Fun in ChiTown

We went to see the Chicago Marathon on October 12. Kirk and Anne both did extremely well in spite of the warmer than normal temps

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End of Summer

We pulled the boat off the lake yesterday. Although we were happy to do it on a nice warm day (85), it always brings a little melancholy to bring another summer to an end. There are only so many....

Day at the Zoo

We went to the Minnesota Zoo on September 10th to see if the Grizzly Coast exhibit would live up to its hype. We got free tickets through the Library Museum Pass which was an added bonus. The exhibit cost the Zoo $24 million and was very well done. The entrance has some very nice metal sculptures and a water fountain. Of course the hightlight of the area was the grizzly exhibit. We were extremely fortunate to get there as two of the three grizzlies were "duking it out" right in front the glass lookout area. I took a lot of pictures but of course none were able to capture the playfulness of the bears or how massive they are even though these aren't fully grown.

Had a good time up at Jack and Cindy's near Bemidji last weekend.

Cat Proofing

Pip finally forced us to do something to contain him after breaking out for the third time. I ended up installing lattice all the way around the porch. After a first pass, he tore down one of the sections and I had to reinforce with additional screws. We'll see if this last fix works.

Colorful Evening

Caught some beautiful light the other night in the tidal ponds near the beach.

Miracle on Island Pines

Here it is, a picture of sunrise over Ft Myers Beach. I must have been sleepwalking or something as I normally get up at around 9:00. I'm reminded of what a cruise ship captain once said when he was trying to get rid of people early in the morning: "Watch the sunset; it's the same".

Very good advice.

Test Document for Blog

Ready for Summer (Already)

So, here is the final stage of summer dress for the laughing gull. Soon most of these will look like this.

More Birds

Surprise, Surprise, I've been out with my camera chasing birds. The first two shots show just how delicate egrets really are. The gull is here because as you can see, he is switching to his summer look. In the winter they have white heads and in the summer, black. If you can figure out why, you're smarter than I am.

Weather Report

I heard something new on the local weather report last night. He showed a satellite view of Florida and had drawn an arrow to the nearest cloud ------- 430 miles away! Now that's a high pressure center. Anyway, here's my picture of the same phenomenon. No clouds, nohow, noplace, no time.......

A Foggy Day

Here's proof that even though I'm chasing the sun, I don't always find it. It's been foggy here for a couple of days and the effect is a little eerie. I took these shots off the front balcony of our condo.

Shared Items

I've added a feature to this web page. It's called shared items and it's made possible through the Google Reader. The one thing I'm sharing now is a site I love by a 108 year old Australian woman named Olive. Once you've accessed the shared site you will be able to look at more of her postings. They are worth the effort, especially the video clips. The link is at the bottom right hand section of this page.

Carribean Cruise

We've been on a little cruise to the Caribbean. We only made two stops, Grand Cayman and Key West. Actually we like the cruising aspect so much it really doesn't matter where we go. The food and service on Celebrity is just so good we could sit in Miami and have a good time. One "highlight" of the trip is that I got bit on the finger by a stingray at Stingray City. He mistook the index finger on my right hand for a squid. I had a squid in my left hand but he missed by a little. It wasn't much of a bite but there was lots of blood so Jean thought I was looking a little like shark bait.
Other that that we just did the normal cruise stuff, ate fancy dinners, ate sushi, ate canapes, drank rum. You know, the usual.
The boat we traveled on is the same one we will be on in July when we go to Norway to celebrate our 40th. It's an older style boat than the new megaships but we like it a lot, very relaxing.