Reba and Matt standing by a phone booth near the London Bridge.

The area where the London Bridge is located is kind of a touristy (?) area as you can imagine but it seems to also be a gathering place for locals who shop, play in the water and boat. I think they may do some drinking there too.

 I know, I haven't posted in a long time. My computer is acting up and I just haven't been in the mood to mess with photos.

When I left off last time, we were on our way to Lake Havasu City, doing some sightseeing along the way. Several years ago (I know I probably should have done the research to find out exactly when), some guy bought the London Bridge and had it moved in pieces to Lake Havasu where it was reassembled. I'm told that each piece was carefully numbered so that it could go back together exactly as it was built.

A couple more photos of Lake Havasu.

North of the Parker dam is Lake Havasu, formed by flooding from damming the Colorado River. This is a huge Lake and stretches all the way to the North to Lake Havasu City.

The Parker Dam, located outside of Parker AZ,. straddles the border between Arizona and California.It crosses the Colorado River and forms Lake Havasu to the north. The dam is 320 feet high but 235 feet of it is below the riverbed. This makes it the deepest dam in the world.

Looking south from the dam.

Reba reminded me today that I had not posted a photo in a while. Once we picked Matthew up, we headed out for some sightseeing. We went back to the California side of the Colorado River and headed up to the north. Along the way, we saw signs warning of wild burros. Apparently they can be a problem there, hanging out on the road and causing delays or accidents. We didn't see any on the road but did pass a few grazing near a campground like they owned the place.

We got to Parker Az. where Matt lives on Monday evening. We had a nice dinner with him. Unfortunately, Whitney had to work and was finishing up on some wedding plans so she didn't make it there until later. We did have a nice evening with the kids and then it was off to bed for the old folks. Tuesday morning, had plans to spend the day with Matt doing some sightseeing. We got up a little earlier and took a drive into California. (Parker is right on the Az./Ca. border so it was a short trip). This photo was taken while looking across the Colorado River from the California side.

This is another from the Indian village. I was not too excited about the defacing of the American flag but from what I hear, I'm not surprised.

In the last post, I mentioned the Indian trading post of sorts that was near the welcome center. I was surprised that with the number of people at the welcome station, that there were not more people here. I think I later learned why. Reba had been wanting to buy some kind of Indian Jewelry since we were in Indian country. Although we didn't go inside this establishment, all of the others seemed to have very expensive merchandise, more than one would want to spend at a roadside stand. I don't want to say I didn't  trust them but...

A couple more from Arizona.

As we entered Arizona, we stopped at  an Official Welcome Center that was located next to an Indian Trading post of sorts. It was in a very scenic area. The structures looked out of place with all of the rock formations. There will be some pictures of those to follow.

For some reason for which I am not quite sure, I really didn't take many photos in New Mexico. I think maybe we were just trying to get to our destination by evening and wanted to make sure that we didn't waste too much time. We had hoped to get to Albuquerque to spend the night the evening before but when we stopped at a rest area entering NM, we found out that there was an international balloon festival going on there. Apparently, rooms were going to be very difficult to find so we stopped instead at a town called Santa Rosa for the night. We actually stayed in a Motel 6 on Route 66. I still kick myself for not getting some kind of a Rt 66 shot. Oh well, I'm sure I'll get another chance next trip out. Anyway, that put us a little behind the next morning with an extra 100 miles or so to go. This picture was taken at a "Scenic View" area on I-40.

What would a trip through Texas be without pictures of longhorn steer?

Found near the bottom of the Palo Duro Canyon by a spot that appeared to be a theater area. It was closed on the day were there.

One nice thing about the Palo Duro Canyon State Park is that in approximately 3 hours, you can drive to the bottom and back up with plenty of time to stop and take photos.

We stopped at a welcome center near Amarillo, Texas to get a map and ask about interesting things to see. We were told about Palo Duro Canyon State Park, home of the second biggest canyon in the US. I'm sure you can guess the biggest. It was about 25 miles off of the interstate so we decided to take a little side trip. It had stopped raining but was still very overcast and dreary. I would like to return there one day to see what it would look like in the sunshine,

This is not something you see at a lot of Florida rest areas. This was taken in Texas. Signs like this were common there and in states like New Mexico and Arizona.

May as well get this thing going... As said in a post the other day, most of the first two days were a waste photo wise since we were watching our time on day 1 and we awoke to rainy nasty weather on day 2.  It stayed rainy and cloudy all day but it did at least quit raining finally. We pulled off the interstate in a little town called Shamrock, Texas and decided to explore a little. We ended up on some dirt roads through farmland where we ran into (not literally) some cows grazing near the road. When I stopped, the black one came over to the fence to pose..

