Catching an early flight

The elusive female zip liner

Nap time with a tree trunk pillow

Yellow crowned night heron grooming itself

Try this next time you are doing shadow puppets

ORMOND BEACH, FL - - A few weeks ago we did our every-so-often trip to the Alligator Farm in St. Augustine.  Thursday we went back.  This time not only were there only a few visitors, but the slim bird population encountered on the previous visit had apparently headed home early for the holidays.   However, we did catch a glimpse of the rare 'female zip liner' zipping past.
     The normal residents  (gators) can't go far.  The ones who weren't napping were waiting.  You don't want to fall into their territory.  

An antidote for 80 degrees

April 25, 2007; Alberta, Canada

ORMOND BEACH, FL - - December will roll in a day from now.  But instead of cooler weather, we have sunshine and 80 degrees.  However, we can check the photo archives for something a bit cooler. 

"The usual??"

Rivergate

ORMOND BEACH, FL - - We have a favorite breakfast place which we  head to nearly every Saturday.  It's about a 2.5-mile walk each way which can be invigorating at this time of year since we leave the house at 6:10am.  The usual suspects arrive at about the time we do when a waitress clicks the"open" sign on.  There are usually 10-12 regulars along with us.  The reason people keep coming back is that the food at Rivergate (especially the drop biscuits) is very good, the prices  reasonable and everybody is  friendly.
     Rivergate Coffee Shoppe has been around for more than 25 years,  according to one of the 'seasoned waitresses.  We have been regulars for nearly 12 years and the faces of the servers are pretty much the same.
     You know you're 'back home' when it's your first time back in five months and the waitress asks:  "You having the usual??" 

Toy soldiers on guard

ORMOND BEACH, FL - -  Saturday (11/18) we chose to head to nearby DeLand for their annual Fall Arts Festival.  As this is mid-November the city already had some of their Christmas decorations out.  Our favorite, for a number of years, has been the larger than life toy soldiers.  They are always nice and gleaming in their uniforms and located on a few street corners like they are on guard.  They fit in  nicely with the festival.
     A special attraction (on which we could find no information) was a troupe  of silent performers.  Two were on intricately constructed metal stallions which they 'rode' while on balancing stilts and pacing just as a steed would do. Additionally, they could manipulate the neck/head of the animal so that it appeared very real. The horsemen were in  colorful outfits with multi-colored plumes of feathers and had 'legs' which appeared to be in stirrups. Two colorfully dressed attendants led the horsemen and enhanced their movement. 
     Unfortunately, the troupe was heading in a direction which had them back lit.

I like trains

Saturday morning special

ORMOND BEACH, FL - - Skagway, Alaska.  Gold rush country.  It's mid-August in 2006.  We're tour guides and drivers for a company called Frontier Excursions.  Our lodging was quite close to the railway tracks which the  White Pass & Yukon Railway utilized for their tours.  Normally they used diesel power, but on Saturdays they brought out one of their "old" steam locomotives.  The chuff-chuff-chuff of the engine as it was building up a head of steam and the whoo-whoo of the whistle are easily remembered. 

How to get to outer space

Falcon 9 booster rocket only moves slowly on Earth

ORMOND BEACH, FL - - We had an unexpected bonus to our lighthouse tour (see previous blog) as we were leaving Cape Canaveral.  A Falcon 9 booster rocket was being returned to the SpaceX facility.  SpaceX or more correctly Space Exploration Technology Corp. is a private enterprise on CC launching payloads into space, and soon, to the Space Station.
     Elon Musk, the individual behind Tesla automobiles, is also the "father" of Space X.  The key is reusable rocket boosters...to make the business viable and save money.  This is very new technology.
     This booster was utilized in  an October 30 launch from CC.  After a four minutes-plus burn the booster uncoupled 20-plus miles above the Earth.  Now for the hard parts:   return to Earth, don't burn up in the atmosphere and touch down upright on a 'barge' out in the ocean.  In order to do all this, the rocket performed a "flip" so that it was descending with engine thrusters forward.  The rocket is then 'steered' to the barge and the small landing pad on it.
     The only thing remotely comparable might be fighter jet pilots landing on an aircraft carrier.
     spaceflightnow.com is a good website to check for more info.

