Deer mouse during low tide at Point Reyes National Seashore

During a night-time hike along the shore south of Coast Camp at Point Reyes National Seashore, we were using our flashlights to check out the creatures in the tide pools and the tops of rocks. At one of those rocks, we noticed something darting along from one side of the rock to the other. After shining our lights on the darting critter, we found this deer mouse settled into a spot where it seemed comfortable enough to pose for us to get several photos of it. What is was doing in a tidepool was a bit of a mystery, maybe it has a taste for mussels.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

Window Arch in City of Rocks National Reserve

Window Arch is one of many arches and other granite features in the City of Rocks National Reserve, in southeastern Idaho. This feature can be reached by hiking an easy 0.1 mile trail from the parking spot for campsite number 37. It is situated along a ridge that allows for getting good photos of it from either side. I chose this side because of the interesting cloud formations in the sky that you can see under the arch.

To give you a better idea about the size of the arch, look at the picture below with Rick standing in it.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

Butler Wash Cliff Dwelling in the Bears Ears National Monument

This is an area within the Bears Ears National Monument. You reach by parking at a turnout off of Road 95, west of Blanding, Utah, and then taking a short hike, about 1/2 mile or 1 km) to reach this viewpoint. It's called Butler Wash and has an Anasazi cliff dwelling at the upper end. The end of the trail has a steep dropoff, so there is railing there, which also makes it easy to know where to stop. There's no developed trail in to the ruins, but it is possible to get to the bottom of the wash and work your way there. We were on our way to Natural Bridges National Monument and couldn't spend as much time here as we would've liked. We definitely intend to go back.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

El Capitan and a leafless oak in silhouette, Yosemite

April showers in Yosemite led to this formation of clouds that has the peak of El Capitan looming above and below the clouds, while the lower cloud provides the proper background for a bare oak tree's silhouette. This picture was originally taken in April of 1984 with slide film, specifically Kodachrome. Rick stood in El Capitan Meadow to get this photo.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

The Windows, in Arches National Park, from the west looking eastward, plus the North Window Arch, up close

Within Arches National Park is this dramatic feature that can seen several miles away along the main park road, well before you turn off to get a closer look. There is a path around these features, which you can see at the right edge of the image. You can also see people underneath the left "window." In both cases, going through these arches leads to a somewhat dramatic drop off on the other side. We visited this park as part of our Spring Break 2017 trip through southern Utah. The second picture is the North Window Arch, up close and consisting of four shots that have been merged to create a detailed image of this feature.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

Yosemite Falls reflected in a seasonal pond in Cooks Meadow

This is Yosemite Falls as viewed from the Sentinel Bridge parking area. During the spring and early summer, Cooks Meadow fills with meltwater and runoff to become a temporary pond. If you stand in the right spot and crouch down a bit, you can get the falls and its reflection in one shot. We've also taken multiple shots from this perspective and combined them, but this one was taken in one frame with a film camera in 1992. The trees have had another 25 years worth of growth since this was taken and are noticeably taller now.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

Chuckwalla posing at Valley of Fire

A chuckwalla lizard poses for the camera at Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada. We saw this critter along the trail out to the park's equivalent to the "Wave", pictures of which we posted earlier. We don't know if it was curious about us so that's why it hung around, but it could have been disturbed by the kids pointing him out to their parents and by us looking him over and taking some good photos, but it didn't seem to mind.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

Yellowstone's Tower Falls with the boulder on the brink, before and after

In Yellowstone, one of the popular places to stop and look at the scenery is at Tower Falls. Until the spring of 1986, this 132-foot waterfall had a precariously perched boulder on the brink. That year, the boulder fell to the bottom. We visited Yellowstone in the 1970's several times and got pictures of this waterfall with the boulder still there, as you can see below. The boulder to the right of the one that fell is still there. During the 1975 trip, we hiked down to the base of the falls and looked up at the boulder and tried imagining what it would be like to be under this waterfall when that boulder finally came down. The sign at the overlook asked the question about when the boulder would fall, but now it's not there, of course. It also looks like the same trees are there to the left of the creek after 40 years. The trees closer to the overlook have obviously gotten taller.
Tower Falls gets its name from the volcanic pinnacles that line the stream course.

