Wild indigo.

In the sunrise light — at 5:25 — the white flowers look yellow. Why are white flowers called "indigo"? The scientific name is Baptisia lactea — and "Baptisia" is based on the Greek word for "dye." I'm a little confused about whether the wild indigo with white flowers was used to make dye. I think the answer is yes, because the dye is made from the leaves. Here are some instructions, and, by the way, a major ingredient is urine.

This was my best sunrise picture. Today was a Type #3 sunrise — completely clear sky — and the sun had already crossed the shoreline when I reached my vantage point. It doesn't work to aim the camera right at the unclouded sun. You have to get your picture when the sun first peeks over the line or point your camera at something else.

"But the troublemakers were as bizarre as they were inescapable... There was the mysterious tent urinator, who found a way to pee on the side of another man’s tent..."

"... every night for six straight weeks (and whose identity is an as-yet uncracked case). The man who always took photos of me changing flat tires to send home to his wife, because 'she was never going to believe that a woman could do this.' The woman who had never ridden a bike before the trip. The daily hitchhiker who 'didn’t do climbs' and thumbed for rides up hills. The racer who wanted everyone else to ride farther and faster each day. The relapsed gambling addict who snuck into town every night and couldn’t be trusted with group funds. The sexual harasser who hounded me daily with lewd comments unfit to print. And in every group, there was always one person who tried to rile up a mutiny because he wanted out of the cooking rotation. It was hard to know who these people were in their daily lives, when they weren’t pushing their bodies to the limit and sleeping on the ground. I had to imagine that the mysterious tent urinator wasn’t similarly taking out his frustrations on a coworker’s office chair. Maybe all that misdirected rage could be chalked up to exhaustion, homesickness, and electrolyte imbalance?"

From "I Loved Bike Touring—Until I Got Paid to Do It/Seduced by the idea of turning my hobby into a paycheck, I led bike tours across the U.S. throughout my twenties. As I learned, some passion pursuits are best left pro bono," by Caitlin Giddings (at Outside). Excellent illustration, by the way.