Denver, Colorado.

This week, Michelle Weber gave us an unlikely challenge, literally. She asks us to share a photo of something that’s unlikely. Of course, her example is a photo of a cheetah riding in the bed of a pickup. C’mon, that’s a pretty hard act to follow. You can read her entire challenge post here, and see the photo she took while she was in the (pickup) bed with a cheetah. Well, in my gallery of images, there wasn’t even a handful of images that I could remotely call “unlikely”. I was tempted to share a few shots of Fanning Island with the notion that it is unlikely that I shall ever return to visit there again. I passed up the shot of one of my EMT friends who deftly picked up a rattlesnake that was beside the trail on one of our hikes and moved it safely back into the desert so that it might not be startled and strike some unsuspecting hiker who happened to step just a bit too close. Then there was the image of soap bubbles floating by as we traveled the air currents in a hot air balloon. What about that giant cutout of a toddler playing with his “toy” tractors?

I settled for the opening photo. This very long walk through a perspective garden at the Denver Botanical Garden in Colorado. OK, so it’s not really all that long. It’s an optical illusion. From this perspective, the sidewalk is wide. It actually gets narrower as it goes to the other end of the garden. Same with the garden beds on each side. The large hedges that border the walk are trimmed taller on this end and are progressively shortened to make it appear that they shrink into the distance. It is truly a great optical illusion.

OK, so I mentioned I wouldn’t include those other possible examples of unlikely images referenced above. I lied. I will share them with you anyway. In most browsers, you can click on one of the images to enlarge it.

The coral atoll in the Republic of Kiribati is about 1134 miles (1825 km) due south of Hawaii. Named Fanning Island after Captain Edmund Fanning who first spotted it in 1798, the island’s native name is Tabuaeran. It’s unlikely I shall ever return there.

Here’s a “don’t try this at home” shot. One of the hikers in our group was trained and knows how to safely pick up and move a rattlesnake. No animals or humans were harmed in the safe removal of this reptile from right next to the trail. It is highly unlikely that I will ever do something like this.

On a hot air balloon ride, the pilot broke out a soap bottle and bubble wand. Soon large amounts of soap bubbles were emanating from the basket of our balloon. What I found unlikely about this is the fact that the tree as viewed inside the bubble is sharply focused while the objects outside the main bubble exhibit a large amount of motion blur and appears not to be sharply in focus.

This boy and his tractor used to sit just north of the I-10 in Buckeye, Arizona. For a few years we would pass this cutout on our way to our house in Buckeye. When we passed the “little” boy, we knew we were less than five miles from home. To give you a reference of size, the orange tractor in front of him is a real full size tractor. The blue tractor is a large cutout. Shortly after this photo was taken, the cutout disappeared. It was moved and put into storage as the area where it was is now a stack of bridges connecting the I-10 to the 303, a new perimeter highway being constructed that bypasses the Phoenix metro to the west. Rumor has it that the owner of the cutouts is looking for a new location to place his artwork.

John Steiner