Preparing for higher education in the school above.
My kids love it when we go to Nebraska. Here are some pictures of the things they love in Nebraska.
We all love Nana!
Some pretty Indian corn that Nana grew and the kids got to pick. Everybody loves picking things from Nana’s garden.
They love Papa’s tractors.
They love riding on Uncle’s 4-wheeler.
They love playing in the blow outs.
And they even think it’s fun digging potatoes, because on Papa’s farm, we get to do it with the aid of backhoe.
I’m so excited about this, I had to share!
Not far from Everglades National Park is the Big Cypress National Preserve. We took a nice walk there and spotted a Limpkin at the end of the walk. At this park, we didn’t see tons of wildlife, we just enjoyed family time. That’s important too!
The whole gang.
View from the end of the boardwalk.
Of course, birds are our favorite to see in new places, but we saw some very interesting animals too. Reptiles definitely ruled the day. We saw very few mammals. I’m not sure if we saw any mammals while we were in the Everglades National Park. We couldn’t even think of any squirrels that we saw there. Oh, I remember now, we saw some dolphins. We weren’t able to identify which kind though.
Here are a few pictures we caught. (Captions: Top-American Alligator; Middle-Congregation of Alligator Hatchlings; Bottom-American Crocodile)
Here is our list from Everglades of non-bird animals that we saw (both reptiles and mammals.)
American Alligator (and a congregation of hatchlings)
American Crocodile
Florida soft-shell turtle (in pond)
Common Snapping Turtle
Unidentified Sea Turtle
Unidentified Dolphin
We were very excited to take some time to visit the Everglades National Park. We left the rainy Pacific Northwest to soak up some much needed Vitamin D and whatever else we gain from real sunshine.
We saw so many things at the park, that we just can’t find in the Northwest that it was a real thrill. We went on a (long and slow) canoe trip in search of manatee and other mangrove swamp wildlife. We saw—drum roll—a Great Blue Heron and a Belted Kingfisher. I don’t know if you can hear a little disappointment in my voice—both of those birds live in the Northwest. And, besides that, we had already seen a Belted Kingfisher between every pair of telephone poles along the highway. Oh, well, it was nice to get some sun. (And actually, we rarely see the Kingfishers around here, so I rather like them.)
Okay, for real, we did see a lot, but most of it was just along the side of the road.
Here are a few pictures that we managed. As always, there are a few pictures we wish we would have gotten of exciting things we saw, such as the Rosette Spoonbill. But we got some pictures that we are pretty excited about too.
Tri-colored Heron with his fish
Black-crowned Night Heron
Green Heron watching intently for his next fish
Snowy Egret checking his hairdo in the mirror.
Great Egret standing pretty
White Ibis protecting her nest
Cormorant with swimmer’s hair.
All of these pictures were taken at Shark Valley in the Everglades National Park. And most of them were actually taken while we were waiting on the very slow process of getting through the ticket booth. It was an amazing stop that day. If you’re a birder, and in that area, I highly recommend the stop.
Last, but not least, I want to show our very special bird that we got to see on this trip. We were all hoping that we could see this bird on this trip. It is quite rare and, oh so pretty. Check out the feet on this guy. We saw it at the same location.
Purple Gallinule
Here is our bird list from the Everglades
| Purple Gullinule | Northern Mockingbird |
| Pied-billed Grebe | Glossy Ibis |
| Green Heron | Cormorant |
| Black-crowned Night Heron | Rosette spoonbill |
| American Crow | Black vulture |
| Little Blue Heron | Turkey vulture |
| Anhinga | Little Blue Heron |
| Snowy Egret | Great Egret |
| Great Egret | White Great Blue Heron |
| Great Blue Heron | Blue-winged Teal |
| Belted Kingfisher | Green-winged Teal |
| Tri-color Heron | Common Grebe |
| White Ibis | American Coot |
| Common Gallinule | Fish Crow |
| Cardinal | Osprey |
We also enjoyed visiting the ocean north of San Diego. I ended up with mostly pictures of the kids rather than pictures of the ocean though. Can’t help it, I think they are mighty handsome kids.
I think I’m done posting about San Diego, although, there are some pictures on my husband’s computer that are quite good. Maybe someday I’ll get my hands on them. In the meantime, I’ll have to share about things that go on around our house. Except I need to take pictures of those things. So maybe I’d better do another trip, I have one of those too.
