A face only a mother could love

I'm not sure what the plan was when a moose was created.  I'm sure there was a bottom line, but for the life of me, I can't see it.

The body is all out of proportion to the legs (they are too short) and then there's that head thing with the goofy ears and the long rounded snout.

For some reason we just haven't seen these a lot in the last couple of years, and this is one of the great things I love about visiting Yellowstone in the spring - you get to see EVERYTHING....

....including a face only a mother could love!

And after the amber waves of grain....

....comes the purple mountains majesty.

This is our first glimpse of the Teton Range (the Grand Tetons on the left), crossing the continental divide.  It was very cold there as you can tell.

Téton means nipple in French and theoretically some French explorers/trappers came upon these mountains and named them.  Either they were terrible confused or very horny!!!

They are very dramatic and very beautiful.

Traveling

As one travels through the amber plains of grain the land is beautiful, but flat and even though it produces so much food for the country, we're always looking for something a little different to photograph. 

This is the beginning of corn and winter wheat season, and the sprinklers were out in force.  Course professional agronomists do not call it sprinklers...it's an irrigation system!!!!

And they are amazingly efficient and yet really beautiful.

So as we are passing along on the interstate we're passing many, many trucks, and in the passenger side, I'm noticing the mirrors in the trucks......

Yep, that's us passing a red trucker - unfortunately his other rear view mirror is in the way - I'm not sure why it has to be there anyway - they could just take it off while we're passing them!!!!

After all!!!!

We are getting ready to head out for points north, which means we will be posting here frequently....also if you would like to keep up with us you can Like us on our Facebook page, or you can click the link to the right!

click here to like the page

From September, 2012

When you take the Mt. Carmel Junction-Zion National Park road, you enter into Zion National Park from the east side of the park.  This is by far the most dramatic and beautiful road to take, however there are restrictions on the road, and be sure to check it out the National Park's FAQ for more information, cause there's no place to turn around if you get stuck there.

 Walt and I were so completely taken by it that we had to make one of the first movies we've made with the Canon 1Dx.  This is shot with his favorite wide-angle lens, on his fabulous gimble tri-pod.

Enjoy!

Great Salt Plains

This is an area in northern Oklahoma where salt water was once and the salt is all that's left.  The area also has a lake which is a huge stop-over for migrating birds and they are totally plentiful.

 

Sandhill Cranes, Whooping Cranes, eagles, hawks, Ruddy ducks, Canadian Geese, Snow Geese and Pelicans are all running through the state park for points south.  Here's a few of some of the Sandhill Cranes as they are congregating on a local field (much to the chagrin of the local farmer who has just planted his winter wheat with the sweet new morsels popping out of the ground that the Sandhills think is just for them!!!).  They are very skittish as the farmers are want to scare them away as much as possible.  But they are also tenacious and are just as fond of finding another field and another and another.  

 They are beautiful birds and are really graceful in the sky.

 And then every once in a while someone doesn't the get memo to wear his dress whites!!!!

 Another beautiful morning in the country (with modern wind turbines in the background!)

Also check out Walt's video of massive crane landing:

Click the picture above to view the video on the CWUAP Facebook Page.

There are some more pictures on his Facebook page (click here).

Moonrise and The Wave

Our day started with a fun challenge - to catch the moonset over the mountain peaks of the entrance to Zion.  Granted our timing was a tad off - it would have been better just a bit before full moon or a bit after full moon, cause the sun is not as intense and the moon is at its most intense which means its a more balanced light, albeit still pretty uneven.

OK - after that event in detail-ism...here's the upshot of our moon over the peaks of Zion.  And this doesn't really tell you what happened....of course a big HUGE cloud came over the moon just as it was setting and cleared about 2 seconds before this shot.  Where's the cloud?  Well, we realized our location was off a tad, and we had to move and in the process, while the moon was setting, the clouds burned off and there was no evidence of the problem clouds - just like those ole nasty clouds!

So we decided that since we didn't win the lottery to make The Wave hike, (NOTE:  You have to go to the Kanab, UT GSENM Visitors Station to sign up and fill out a form and then there's a lottery.  These days about 90b folks are standing in line for The Wave, and so you have a 1 out of 9 chance of getting picked as the 10 to get permits into The Wave - we did our best, and really did a great job schmoozing with the head ranger.  Our number was 3 - they called 2 and 4 but no three!!!!!  Bummer), so we decided to do our own dang Wave, who needs that wave anyway......as you can tell Walt did a fine job finding his own Wave.

 Actually these rock formations are so amazing, that he just couldn't resist.

And you'll be glad to know that to protect these rocks from any further erosion we are NOT giving away this location!

 But wait.....who else should be on the Walt Wave:

 As we were dilly-dallying around, Claire sees a herd (are Bighorns in herds - well I hope so), galloping down a wash coming toward the road right behind our car and screams: STOP!!!

 Then they make it across the road and you know their life isn't exciting, and a car and two humans with the long clicking thingies in their hands are just too interesting to pass up.  If this gang were up in Yellowstone they'd be used to those silly humans with clicking long black thingies in their hands, but alas, they are from Zion and just country bighorn - not big-city bighorn (like Yellowstone).

 But you know you can only take so much excitement, then you have to move on.

Thus endeth a very good day in Zion - ANIMALS, at last!!!!!!