Cape Canaveral lighthouse

ORMOND BEACH, FL - - The Cape Canaveral lighthouse isn't the only one on a military base, but it is the only one owned by the U. S. Air Force.  Located on Cape Canaveral Air Force station,  an installation within the Kennedy Space Center.
     The only way to reach the lighthouse is to take a guided bus tour which encompasses driving by a number of launch pads.  Interesting, but you don't get a chance  to stop. We did spend an hour at the lighthouse.
     This is the third build and location.  Number one (1848) was right on the ocean's edge.  Great idea except for erosion from storms.  And while it apparently had a good light with a visibility of six miles,  the shoals the light warned against were 11 and 13 miles off shore.
     In 1868 the move of the lighthouse to a safer location was completed.  Nice try.  In 1894 it was moved nearly 1 mile inland and constructed of brick and steel.  At 151 feet and fitted with a Fresnel lens this seemed to do the trick.
     Fast forward over 100 years to  the space age.  With the lighthouse location in the vicinity of launch complex 37,  a new challenge arose...rockets blasting off in to space were literally shaking the delicate Fresnel lens apart.
     In 1993, a high-powered searchlight was installed and the Fresnel lens was turned into a museum display at the Ponce de Leon Inlet lighthouse.
    

The view from the Exploration Tower

Size matters

ORMOND BEACH, FL - - Tuesday was a " Let's get away" day.  So wew went to do a tour of the Cape Canaveral Lighthouse (more in the next blog).  The end of the tour was at the Exploration Tower in Port Canaveral.  Seven stories up (on the roof) you had a really good view.  Note how huge the cruise ship looks to the expensive yacht passing by.

A tale of two sailboats

Looks like this sailboat escaped extreme hurricane damage

Until you notice the river is on the other side of the trees

This sunken sailboat is pinned against a fishing pier

ORMOND BEACH, FL - - On our recent trips along the Halifax River we've noticed that  Hurricane Irma broke up a lot of  piers and walkways plus sunk a number of boats that couldn't reach safe shelter.  In the top two pics, the sailboat is intact and floating.  Just how it got into this location appears to be a mystery.  The boat rests in a land-locked body of water very near the Halifax River where it should be.  Did high tide combined with wind and storm surge wash it in?
     The bottom pic is of what's left of a sailboat which was rammed by the elements into the park's main fishing pier.  It had a nice metal mast, but that was being salvaged / stolen just before I shot the photo. 
     So who has the better story to tell the insurance folks...the owner with the sunken boat or the guy with a reasonably intact boat but the challenge of trying to move it back  into its logical location - - the river.

Spot the photographer in the bushes

You can't fall off a cliff, but you might go for a swim

Yellow-crowned nightheron...badly back-lit

ORMOND BEACH, FL - - Sunset Park is about 3 miles from where we live.  It can be good for bird photos if you look hard enough.  Lydia spotted a bird we seldom see, much less just hanging out.  Fortunately the walkway close by didn't get a beating from Hurricane Irma unlike the rest of the piers / walkways at the park.
     You could get a good angle for a shot right from the walkway (as I did). Unfortunately the light was bad (see above).  So my intrepid partner decided to go bush.  Check out Lydia's shots on Flicker at: www.flickr.com/photos/seabirdstalker/

High in the mountains

ORMOND BEACH, FL - - This is another edition of my blog on where we go to get pics.  We're on a trail high above a glacial pond fed by chunks of ice and run-off from the surrounding glaciers in Jasper National Park (Canada)  This is Mt. Edith Cavell, a favorite place for pics and hikes.
      Lydia is using a 70-200mm lens on her Canon 7D camera body.  It's a great multi-purpose lens for many situations.  I have the same set up which allows me to take photos of a subject on the edge (of the trail) while I can stay in relative safety.
     As I've stated before, agile and fearless plus a lot more descriptive words have been dropped from my vocabulary.