I’m peeking back in to make sure we haven’t left anyone behind. What are you still doing here? You didn‘t believe me, did you?

Don’t you feel lonely? We’re all over at the new place sipping soda and chatting.

We won’t put you to sleep. Won’t you join us?

Sitting here in the dark all by yourself, you’re liable to grow fungus on your feet.

That’s right, you’ve got it now. See you there!

It’s time to go, the time is now. . . Oh yeah, I’m not Dr Suess. But it’s time to start moving over to the new site. Don’t forget to change my feed in your reader and I do hope I’ll see you over there. All the old stuff will remain here, but in 1 day (Hello, is this thing on?!)  there will be nothing new here(quit procrastinating). So change your links, pretty please and come play with me over there. We’ll have just as much fun, maybe more! You never know what’s in store.  (Dang you Suess)

A word of warning that the new place is, well, new. It still needs some cleaning up and rearranging, some prettifying really but I promise to not make you do any work, I’ll just dust around you. It won’t be long until you wanna take your shoes off, grab a soda and relax there. Heck you can come in your jammies if you like. I don’t mind at all. Maybe we can have a pillow fight!  Woo hoo!

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Turtles are pretty common along Missouri roads and we happened upon this guy on a dead end road so I was able to take a few moments to admire him. I don’t know if you can tell, but he’s pretty good size.

When I moved that rock from in front of him he decided to retreat and peek.

{Snake alert for Aims}

We decided to try to find a cache at Jolly Mill but as we crossed the bridge (the bridge we were on is the third photo from the top) we saw this swimming in the water below.

This water moccasin (western cottonmouth) was no baby either, he was big, and he wasn’t alone, we counted three of them.

See the fish below him? How cool.

That is one huge crawdad!

There were some nests on the bottom side of the bridge, and hanging out of one was. . .a snake skin! EEEK! I’m outta here!

Btw: we did NOT go after the cache.

It’s time to start moving over to the new site. Don’t forget to change my feed in your reader and I do hope I’ll see you over there. All the old stuff will remain here, but in 2 days there will be nothing new here. 

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This was a view from a cemetery in Texas and I couldn’t help but think of Jenni in Kansas when I saw it.

We stopped at a cemetery near the highway in Oklahoma, somewhere after I poked fun at the naming of the Washita River (I kid you not). I kept singing WY! Sheet a River, I’m a dork that way. But back to the point, this cemetery was inundated (they nest in colonies) with Great-tailed Grackles.

Huge, happy, hungry (apparently) Grackles. And these photos are of various ones and pairs, not the same one over and over.

So many of the mama Grackles had bugs in their mouths, I am assuming for babies and the daddies were telling us to get the heck away from their trees, where I assume the nests were.

I hope you all have a happy wonderful fourth!

We did a small amount of fireworks with our kids. (Haden wrote his name in the air - kinda)

I held the sweet, tired, Tristan throughout the show and we enjoyed a few sparklers of our own.

We were doing swell.

And then someone got hurt. A spark jumped off of the sparkler onto Tristan’s arm (see it hit there in the crease of his elbow? Dennis snapped the photo at just the right moment.). I brushed it away as he hollered and I ripped that sparkler out of his hand and threw it on the ground. His mom, daddy and I doctored him up and he’s fine, it didn’t blister but poor baby.

All the photos in this post were taken by my hubby as I was busy with the grandbaby.

Have a happy and safe holiday!

It’s time to go, the time is now. . . Oh yeah, I’m not Dr Suess. But it’s time to start moving over to the new site. Don’t forget to change my feed in your reader and I do hope I’ll see you over there. All the old stuff will remain here, but in 3 days there will be nothing new here. So change your links, pretty please and come play with me over there. We’ll have just as much fun, maybe more! You never know what’s in store.  (Dang you Suess)

A word of warning that the new place is, well, new. It still needs some cleaning up and rearranging, some prettifying really but I promise to not make you do any work, I’ll just dust around you. It won’t be long until you wanna take your shoes off, grab a soda and relax there. Heck you can come in your jammies if you like. I don’t mind at all. Maybe we can have a pillow fight!  Woo hoo!

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I was able to park and just walk in a small area near the car in clear terrain (keeping watch for snakes) and see all of these birds. There were also a few who avoided me a little better, sorry for that.

A few Bullock’s Orioles.

A couple of little woodpeckers.

(This one cracked me up, as he peeked around making sure the coast was clear for him to lunch on the “no picnicking sign”.)