   Here are the two pictures side by side for comparison.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

Grand Prismatic Spring from the new overlook in Yellowstone National Park

This is a view from the new Grand Prismatic Spring overlook that Yellowstone National Park opened just this year, 2017.  A number of visitors had hiked off-trail to get this view overlooking the spring before the Park Service decided to make the overlook view official with this new spur trail off the Fairy Falls Trail.

This overlook allows visitors to get a much better view of the different colors of the Grand Prismatic, the world's third largest hot spring, than they can get from the boardwalk that runs along the far edge of the spring in the picture.  The spring is 370 feet in diameter and 160 feet deep and discharges 560 gallons of 160 degree water every minute.  The colors in the spring are from thermophilic (heat-loving) microbes that appear blue, green, yellow, and orange depending on the temperature of the water at that point.

The rising steam behind the Grand Prismatic is from the Excelsior Geyser Crater.  This thermal area is known as the Midway Geyser Basin.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story.

Gibbon Falls in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

This is Gibbon Falls in Yellowstone National Park between the Norris and Mammoth areas in the northwestern quadrant of the park.  The falls are about 84 feet high and are about 4.7 miles upstream of the Gibbon River's junction with the Firehole River after which this watercourse is known as the Madison River.  The park provides a large parking and overlook area for visitors to enjoy views of this feature.

This photo was taken with an eclipse filter on the lens which enabled Bob to shoot a long 15 second exposure which gave the waterfall its silky appearance.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story.

Great American Solar Eclipse from central Oregon

The solar eclipse during totality, with a couple of small stars shining below and to the left of the sun. Outside the frame of this picture, Venus and Saturn were also visible. Rick viewed the eclipse from central Oregon from Beech Creek Summit, near John Day, Oregon. The summit is actually north of the small town of Mount Vernon, Oregon, along Highway 395, but John Day was the biggest town in the area and it's where he camped. His fellow eclipse viewers at the summit were from parts of America, like California and Washington state, plus Germany, and Ireland. The diamond ring effect that you see just before totality starts and just as it is ending can't be compared in a photograph to the actual experience of seeing it. The best I can say is that when you see it in person, the little diamond sparkle is still bright enough to blind you. The corona itself is very bright and seems to display threads of light that don't show in typical photographs that well, but it also makes witnessing the eclipse in person a more dramatic experience than viewing a photo of it.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

It was totality worth it! A vertical photo of the solar eclipse over the Tetons.

Here's another shot of the eclipsed sun over the Teton peaks as seen from Table Mountain.  Bob backpacked to the top of Table Mountain in the Jedediah Smith Wilderness Area in order to see the solar eclipse from the classic view of Le Trois Tetons made famous by William Henry Jackson.  He was a photographer on the earliest survey expeditions of the Yellowstone and Teton areas and took some of the first photographs of the Tetons from Table Mountain.

The black dot in the sky is the moon eclipsing the sun.  The horizon in all directions looked like the sun was setting, even though the sun was high in the sky.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story.

Sheep Rock at the John Day Fossil Beds in Oregon

While visiting Oregon to get in position for the Great American Eclipse, we visited the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, which consists of three units. One of those units is named after this feature, Sheep Rock. The line of totality included this area, with the center line not far north from here. We went through the visitor center looking at many paleontological displays that prove the scientific value of this area and why the National Monument designation was well-deserved. The other two units are the Painted Hills and Clarno. The river is named for John Day, but he didn't discover the fossils, nor did he even explore this far upriver. The person considered responsible for establishing the scientific value of this area was Thomas Condon. The visitor center in the Sheep Rock unit is named after him.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!