Missing out on the sunsets

I noticed this the other day, as I rode home on my bike, near the end of rush hour.

And wondered if the drivers appreciated the colors in front of them, as they waited at the stop light.

But, as soon as the light turned green,

the race home was on!

No, I think they missed that sunset.

We passed many cow trailers on our travels….

At the top of Monarch Pass, we stopped next to one, 

to let the engine cool down.

I got out to stretch my knee and saw they all seemed to be looking at me.

And suddenly I thought:

this might the these guy's last trailer trip.

Computer problems

My computer had serious problems in May/June.
So, the pics of the return trip from Florida and explanation of the different State Parks along the way disappeared.
Fortunately I have finally recovered them.
But, it seems too long ago to send out blogs about that.
Instead, we will move to the present, and send out more recent stuff.

Camp Rio is over...

Camp Rio is over but the memories will remain for a long time. All the preparations were worth the effort when we saw the smiles and faces of amazement during the week. Here are a few of the hundreds of photos taken by Carlos, our resident photographer.

After arriving at at the cabin, the new Hogwarts students rode the Hogwarts Express along with their Owls.

New Witches and Wizards arrive at Hogwarts

The Sorting Hat was then ready to place the students into their respective Houses.  We only had Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw selected.  There were no Sytherins this session.

The Sorting Hat was busy

Each new Muggle student brought their own Owl and an Owlery to keep it safe during the day.

Every Owl needs an Owlery

A Prefect was selected each day based on the previous day's participation and behavior.

A new Prefect of the Day

Since there had been problems with "He Who Shall Not Be Named" supporters in Diagon Alley, a representative of Ollivander's Wand Shop came to help with Wand Selection.

The wand selects the Wizard

Six different classes were held each day as students followed their schedules.  These included: Charms, History of Muggle Studies, Care of Magical Creatures, Potions, Magic of Imagery (eg. Photography) and Quiddich teams.

Magic of Imagery  (B&W photography) Class

At the end of the week, after daily practices, the Quiddich World Cup Games were held.  

The final Quiddich game

There was also a special time for practicing ant-Dementor spells (via a piñata).

Practicing anti-Dementor Spells

Group photos were taken, with the students' wands and gowns.

2014 Hogwarts Students

There was a copy of the Daily Prophet each day with numerous articles about the previous day's events and other Wizarding activities.

Daily Prophet

It was a week to remember and the students didn't want it to end.

Spectro Vision Glasses on students

Comparing Florida beaches

Our trip back from Orlando took us along the gulf coast of Florida.

Our goal was to compare Florida's beaches to our's in Texas.

And this is pretty much what the beaches along the Atlantic coast look like:

a pretty, golden color sand was present here.

But once you get to the northern coast of the Gulf side, 
it looks more like this:

sugar-like white sand.

This is at St. George Island State Park. 
And it's 8 mile form here to the edge of the park and to the nearest condominium.

Now, you might say, look at those tire tracks on the beach.
Wouldn't it be fun to take a beach buggy?
Well, no. Those are tire tracks from the State Park Ranger. 
You can't take your car on the beach.
You can't even take your dog to the beach.

On the other hand, that has some advantages.

There are no motor noises or pesky creature to bother you…
except perhaps the sea gulls if you are stupid enough to feed them.

Just imagine: 

relaxing on this sand, 
along the palm trees at Panama City Beach.

Or going for a walk along the edge of these blue waters:

Or, how about working on your sun tan?

Yes, there are lots of things to do on these great beaches. 
In addition, a lot closer and cheaper than the Caribbean.
We can see why people like it here.

What not to do while on vacation

May we give you the following advice:
Never listen to the local news while you are on vacation.

This is a little background:
After a pleasant drive form the north-east coast of Florida, 
we arrived in Orlando and checked into a condo. 
We had been over 1 1/2 weeks in the motor home and not getting any news.
We sat down in a comfortable sofa with cool air conditioning 
and turned on the local early night news.

Here are 3 reasons not to do this:

1.  We had seen a few fires which we knew where set to control the vegetation.

One looked larger than the others
Yes, the news informed us that it had crossed over a road and gotten out of hand.

2. We had crossed many rivers and commented on how nice they looked.

Here is one we camped at, as it approached the Atlantic.
They had canoes you could rent for a close-up view of river life.

But, the news informed us that they had found the body of a 20-30 y.o. female that day along one of those rivers we had just crossed. She had been missing since the Friday before.

3. Traffic along those beach cities had seemed a lot calmer 
and the communities appeared much more slow moving than we had expected.
The news informed us that a man and his son had been carjacked in one of those cities that day.
But the father purposefully wrecked the car into a tree and both he and the son escaped safely.
The car jacker had been apprehended.

(The car looked like "totaled". But apparently the father knew both he and the son in the back where safely seat-belted, while the car jacker was not.)

So the lesson we learned was: Avoid the news.
Ignorance is bliss.

Then there are some uncommon birds in the South.

Like this guy.
From the road we thought he has a large Texas cow bird.

But when we got a little closer,

we realized that he was big…and his face was not a thing of beauty.

Who would have thought that under all those white feathers, there'd be black with hints of green?

You know, for some reason, birds are starting to interest me.

And then we came upon this guy, staring at us form a tree.

His piercing yellow eyes remind us much of Kodiak's bald eagles, our national bird.

But the moment he turns his read, 
it is easy to see that's not what he is.

Nope. He is an Osprey.
Lots of them were nesting on the north side of St. Mark's Wildlife Reserve.
But not one to be seen near our San Antonio home.

This is what Wikipedia says about him:

"The osprey (Pandion haliaetus), sometimes known as the sea hawk, fish eagle, river hawk or fish hawk, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey. It is a large raptor, reaching more than 60 cm (24 in) in length and 180 cm (71 in) across the wings. It is brown on the upperparts and predominantly greyish on the head and underparts.

The osprey tolerates a wide variety of habitats, nesting in any location near a body of water providing an adequate food supply. It is found on all continents except Antarctica, although in South America it occurs only as a non-breeding migrant.

As its other common name suggests, the osprey's diet consists almost exclusively of fish. It possesses specialised physical characteristics and exhibits unique behaviour to assist in hunting and catching prey. As a result of these unique characteristics, it has been given its own taxonomic genus, Pandion andfamily, Pandionidae. Four subspecies are usually recognized, one of which has recently been given full species status (see below). Despite its propensity to nest near water, the osprey is not classed as a sea-eagle."