Here, There & Everywhere

Saturday, May 5, 2018

We left the house at 5:45 AM. Because the house we rented does not allow dogs, we left Bubba and Lucy with my cousin Sue. Our plan was to get to Lawrence, Kansas, for the first night. Traffic wasn’t too bad, but the weather in Nashville looked ominous.

We didn’t see much to take pictures of so I shot a couple of bridges.

This is the bridge over the Ohio River between Kentucky and Illinois.

The Stan Musial bridge between Illinois and Missouri. When this bridge was built it changed our route around St. Louis. So we no longer go by the Arch. I kinda miss it.

We got to the Doubletree in Lawrence at 7:15 PM. We checked in and, because neither one of us wanted to get back in the truck, we ate at the hotel.

Miles driven – 825.

I went to my friend’s house to shoot birds. I love the setup she has.  The birds hardly know we’re there.

After shooting at Linda’s house and watching her and our friend Nina shoot, I came home and practiced my bird shooting. I wanted to focus and action shots. However, getting up close is always fun.

And, my very favorite…so far:

I love our road trips! But sometimes it’s nice to just go outside in our yard and sit. And if I’m going to do that, I might as well have my camera with me. This little guy just hovered not far from me. It was almost as if he wanted me to take his picture.

When I walked outside through the garage, I heard a bird making a heck of a noise. I looked up and saw the source on the weathervane. He may have been singing, “rain, rain go away…”

And some more bird pictures:

Saturday, April 21, 2018

The last day of every trip is always the worst. Not only are we tired, but the excitement of going on a road trip is gone. We left the hotel at 6:48 AM. We do get to see some pretty cool sunrises on our travels.

We arrived home at 6:45 PM–total of 3340 miles driven. It was a lovely 71 degrees when we got home. It was fun to be with Beatrice on her birthday, but it was good to be home.

Now to get ready for our next trip. Utah, here we come!

Friday, April 20, 2018

We left Laramie at 7:45 AM–it was 36 degrees and cloudy. Sometimes when I can’t sleep or I’m bored while riding, I look for things to take pictures of while driving 75 MPH. Not easy. On this morning we saw a thunderstorm with lightning off to the south. I was shocked that I was able to get some flashes of lightning.

 

We drove through the Squaw Creek Wildlife Preserve once again hoping to see more than when we had gone through a week earlier. We saw an eagle sitting in her nest. You can barely see the top of the head of one of her babies. A couple who stopped while I was taking pictures said they had seen three babies. We also saw lots of snow geese and a great big hawk.

We had wanted to get to Columbia for the night but the Drury Inn was full. So we ended our day at the Drury Inn in Independence at 7:00 PM. We were tired and neither of us wanted to get back in the truck to go get dinner. We ate at the hotel–yuck. But the Bloody Mary was good. :)

Thursday, April 19, 2018

Tommy, Evan and I got up early and left the house at 5:45. We drove about 80 miles (half of which was on a dirt road) to find a Sage Grouse lek. These birds are so funny during the mating season. For a bird who looks like an average bird while flying, the males sure do puff up when trying to catch a female’s attention.

On our way to find the sage grouse, I asked Tommy to stop the truck so that I could get a picture of the beautiful sky.

 

 

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

We drove over to Curt Gowdy State Park. Not much to see there this time of year so we came back to Vedauwoo which was closed. But we did find this Mountain Bluebird. He and his mate were not at all nervous about us being close to them. It looked like they were posing for us.

When we got home, we walked across the street to Huck Finn Pond to watch the seagulls. There are two that appear to be there year round. It’s fun to watch them fly and then dive into the water to get food.

Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Tuesday morning was cold and windy, but we decided to go for a ride anyway. We drove out towards the Snowies but did not get too far past Centennial before the road was closed. I had Tommy stop so that I could get a picture of the Arthur sign.

We then headed over to Woods Landing to see if we could find the bald eagle in the big nest we’d seen before. Sure enough, the eagle was sitting in the nest and it started snowing pretty heavily as I tried to get a picture. The snowflakes were large enough that my camera wanted to focus on them rather than the eagle.

Monday, April 16, 2018

It’s so hard for me to believe that our baby is now 5. Where did the time go? It seems as if it was only yesterday we were on our way to Laramie to find out if Camper was a boy or girl. While Beatrice was sleeping, Amanda hung streamers from her doorway as they used to do for the girls at Darlington.

After breakfast, Amanda, Evan, Miss B and I went to the school where B will be going to school in the Fall. She is registered in the Spanish Immersion program. That should be quite interesting.

Dinner choice was Miss B’s. She said she wanted some Mac & Cheese and decided she wanted to go to Born in a Barn. I was glad that she chose that restaurant as it is one of my favorites.

 

 

Sunday, April 15, 2018

We left the hotel at 8:10 AM. It was 26 degrees, windy and blowing snow.

We decided to ride through the Squaw Creek Wildlife Preserve which is just two miles off of I29 north of St. Joe. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to see.

We stopped when we got off of I29 to get gas in Percival. When Tommy got back in the truck after filling up he said he thought with wind chill it felt like 2 degrees. Sure enough, it was.

Since we were driving straight to Laramie, we did not get off of the interstate. However, as traffic was slowed/stopped due to construction on I80 we did see thousands of sandhill cranes taking a break from their migration north. Pretty impressive sight!

We got to Laramie at 7:10 PM.