in my own backyard

My last few posts have mentioned my love of rain. It's no secret that when I hear the raindrops pelting my window, I want to throw my shoes off and run outside. Barefoot, twirling in the rain and wind, laughing towards the sky... That's what makes me happy.
Wandering around with my camera, photographing tiny orbs of crystal perched on every surface is magical too.




So many people mistakenly believe that they have to travel, to go *somewhere*, in order to experience something beautiful. My adventure begins in my own backyard.

April, alligators, and airboats

Yesterday (technically the day before, but I haven't slept yet), April and I decided to be tourists in our own neighborhood. We went to Everglades Holiday Park. The last time I was there was right after surgery, so I didn't take too many photos. This time, my camera and I spent a little too much time together.

The second we got there, April and I were greeted by peacocks. It's mating season so all the males were putting on quite the show and chasing the females around.






Once I finished photographing/being attacked by the peacocks, we bought our tickets and waited at the dock for our airboat to depart. Before our boat had even arrived, we saw gators.


Then, there was a cute little gator who got super close to the boat. I say 'little' because he was about 4 feet long and still playful like a juvenile. He let our boat captain scratch him behind the ears.



The view was lovely and we got to see a bunch of gators.



This guy was my favorite. He followed the boats to their turtle traps and stole the turtles for his lunch.
My immediately reaction was to want to free him from the ropes. But being full doesn't mean he wouldn't still bite if he felt threatened.


When we returned to shore, we watched the gator show. I'm always impressed by how knowledgeable and passionate the staff is. The guy we had this time is an environmental studies major specializing in crododilians. Boy after my own heart.



Things got kind of touristy when people actually paid to pose on a gator. I'd never seen anyone do it before. Bonus points because the guys were all full of (false) bravado but it was a teenage girl and a grandmother who actually did it.

Then, I got April to pose with the gator bites sign and her box o' bites to be super touristy.

Can you believe this is virtually in my backyard?

Marty McFly Monday

Yesterday, there was a really cute bee hitching a ride on the windshield. I posted a photo but said nothing. If you clicked through to the photo on flickr, I made a kind of silly joke. Then, I mentioned off-hand to Doug that since I felt guilty about not posting, I might throw together a Marty MyFly Monday -- a one time feature for my little windshield buddy.
Since I can't sleep at the moment, I'm trying to put together this blog post. I'm running into some difficulties since I've never actually seen Back to the Future (and the only reason the name popped into my head was a Facebook event in the sidebar). But since the middle of the night is great for half-thought-out posts, I'd like to introduce you to Marty.

He hitched a ride on our windshield home from the grocery store.

He posed for a photo session.

He 'held' my hand.


He's pretty cute and photogenic and I hope he's happy in my grapevine.

another beautiful day in paradise

In my last post, I said that I lived for the rain. So today, I got a lovely rainy day and I could not be happier.


It's just another beautiful day in paradise for me.

I crave rain [52:25]

This time of year, most people around here are craving sunshine. I live in sunny South Florida, home to a cult of sun worshipers. Being tan is the goal to strive towards and the summer sun gives them what they need, along with a dose of vitamin D.
But I crave the rain. The feel of the raindrops refreshing my skin, the rolling thunder in the distance, the lightning shows I can watch from my window... I also love the diffused light when it's drizzling. Water droplets + rain cloud softbox = beautiful photographs.

I spend my afternoons waiting for the clouds to roll in and the skies to open up.

tasty treat [52:24]

This week's theme is make it tasty and so I decided to be all decadent and have a red birch beer for dinner.

Don't you pick your meals based on how photogenic they are?

night at the museum

Friday night, Doug and I were invited to sleep over at the Museum of Discovery and Science with the cub scouts. In the course of 12 hours, I took 400 photos. Even after cutting them down as best I could, this post is still going to be monumental.

We started the evening wandering around the floor, exploring the exhibits at our leisure. Doug and I started with the baby loggerhead sea turtle.
























Experiment time in the lab. I sat with Aunt Mar and one of the dads, which is why we managed to win the diaper absorption challenge with 600mL.









I stayed with the twins' group for the underwater tour and the activities.







We got turned loose again while the kids watched Night at the Museum 2, so of course Doug and I spent half an hour playing with bubbles.










We explored until 12:20.













When it was lights out, we slept among the fish tanks. It was amazing!





I didn't want to say goodbye when it was time to go.





The last thing I did was toss on my fisheye to get a few shots of the great gravity clock.