A cute little Lark Sparrow perched on a rock.

A few Finches, I kept scaring the poor female off her nest. She built under a picnic shelter and each time I passed under the shelter she scared me as much as I scared her.

But my prize of the day was the privilege of seeing, in real life, with my own two eyes, a Painted Bunting. I had only seen this bird in my bird book and thought it would be cool to see one but I feel especially special that one happened to be at the canyon during the the short time I was there watching.

So bright and colorful, people often mistake the Painted Bunting for an escaped pet tropical bird.

He wouldn’t let me get any closer but I hope you can see how beautiful he is. I soaked up his song while my men waited for me at the car.

Identification An adult male Painted Bunting is arguably the most distinctive songbird in North America, with the combination of a deep blue head, red underparts, a green back, and a red rump. While not as brightly colored as males, female Painted Buntings are also distinctive. The female has an overall greenish plumage which is more darkly colored above than below. ~quoted from Audubon (They left off the red eye ring mentioned on other sites.)

Isn’t he beautiful?! I got too close apparently and off he flew. I enjoyed my time in his presence and hope you have too.

As we drove out of the park Dennis pulled off to the side and I shot this bird from the car. I’m pretty sure it’s a Western Kingbird.

A little further down the road we scared few vultures off from their meal but one paused long enough for a shot.

It’s time to go, the time is now. . . Oh yeah, I’m not Dr Suess. But it’s time to start moving over to the new site. Don’t forget to change my feed in your reader and I do hope I’ll see you over there. All the old stuff will remain here, but in a few days there will be nothing new here. So change your links, pretty please and come play with me over there. We’ll have just as much fun, maybe more! You never know what’s in store.  (Dang you Suess)

A word of warning that the new place is, well, new. It still needs some cleaning up and rearranging, some prettifying really but I promise to not make you do any work, I’ll just dust around you. It won’t be long until you wanna take your shoes off, grab a soda and relax there. Heck you can come in your jammies if you like. I don’t mind at all. Maybe we can have a pillow fight!  Woo hoo!

---

 

Have you ever been to the Grand Canyon of Texas? After playing at the Cadillac Ranch for a while we headed south of Amarillo to Palo Duro Canyon State Park.

The Canyon is 120 miles long, as much as 20 miles wide, and has a maximum depth of more than 800 feet. Its elevation at the rim is 3,500 feet above sea level. It is often claimed that Palo Duro Canyon is the second largest canyon in the United States. The largest, the Grand Canyon, is 277 miles long, 18 miles wide, and 6,000 ft. deep. ~quoted from Palo Duro Canyon dot com.

Although this was my second time there, the funny thing is I really haven’t taken any photos of the canyon. The first time we were there we biked like crazy, wiping out, brushing ourselves off and biking some more. This time the guys hiked to a cave to explore a bit and I guarded the car (not really) and snapped photos of flowers and birds. I’ll show you some of the cool flowers I saw today then we’ll do the birds tomorrow. If you want to see the canyon I’m afraid you’ll have to click the link up there.

Texas Route 66 themed rest area.

Taken with the point and shoot as I was too pooped to carry the big ‘un.

Gather round for the A-Z Photo Challenge, see Martha if you’d like to join in. It’s time for letter “G”.

Gangly Group of Giggling Girls

Gawky Garrulous Goons Gathering

Gripping

Gracefully Gliding

Ghostly Great Blue Herons’ Giant nests.

Group of Great Blue Herons (yeah, I almost saved them for H)

Guess what! They have babies, too bad they aren’t called Goslings.

Gray or Grey

I almost forgot my sweet Giraffe.

 

Due to all my vacation fun I have gotten way behind on the A-Z Photo Challenge so today you get a twofer. Letters E & F, visit Martha for all the other participants (or to sign up yourself).

Expectant Flower

Eager Ellie Eyeing the Ever Empty Feeder

Eloquent Elephant Escapee

Friendly Eagles Flying

Fancy Flutterby with Emerging blooms

Fascinating, Frilly Fungus

Freakishly Fast Feet and broom Fringe

Fuzzy Friend

Fabulously Fun!

Fair-haired Fellow Found a Floating Fish in his First Frog pool.

Falling Expert

Fake Falling. He’s Fine.

 I almost Forgot to share my Fossils.  We collected these in Iowa last December.

