• animals,  National Parks,  Yellowstone National Park

    Hard to imagine…

    A lone bison along the Madison River outside of West Yellowstone

    American Bison once numbered in the millions, perhaps between 25 million and 60 million by some estimates, and they were possibly the most numerous large land animal on earth. However, by the late 1880s, they had been hunted to near extinction throughout North America. The Yellowstone Park bison herd was the last free-ranging bison herd in the United States being the only place where bison were not extirpated. The Yellowstone Park bison herd is descended from a remnant population of 23 individual bison that survived the mass slaughter of the 19th century in the Pelican Valley of Yellowstone Park. To assist in the species’ revival, in 1896 the United States government obtained one bull and seven cows from the Lincoln Park Zoo bison herd for Yellowstone. In 1902, a captive herd of 21 Goodnight plains bison was introduced to the park and then moved to the Lamar Valley and managed as livestock until the 1960s, when a policy of natural regulation was adopted by the park. Yellowstone National Park has large areas of alpine meadows and grass prairie and this provides a nearly optimum environment for American bison who live in river valleys, and on prairies and plains. Their typical habitat is open or semi-open grasslands, as well as sagebrush grasslands, semi-arid lands, and scrublands. Some lightly wooded areas are also known historically to have supported bison. Bison will also graze in hilly or mountainous areas where the slopes are not steep. It’s hard to imagine those numbers of bison especially when you look at the lone bison in the above image. (Information from Wikipedia.)

  • landscape,  mountains,  National Parks,  Smoky Mountains National Park,  sunrises

    Sunrise at Foothills Parkway

    Sunrise on Foothills Parkway in the Smoky Mountains

    In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy skips and dances down a yellow brick road in hopes of finding the Wizard of Oz who will help her return home to Kansas. Traveling that yellow brick road lead her to new horizons, discovering her gifts of wisdom, courage, and love. I like to think of Dorothy’s yellow brick road as a metaphor of our spiritual journey to new horizons.

    Some of us live in the shadow of an illusionary self, a false-self that alienates us from reality, much of this world and a Creator. We can be blind to the possibility of the horizons yet to be discovered, paralyzed with fear, failing to venture forward on our yellow brick road and discover our gifts of wisdom, courage, and love, which I choose to call our true-self.

    “May we seek this inward path to encounter the true-self, the essence of who we are, and allow ourselves to be embraced by love.”

  • clouds,  fall season,  landscape,  leaves,  Rocky Mountain National Park,  seasons,  trees

    A Day for Clouds

    Horseshoe Park in Rocky Mountain National Park

    Well, Kathy, Tom and I ventured into Rocky Mountain Park yesterday. It turned out to be a perfect day. The clouds were the subject even though we were looking for the colors of our Colorado Aspens. We did not know it was a day for free entrance into the park so needless to say people were everywhere. I was a little disappointed because we didn’t get to use our senior passes. 🙁

    Shadows casting across what I think is Mount Chapin on Trail Ridge Road

    We ended up driving farther than we expected and made it almost to the Alpine Visitors Center. We decided to turn around before getting caught in the congestion in the parking lot at the center. It was tough enough finding parking in all the turnouts. Yesterday we had rain and wind so that seemed to make for the clear blue skies we enjoyed.

    Aspen colors near Hidden Valley in Rocky Mountain National Park

    The park was crowded. They even had the road to Bear Lake closed because of the traffic. Estes Park was also a mess because of the Elk Festival in town. We took the bypass around town, another smart move. Today we are planning a drive up Poudre Canyon. We have light fog this morning but that should burn off and give us a sunny day.

  • landscape,  mountains,  Smoky Mountains National Park,  sunrises

    Something from the Past

    This is another HDR image from a trip back in 2003 to the Great Smoky Mountains. It is a sunset image taken on the Foothills Parkway. This image is a merging of three images exposed plus and minus 2/3 stop. I took it prior to any knowledge of HDR. My reason for the multiple exposures was to make sure I had a good exposure. It was taken with my first DSLR, a Nikon D100 and the Nikon 80-400mm lens. It wasn’t a day or two later that I dropped that lens and destroyed it. I pretty much bent it in the middle. Lesson learned was to make sure the camera and lens are securely fastened to your tripod before picking up your tripod. I ended up shooting the rest of the trip with one lens, a Sigma 24-85mm f2.8-4.0 lens.

  • landscape,  mountains,  National Parks,  Rocky Mountain National Park

    Motivation: or lack of desire

    I sure have not had much desire or motivation to be on the internet. Therefore I have not taken many images (although its always with me), I have not posted much on this site,I have not kept up with my favorite blogs (yes yours), I haven’t been out to my nature areas much. I have, however, been working on my cardiac rehab, putting in time on the treadmill, bicycle and rower three days a week, and walking, and spending money at my favorite coffee shops. My walking has been shortened due to the cold weather. We had sub-zero temperatures a couple mornings in a row. Looking forward to Spring and Summer.

    Each February 1st my friend, Kay and I make a day trip to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park in memory of her husband, Wayne. This year marked six years ago he died. Wayne was a good friend of mine as we found we connected with similar spiritual paths and read the same authors. We always finish off the day trip with a late lunch at one of Wayne’s favorite restaurants, Sweet Basilicas.

    The above image was taken at a turnout in Horseshoe Meadows just inside the north entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. Hope all is well with you and I will do my best to get back up to speed at whatever rate my body and mind need.