Patti challenges us this week to tell some stories in our images. She writes, “This week, we’re focusing on telling a story with our photos. Sometimes, if we’re lucky, we can convey a story in one image; other times we need several. For this challenge, we’ll set a limit of 5 photos per story.” You can view her stories here for inspiration.

A couple of months ago, we flew to Rio de Janeiro to board a cruise ship bound for Barcelona. But that’s a story for another day. Knowing the airlines were having issues delivering luggage concurrently with passenger arrivals, we opted to pack light and take only a carry-on and a personal item. We were forced to check our carry-ons upon our departure flight, and would not see them again until we arrived home back in Fargo. As you can see by the baggage tags in the image above, the two cases had their own adventures in travel and the tags told that story. The luggage arrived back in Fargo the day before we did.

After we retired, we started spending our winters in Arizona to escape those long, cold North Dakota winters. We bought some cheap hiking boots and joined a hiking club. Those boots tell their own story after our first hike in the Sonoran Desert. Those pairs lasted us only about 50 miles (80 km), enough to teach us that we like to hike so we invested in better quality boots going forward.

My last photo story features one of the three teams of Clydesdale draft animals as they prepared to entertain the crowd at an Arizona spring training baseball game. The team arrived in a fleet of beautiful semi-trucks.

One crew team unloaded the wagon and got it ready for the team hitch-up.

Another crew team unloaded each horse, one at a time, and added the collars and other hardware to prepare the animal for hitch-up.

In preparing to share these images, I learned some of the terminology and procedures of the 8-horse hitch. The horses are trained to stand quietly during dressing and hitching, and a crew member stands in front of each pair as the team is being built. The team closest to the wagon is called the wheel team and is usually the biggest and strongest pair as they must bear about 60 percent of the wagon load.

In an 8-horse hitch, the team directly in front of the wheel team is the Body Team. Ahead of that pair is the Swing Team, and the Lead Team is usually the most athletic and probably the smallest of the animals in the group.

Though it’s hard to see in the distance, between the driver and wagoner, the Dalmatian sits high on the wagon. You can see a video of a hitch-up narrated by a Clydesdale crew member on YouTube here. There are actually three teams, one in Missouri, one in Colorado, and one in New Hampshire. That keeps travel time to a minimum as the teams tour the country.

Thanks to Patti for this creative challenge allowing us to share some photo stories. Last week, Tina hosted Spiritual Places, and I really enjoyed viewing so many beautiful and serene places around the world.

Finally, next week we begin our July “Month of Guest Hosts”. Be sure to visit our hosts each week as they explore the following topics:

• July 1  Ritva Sillanmaki explores KITCHEN
• July 8 Philo of Philosophy Through Photography looks at SIMPLICITY
• July 15 Dawn Miller of The Day After leads with FENCES
• July 22 Dan Fenner of Departing in 5 Minutes invites us to join his UNBOUND SUMMER
• July 29 Janet Webb of This That and The Other Thing will explore OVERLOOKED

On Saturday, August 5, at noon Eastern Time, the Lens-Artists team returns with host Ann-Christine. Are you interested in joining the Lens-Artists challenge but aren’t quite sure how to get started? Click here for more information.

John Steiner