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| Rehoboth Beach, DE - 1997 |
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| Rehoboth Again - 2001 |
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| Pensacola, FL - 2011 |
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| One More Rehoboth - 2001 |
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| Kill Devil Hills, NC - 2010 |
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| Lancaster, VA - 2010 |
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| Key West, FL - 1991 |
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| Islamorada, FL - 2000 |
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| Ft. Jefferson - Dry Tortugas, FL - 2000 - Photo by [Maris] |
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| Gonna Need a Bigger Boat - Barbados - 1993 |
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| Sapphire Bay, St. Thomas, USVI - 1995 |
Time to get silly for a minute. For a change - har har. One of those last few posts from the 2004 Maine Lighthouse Excursion and Symposium For Two featured a shot of my car chasing a bunch of lobster traps, and it reminded me that I have other shots of that car's adventures (and those of her predecessor). Photographically -- well, what can I say? They're pictures of cars. Mostly. Above, [Maris] shoots a Norfolk Southern grain train in the yard at Lexington, Kentucky in 1998. We put 30,000 miles on that blue Chevy in one year.
Skip to 2000. Here's the Baby Car watching the westbound Capitol Limited at Boyds, MD.
Skip a ahead - a lot - to December 2009. Our cars, shivering and muttering great streams of frigid profanity under the first of eleventy major snowstorms. Boo.
Skip back. To 1998. Oh, just do it, please. Now we're in Kentucky, near the Cumberland Gap. We had pulled over to photograph wild turkeys, but those turkeys can move, as it turns out.
Skip ahead again. Please? An encore presentation. It's more about the bridge (Barronvale, in Somerset County, PA - 2001) than the car, but I like how the car looks as though she's been told "stay," and she's being a very good car indeed.
See that "road" that goes into the woods to the left of the frame? Pictures can't do justice to that passage, somewhere in western PA in 2001. A seriously jacked-up Jeep with those big fat off-road tires would have been a more appropriate conveyance for that, but the Baby Car is nothing if not intrepid.
Scoot back just a year. I know, I know. I'm sorry*. This is the substitute baby car that the insurance people provided for our 2000 Florida Keys honeymoon - following the smooshing of the real Baby Car in Florida City (barf), just a couple of miles from the start of the Overseas Highway. This was truly an infant vehicle, too - like 25 miles on it when we picked it up.
In the Lower Keys the following year, here's the real Baby Car, almost as good as new and thoroughly enjoying the Sunshine State. Splash, splash!
Flash-forward to 2007. Happy Valentine's Day, Baby Car. Have some icicles. Boo.
That's better. Riding the ferry from Okracoke Island to Cedar Island, North Carolina in 2007. Wait 'til you see the lighthouse pics from that trip. You probably won't have to wait long.
Key West's pelicans are as laid-back as its people, but they have to eat. So, they fish. Key West's seagulls are not laid-back (no seagulls are), and they have to eat, too. In the shot above, there's a gull floating between the fifth and sixth pelicans. This is a common sight, as there is at least one seagull assigned to tag along with each group of pelicans. They follow the big guys around and scavenge for whatever bits of fish fall out of their beaks after each dive. It's the circle of life!
"We've been floating for 30 seconds, guys. Don't you think it's time we got up and did some fishing?"
Key West's cats, many of whom are descended from Hemingway's famous six-toed feline, are pretty laid-back, but they have to eat, too. This cat is thinking about going after one of those plump pelicans. Ha ha ha - no he's not. You should see what he did 12 seconds after this frame was shot.
Seagull pretending to be laid-back.
Frigate Birds are probably laid-back, too. I just can't get close enough to one to know for sure.
Glide, glide, glide...
"I see a fish!"
((SPLOOSH SPLOOSH, GOBBLE GOBBLE))
Three stages of a pelican dive in one frame. What could be better? ("Oh, and we totally see you, gull. Little freeloader.")
How about SIX stages of pelican flight/diving? This group was showing off a little bit, I think. Possibly just to taunt the cat on the beach.
When it comes to winged critters, I'm not just about pelicans. Here's a sampling of some of the more interesting birds I've managed to capture on film, including a bunch of Florida's egrets. The snowy egret above is out for an early morning stroll on the beach in Naples, FL in 1999.
I cropped this to death to get rid of as much of the #$%& light leak as I could. The bird is a cormorant, and I like to pretend the "submerged cable" sign actually says "no cormorants." This is also Naples, FL - 1999.
I know the shot isn't great, but it's the only one I have of the extremely cool frigatebird. Key West, FL - 2000.
Ostriches! Tennessee or southwestern Virginia, I think - 1998.
Emu!?! South-central PA - 1998.
Tiny black bird atop Florida East Coast Railway signal - St. Augustine, FL - 1999.
Some kind of egret - St. Augustine, FL - 1999.
"I'm taller." "No, I'm taller!" Snowy egrets at Fort De Soto Park - St. Petersburg, FL - 1999.
"I just got settled. Don't make me fly away. This is my favorite post." Snowy egret - Naples, FL - 1999.
Snowy egrets in flight over St. Augustine, FL - 1999. Had no idea egrets flew in "V" formations, just like Canada geese. Cool.
What can I say - I really like pelicans. They've been around for over 40 million years, which beats most critters on this planet. Also, for a plump, awkward-looking bird on land, they are astonishing fliers, divers and swimmers. Clearly, this is a species that really knows what it's doing. The sleeping bird above is at the beach in Naples, FL in 1999.
There are actually a few cormorants in this shot, but it's mostly pelicans, captured in just about every conceivable pelican pose. Naples, FL 1999.
They're faster than they look, and despite the back-lighting here on the beach at La Mer in Key West, FL in 2002, I still like this shot.
Two frames of Pelicans in flight - Naples, FL 1999.
This youngster is airing out his wings before heading back into the water. Naples, FL 1999.
One pelican, two shots. This is on the fishing pier in Ft. De Soto Park, St. Petersburg, FL 1999.
Marathon, FL 1991.
Tough noontime exposure on the sand at La Mer in Key West in early December, 2002.
