Virgin Morning

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If you’ve noticed your spirits lagging behind you lately, or perhaps they’ve simply gone AWOL, you’re due for a trip to Zion and the Virgin river. It doesn’t matter what time of year you decide to go, the important thing is that you do. Maybe you’ve been cooped up in a tiny little place that is filled with nothing but work, or you’ve been restricted to going from one boring but ugly place to another and haven’t lifted your head up lately because it’s just too depressing, if so don’t despair there is help nearby. Just jump in the car and go to Zion. Hitchhike if you have to. Call your crazy Uncle Skid and say “You up for a road trip?” He will be. But go. It’s for your own good.

This image was taken a little later in the morning, like nearly 11:00. The canyon here is so deep that it takes that long for the sun to climb high enough to light up the river. This is perfect if you OD’d on pizza the night before and could not get your big butt out of bed for anything short of maybe more pizza. The magic of Zion takes into account all the reasons you might have for not maintaining a proper schedule as it says “Look, it’s ok if you slept in. It’s ok that you feel like the ass-end of an ape. We’ve saved something really special just for you.Be happy.” and here it is.
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As an  extra bonus Zion will throw in the quiet murmuring of the river as it glides between its banks, the cool feeling of the boulders as you sit and listen to the songs of the birds, and the rich deep colors of the sun on the water. How you going to say no to that. Come on, you know you want to. See you there.

 

 

Time To Smell The Leaves

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When bears first wake up they are very, very hungry. They haven’t eaten since way last fall and they have to get something in their stomachs like right now. If it can be chewed they will attempt to eat it. Grass, old semi-used carcasses, any footprints in the dirt if some one walked by carrying something edible, peanut butter, nuts and/or berries, pizza, knapsacks with food in them, Chinese food either take out or eat in, gluten-free stuff, stuff with extra gluten, French food, cereal of any variety, tires that have run over roadkill, chili, chili dogs, dogs, manioc, coconut and coconut byproducts, leaves, buds, disgusting stuff that can’t even be written down, cook books, quarter pounders, quarter pounders with cheese, and lard. All of this and more is on the menu when the bear first wakes up.

So they go forth and ravenously eat anything that is remotely edible until they finally fill up that spot that says “I’m starving. Feed me.” After that happens they begin to become a little more selective in what they eat. Some even become connoisseurs and quite sophisticated gourmets, choosing only the choicest of the new offerings provided them by Mother Nature. Here we see Ms. Eula Ndego Jones, a new resident of Yellowstone National park, having come down from the famine stricken wastes of southern Saskatchewan through Montana and finally reaching the park just as the new leaves are unfurling. She carefully inhales the aroma of the young leaves before choosing the most delectable ones to eat. A few weeks ago she would have eaten the leaves, the bush and all its branches, plus about a pound and a half of the dirt around it.

But now, having regained some of the weight she lost through her long hibernation, she is being quite choosy about what she eats, taking delicate little bites from this bush and that, enjoying the moment, slowing down her intake just a little while she enjoys the warm spring sunshine. This is a time to enjoy the coming of the new season. It won’t be long before the elk start having their young and the calf selection will be at its premium, if the winter kill wasn’t too severe amongst the herds that is. But if it was then the carcasses will be plentiful and that will make living a lot easier. And there will be all those young ground squirrels that haven’t learned burrow safety yet so life is looking pretty good right now.

Spring is a time of rejuvenation and the animals here in Yellowstone have learned how to take advantage of it. I think we could all take a lesson from them about slowing down a little and savoring the moments of this time of year, after all Spring doesn’t last that long. I think we can forego the old carcasses and young ground squirrels though but those leaves might be nice in a salad with a few Fava beans and a nice Chianti.

Focus

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This is what the business end of a hawk coming at you at close to a hundred miles an hour looks like. Since hawks this size can often attain dive speeds of 120+ miles per hour the speed estimate for this guy is based on the ‘Holy Crap” method where you suddenly realize he’s diving at you and your first thought is “Holy Crap I bet he’s doing a hundred miles an hour”.

There are things to pay attention to when you’re being photo bombed by a hawk and I’ll present them in order.

  • Put camera up to face
  • Stick eye to viewfinder
  • Remove lens cap due to no image appearing
  • Put finger on shutter
  • Ask camera politely to FOCUS
  • Do everything possible to keep hawk in viewfinder
  • Press shutter – a lot
  • Duck

This strafing of innocent civilians is unusual as much of the population around here is armed and touchy about stuff like this. The only reason this hawk behaved like this that I can imagine, is that they are predators and usually hungry and I’ve been told by normally reliable sources that my moustache looks like a mouse rather casually draped across the lower half of my face. Even so, hawks have been around long enough to know that mice draped across a humans face is out-of-bounds. That’s what evolution is for, to keep stuff like face bombing hawks from happening, regardless of whether it is mouse adorned or not. So the only other conclusion one can draw is that it is simply nuts.

Some of you are bound to ask “Well What kind of hawk was it?” and the only thing I’m sure of is that it is a member of the Hawkii hostilicus branch of weird-ass, people hating, I could put your eye out you know, hawks. I’m not certain if this is an off-shoot of our regular grumpy hawks, or a whole new species. I think I’m going with the new species thing just because that would be cooler than our regular hawks just going around the bend.

So the next time you’re going to the store for pizza and some Honeycrisp apples and you see a hawk looking at you funny, just stay in the car. If you have to get out and take a picture of it then please follow my list of things to pay attention to above. Either that or quickly shave your moustache off. Remember, Stay Safe out there.