Memorial Day, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA

On Memorial Day, the Spring rebirth continues as evidenced by these Clematis, a flower oddly of a genus within the buttercup family.

Although the water is cold (upper 50's F), the air temperature is perfect for bringing out folks to enjoy

White Horse Beach at low tide.

This young man is trying to figure out how to launch his kayak into the ocean.

In a pattern that plays out in many towns both small and large all over America today, the Honor Guard for the Memorial Day parade in downtown Plymouth marches by.

Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA

Downtown Plymouth, Massachusetts, has a quaint stereotypical New England harbor offering whale watch tours, sport fishing, pleasure boats, seafood restaurants and nearly anything else nautical......

........including a calm undeveloped but protected area where a man can teach his daughter to cast and fish..........

........or live in a Cape Cod style cottage - many of which are found throughout Plymouth at any and all of the hundreds of freshwater lakes and ponds.

And the tourists can't miss finding one of advertising's great accomplishments - turning a big rock into a tourist attraction.

Plymouth calls itself "America's Hometown" - it's a great place to raise your family, whatever species you happen to be.

Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA

The Pilgrims settled in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in December 1620.  Today, as the largest town in Massachusetts, Plymouth boasts 37 miles of Cape Cod Bay shoreline and 365 freshwater lakes and ponds.

And right in the middle of downtown, close to the waterfront on Burial Hill, is where many of those early settlers ended up.

Memorial Day, observed the last Monday in May in the United States, was originally enacted to honor those who gave their lives during the American Civil War in the 1860's.  Captain Leach, whose memorial is shown above, died in 1839 before the Civil War,  but someone saw fit to honor his memory anyway.

And Governor William Bradford, who arrived in Plymouth on the ship "Mayflower" in 1620 was elected Governor of the colony thirty times!  He is buried on this hill and his stone contains the wording above.  I'm not sure where he went for the five years during which he apparently declined to be dead.

Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Whether from the bow of a kayak in a wetland stream............

........or the slanting late afternoon rays in a suburban neighborhood.........

.......to America's first rural cemetery at Mt. Auburn in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the New England Spring season both explodes with drama and unfolds calmly but relentlessly.

The green color of both the grass and tree leaves is so fresh and bright it defies description.

And that green is complimented by the purple and pink of azaleas bursting with color.

And another rite of Spring unfolds here at Mt. Auburn - a group of photographers capturing images of a roosting family of Great Horned Owls, the two young chicks are new to the world just this season.