The Nature, Wildlife and Pet Photography Forum - Fine Art Landscape Photography

Your Summer plans?

Posted By: James Morrissey

Your Summer plans? - 06/19/12 03:39 PM

Hey Everyone,

Anyone have anything exciting planned for the summer? So far, my plans look like they are aimed more at Fall than Summer, but we do have some things planned.

July 4th, we are heading up to Acadia National Park for a few days. No puffins in July, but we will head up for a few days in August and go that route. :P We also plan on going to New Hampshire for a few days in late July.

Anyone else got anything on the hopper?

James
Posted By: Jim Garvie

Re: Your Summer plans? - 06/19/12 06:11 PM

Many of our puppy-owner/friends are planning to be away over the next few months so we're kinda anchored to the home front taking care of their dogs along with ours over the Summer. May catch up on portraits but not much else planned.

Starting with the Labor Day weekend, we'll be heading to Lexington for their 5 shows trying to get Moxie finished (just needs that last major) along with her brother, Ike, (just needs 4 singles) and trying to put some additional points on Scampy. Have several portrait requests and ring candid assignments for that trip as well.

Have a wedding to shoot at the end of Sept. with all the pre-wedding stuff preceding it. Then I have the Medallion Rottweiler Specialties (2) in October just outside of Chicago. Hope to have all of Scamp's siblings there to show as well so it'll be a working vacation -- the only kind we seem to be able to take these days smile.

In the meantime, I'm finishing up a book on The Orlando Wetlands Park and working on a couple of local nature/wildlife projects. I'll share when the time is right.

Jim
Posted By: James Morrissey

Re: Your Summer plans? - 06/20/12 03:23 PM

Hey Jim,

Sounds like mostly work and not that much play time. frown Having said that, I am interested to hear more about the Orlando Wetlands Park book.

James
Posted By: Tucson Jim

Re: Your Summer plans? - 06/20/12 10:33 PM

This Summer we'll be doing our best to make lemonade out of some of the lemons life handed us recently.

Our original travel plans for the year included spending a month camping our way around Florida in February and March, followed by a visit to Redwoods, Crater Lake & Lassen Volcanic National Parks this Summer. But, my wife Petra fell and suffered a nasty spiral fracture of both bones in her lower leg while we were camping in Galveston Island State Park on our way to Florida. Fortunately, the Univ of Texas has a medical school just seven miles from where we were camping. They put her in a full leg cast and we returned to Tucson for her recuperation. After about a month, they cut her cast down so she could bend her knee and for the last six weeks she has been in a special boot. She's been limited to hobbling around on one foot using a rolling walker since the accident and has been going stir crazy since becoming more or less housebound. Hopefully she'll get the green light to ditch the walker and actually start walking on it again next week.

We had put our other travel plans for this summer on hold until we knew more about her mobility, but we got a killer offer for a "last minute" fare for a 14 day R/T cruise from Vancouver to Anchorage & return. So, although I had planned that our next trip to Alaska would be next year driving up the ALCAN Highway in the RV, this was a deal that was too good to pass up. As a result, we'll be driving up to Vancouver and back next month and Petra can her to finish her recuperation in style without overtaxing her leg.

After that, we have some friends from England who will be visiting Las Vegas in September. We plan on joining them there for a couple of days and, as long as we are so close, we'll take the scenic route home and check out the Fall colors at Cedar Breaks National Monument and go apple picking at Capitol Reef NP. If the weather is nice, we'll probably drop by the North Rim of the Canyon on the way home as well.

We'll try Florida again next February.

Jim
Posted By: James Morrissey

Re: Your Summer plans? - 06/21/12 08:07 PM

Hey Jim,

That's really awesome! I am glad you were able to turn this into what looks like some really cool trips. I have never rented an RV before - though my parents have discussed it in the past. How good a deal was it? I have heard that it costs upwards of $1000 a week in many cases for an RV.

James
Posted By: Tucson Jim

Re: Your Summer plans? - 06/22/12 12:24 AM

James:

Yes, it should be fun. I'm embarking on this Alaska trip with a whole different mindset than the last one, so I am not likely to come away with any lingering disappointment. The last time, all I could think about was being surrounded by an abundance of Eagles and Grizzly Bears -- both of which are extremely rare here in the Southern Arizona desert. Unfortunately, our last trip was late in the season and Fall came early that year, so wildlife sightings were few and far between. I was so focused on the lack of wildlife, that I failed to fully appreciate the wonderful display of Fall Colors on the tundra. This trip, I plan to just relax and lay out on deck sipping hot chocolate and enjoying the beautiful scenery.

I was already thinking it would be nice to make a quick run up to Cedar Breaks to check out the Fall Colors, so visiting our friends in Vegas will let us kill two birds with one stone. We really love the natural wonders in Northern Arizona and all over Utah and consider ourselves lucky that they are so close . . . by our standards, anyway. I have to kick myself, though, because in my younger days I'd whiz right by the turn off for places like Zion, Bryce & Canyonlands on our way to what I thought were more interesting and exotic locales -- not that I don't still love Yellowstone and the Tetons.

You are correct about it costing a small fortune to rent an RV. Twenty some years ago (or was it more like thirty?) we rented a huge Class A motor home for a month and put several thousand mile on it and the whole tab came to around $1,600.- Last year, we were fortunate enough to stumble upon and buy a very low mileage 21.5 ft Chinook on a Ford E-350 Chassis. We probably overpaid for it, but we like it and enjoy using it.

We both spent the last twenty years of our working lives tied to jobs that made it really hard to travel and enjoy ourselves, so we've been doing our best to make up for lost time in our retirement. I just wish I had taken better care of myself so I could be more physically active now.

Looking forward to seeing more of your shots from Acadia. That is one spot that is still high on my priority list of places to visit. At six thousand miles R/T, though, that will be a major undertaking.

In the meantime, if I manage to get any decent shots, I'll be sure to post some here. My problem is that I am reluctant to post anything because my stuff always seems to pale in comparison to the work the rest of you folks produce.
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