June 11th, 2020

Looks like Joy and I had our cameras out and were hard at work walking miles and taking pictures once again this week!  Yup, it's true.  Another Photo Safari coming at ya!

It was a great hike, an amazing hike really.  There was nobody there but us for one thing. We like when that happens.  And we each took nearly 300 photos.  Wow!  Don't worry, I won't make you look at all of them.

​Here we go.

You know how each of our hikes ends up having a theme?  Well this one had several themes.  For one thing, lizards.  The little buggers were everywhere and instead of all skittering off the instant they saw us, a lot of them hung around long enough to have their pictures taken! Coolio.  And when I say a it was a lot of lizards I mean a LOT!  This is just a sampling:

But it was also the hike of obstacles.  There were downed trees blocking trails that had to be clambered over, overflowing streams to be jumped across and occasionally we had to just  turn back due to completely flooded out trails.  But it didn't stop us! Nosiree!  We had to double back a number of times rather than wade through deeper water but usually it was either a small puddle to jump over or a larger one that we could edge our way around.  But it never once stopped us.  We are either very brave or very foolhardy.  I vote for brave.

We started really early in them morning.  It's getting to that time of year when the temperature is going up and the humidity right along with it.  I can deal with the heat but coupled with the humidity, it's not as much fun as it sounds. Though, to be honest, once we get into our photography groove, we really don't notice silly things like mosquitoes, thirst and sweat.  Then again, we were prepared.  We wore sunscreen, bug spray, dressed in cotton clothing (breathes well) and I carried a thermos of cold water.  We were prepared.  

It started out so pretty though with dew drops and relatively cool (ish) breezes. 

It warmed up fast though and the dewdrops, except in the deepest shadows soon were gone.  And instead we saw some extraordinary bugs. I had actually only ever heard of the hummingbird moth before this hike, so it was amazing to get that photo.  The grasshoppers were enormous and none of them were actually hopping so that was unusual.  Oh and I caught a bee in flight!  I've never done that before so I especially tickled with that photo.

We've had a lot of rain so the river was high and as the morning wore on, the breeze died down so the water was still, almost mirror-like.  Makes for pretty pictures.  There was one boat that glided by us silently on the river and we saw a few other boats on the banks of the river with no people anywhere in sight, which makes ya kind of wonder......

As always there were some beautiful flowery things.  I'm sure most of them are wildflowers of some sort of another which is just  a fancy weed frankly, but I don't care. I love them just the same.  AND I have no idea what any of them are so don't bother asking.  Unlike Joy, I am too lazy to take the time to look them up for identification.

And then there are always the things that just defy categorization.  Just a collection of random unrelated things.  This is always my favourite part  :)

Not all of the trails were washed out or blocked with fallen trees and branches.  Some were dry, beautiful and picturesque.

I suppose this has all gone on long enough.  Time for all of us to get on with our day now and stop looking at pictures of the photo safari.  You heard me.  It's time to stop.  It's done now.  The Blogpost is over.  Time to get back to whatever you were doing before or move on to the next thing.  Dang that means me too. Ratz.  Now I have to stop having fun and go be responsible.  Which I suspect involves laundry and cleaning bathrooms.

Have a perfectly lovely day. Thanks for looking at my photos!

​Hugs all 'round