Here are a couple from a lookout on a mountain road outside of Palm Springs Ca.

Along with the fact that I haven't been too active on this blog lately and the fact that I will be beginning a picture a day blog on Jan 1, this page may be extra slow for a while. I will try to throw one up occasionally but the other one will probably be keeping me busy. In the meantime, I will try to put up a pic or two before the new year starts. Here is one from our trip out west.

Here are a couple of animals from Jungle Adventures.

Recently while surfing the world wide web looking for different places to see, I ran across a website www.roadtrippers.com . It is pretty neat if you are looking for attractions or interesting things to do. I ran across a place in Christmas Fl. called Jungle Adventures. It turns out that it has been there for 50 some years but I don't remember it even though I have driven by it possibly hundreds of times making trips to the coast to fish or play music. Anyway, we decided to make it a destination for a day trip. It turned out to be a lot of fun.They have a lot of alligators along with many other types of animals. They have some demonstrations. In one of these, we got to hold an alligator. We also had a chance to handle snakes and tarantulas but opted out on those. After we left, we also stopped in at Fort Christmas, another place I had never been though living in Central Florida for 60+ years. Here are a couple of gator pictures.

This is some kind of water flower I found out on Haines Creek in Eustis.

I've been trying to get out on the water at least once a week. With all of the projects that Reba thinks up, I haven't made it there regularly but I've been getting better at it. These two shots are from a morning on Lake Harris, Eustis, Fl.

Since I retired, I no longer have an excuse for not  completing some overdue projects. The first big one was painting the house followed by some landscaping. This was a small area I completed. The bird feeder stays pretty busy with several species birds frequenting it.

I saw a set of commercials that showed several sunrise photos. The commercial went on to say that all of the photos were taken on the first day of someone's retirement. I thought it sounded like a great idea. Since I  retired on a Friday, I decided that the first official day would be the first Monday that I did not need to get up and go to work. Instead, I got up even earlier and went down by Lake Monroe to take sunrise pictures.

I still have a ways to go to get caught up. These two are from a morning out on the St. John's River. It was so foggy when I started that I could only idle around because I couldn't see more than a few feet. As the sun got higher it got better and eventually turned out to be a beautiful day.

I decided to throw a couple more from the trip up today then I will move on. These three were taken in Little Rock, Arkansas. This old mill was used in "Gone With the Wind".

OK OK, I know that if you have checked out this site at all, you have seen many posts that went something like "I've been really busy and haven't had time to shoot or to post or to do either". Well, here is another one. It has been a very long time. Hell, I haven't even posted some that I wanted to from our trip out west. I retired at the end of May so I really don't have an excuse any more. The first thing I am going to do is catch up with a few more from the trip and eventually start posting some new stuff. I am going to attempt to keep this more up to date. For starters, (or maybe more accurately restarters), here are some from the Grand Canyon.

 Reba got a little rowdy running through town so we got delayed waiting for the judge.

  Lots of interesting things in Chloride including a general store.

Sign on the door of one of the old buildings.

This was a window on an old building in Chloride. I thought it looked interesting.

One of the attractions to Chloride is a ghost town area. Those of you from Florida will probably (if you are old enough) remember a place called "Six Gun Territory". This ghost town was like that only on a much smaller scale. They do have a scheduled gunfight in the streets but we were just a little too late to catch it.

After the wedding, we decided that since we don't drink, stay out late or gamble, Vegas didn't really have much to offer us old folks. I'm very glad that we got to see it but I don't really see us making a special trip back anytime soon. On that note, we decided to leave a day earlier than we originally planned so we checked out and hit the road. I had developed a habit of stopping at welcome centers on the way and getting maps and tourist info, partly for the time and partly for future planning after I retire. On the way out, the Arizona center was closed for Columbus day so we needed to stop on the way back. Along the interstate, we saw a sign for an official  Az. welcome center so we took the exit. After getting off we realized that there was nothing around but a sign saying "welcome center 4 miles". Since we were on an adventure anyway, we made the trip. I think a couple of times we heard banjos playing but we finally came to a little town called Chloride Az. I was a nice little town with a lot of old stuff, a ghost town area and a lifestyle that would be nice to settle in to. We ended up spending several hours walking around and looking. This was a sign as we entered the town.

Another shot of Lake Mead.

When we left the dam and headed back to Vegas, I noticed the Lake Mead Recreation Area. I thought it may be a good place to gt off a couple of shots. The only entry fee to the area was, if I remember correctly, a weekly pass, kind of pricey for spending a few minutes taking pictures. After talking with the attendant, he let me go in to the parking area and spend a few minutes without having to pay. The weather was starting to clear up nicely as evidenced by the rainbow.

This was taken from one of the overlooks after crossing the dam. You are looking toward Lake Mead, the lake formed by the dam. There is a barrier to keep the sightseeing boat that you see from being pulled into the currents created when water is flowing.

The weather wasn't great while we were there, kind of cold and rainy. I was a little worried that the weather forecast wouldn't be good for the wedding since it was scheduled to be an outdoor affair. We were keeping our fingers crossed. It was now Thursday so we had one more day for it to clear up. You can't go to Vegas without seeing the Hoover Dam. We thought about a tour bus but decided that we didn't want to be locked in to their schedule so we took off on our own. It was not the best day for a visit but it did clear up enough for periods of time that we were able to walk out on the dam and get out at some of the outlooks. This first shot is looking down the face of the dam. There was a wall about 3 1/2 feet high and 2 feet wide separating the sidewalk from the steep fall. I could not believe that as windy and wet as it was, people were standing up on that wall getting their pictures taken. One slip and there was nothing but concrete and river to stop you.

We stayed at the Plaza, as did many of the folks there for the wedding. As you can see, it was right at the end of Freemont.

We finally got up Vegas on Wednesday. We were staying at the Plaza, which was in the older part of Vegas on Freemont Street. Once we settled into the hotel and picked up the tuxes, it was time to see the sights. When we started, it was still light out so the effect wasn't there but once the sun went down and people started moving around, it really was an interesting sight.

For some reason, I am fascinated by taking pictures of neon.

OK, back to the trip. After spending the evening meeting Whitney's parents over dinner, we went back to Parker to prepare for the trip to Vegas for the wedding. I really liked the view from the lookouts over Lake Havasu (see earlier posts of the lake) so I decided to get up early the next morning to get some sunrise pictures.

Although the lat few posts have all been from our trip, I am going to break from it briefly. These are shots of the last sunset of 2012 as sun disappears over Lake Monroe.