A day of much-needed relaxation
Since yesterday was such a busy day, stretching from before daylight till 9 o'clock last night, all the walking, dealing with below-freezing temperatures for most of the morning, and taking many pictures tired me out to the point that I took today off and just lounged around the campground for most of the day.
When I was younger, during a weeklong hunting season, my hunting buddies and I would get up long before dawn, hunt all day, walking up and down hills, often at 10,000 feet or more, wake up before dawn the next day, and it all again. Needless to say, I can't do that anymore, nor do I want to. I can do it for one day, but just like today, I have to take a break. And it's not that taking a picture is all that difficult; it’s getting TO where I want to take a picture that's the problem.
The only thing that makes it all worthwhile is that I enjoy it. I'm in a beautiful place filled with nature, and the leaves of Fall, so everywhere I look deserves a picture. Even when I park the truck to get out and take a picture of something, on the way back to the truck, I feel that I have to take a picture of the truck and where it's parked. That's how beautiful everything is.
But walking around in all that beauty is tiring. It's about 4600 feet at the Bosque, which is much lower than Denver but I'm standing and walking around a lot more than I do in Denver.
Theboondork
Sandhill cranes Flying to their nighttime roost.
Sandhill cranes flying over my head on their way to their nighttime roosting area.
And these are not Hummingbirds you’re looking at; you’re looking at a 5-foot-tall bird with a wingspan of about 5 ½ feet, and they live in groups of thousands.
A few professional photographers are running around this early season, And sometimes, I manage to get close to them. But they quickly realize that I’m not rocking a camera lens That costs as much as a new car, so they throw rocks at me until I leave.
This Redheaded-Big-lipped-Merganser has apparently hitched up with a mate that can’t hold her liquor and has now gone belly-up as her embarrassed husband tries to swim away as if he had never seen her before.
I can’t believe how lucky I am to live in my tiny little home and visit places like this.