This week’s Foto Friday Fun features images chosen by 11 readers including South Africa, Grand Canyon, and the blast zone around Mt St Helens.
Jo chose #4128. Believe it or not, I am standing on a clutch of ostrich eggs, and holding a feather because I’d just ridden an ostrich.
Cathy chose #4769. Watching sunset across False Bay from my Moonglow balcony on the Cape Peninsula, South Africa was a true gift one day after my 2010 birthday.
Jennifer gets #4 for the number of words in her last comment. A scanned print from March 1990 of a bald eagle sharing a tree with lots of smaller birds. The Padilla Bay estuary in Washington was a favorite place for a nature fix not far from Bellingham where I went to Western Washington University.
Gypsy chose #0522, “Mays have been a very eventful month.” Well this shot taken in an April marked an eventful month in 2014 towards the end of my third visit to South Africa. Look closely for the four hippos seen in Pilanesberg Game Reserve.
Diane and Nigel chose #2705. The magic of inversion seen at Grand Canyon from the North Rim Walhalla overlook.
Liberal Warrior gets #116 for the number of words in his first comment from last week. I’m pretty sure this view into Mt St Helens’ blast zone and beyond is Clear Creek canyon, the green in the distance replanted. Taken 12 years after the eruption during my summer 1992 season as a Forest Ranger.
Jeff chose #0602, “the date Fran returns from Ohio.” And now she’s home. Visiting the beach in Bandon, Oregon in 2014, was a going home for Berta who lived there for many years. This twisted driftwood made a nice frame for a bit of ocean. I like tree frames.
Rita chose #6324. The Cottonwood Road in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah is a geologists’ dream. But sometimes, the road is impassable. (My favorite shot this week.)
Doris chose #528. Early September storm clouds building over the drive north on SR67, away from the North Rim and through the old 2006 Warm Fire remains.
Sallie and Bill chose #6522. Sunset over the Indian Ocean from Tsitsikamma National Park, South Africa.
Alan chose #8335. Grand Canyon view northeast from Moran Point on the South Rim taken on my 2015 birthday. Because the Colorado River is out of sight, this is what he would describe as the “outer canyon”.
June 1989 was towards the end of my volunteer experience as an animal keeper at the California Living Museum (CALM). It’s not easy to get a porcupine to pose. As an animal keeper, I was in Spike’s enclosure feeding, watering, and scooping poop. He would sit up for an ear of feed corn, and also allow a little scratch on his velvet soft nose.
Thank you for playing along with Foto Friday Fun which allows me to share these photographs and memories. For more of the story just follow the links. Please join in next week by leaving a number between 0001 and 9999 in your comment.
Do you have a favorite this week?
Thanks for the memories
My favorite is you standing on ostrich eggs. You rode an ostrich! AND pet a porcupine’s nose!! What an amazing treasured life you’ve lead Geogypsy…aka retired Ranger Gaelyn 🥰 Next time #1428
Thanks. And after I rode an ostrich I ate ostrich for lunch. Not the same one of course. #1428 for next week.
Great shots, especially the sunset on the Inidan Ocean and the porcupine. 6275 for next week.
Thanks. Can’t hardly miss on a sunset over an ocean. #6275 for next week.
OOOhhhh….I LOVE that photo of the Grand Canyon with the clouds. It’s so magical! #2705
Thanks. Inversion and monsoon make for a lot of drama. #2705 for next week.
Fun photos, Gaelyn. I had to think about Berta relocating from cold windy chilly and gorgeous Bandon for the most opposite place I can imagine, the high desert hot country of Yarnell, Arizona. Whew! Glad she got to revisit Bandon. As much as I love the coast, I would die from lack of sunshine, but as much as I love the desert, the heat and lack of water would get to me just as badly. So we picked a happy medium, two hours from the coast and a quick trip east to at least the high sage deserts of Oregon. Not quite the same as Yarnell, but at least on the dry side of the Cascades which I also love. No matter where you go, there you are. Sometimes it is really hard to choose. Especially as we are thinking the years ahead might hold a bit less travel than we have had in the past. I’m wearing down a bit. I will choose 2023 for my possible next trip to somewhere in the deserts of Arizona, or at least the Mojave.
Thanks. Berta and then husband Fred, moved to Salome from Bandon, even more desert like than Yarnell. I love to visit the coast, but wouldn’t want to live there. You chose wisely. Sure hope to see you in the desert this winter. #2023 for next week.
Hi Gaelyn, I love that my number chose your ostrich ride in SA! What fun. Please could I have 7450 for next week. Have a great weekend Jo
Thanks. Certainly was appropriate. #7450 for next week.
Thanks for the gorgeous sunset! (You obviously got paid in them even when you were on vacation from being a Ranger — and I presume you still do now that you’re retired). Great collection you shared today. I’d forgotten your dear friend Berta had lived in Bandon — I love the town and that area of the Oregon Coast! Why is it OK to stand on the Ostrich eggs? Are they so strong they won’t break?
Sunsets will always be like a paycheck to my heart. Ostrich eggs have an incredibly thick shell. The whole place was weird as I rode an ostrich. Tourist trap like I don’t usually visit. #610 for next week.
Ooops…. 610 next time?
You’re not very big, but those egg shells are sure strong! Fun photo :-))) That sunset is magical and of course the porcupine looks much softer than he is!
9932 for next week please
Thanks. Only pet the porcupine’s nose. 😉 #9932 for next week.
I loved the hippos scene and tree/nature frames too. I enjoy doing that. The Cottonwood Road area was interesting that some trees were not growing upright, but at a slant like the terrain. My uncle flew over Mt St Helens erupting, took photos. Seeing photo here reminded me of pick-up sticks this time. And now for something completely different:) > #1969 please next week; it was a good year for memorable junior high music.
