Misc.

We are driving out of Sacramento on Hwy70/99 and were before the split onto 99. My passenger hollers out – look!- look! Off to right side of the highway is a group of migrating geese stretching as far as my eye could see! Screach go the tires, ping, ping goes the road gravel. We are off on the side of the roadway.

I got my camera out and took over 200 photos – way to many to post on the photosharing site. Excitement! Woo Hoo! So many of the beautiful birds. Flying in layers, landing, moving about in groups – just awe inspiring.

I wish I had my buddy’s wide angle lense, I wish I had a stronger zoom, but – wow just wow – it the size of the group that brings on the wow factor.

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Here is the far right side of the group with the downtown Sacramento skyline as a foreground.

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I few of them in flight. Not the best shots, no prize winner here – but – WOW!

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Forget the blog problems. I got a new lense or should I say two new lenses. Yippe skippy and all that!!

I stopped by the Mckinley Park and took a few quick shots without a tripod. Wow, what a difference the VR (vibration reduction) makes. My old shaky hands did not manage to ruin the shot! I admit that with a tripod the captures would have crisper but just yippe skippy woo hoo and all that.

I was walking and turned and just snapped this shot – not bad for a walk by?

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Then on this one I can see the water drops – not bad for no tripod in my hands LOL. The colors on this bird are beautiful.

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So I am off the play with the lenses some more.

I am about to give up! I upgraded WP. I checked my database. I disabled my theme. Blah blah blah . … now we are back to the 500 errors again! Gee wiz.

Back to the theme again. Logs show throwing errors from the call to the header php? I so give up.

If you get here great – it you don’t then I guess I can talk to myself a bit.

The errors change and I am still thinking that there are too many open ports. They do reset but it seems whatever/whoever is opening them all times it just about right to catch me when I tend to post. If I check in at unusual times no problems. Ummm …

Accepting ideas – solutions – ok you win! – whatever ZZZZZzzzzzzz

North we drove up I5 to Anderson. Yak, yak, yak with friends and burn a couple steaks on the grill. No really, our friend is an excellent grill master but we all got carried away with making flames with the BBQ and taking pictures and the coals got to hot and the steaks were – well a tad black on the outside. You think that grown adults would know better. Squirting lighter fluid on hot coals is not a smart thing to do. I think we were trying to pretend we were still young. It worked.

Drove up to Burney Falls and took some pictures. The walkway down was icey and snapped us right out of our we are young again mode and into a total awareness of everything gone wrong with our bodies. I offered to take a photo for a young couple and their son so they could all be in one shot. Next thing you know I was the vista point unofficial photographer. Setting up and snapping shots for couples with the falls as the backdrop. I think this is why nobody laughed at us as we made our way down the trail towards the bottom of the falls.

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It was beautiful. The falls are not the biggest I have ever seen, they are not the fastest, but wow what a view. The spring water just kind of spouts out from the rocks along the side of the main falls. Lots of mist! Just fantastic!

On the way back to Anderson we noticed some old mine structures near Ingot. An internet search reveals that it was the old Afterthought Mine. In the 90’s sometime they discovered some dynamite in the abondoned site andsubsequently set it off. I could see an old roadway leading into the water making it easy to picture the place long ago active and productive.

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Monday we were off to fish on Lake Shasta. This is where the timing is everything comes in. I know better than to fish this lake at full moon or a few days after. Emm .. well the bad news is in our boat contained only two fish to represent our afternoon of fishing. The good news was one of them was mine. Not a big un but hey – a bass is a bass as long as it is legal!

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The lake was like glass most of the day. Refecting everthing. One bald eagle flew over the boat and then across the bow. Wow it was awesome! Its lower body was reflected on the water – an breath stopping nature beauty moment. I wish I had the camera out but in other ways I am glad I just enjoyed it’s fly by without distraction.

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