Bright colors on a Sunday afternoon.

There is a botanical garden at Suranaree University of Technology. I'm sure I'll go there one of these days. But for now, we're doing just fine with trips to the nursery, where they reliably blast us with all the colors of the rainbow.

I hope I was a decent conversation partner at lunch.

I didn't look at my phone.

But I was fascinated by these big ants crazy busy up and down a bamboo pole.

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Home Sweet Home

No matter how good your trip is, it still feels good to get back to home sweet home, doesn't it?

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Resort 2 of 2: A nice cabin on the lake.

I hope everybody enjoyed Nic's Resort as much as I did. We walked and we bicycled and we paddled. It wasn't a fancy resort--just beautiful and well taken care of.

Some kind of nest.
Can you help me out here?

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2023: It's off to a beautiful start.

Like everyone, I like to start my new year with a good fireworks show before going to bed. Early in the morning, I like to participate in a New Year Tamboon, let's call it. (Photos of religious ceremony were deliberately not taken by me.)

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Resort 1 of 2: Tent camping on the last day of 2022.

I say tent camping, but this is the luxury version. The tent is set up permanently like a cabin and maintained by the resort.

What's to be said? Beautiful resort. Great food. Great staff. Great views. Excellent fireworks on the hilltop at our resort, as well as all around us down below. 

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OLNA x PY Roasters coffee shop in the fields.

Tea was good. Setting was spectacular.

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Restaurant: Our House Kitchen

Food was great. Scenery was excellent. Let the New Year road trip begin...

See those bananas in the upper right quadrant?

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Natural spring near Khao Yai.

Here we are at a beautiful natural spring near Khao Yai. I didn't have a chance to go in the water, but some lucky others did.

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Four days later, Christmas is saved!!!

I admit to significant disappointment with the Marks & Spencer iced fruitcake I purchased in mid-December. While it may have been an excellent fruitcake by U.K. standards, it was not the kind of fruitcake I'm used to eating.

The photo below shows a proper-for-me fruitcake made locally at a shop near the old bus station. I've already been charged with being a "blogger," and now some have charged me with being a "foodie." I have no defense. I never imagined that I would sink to such depths in retirement. 

Nevertheless, this is a most excellent fruitcake, and I shall be ever grateful to my friend for gifting it to me. I'm not sure what 2023 has in store for us, but 2022 has certainly finished on a high note.

Fruitcake lovers of the world, be proud of your exquisite taste!!!

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A very large snail carrying a very large shell on his back.

The shell was so large that it made me think of a seashell. Put this one in the record books as the absolutely largest snail ever sighted by me. (Slugs are a different story. Go, Banana Slugs!)

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