Category: Foto Friday Fun

This week’s Foto Friday Fun features images chosen by 10 readers including canyons, the Colorado River, wildlife, and new friends.

Lisa chose #5032.  My second visit to Palm Canyon in Anza Borrego Desert State Park the winter of 2015 included flowers like these red Chuparosa.

Rita chose #5075.  I feel lucky when I can photograph birds, they’re so flighty.  Better luck sometimes with birds of prey like this Yellow-billed Kite seen in Kruger National Park while on safari in February 2014.

Diane and Nigel chose #3101.  Certainly a sight they’ve seen.  These two I saw in Addo Elephant National Park during my first visit in 2010.  I could watch elephants all day.

Jennifer chose #122.  My last season as a Ranger at Oregon Caves in 2007 I was also a camp host four miles down the road at Cave Creek campground.  This was my ‘yard’ from the creek with my old 5th-wheel parked.

Jeff chose #1774, “the year the local natives led Juan Bautista de Anza to water in the Yuha Desert.”  He’s referring to the Anza of Borrego above, so guess he got the wrong photo.  Instead, we see water vapor dancing around the rock temples seen from the North Rim Grand Canyon National Park.

Sherry chose #2420, “the day I really do have to get a site for next year at an impossible campground.”  I’m not sure where she means but couldn’t be here at Toroweap where it would be impossible to get her big motorhome to the campground.   Despite the slow rough drive, I prefer to camp and enjoy the evening, and morning, views like this shot looking 3000 feet down and upstream on the Colorado River in Grand Canyon.

Yogi chose #7711.  A Quartzsite desert sunset from Plamosa Road camped north of town on BLM back in March 2015.  I could easily end up there again in the near future.

Jo chose #4999.  This shot of the inner canyon and Colorado River taken from the South Rim somewhere along the Hermit Road.  I was there for training before the North Rim opened in 2016.

Melissa chose #1120, “in honor of my sweet grandson who is one of the lights of my life.”  They have ‘bridged’ the gap in generations.  Sorry, that was sic.  Driving SR89 through Cameron, Arizona I always admire this old bridge that crosses the Little Colorado River.

Sallie and Bill chose #2220, the previous day’s date, their youngest great-grands first BD, and it’s a really cool number.  Sorry, that number deserved better than an oil well seen on a backroad to Hovenweep National Monument, Utah.

My choice is the crew who went with Finius the Skinniest yesterday to wander around his mining claim in Quartzsite, Arizona.  We found a lot of pretty rocks, and most of them were leaverites.  As in leave-right-there.

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 0001 and 9999 in your comment below.

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This week’s Foto Friday Fun features images chosen by 12 readers including several shots at Grand Canyon plus a mishmash of other mostly national parks, Utah, Arizona, Washington, and South Africa.

Diane and Nigel chose #2401.  When planning a mini-vacation in Utah fall of 2015 I coordinated the first stop at Hovenweep National Monument with a lunar eclipse.  And, of course I posted about that here.  What I hadn’t seen until processing this shot was what I assume is an airplane.  That’s pretty cool.

Yogi chose #9976.  A view he’s probably seen before and over the years of our friendship.  This was a morning view from my RV parked on the North Rim Grand Canyon National Park on 4-26-15.  That’s before the North Rim was yet open for the season.

Jeff chose #2929 “the street address of the Mission Bay RV Park.” he recently posted about.  There really isn’t a street address for the North Rim Grand Lodge, except end of the road where this turn around occurs.  This is the Forever Resort cookout train in the 2014 4th of July water parade.

Jodee and Bill chose #259, one of four in a panorama.  I was on the South Rim of Grand Canyon at Desert View Tower on 5-8-08 at a training session so this view includes the North Rim on the far left, Colorado River in the bottom of the canyon and Cedar Mountain on the far right.

Melissa chose #4096.  I saw quite a few lions during the two visits to Kruger National Park in 2014.

Jo chose #2901, the date of her recently passed MIL’s memorial.  This shot taken in June 2015 at the North Rim Grand Canyon seems appropriate as the circle rainbow effect is called a ‘glory’.  May Pam RIP.

Sallie and Bill chose #3825, “I finished the Sunday crossword in 38 minutes and 25 seconds (there’s a timer on my app).”  I use very few apps but do like PhotoPills for lining up the sun and moon.  Like this sunset including crepuscular rays shot from Cape Royal on the North Rim Grand Canyon National Park 8-24-16.

Deanna chose #549, the price of a much needed French press found at a thrift store.  Coffee to go with those delicious cookies you bake?  Plus a warm cuppa would be nice when snow is seen like in this 5-24-10 shot looking north from the Bright Angel Point trail on the North Rim Grand Canyon.