The Cottonwood Road is worthy of exploration mostly for the geology. #1969 for next week, and we’ll be dancing to that great music.
Right after I posted my message I remembered I’d forgotten a number! Then I forgot I’d remembered. Dunno!
Thanks for choosing one for me. My fave is your porcupine, though. #6767
Regular commenters always get a number, even if they forget. No big deal. I’ll bet you have porcupines around the wetland. #6767 for next week.
Wonderful pics Gaelyn . How on earth did you manage to stand on those Ostrich eggs without breaking them. Are Ostrich eggs extra strong or something ? Love the Sunset over the Indian ocean. Fav this week Grand Canyon view from Moran Point. No 0982 for next week please. Have a great weekend.
Ostrich eggs are very strong. And although they were actually being sat on it was also a display to stand on. #0982 for next week.
My favorite is the first great picture of you standing on Ostrich eggs. You have certainly have had some experiences. Tied with that one is the beautifully artistic shot of the inversion. Fantastic. Not sure I’d like to drive down the Cottonwood Road but I’d sure like to hike it. Very lovely picture. The porcupine picture made me laugh out loud. What a character he is sporting that prickly coat. I can use the laugh since I am delayed getting back on the road once again. I’ll try # 2704 for next week.
I’ve definitely had some fun in my life, and so have you. Just not recently. I can’t believe you’re still home. Hope that changes soon and you’re back on the road. #2704 for next week.
So busy with painting the house etc I have not been near my computer….. Love our photo but the one of you on the ostrich eggs is a favourite. Ostrich neck cooked like an Oxtail is just the best 🤗
Have a great Sunday. Hugs Diane and Nigel
406 for next week please.
Don’t think what I ate was neck, although I have eaten Oxtail, but it was good. Have fun painting. #406 for this week.
A lot of Omelets in one of those eggs. Egg bowling, anyone…?
#6324 Gets my wanderlust excited to hit the far back road rocky vehicle trails looking for and overnight or a few days pull-out. I can smell the Juniper and pine and heated rock carbon when I look at #6324.
Like a few of your peeps, I love the ocean, but lean to the desert, especially the high desert, it seems to feed and warm my spirit.
The ocean is a type of desert, but of less geological interest and little mystery on the surface. I have been on it many times for almost a month or more transiting(under sail) from Portland to Mexico. Portland, San Francisco, or Seattle to Hawaii and back, and once when I neared the Washington coast, the smell/fragrance of of smoking Salmon from a Hoh Indian village hit my nasal receptors and created an excitement long remembered. It was a dark night and still many miles from the coast and I couldn’t see the shore, but I sure could smell it with the offshore wind. It represented standing on solid ground, a shower, people(I usually returned sailed alone), restaurant food and a contemplative, celebratory glass of wine, a night of sleep without worrying over a container ship running over me in the dark.
Thanks for the Pics… #119 for next week.
Almost any back road would excite me right now. I WANT TO TRAVEL! But not necessarily by boat. And now you have me drooling for smoked salmon. #119 for this week.
My first stop when returning a boat to the Seattle area is usually Port Townsend, but after I caught the sublime fragrance of Alder smoked Salmon, I put in at Neah Bay, an old Indian village we have been fishing out of since early childhood. I knew I would find Alder smoked Salmon there, and did the next morning and scrambled it with shrooms in my eggs .
Earlier while having coffee in the harbor, a mid-sized Gray whale(teenager?) cruised slowly by the boat and rolled and eyeballed me. That was the second time that has happened to me in or near Neah Bay. We often saw big and small Grays while sailing off the Washington, Oregon, Cali and Baja coast and Scammon’s
lagoon or in the Straights or Columbia River, but an arms reach close-up with one of this world’s most amazing sentient creatures, is treasured and a memory one hopes to keep.
You often have small Harbor Dolphins playing around the boat underway in the Puget Sound area, but once while sailing north on the Inside Passage near Texada Island, a pod of Orca’s played around the boat jumping ahead of it and diving under. It’s at those times you wish you had a camera available, but by the time you leave the helm and go below to get a camera and return armed and ready, the scene has evaporated. Those scenes often replayed in your mind, but hard to show friends. Maybe someday we can tap the brain’s memory/hard drive. And so it goes.
I’ve moored in PT and also been to Neah Bay. A whale experience is amazing, saw them also, as long as they don’t get too close to your boat. I always figured my eyes take pictures every time I blink, even if I can’t always access those images easily, the memory survives.
“as long as they don’t get too close to your boat.”
It is illegal to approach a whale. I believe you have to stand-off @ least 300-ft. But when they come up to your stationary boat there is no legal issue. Seeing a whale pause and deliberate look at you is a very rare and special experience. Having it happen twice has to be extremely rare.
On the open ocean or off the coast it is best to keep at least the legal distance requirement. My call is always 500-ft. while veering away if possible.
One year at the start of the Astoria-Victoria race near the Columbia River bar, a big Gray jumped out of the water and landed on a sailboat. The boat was dis-masted and suffered considerable damage, but no one was seriously injured and they were able to return to Astoria. Had it been a smaller boat under 40-ft. the situation could have been catastrophic for the crew and the race would have been halted and turned into a rescue operation.
Port Townsend and Poulsbo are my two favorite places to visit in Washingtoon, especially by boat, but I don’t recommend anchoring off of Port Townsend as the sea state can change rapidly. Old-Fairhaven, now part of Bellingham, is also a favorite vehicle or boating destination.