After all my comments that I was not so impressed with Sea World, I loved the San Diego zoo. We probably should have spent several days between the zoo and the wild animal park. They were both super neat. If you can only do one thing in San Diego, definitely choose the zoo. Okay, that’s just my opinion. We didn’t even do Disney, that’s definitely more theme park than I can handle.
One of the highlights of the zoo was the baby giraffe. Just so you know, that baby is significantly taller than I am.
We had fun feeding Lorikeets. Although, I think this picture is of a Lory, not a Lorikeet.
Baby travelled in style through the whole park. Was I ever glad that I hauled the stroller with us on this trip! I wasn’t sure if I would like taking it through the airport, but my back thanked me every day when we were out site seeing.
Then I found this monkey over by the orangoutang exhibit. He was climbing the bamboo poles.
I thought he was so cute, I took him home!
If you can’t tell, I’m trying to catch up. Seems like that is often what I’m doing on this blog–trying to catch up. Anyway, here’s to a fun day at Sea World San Diego. Sea World was fun. The whales were beautiful. The dolphins were intriguing. But I don’t know, theme parks and I just don’t do so well together. I enjoy when the animals perform, but when the people perform, I think it’s rather lame. And it seems that Sea World is more about gymnasts than animals. I mean who goes to Sea World to see women dressed as parrots? Oh well, that’s just me.
Baby wasn’t too sure about the shows. We did keep her out of the splash zone, but the music was loud and there was a lot going on all around her. She was a little frightened. Zippy, on the other hand, loved all the activity, and sat in the front row, by herself so that she could get soaked. She scored. She was drenched to the skin, and it was kind of a cold day, so she shivered all day. Not my idea of fun, but hey, I’m not 12.
Of course, we have shots of the whales. All these pictures were taken with my point and shoot. We were afraid to take a good camera in there, for good reason. Anyway, my little camera did okay on these beauties. You can’t help but think that the Orcas are beautiful. Wish I could see one in the wild, especially as I don’t live terribly far from them. Maybe someday.
Note: If you’re curious about the whales’ names. Some Sea World employee saw my photos on Flickr and commented with their names.
This should have been posted awhile ago, but we all need to be reminded at this time of year, what the wildflowers looked like this summer, right?
These are from a trip that we took to Mt. Rainier in August.
A rose among wildflowers!
“I love the great outdoors!”
The Crew
The trail
The Mountain — well, a little bit of it, anyway
The wildflowers
Western Anemone
Magenta Paintbrush
Alpine Aster
Lupine and Broadleaf Arnica
Rosey Spirea
“What do I see?”
Sisters
I don’t know what this is, but I just thought the lighting was neat.
Talk about a eye-candy. We definitely got it that day. The colors were in every hue, kind of like the inside of a gum-ball machine, oh wait, it was way better than that.
We’ve been exploring in the mountains again! For a long time, my husband and I have wanted to visit Mt. Shuksan. My grandparents had a six foot painting of Mt. Shuksan hanging in their living room the whole time I was growing up, and when I learned that this same mountain was within driving distance, I wanted to see it for real. A couple of days ago, we were finally able to make the trip. My parents also were able to go with us, so my mom was also able to see in real life the painting that she had enjoyed in her parents’ home for a long time.
Here is my favorite picture. Now you might see why I so badly wanted to go. Is that stunning or is that stunning? This actually is the same perspective that my grandparents’ painting was.
I have several pictures of Mt. Shuksan, taken from two different little lakes that reflected it’s image. So if you’d enjoy seeing the rest, here is the link. I think, it’s worth your time to check the rest of them out, personally.
While we were there, we enjoyed a picnic and this was the view from our picnic table. The autumn colors are just exquisite, I think.
We also went on a hike called the Chain Lakes Trail. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to complete the hike, because we had an appointment in the evening. I guess this means we’ll just have to go back. (I can’t wait!) The fall colors along the trail were in all of their glory. Here are few shots from the trail. (The mountain in the first picture is Mt. Baker.)
And last but not least, is a picture of our three tireless hikers.
There are so many more beautiful photos on my Mt. Shuksan flickr set. If you have a minute to take a visit, you’ll enjoy them. I promise. If you live within any sort of driving distance of the North Cascades, I highly recommend a visit to Mt. Shuksan. I’ve heard it said that it is the best kept secret in Washington State.