Rita chose #7308.  An iconic view of Grand Canyon from the North Rim’s Grand Lodge.  I love the shadows seen late in the day highlighting the contours on the rock temples.

Lisa chose #617.  During my first visit to South Africa in March 2010, my guide and friend Joan took me to several amazing places in the Blyde River Canyon Nature Reserve including Berlyn Falls.

Susie chose #1970, “the year my daughter was born.”  The year 2015 introduced me to Bill and he to many new places in southern Utah and northern Arizona, like White Pocket.  Love those swirly rocks.

Doris chose #104.  I always admired the tenacity of this stump in the blast zone when I worked at Mt St Helens National Volcanic Monument, my first Ranger job in 1992.

My choice because I saw what a photog friend did following after my visit to the Gillespie Dam last week and she shot in B&W.

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 0001 and 9999 in your comment below.

Do you have a favorite this week?

This week’s Foto Friday Fun features images chosen by 11 readers including South Africa, the USA Southwest, and the classiest camp ride ever.

Diane and Nigel chose #1701.  I love when this happens as I, and they, met Joan in South Africa after knowing her for many years online.  Look closely and you’ll see her sitting in the tall grass when we hiked to Sterkspruit Falls at the feet of the Drakensburg Mountains.  Which, by the way, is where blogger Jo (comment below who I also met in South Africa) currently lives.

Rita chose #3839.  This view across the Sowats drainage and Esplanade to the Kaibab Plateau was seen from Jumpup Point, the most remote site I’ve been to along the rim of the Grand Canyon.

Jennifer chose #20, for the temperature at -20°C, in Canada.  Nowhere near that cold as I remember in December, 1996 at White Tank campground near this granitic arch in Joshua Tree National Park, California.

Doris chose #547.  I’ve lost count how many times I saw, and tried to shoot through the windshield, this view north of some of the rock layers of the Grand Staircase in Utah along SR89, still in the Kaibab National Forest, Arizona.  This route took me from the North Rim of Grand Canyon where I worked to Kanab, Utah the closest place to shop.

Carla chose #1982, one of two in a panorama.  So when blogger-Jo’s son (remember from above) guided me on an overnight backpack in March 2010, this was my morning view from camp looking up at the dragon’s teeth of the South African Drakensburg Mountains.

Sallie and Bill chose #1218 for the time of day.  You can pick fresh thyme in Yarnell any time of day.  It grows everywhere.  This small bunch volunteered around the broken edges of chunks of concrete on a hillside next to where I lived.  This shot with flowers was taken in late April, 2009.

Jeff chose #1602, “it took me 16:02 to finish this mornings Sudoku.”  It took somebody more time than that to figure out and place this Geodetic Survey Marker, #2 out of 3, at one of my favorite camping locations on the Kaibab National Forest, Marble View.  I don’t search for these markers but they intrigue me and I always take a photo of them when I trip across them.  Maybe that’s early ‘geocaching’?  Have to ask Yogi about that.

Yogi let random dot org choose #34.  I am so glad to have this scanned photo of a friend from September 1974, the classiest camp ride ever, my Mom’s Caddy.  A boyfriend and another couple borrowed the car for a vacation to the Upper Peninsula in Michigan.  Even with the canoe packed too heavy to lift, we used climbing ropes, the trunk had to be tied shut.  It came home with a few new forest racing stripes.  Alan, feel free to weigh in on the above geocaching idea.

Jo chose #9000.  This colorful sunset is in tribute to her MIL who passed away recently at the age of 90 plus.  May she RIP.  This March, 2015 view was shot from another blogger friend’s back yard in Chino Valley, Arizona.

Jodee and Bill chose #401.  A lovers knot for these two lovely people (and also bloggers I’ve fortunately met).  It’s actually part of a dextral Ponderosa Pine seen along the Lava Flow Trail in Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, Arizona during an April, 2009 visit.

Melissa chose #6675.  Bouldering along the coastal terrain on the Tsitsikamma Waterfall Trail we came upon this shallow cave eroded into the tipped and fractured sedimentary rock.  I wish there had been more of those stairs along the rugged way.  It was so worth it.

My choice shows some of the Cholla in shadow below the Vulture Mountains near my two-night BLM camp not far from Wickenburg, Arizona.  On the ground gap between these Jumping Cholla you’ll see pieces of this spiny cactus just waiting to jump on the unwary passerby.  Not me, I use the zoom lens.  Due to a lack of strong consistent signal this view delayed publishing at the usual time.  Sigh…

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 0001 and 9999 in your comment below.

Do you have a favorite this week?