Welcome

Welcome to my photo journal.


Sunday, August 28, 2011

First few days in Yosemite

Here's a few photos of what we have seen so far.



Remember you can enlarge the photo collages by clicking on the collage.
We are tiring ourselves out, it's a big place.
More to come........

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Our stay in Carson City

We have been enjoying Carson City's beautiful weather and all the interesting sights around the Carson area. Our first day was riding the V&T train and spending 3 hrs exploring Virginia City and riding it back. We extended the ride to include the wine tasting tour down to Carson Canyon which was only one hour more but lots of fun.
It was time to visit the famed Lake Tahoe. It is as beautiful as advertised, has the usual tourist shops and activities, public beaches and this historic site run by the National Forest Service.
The government bought the property to get the beach area and was going to tear down the beautiful summer home of the Pope's and the surrounding buildings which were servants quarters, quests cabins, old gym, laundry, larder, kitchen and boat house. The house was built in the late 1800's and added and changed over the years by the 3 different owners but the Pope's had it the longest. One of their famous guests was Rudolf Valentino.
We had to visit the V&T museum in Carson City
it has some famous movie stars too several of the trains have been featured in many, many movies. In fact the train we rode on was used in the movie Water for Elephants. We went through the State Capital and the State museum which was a U.S. mint that made silver dollars, the 20 cent piece etc. We drove to Genoa the oldest Nevada community est. 1851 and was a Mormon trading post.
We took another drive to Lake Tahoe this time turning north.
and ending up in Reno to see the Harrah's Automobile Museum.
there are 200 plus cars, many owned by stars and several with a fascinating history like the Thomas Flyer the car the won the trip around the world.
Of course, we took the time to explore a state park wetland, and alpine meadow to enjoy the wildlife. We are able to add a couple new birds to our life list, the Brewer's Blackbird and the Mtn. Chickadee.
We were enjoying the area so much we ended up staying a couple of extra days and we have barely covered it.
But it is time to move on to Yosemite!!!

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Heading west again

We are heading west this morning after a nice visit with Ken's son and family.
We also visited some great places to see birds. I've lost track of the days and I didn't get the photos posted in order and for some reason can't delete or rearrange them sorry.
We really enjoyed our morning walk through Farmington Bay Water Management Area
where we saw this sora, many wilson snipes, white faced ibis and lots of other birds and dragonflies.
We found Tracy Aviary listed in one of the guide books and decided to check it out
it's in beautiful Liberty Park.
The park has a swimming pool, tennis courts, picnic areas and play ground really nice family park.
We had lunch here downtown SL, I had a very tasty Rustic pizza and Ken had the rueben and we also tried their sampler of beers. It was a nice enjoyable lunch.
We took a drive to East Canyon SP, this is a photo at the summit of the drive. The SP looks really nice it's on a lake and there is a beautiful resort there too.
As I said I got my photos out of order so back to the Avery......
Tracy Avery has about 135 birds from around the world and some Utah birds. They have a very good bird show where you could be picked to help and you'd really get close to a King Vulture or Macaw.
This Scarlet Ibis may be my favorite bird of the aviary but with so many beautiful birds and not so beautiful like the Andean condor it is hard to have a favorite.
Come back and visit again and see what we're up too in my next post.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Salt Lake

We have made it to Salt Lake.
We are staying at the KOA which is downtown, we missed our turn coming in so we had a fun time finding it Sunday, good thing it was Sunday and traffic was light.
The kids were busy so we headed out looking for birds and ended up at Antelope Island State Park which is a great place for wildlife.
It has a large flock of Yellow Headed Blackbirds they don't have their yellow heads yet so at first we weren't sure what they were
even more Avocets
and it has the largest colony of California Gulls and the tree and barn swallows were everywhere. So we had a good day, it was beautiful temp around 90. There had been a storm Sunday evening and areas nearby had high winds and hail luckily not at the KOA.
The kids came by later in the evening to say hello.
We will be exploring a couple more places for birds today and will see the kids again later, school has started for a couple of them.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

On the road, in WY

We are back on the road. Right now we are in Cheyenne, WY.
We stayed a night to do a little sighting seeing and birding.
This is our road in the Pawnee National Grasslands.
We saw Colorado's State bird the Lark Bunting, Horned Larks, Western Kingbirds, Upland Sandpiper, Northern Harrier, and some birds we haven't identified yet, it was a good morning.
We went into Cheyenne to visit the Depot Museum, walked around the capital building,
visited Holliday and Lions Parks, both have an old steam engine on display.
Cheyenne is really a beautiful small city, we couldn't believe the wonderful parks the locals and tourists were out enjoying them.
Visit again to find out where our next stop is.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Around our patch

We had a little rain today, the morning was really nice and fresh after the brief shower.
How do you like the new look to my blog?

It's been rather quiet around our patch, there are fewer birds visiting our feeders so I took down the jelly feeder. We have been seeing a few more butterflies at our zinnias and still spotting several swallowtail cats on the dill and fennel. We had a White-lined Sphinx hide for a day in our lavender and we watched a Golden Orbe spider molt in our garden (we didn't know they did that). And we enjoyed the rain...
How beautiful is the rain!
After the dust and the heat,
In the broad and fiery street,
In the narrow lane.
How beautiful is the rain!
Longfellow

Monday, August 1, 2011

More from around the corner

It's the first of August already, the kids will be heading back to school in a couple of weeks in this area and it's looks like we have another week of hot temps.
Here's last week's sketches from my journal. I spotted a couple of deer last week on my morning stroll and watched a cooper's hawk carry off it's breakfast didn't see what it was.

A Greeting

Good morning, Life - and all
Things glad and beautiful.
My pockets nothing hold,
But he that owns the Gold,
The Sun, is my great friend-
His spending has no end.

Hail to the morning sky,
Which bright clouds measure high
Hail to you birds whose throats
Would number leaves by notes;
Hail to you shady bowers,
And you green field of flowers.

Hail to you women fair
That make a show so rare
In cloth as white as milk--
Be't calico or silk
Good morning, Life--and all
Things glad and beautiful.
William Henry Davies