Category: Foto Friday Fun

This week’s Foto Friday Fun features images chosen by 12 readers including desert, dunes, waterfalls, and the Colorado River.

Jim and Diana chose #9997, “for what seemed like the amount of grout joints I cleaned the mortar out of yesterday on our hex tile floor.”  They have built a beautiful house for all the effort.  On the other hand, my little house on wheels is beautiful but where I park it the views are.  February 2018 I boondocked off the Kings Valley Road on the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona.

Jennifer chose #0362.  Imagine going on safari in a hot air balloon.  I wanted to when visiting Pilanesberg Game Reserve but couldn’t get a reservation.

Cathy chose #3170.  Maybe she knows what kind of butterfly this is seen on the North Rim Grand Canyon in 2015.  I don’t have my field guides with me.

Rita chose #2129.  Looking upstream on the Colorado River from 3000 feet up at Toroweap overlook on the North Rim Grand Canyon National Park.

Diane and Nigel chose #807.  If you’re ever around Kanab, Utah, I highly recommend visiting the nearby Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park.

Alan chose #2880.  The magic of low clouds swirling around Wotans Throne from Cape Royal overlook on the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park.

Sue chose #7864, “for my son’s birthday.”  A Sonoran desert sunset in his memory from Darby Well Road BLM boondock near Ajo, Arizona.

Sherry chose #3920.  Note the small arch seen from House Rock Valley Road in the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, Arizona.

Jo chose number 9355.  Augrabies falls in her home country of South Africa.

Gypsy chose #2011.  A late light view from camp at the Kelso Dunes in Mojave National Preserve, California.

Sallie and Bill chose #816.  Not sure what stretch of the Colorado River, but this was from my National Park Service rafting trip summer of 2011.

Barb chose #63.  She lives in Florida so may know this site of the Castillo de San Marcos in St Augustine.  I visited during the winter of 2005.

My choices from a July road trip 20 years ago camping somewhere on the Rogue River National Forest, now part of the Siskiyou National Forest.  Maybe Sue will know.  My first season as a Park Ranger in 2002 at Oregon Caves I spent a lot of time exploring the area.

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

This week’s Foto Friday Fun features images chosen by 10 readers including lots of dramatic skies, and Grand Canyon, from where you should be seeing some new images very soon.

Jennifer gets #6 for the number of words in her last comment.  A scanned print from May 1974 on the dunes at Weko Beach, Michigan.  I honestly don’t remember being here.

Rita gets #40 for the number of words in her comment.  As an archeologist, I’d think she’d like to visit Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, first park set aside to protect native cultural sites.  This shot from Spruce Tree House, a self-guided site below the visitor center open to the public when a Ranger was on duty.  Like I was the summer of 2005.

Alan chose #7120.  A double gift looking towards the head of Roaring Springs Canyon on the North Rim Grand Canyon National Park.

Gypsy chose #1010, “for month/year of hailstorm of the century in Phoenix Valley.”  I only remember rain, not hail, while camped at Crazy Jug Point during an August monsoon storm looking over Grand Canyon.

Cathy chose #0826.  Another crazy Grand Canyon storm seen this time from the Grand Lodge on the North Rim.

Diane and Nigel chose #207.  During my first season at Grand Canyon in 2008 I explored other parks in the neighborhood, like Zion.  Look closely for climbers on this sandstone monolith at the Big Bend overlook.

Jeff chose #1776, “the official beginning of our nation.”  This flower is from a different nation.  I saw it hiking on The Pools trail in the Drakensburg mountains of South Africa.

Jodee and Bill chose #2031.  From a different trail in the Drakensburg mountains.

Sherry chose #8293.  Another Grand Canyon view but this time from the South Rim’s Grandview Point overlook when I visited for my 2015 birthday.  Wonder if I could see the upcoming full moon rise from there. 

Barb in FL chose #50.  Artifacts from Step House in Mesa Verde National Park.  Another self-guided site with a Ranger presence.  I added the second shot, a panorama taken along the Petroglyph trail also in Mesa Verde.

My choices taken July 1996 when I lived in Underwood, above the Spring Creek National Fish Hatchery, and worked for the US Fish & Wildlife Service.

Spent time exploring my backyard around Mount Adams where Echinacea grew in Trout Lake, Washington.

When I could survive the mosquitos I’d see Mount Adams from Takalak Lake on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest.  Best to wear a net, over the entire body, at this notorious squiter lake.

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

This week’s Foto Friday Fun features images chosen by 11 readers including South Africa, water and rock waves, three US National Parks, and a wilderness.

Rita got #54 for the number of words in her last comment.  Oops.  Cutaway wall on a pithouse, 2600 year-old Basketmaker III residence, and masonry against the cliff wall from the 1200s Ancestral Puebloan people in Step House at Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado.  When I worked there summer of 2005, this site was open to the public as a self-guide, however only when a Ranger was onsite.

Jennifer chose #0265.  At Pilanesberg Game Reserve in South Africa, wildlife is quite watchable from the deck of a shop and restaurant.  Putting out a salt block by a waterhole helps also.

Doris chose #7865.  Snow in Zion National Park, here along the Virgin River, during the quiet time of winter was a special treat 1-10-16.

Cathy chose #9900.  This baby water monitor, about 8 inches, seen in Pilanesberg Game Reserve, same trip as above giraffes.

Diane and Nigel chose #2406.  During the golden hour as the last light brightens canyon walls.  Seen my first visit to Toroweap along the North Rim of Grand Canyon 9-27-10.

Alan chose #3265.  Hanging out along the shore of the Indian Ocean in Tsitsikamma National Park, South Africa 3-23-10.  I sure could use an ocean fix.

Jo chose #4561, “the middle numbers on my calculator as I work at my desk.”  This might look like I’m in the middle of the road, somewhere along R44 between Hermanus and Cape Town, South Africa.  She might recognize this place.

Jeff chose #2041, “the year the planets will next align.”  Here I am in the year 2010, when I aligned with Jo’s son John for an overnight backpack into the Drakensberg Mountains.  Yes, we got wet.

Sherry chose #9274.  A not such an iconic shot of the Wave, but still gorgeous.

Gypsy has been busy moving but I’m giving her #17 for the number of words in her comment.  Back in 1989 I volunteered as an animal keeper at the California Living Museum (CALM) in Bakersfield.  One of the duties was washing out food bowls, as I’m doing in the keepers work area.

Liberal Warrior chose #1947.  A July 2017 storm seen from a favorite camp at Marble View on the Kaibab National Forest, Arizona.

My choices this week from 1988, a friend taught school in La Push, WA, on the Quileute reservation and she lived in a trailer almost on the beach within sight of the ball field and Coast Guard station, convenient to watch for storm flag warnings.

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