Foto Friday Fun 314–every picture tells a story

This week’s Foto Friday Fun features images chosen by 11 readers including mammals, birds, and maybe Huck Fin’s raft.

TreDeuce chose 3.141, pi.  Succulents don’t eat pie.  But this poster seen at Addo Elephant National Park in South Africa tells all about the arid thicket environment along the lowlands near Sundays River.

41 from the above number goes back to June 1989 at the California Living Museum in Bakersfield (CALM).  I volunteered as an animal keeper (feed, water, and scoop poop) and on my first day was told the Mule Deer are the most dangerous animals to a keeper because we tend to trust them and if you turn your back they can rear up and clobber you with hooves.  Two keepers always went into this enclose.

Jo chose #5640.  A radiating sunset through the camper window at a windy and cold Rockhouse Trail camp in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California during February 2015.

#40 from the above number is a look into Spruce Tree House with a kiva in the foreground and smoke blackened ceiling, the remains of an Ancestral Puebloan multi-family dwelling.  This ruin is accessible below the museum at Mesa Verde National Park where I worked the summer of 2005 in Colorado.

Jennifer chose #3942.  A valley view from Gydo Pass above Prince Albert’s Hamlet.  During my 2013 visit to South Africa I frequently went out of my way to drive mountain passes.

#42 from above, my front yard view overlooking the Columbia River and Mt. Hood which is not visible in this shot.  While working for the US Fish & Wildlife Service in 1996 my government house was just above Spring Creek Fish Hatchery.

Lisa chose #32.  The first time I saw an ostrich at Winston Wildlife Safari in Oregon where my family drove around in various enclosures in 1988 on our way moving south.  This thing had poked its head in the truck window then led us to the gate.  Little did I know I would some day ride an ostrich.

Yogi chose #8671.  Gemsboks are the mascot animal at Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in South Africa, and no wonder because there are lots of them.

The #71 from above of a San Juaquin Kit Fox goes back to CALM in 1989.

Diane and Nigel chose #504.  Next to monsoon my favorite season on the North Rim of Grand Canyon is fall when the golden Aspen leaves contrast with the ever greens.

The #04 from above is rather hard to see as a scanned B&W print taken in 1969.  I grew up boat/camping on the Illinois River and this was not the usual mode of transportation seen floating by.  Doesn’t it kind of look like Huck Finn’s raft?

Sue chose #915, “for both mine and my first grandson’s birthday.”  No birthdays here but it was my first visit to Death Valley National Park in October 2009.  I met a fellow Ranger there and this shot is looking east in Wildrose Canyon on the way to the Charcoal kilns.

The #15 from above a swan at Winston Wildlife Safari in Oregon from same 1988 trip as above.

Jim and Diana chose #4319 “for the day we took delivery of a shiny, new Henry!”  I believe if this gate was open Henry could drive right through.  However, there was no driving allowed in St George’s Park when I visited Port Elizabeth in South Africa in 2013.

The #19 from above is a sunrise over Draino Lake which is actually the mouth of the Little White Salmon River into the Columbia River in Washington.  My US Fish & Wildlife office was located at the hatchery not far upstream.

Rita chose #8952.  My truck and 5th-wheel parked at the North Rim Grand Canyon during the summer of 2014.

From the above number, 52 was taken from an overlook at Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument of Mt Hood barely visible in the far distance and Smith Valley below when I worked there the summer of 1992.

Sallie and Bill chose #63.  A Golden Eagle at CALM.

Jeff chose #20, “the height of Borrego’s Maidenhair Falls.”  Mt St Helens lost more than that going from 9677 to 8366 feet when it blew its top off on May 18, 1980.  This shot was taken May 1996 from above my Pine Creek duty station located on the south side of the volcano.

Thank you for playing along with Foto Friday Fun which allows me to share these photographs and memories.  Please join in next week by leaving a number between 1 and 9999 in your comment below.

Do you have a favorite this week?