Well worth a stop if you are in south eastern Utah. A git out of the way for most trips but a unique place. That uniqueness includes one massive tree atop a dome of cinder in an arid land.
Sunday Scripture: Photo is from Alaska, near Haines on the Chilkoot Inlet, 11 in the evening late June /
Wild Animal Week .6 /
Just one more shot of the bears, a mom and two three year old cubs on their last year with mom.
Wild Animal Week .5 /
Steller sea lions are the largest members of the Otariid, or “eared seal,” family. Female sea lions average seven feet in length and about 600 pounds. Male sea lions, slightly longer at nine feet, weigh more than twice as much as females at an average of 1,500 pounds with “beach masters” reaching up to 2,400 pounds. Our ferry captain sailed close to this one, a well-known sea lion that is seen here most of the time. He even had a name for this massive seal but I don’t recall the name, perhaps, Jabba the Hutt. Two smaller harbor seals are sharing his perch.
Wild Animal Week .4 /
Orcas. We were traveling back from Juneau to Haines by ferry late in the evening. thanks to the long days we could still see a bit even though it was well past ten. As we traveled we saw a pod of Orcas, five I think. And they stayed abreast of us for more than 30 minutes or in photo-speak, 200 shots. These were not the only Orcas we saw in Alaska but by far the best and longest viewing time. What a treat.
Wild Animal Week .3 /
Big Bear. When they stand, we were told by the guide, they want to see better. Also the intimidation factor adds in if they see something that they don’t like. This bear was about 40 feet from me and, yes, I was intimidated. The bear stood for maybe a minute or minute and a half and just stared at our small party of five but gave us no cause for alarm. A magnificent sight that afternoon on Katmi National Park and Reserve’s coastline. We saw 8 bears that day.
Wild Animal Week .2 /
Elk are beautiful animals and their antlers can reach proportions that seem to defy balance. There are places, like some golf courses, south entrance to the GSMNP, and the nothern reaches of Yellowstone where they gather around buildings and roads and they are ok to see in that setting but when you find a lone animal in the woods while on a hike and listen to him bugling you are mesmerized by them. This bull elk was a treat to watch from a safe distance for several minutes on a trail in Yellowstone.
Wow, what luck, today is the first day of Wild Animal Week! /
I know you thought it would never come, the wait was unbearable. Yet it is here. Stay tuned for the Great Wild Animal Week coming right at you.
A five year-old grizzly (guide guessed his age) along the coast of Kenai National Park in Alaska.
Sunday Scripture: Photo is from an early morning in Central Alaska /
Old SC Crossroads /
I don’t recall the exact place, east of 95 and slightly north I-40. Two old stores, a closed RR station and three or four houses and a storage barn. That is all that is left.
Depot /
This old, small train station is in Winfall, VA a bit south and east of Lynchburg, I think.
Siege of 96 /
Nope, not a year but the name of a town in SC and the siege is one of the battles of the American Revolutionary War. In celebration of the 250th I will post periodically from visits I have made to Revolutionary War sites. This one is in the back country of SC and occurred in 1781. The British had been driven from SC except for Charleston and this fort in the western part of the state. Gen Greene laid siege but was unsuccessful as a relief force of 2000 men arrived from Charleston and he was forced to abandon the siege. Want to know more?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Ninety_Six
The road “Over the Mountains” still visible for many miles
Replica Fort
Some of a series of ditches dug by the American forces to get closer to the fort
Tower was built to fire down into the fort and protect the sappers.
Have a Coke - yet another forgotten draft /
This old Coke box is located in the oldest hardware store in Louisiana. You put a dollar in the PVC tube and grab a coke from the ice chest. Empty bottle go underneath. I asked a clerk how old it was and he did not know except “It was here when I was a kid and I remember when it went from a nickel to a dime.” The fill it with cola only along with a 15 pound bag of ice every day. Sometimes they cannot get the small glass bottles and have to use small cans, no one likes that!.
Don't Fence Me In /
This was a draft post that I forgot about from 2023. I cannot recall the details of the post but this is a native wild flower that grows along the roadside in Virginia and North Carolina and this one was just outside the fence barely visible in the background.
More Craters of the Moon National Monument /
This was a short visit to an unexpectedly interesting park. I was not excited about this stop. Yet, if you plan to photograph as many National Park Service units as possible, you don’t ignore one. We did about 4 hours in the park and two short hikes across the landscape described as “a vast ocean of lava flows with scattered islands of cinder cones and sagebrush.”
Sunday Scripture: Photo is of the Savage River, Denali National Park, Alaska /
Harry Potterish too /
A note on the first photo. Our walking tour guide told us the unicorn was selected by Scotland for its emblem because in mythology the unicorn with its horn is the mortal enemy of the lion (England’s symbol). I don’t know if that is true but it was a good story.
Harry Potterish /
I may be the last person in the world to not have read or watched a Harry Potter story. It is said that the author of those books wrote a portion of them in a coffee shop in Edinburgh and that a couple of the streets provided some inspiration for settings in the books. Thus I present some random Edinburgh street scenes.
Iona /
This is a very small chapel dedicated to the, Columba, founder of the mission on Iona, Scotland, in 532. The chapel contains a portion of the original wall from the church built in the 8th century.
Badlands /
A most inhospitable place but one of beauty and drama. Love the time spent here.