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I don't know why I didn't start posting during the trip until yesterday. I gues because I couldn't post photos and forgot that this is also a place for me to just write stuff.  We stayed in Little Rock, Arkansas last night. What an adventure. We had upstairs neighbors that were making a tremendous amount of noise up through about 1 am. They finally quieted down until around 4 when they got really loud. It sounded like some kids running all over the place and people stomping or falling on the floor. It eventually moved into the parking lot. When I looked out of the window, I saw a guy banging on the driver's window of a car with someone (I guess his wife/girlfriend) inside. After much screaming and yelling, he opened the door as the driver backed out of the space and drove off. I thought the guy was going to get dragged along but he let go. The driver left quickly and the guy walked across the street to a park. It was mostly quiet the rest of the night but in the morning when we left, I didn't see the car and the guy was sitting in the park. I'm guessing there may have been some alcohol involved somewhere. Needless to say, we did not get a lot of sleep.

We had a nice day on the road anyway. We went to Nashville via Memphis and ended up somewhere between Chattanooga and Atlanta before we ran out of energy. We're hoping for a quiet uneventful night.

I haven't posted any pics here for a while. I have still been taking a few but just haven't felt like putting anything up. This is going to be changing in the very near future. Reba and I are just finishing up a trip out west to see our son get married. We decided to take a little extra time and drive out. We enjoy road trips and travel well together so we thought it would be fun. We were right. The first couple of days, the weather was not very good and we had to make sure we got there in time so the cameras pretty much stayed in the bag. It started clearing up while we were in Texas so we visited a canyon near Amarillo that is the second largest canyon in the country. We also had the opportunity to visit the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon with a few other miscellaneous spots. I ended up taking somewhere around 1000 photos. It is going to take a while to get through all of them but I think this will give some material for this blog for quite a while. Check back soon for the first installment. I hope you enjoy them.

I really haven't much time to take any new pictures so I'm going to occasionally bombard you with older ones until I get some time. This is another from Cedar Key. It is an abandoned real estate office,

Cedar Key is kind of an interesting little town, kinda beachy (is that a word?). The beach area is very colorful in places. The entrance to this store was very busy (colorwise) but I found it interesting.

Here is another from Cedar Key. This was the door to a small bookstore on the main drag.

Again I got distracted for a while and haven't been posting. Here is another from Cedar Key, shortly before the tropical storm came in.

This is a shot from the pier of "The Bait Bucket", a bait shop, restaurant, souvenir store, quickie mart combination. I found the contrast of the old structures and the array of TV dished interesting.

There is a short stretch of road on Cedar Key that runs right by the gulf. On the gulf side are a few structures including a fishing pier, a hotel, a bait shop, some shops and a couple of eateries. This shot is looking back from the pier to the hotel. I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head but if I remember or run across a picture withe the name, I'll come back and add it here.

Cedar Key has a waterfront cemetery. Surrounding it is a scenic boardwalk. I thought it was an odd place for it but what the hey.....

On Saturday, we took one of the island tours leaving  from the downtown marina. With T.S Debby sitting out in the Gulf, it was cloudy and windy but fortunately no rain. Since the marina was walking distance from the motel, we walked around the historic district and arrived at the departure point at about 6:15 for a 7:00 launch. While we were waiting, we got to watch part of a beach wedding with a pirate theme. I'll probably post a pic of that soon. Finally, when 7:00 rolled round, the other 4 people scheduled for the tour had not arrived. With the weather the way it was and the no show passengers, I really expected the Captain to cancel the tour but he was still game and said it would be safe so we took off. It was a great tour, very informative, and when you are the only passengers, it is very relaxed and informal. The tour lasted almost two hours and got us back to the port just as it was getting dark. If you are in the Cedar Key area, I would highly recommend these guys for your tour. Cedar Key Boat Rentals and Island Tours.

I haven't posted here for a while. For the most part, I have been pretty busy and haven't gone anywhere to do any shooting to speak of. Well...that changed last weekend. We went to Cedar Key for a short weekend getaway so you can expect to see photos from there popping up here for a while. We stayed at a small motel in the historic district. It was not really a place I would highly recommend but it was clean and comfortable and the staff was pleasant. Some unique features...no remote for the TV, one light switch by the door controlled every receptacle in the room, the bathroom door would not close, and.no outlet for a hair dryer by the sink to name a few. .

I was looking through some old pictures tonight and found this one.

I took this picture of the "Super Moon" last weekend but haven't had a chance to post until now. If I understand it correctly, last week, the moon was at its closest point to the earth that it has been in many years during a full moon cycle. I hope I explained that well enough. Anyway, this is what it looked like at my house.

From a recent outing on the St. Johns River

We took a tour of an old general store while in St. Augustine. I wasn't expecting much but it was really pretty good. This was one of the old items in their warehouse.

St. Augustine

Another from a nearby wall.

I have not had time to shoot much lately or to post. The shooting part doesn't seem to be getting much better but at least I am going to try to post some recent shots. This is from the side of an old store in North Florida.