this one.  Actually, all I had with me was this 12mm wideangle, which, however, is so sharp one can crop numerous single photos out of one frame.  Double click any picture to enlarge:

And about the same time, looking away from the sun and the one below that from our back view:

This one is a the front view of the Pamlico Bay Inn:

Here are a few more of the general area of the Inn.  They have a superb location for these photos:

Here is one at Nags Head, next day from Hatteras. This sunrise was taken from the 5th floor balcony of a hotel on the beach: