Exploring the Universe!

This week’s Illustration Friday theme is ‘Explore’, coincidentally.

I’m not sure as yet whether I’ll be submitting an entry this week or not, but as I’ve been exploring the entirety of the known Universe this week anyway, thanks to the help of my Magical Mansion of course, the theme fits in quite nicely. An illustration of exploring without actually adding an illustration, if you like. Or a cop out. Either way fits.

And I may add an illustration at some point too. I do like to waffle on, don’t I?

I was going to add yet another post of views from the window today, but I’ve had second thoughts. The views can wait, but I feel it is time to let you all know where we’ve been going this week – if you didn’t know already!

On December 4th, we visited two places in the good old United States of America. You probably gathered that! The first view was of an old haunted building in South Carolina:

Charleston Jail, in Charleston, to be exact. Andra has written a series of posts featuring the jail, starting here, which brought the jail’s existence to my attention a few months ago, and the image has been coming back to me frequently since then. No wonder the Mansion took me there first!

I don’t think Andra saw this view, or she didn’t recognise it, because in the next post, the view of the Statue of Liberty across the water, she asked how I could have gone to New York without inviting her. I can’t imagine what she would have said if she realised I’d been in Charleston. Sorry, Andra…!
I was stuck inside the Mansion, though. I can only visit these places and look out to them, and not physically set foot outside there. More to the pity!

On December 5th, we were still over in the Americas, but in two completely different countries. First, we headed north, to Canada. Niagara Falls to be exact, and the Mansion showed me this view of the Skylon Tower there.

My clue for this view was terrible, but at least there was one. I didn’t even give one to the previous one, and my ‘looking out to the courtyard’ may have been a bit misleading for the jail. Still, I did manage to hide the name of the tower within this post!

From Canada, we headed south. Very south. To Peru, in fact. And Machu Picchu.

My clue here was my mentioning of the Room of the Three Windows, which, if I’m honest, I have only just heard about. It is one of the main buildings on the site, and this is one place that is on my Bucket List to visit.

One day I’ll get there. I can feel it!

On December 6th, we were back in New York City again.

Lameadventures is from New York, and she could even say the direction we were facing. I’m not very good with directions. I’m also not very good at guessing where we are because I thought we were on Broadway! Andra thought it was New York due to the yellow taxi, which I didn’t even realise was in the picture!

Yesterday, December 7th, we found ourselves in five more different places. And once again, I provided some rather terrible clues. We first went to:

Scotland, and Loch Ness. My terrible clue was ‘Och! What’s that coming over the hill?’. I’m not very good at writing in accents, which probably didn’t help, and there’s a song with a line in it that goes ‘What’s that coming over the hill, is it a monster? Is it a monster?’. I think it may be called Monster, but I haven’t got a clue if that’s correct, or who sung it, so it’s a little difficult to find out. I will, though, one day. As will I visit this loch and spot me a Nessie!

From Scotland, we travelled south again, to France.

Again, I wrote, unconvincingly, in an accent. A French one this time. And my dreadful clue, ‘allzat went into my eye’ referred to an eyeful. Yes, I know. I did say they were dreadful clues!

From France, we were meant to go to Kansas, I believe.

But for some reason, we ended up on Mars. Not that Mars and Kansas are anything alike, I must add!

However, everyone seemed to recognise the Red Planet!

From Mars, we headed east, or was it west? I’m not sure, but anyway we ended up in the United Kingdom once again. In London.

Outside Buckingham Palace to be exact. In my dreadful clue, I said ‘One likes this mansion’, but I was actually referring to myself, and the travelling Mansion I find myself in. It wasn’t a clue at all! Mwa ha ha. That’s a laugh in an evil accent, by the way. Had to write that, due to my inability to write accents.

From London, we headed north, south, east or west, to a land down under.

We ended up in Sydney, overlooking the spectacular Opera House there. My clue, ‘Have a good day, now!’ should really have said ‘Have a good day, mate!’, but I mixed up my English and Australian accents somewhat. And when you can’t write in accents, that’s really saying something.

And, to finish, I’ll add another shot I managed to get of Loch Ness, looking nothing like I thought it would:

And so ends another post. An illustration of the word explore, without an illustration.

I went round the houses a bit with this one, didn’t I?!