Back and Forth Across the Pond

When I was attending classes at the University of Houston, I had a little apartment a few miles from campus. I bought an enormous framed print at IKEA for the living room that featured a London street scene in black-and-white with a red double-decker bus as the featured bit of color. We still have that print, and when we decided to move to Scotland, we thought it only fitting to add a similar print of the United States to the mix. The London print represented Steve's home country, England, and we wanted one that would represent mine. IKEA had a similar print of New York available featuring Times Square with yellow cabs as the only color. We thought about getting that, but Steve then had an idea of taking photos of Jacksonville. After all, whilst we love New York and have visited there a few times, Jacksonville was our home for nearly seventeen years. I intended to take photos of Jacksonville in the weeks leading up to our departure. But as with most plans I make, I failed to foll...

When I moved to Scotland at the end of June, I promised my Mom that I would come back for Thanksgiving. So on November 17, I flew from Edinburgh to Jacksonville for a 20-day visit with family and friends. It was a nice visit, although I wasn't able to catch up with everyone. After I spent time visiting Mom, I returned to Jacksonville for a week with my friend, Christa. We traveled up to Atlanta, Georgia, to visit with my daughter, Andrea. Whilst there, we spent a couple of hours in the lovely Oakland Cemetery. The City of Atlanta established a cemetery on the site in 1850. It adopted the name Oakland Cemetery in 1872 because of the large amount of oak trees throughout the property. The area is beautiful and is apparently a popular place for people to take a stroll and enjoy the park-like setting. The cemetery covers forty-eight acres. It was developed in the style of the rural cemetery movement (I didn't even know there was such a movement). A sign notes that "Oakland ...