Carpeting on the corner

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On the corner of the old building in Tel Aviv's old Florentine neighborhood,  a clever someone glued a strip of carpeting and called it a pinat litoof, literally, a petting corner.
(That's what we call a little petting zoo in Hebrew.)
And of course all of us in the tour group yesterday had to stop and pet it.

Above it: pRay attention to fcorners
Below it: pLay attention to fcorners
Are these terms from something scientific? Anybody know?
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The longest bridge in South Africa

My normal route through the Karoo Heartland of the Eastern Cape when heading up north is over Cradock and Steynsburg towards Venterstad and then a short left to the Gariep Dam before hitting the N1 for Bloemfontein.  Before my last trip to Johannesburg I had a closer look at the Geocaching map to see if there are any possible alternative routes that will take me to cache locations I haven't been to.  A couple of green dots around the town of Bethulie in the southern Free State caught my eye.  It wouldn't necessarily mean more distance, just a right at Venterstad and a loop via Bethulie towards the N1.  The one thing that really caught my attention though was that one of the caches was called The Longest one in SA. Longest what?  It turns out that the longest bridge in South Africa spans the the Orange River, connecting the Eastern Cape and Free State, just outside the town. 

The arched D.H. Steyn Bridge (also called the Hennie Steyn Bridge) is 1,152 km long and 51,5 meter high above the river below.  I had a look around the internet to find a date when the bridge was built and the only one that came up was March 1879 making it quite a historic bridge as well.  

Another unique aspect of it is that the bridge isn't just a road bridge but also acts as railway bridge with the railway line running parallel to the road.  Approaching it from the Eastern Cape side is probably best with a great view of the bridge, but I have to be honest, standing on the bridge itself it doesn't look very spectacular. The view to both side are beautiful though (in a Karoo way) and just the fact that I can say I have visited the longest bridge in South Africa made the detour worth while.   Just a pity that more people don't venture off the beaten track to come and discover places like this.  

Oh yes, and I did find the Geocache in case you were wondering.  

Where The Wild Things Are

Nice to be back in the Northwest. It's been a few years. Didn't get my shot of Mt. Rainier from the plane - way too cloudy. But the top shot is okay, taken somewhere over eastern Washington.

And I think we got a pretty good hotel room.

            

A blurry train and parallel lines

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Luckily for me,  City Daily Photo bloggers have a Theme Day today on "Out of focus."
Our bus seemed to be having a race with the train and I had to click fast before the train disappeared behind the hill. 
If you enlarge this photo, you see the train is blurry. 
But still, I liked the picture.  So many parallel lines! 
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See more of that train in the previous post. 
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Theme Day - out of focus

This month's theme for the City Daily Photo community is out of focus.  For me having something out of focus needs to have a purpose.  In my contribution to the theme day, I have used a slower shutter speed to make the people blurry to give a sense of how frenetic and busy London's underground can be.  The stairwell remains sharp so it is obvious the movement is deliberate and not a mistake.  See how others have interpreted the brief here.