I see Middle-earth

All though I'm surrounded by countryside and coastal views I'm prone to think about Middle Earth quite a lot. When I go to walk TJ, our pet pooch, I tend to think like Bilbo and want to go on adventures, see mountains and all mystical creatures that go with. I would so love to find ME, but I'm already there when I pick up my books or watch my movie versions and this makes my mind visually satisfied

[Texadan]

Originally Posted by winterbaby

All though I'm surrounded by countryside and coastal views I'm prone to think about Middle Earth quite a lot. When I go to walk TJ, our pet pooch, I tend to think like Bilbo and want to go on adventures, see mountains and all mystical creatures that go with. I would so love to find ME, but I'm already there when I pick up my books or watch my movie versions and this makes my mind visually satisfied

Plus it's a whole lot less trouble.

Thanks Texadon I also wanted to add that there is this wide long road with tall trees on both sides that I take the dog for walks along, this place makes me think, especially during the Autumn time, of the road in the movie, though not so wide, when they stumble on some mushrooms and also it reminds me a little of Fangorn. I love walking down the road with the dog, it's so calming even more so when the wind takes the tree branches to create a hush sort of rusteling sound and it's much the same at night time too, though it does become a scarey place when I'm not alone.

[ArathorofBarahir]

There is a small wooded area that is located behind where I live and I see and associate it very much with the Shire. No matter what I can walk back through those woods and everything washes away and I am at peace, and comfortable.

[alatar]

For Father's Day, I received another homemade T-shirt, and was more pleased with that than a plasma screen TV. These homemade shirts, I must also note, are much better than ties, which rarely see the light of day. Anyway, this shirt, like some in the past, has the kids' (and dog's) handprints next to each child's name in bright colors on the back. My wife, who supervises the project, says that the kids really enjoy getting to cover their hands with paint and not getting in trouble for making a big gooey handprint on something.

Anyway, this shirt was a little different. My son took it upon himself to decorate the front with a hand drawn picture. How he describes it, when I asked, is that it's me there in the yellow, on a brown bridge, throwing a black sword at a dragon who flies over a lake. Not sure where he got the inspiration, as I know of no cartoon or movie that may have contained the same images. I did, however, since he was a small child, give him the short version of the Hobbit before he'd fall asleep at night...

Anyone else see Bard and Smaug?

[TheGreatElvenWarrior]

There is a lake next to my neighborhood and it has Middle-earthian qualities in the park. My little brother walked around it with backpacks and walking sticks barefooted last summer, we go some strange looks, we also quoted half of FotR...

Some of it looks like the Old Forest, other parts of it look rather like Lorien and some of it is very Shire-like. Plus it has one of the colleges in Anchorage right next to it, so it is kind of Long Lakeish, and the Chugach mountains in the distance, which sometimes can look very much like the Misty Mountains in the winter when there is snow.

Alaska can be very Middle-earthish sometimes...

[Morthoron]

Well, I live in Michigan. I know what you're saying: "Morth, what does Michigan have to do with Middle-earth (save for Detroit being the quintessential real-world epitome of Angband)?"

Actually, if you divorce yourself from the Mordor-like industrial mega-complex of southeast Michigan, the rest of the state is quite pastoral. For the geographically disinclined, the state of Michigan is broken up into two penninsulas, both surrounded by the Great Lakes (which would be freshwater 'seas' anywhere else in the world). If one goes to the Upper Penninsula, there is a bit of Middle-earth in a place called Tahquamenon (mentioned in Longfellow's epic poem 'Hiawatha'), and more specifically the Falls...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:T...non_Falls1.JPG

The water of the falls is stained brown from the amount of tannin from oak leaves (so it is rather like tea). The falls froths white at the bottom, so one gets the visual effect of the gods pouring root beer. It puts me in mind of the Baranduin (or Brandywine) River, which I'd always assumed was like in coloration (Baranduin was Sindarin for "golden-brown river").

In winter:
http://www.exploringthenorth.com/tahqua/falls4a.gif

The 'Brandywine' color:
http://www.superiorsights.com/pictur...s/21010023.jpg

[Ibrîniðilpathânezel]

This sounds like Copper Falls in northern Wisconsin (where the water is that reddish brown from the iron in it). www.gowaterfalling.com/waterfalls/copper.shtml I suspect they may be part of the same larger geological system. It's been a LONG time since I visited the falls, but that part of the state and its forests always made me think of "This is the forest primeval." One could almost imagine an Ent or three among the trees and streams.

I live considerably farther south in Wisconsin, near the farms and rolling hills (and pastures and cheesemakers, of course ), which have made me think of the Shire since I first read LotR some... oh, 44 years ago. But no pictures, alas. Perhaps I should take a few en route to my birthday vacation this weekend.

[Andsigil]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Well, I live in Michigan. I know what you're saying: "Morth, what does Michigan have to do with Middle-earth (save for Detroit being the quintessential real-world epitome of Angband)?"

Actually, if you divorce yourself from the Mordor-like industrial mega-complex of southeast Michigan,

Hence the location in my sidebar profile...