Post FM: I had a great time hosting this week and hope I haven't scared you all off with my quirks!  I'm a part of a great group of quirky people, if you don't believe me, scroll down to the list and go for some visits.   Thanx everybody for fessing up, and through your confessions I discovered a few more quirks I didn't realize I had.  Thanx a lot for that! :)~ 

 First, I have to thank you for letting me hi-jack Fun Monday for a week! Thanx Guys! Then I need to thank AFF for inspiring such a fun topic. Thanx Girl!

So, I asked you guys to tattle on yourselves.

A quirk is defined as a peculiarity of action, behavior, or personality; mannerism. We are all unique individuals, having quirks that help make us who we are. I would like to know what your quirks are. Confess to one, confess to ten, you decide. Just come back Monday ready to spill the beans, the rest of the world may look at you like you are from Mars, but you‘re among friends here. We won’t laugh, in fact that eccentricity just may endear you to us more.

I ran around all week asking my family what I do that is weird. Might I suggest never doing that? Boy did they come up with a list! I don’t think I’ll share them all. But here a few from their list.

• I have to fill my insulated cup (it has to be insulated) with ice and then soda. It has to be full of ice to the top first, over flowing even. After the ice is falling out of the cup I add the Diet Coke. Yes, Diet Coke (and Mocha Frappucino) is the only drink that ever crosses my lips. On the rare occasions I drink Milk (like once a year) it must have ice. And I never use a straw because it warms the liquid up too much.
• My food has to be hot hot hot, but that’s not the quirky thing. It must be a certain way on the plate. Like breakfast, eggs on the right, bacon on the hash browns (to keep them warm) and toast on the opposite side of the plate of me. I eat a bite of egg with a bite of bacon, then the hash browns and lastly the toast. There’s a method to any meal. Burgers and fries? Burger on the right and eaten first, fries on the left and eaten last. The big reason for this is that I love ll kinds of potatoes and don’t mind if they cool a little, hate meat so it must be as hot as possible, ketchup can be put in the spot left by the meat and then the dipping of fries is easiest.
• My ketchup must be room temperature or it will make the food cold.
• I will not eat any meat with “pink” in it. It must be well done, burnt even.
• I have to have, at a minimum, three pillows to sleep with. Two for under my head and at least one to hug. When at home I have two feather pillows for my head and a pillow on each side of me and one between my knees - yeah I sleep on my side.

• Ok, I had to add one more, it’s a good one, When I ask a question I always ask two questions. And the questions would have opposite answers if the person answered both. For instance, “Do you want to read a book? Or do you want to watch tv?” or “Should we go to the store? Should we stay home? Or I know we can go to the movie. Do you want to go to the movie? You’re probably too tired aren’t you?” or “I’m getting hungry, are you hungry? Oh no, you just ate an hour ago so you probably aren’t hungry. Are you?” I mostly do this with my husband and while writing it down it dawned on me that maybe I’m just carrying the conversation.

I think that’s enough quirkiness from me for one day. Run over and see how quirky our fellow bloggers are. Other people fessing up today are:

1. Anglophile Football Fanatic
2. Are we there yet mom?
3. Hulagirl at Heart
4. AOJ & the Lurchers
5. Return of the White Robin
6. Sayre Smiles
7. From the Planet of Janet
8. Small Reflections
9. The Dust Will Wait
10. Got Milk?
11. Finding Beauty in Most Every Day
12. Dungarees Ablaze
13. The Prytz Family
14. Ramblings by Reba
15. 1 Crazy Stitcher
16. Summit Musings
17. RDH Mom
18. Arkansas Songbird
19. Mama Speak
20. Gattina Writer Cramps
21. A Florida Journal
22. Wisconsin Candy
23. Robinella
24. Irish Coffeehouse
25. Susan's Musings
26. U R Olive (our lovely host next week)
27. Nekked Lizard Adventures
28. Min @ Mamadrama
29. Heather's Recipes
30. Hale Family Site
31. Hootin-Anni
32. Mama Rehema
33. Jo Beaufoix
34. Karisma and Kids
35. Crunchy Bits
36. Tiggerlane
37. La Vie en Rose
38. My Husband Calls Me Weird
39. Anecdotes, Antidotes and Anodes
40. Candid Karina
41. Happy at Home
42. Running at Large
43. Mamalang
44. Lady K
45. Beyond My Slab
46. Mariposa Tells
47. Heaven in Belgium
48. Stephanie @ Mamadrama
49. Things in General
50. Adam's Wife
51. The Junk Drawer

Now wait a minute, this can’t be, a post without photos?! No way. I had to edit and add a few.

My son’s quirk is washing off his rock collection.

Hope you’re keeping cool!