Actually, I was going to post something about the industrial areas around here. On a foggy night, the Rouge Steel complex in Dearborn looks exactly as I would imagine Utumno or Gorgoroth. It also reminds me of Saruman's Isengard as he girded for war against Rohan.

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Appropriately, there are some nice hills around the Parbold area (where I live) that were, a while back, covered in mist and fog. My first thought? "Hmm its misty." But my second was far more interesting, "WOW! Fog on the Barrow Downs!"
I would have taken pictures but I didn't have one to hand at the time. But ever I will wait for the time of the misting upon the hills!

Also, there is a restaurant in the near by town of Wigan, called, "The Morgul Tandori" I wonder what kind of food you get there? Orc burgers?

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Hookbill the Goomba

Appropriately, there are some nice hills around the Parbold area (where I live) that were, a while back, covered in mist and fog. My first thought? "Hmm its misty." But my second was far more interesting, "WOW! Fog on the Barrow Downs!"
I would have taken pictures but I didn't have one to hand at the time. But ever I will wait for the time of the misting upon the hills!

Also, there is a restaurant in the near by town of Wigan, called, "The Morgul Tandori" I wonder what kind of food you get there? Orc burgers?

In Wigan? Meat & Tater Pie Vindaloo, no doubt.

Just be careful not to go on Croston Moss at night when it's foggy because that's when the White Lady goes a-walking and she's an omen of doom!

[alatar]

Finally the weather is beginning to stabilize. Sure, the temperature has changed 50 degrees Fahrenheit in one day, but you take what you get, and the trend is lending to warmth and even somewhat dry (or less wet). Anyway, so this weekend I took the kids for a hike, our first one of the season, and for some reason Tolkien was on the mind.

With four small kids, it was if I were Aragorn with the four hobbits, size-wise (though I always tend to think more of myself as Gandalf). A ways into the woods a little stream fed an even smaller waterfall, yet the sound was pleasant, and I was reminded of the FotR and Nimrodel. We walked up a hill after hopping two muddy streams (no, I was not reminded of PJ's bridge scene), and after a small rest at the top (hills are mountains to little legs), we found a BMX track that some teenagers (teenagers can at times be like orcs) constructed within the wood.

They must have spent many hours making the sharp "^-shaped" mounds, and they made a circuit that my kids thought of as one big dirt obstacle course. Again, being taller, I could hop from ^-top to ^-top, and then it came to me that this is how Tom must feel, sans yellow boots. Within the circuit was a burnt trunk of a hollowed tree, and it may have been able to house one to two of my kids.

Waiting for the kids to assemble that we might begin our journey home, I looked down below where I stood into a scooped out hollow and there were four white barked trees, not together, but near each other. I couldn't decide whether they were ents or scions of Celeborn.

[Nerwen]

There's a lot of places in South-west Victoria that I think look rather Middle-earth-ish. Here's a couple.

One of these is the view from a hill near my family's house. I forget exactly where the other was taken.

[Nessa Telrunya]

There are the pastures behind my house that I've always seen as Rohan, and even more so now that we have horses back there. And there is a dirt road leading into the woods that reminds me of a road Frodo might take on his journey to Rivendell.

[Erchamion]

The Savegre Valley in Costa Rica was very much like how I've always imagined Rivendell, a beautiful green valley which was a spot of "tamed" (with orchards and stuff - but still rural/not-built-up) countryside surrounded by wilderness.

Several other locations (a range of very misty mountains...) struck me as M-E reminiscent at the time: probably because we saw a tree called the "walking palm" (it really does move - but very slowly, a couple feet per year, up and down the hillsides, by growing more roots on one side and losing them on the other) which made me think of Ents and Huorns.

[alatar]

In regards to our recent unprecedented snowfall:

Originally Posted by The Ring Goes South

While they had halted, the wind died down, and the snow slackened until it almost ceased. They tramped on again. But they had not gone more than a furlong when the storm returned with fresh fury. The wind whistled and the snow became a blinding blizzard. Soon even Boromir found it hard to keep going. The hobbits, bent nearly double, toiled along behind the taller folk, but it was plain that they could not go much further, if the snow continued.

She is standing.

Also:

As the children are small and the snow deep, I, a lesser man with a spade, shoveled a path to where we go sledding. For some inexplicable reason, a local with a backhoe decided to clear more of the street. He'd scoop up a bucket of snow and dump it off the street; sometimes more, sometimes less. The piles on the side therefore varied. Though he said that he tried not to cover my shoveled path, he did, and I couldn't help but think that, like the Fellowship, our retreat was now cut off by a large drift. Thankfully I still had my shovel, as no elves or Steward's sons were to be had.

[Andsigil]

Alatar, are you near DC or in Michigan? We got quite a few inches yesterday here in New Angmar... I mean, Detroit.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Andsigil

Alatar, are you near DC or in Michigan? We got quite a few inches yesterday here in New Angmar... I mean, Detroit.

Pittsburgh. I like the snow, but the hills and bridges make traveling entertaining, especially when some municipalities take a passive "all natural" approach to snow removal.