Florida Birds and Salvador Dali

Glossy Ibis in Sun Bright Flight

The week after the Trace Trail Photography Run that follows this posting, Linda, my wife, and I went to Sarasota to visit for a week her mother.

In addition to swimming a couple times at beautiful Siesta Key Beach and visiting my Aunt Bernice (88 years old), we both ate well, sat a lot with books, and I sent my usual batch of around 30 postcards.

On the left is an image of a famous Salvador Dali painting, Daddy Longlegs of the Evening Hope (1940), that appealed to me when we visited in Saint Petersburg the Salvador Museum, a stunner of a place.

I look forward to a return visit, especially as during his stay in the United States (1940-1948) Dali took a liking to baseball, as the image to the right, Untitled (Baseball and Ballerina), suggests.

If you get a chance, pay the museum a visit.


The picture of the Glossy Ibis that tops this blog entry comes from the pond by which my mother-in-law's house sits. I also found an excellent if unusual place to take pictures of other large wading birds, in the trash bin behind a shopping center.

As the shot on the left indicates, Wood Storks are not amongst the most attractive birds, especially on the ground; and the immature stork pictured here reinforces the bird's less-than-endearing looks.

But what beautiful creatures in flight.

I posted a few pictures that include the White Ibis that concludes this entry.

White Ibis

Northeastern Iowa and the Trace Trail in Early July

Mississippi Bluffs South of Guttenburg, Iowa

On Monday, 7 July, my wife, Linda, and I started for Peru, NE, where I engaged in a couple days of photography along the Trace Trail in Peru, Brownville, and Nebraska City.

We spent the first night in Prairie de Chien, WI, where the Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers meet; instead of evening drives along the Mississippi, we huddled in our hotel room as waves of impressive thunder storms crashed through the area.

But as the image at the top of the page indicates, we got to see some of the area's beauty on our drive from Marquette, IA, to Dubuque, where we picked up highway 151 down to I 80 and on to Nebraska where we stayed Wednesday and Thursday returning to Ripon, WI, on Friday.



I have posted elsewhere--both here (especially) and at this site--material about the Trace Trail and the Sherman Memorial Area. This site in particular contains links to slide shows and a series of short films devoted to the sculptures, birds, and plants in this special area of Nebraska.

Beebalm

I work now on a video about the Trace Trail, from Nebraska City to Brownville, for the Nebraska Center for Rural Development's web page (I must check about this title.)

At any rate, as I have for the past fifteen years exited Peru in May each year and returned in August, my collection of pictures from the area does not include any May-August photographs of the trail.

But this two-day stay in Peru gave me a chance to hit the trial with my tripods and close-up equipment to experiment further with flowers and, as matters turned out, some insects.

I got pictures from Peru north and south, from Brownville north and from Nebraska City south and will continue the "campaign" in the fall.

When the first draft of the Trace Trail video gets complete, I will post it on You Tube and link it here. And soon, I will update the video on the Trace Trail Trilogy about Flora and some Fauna to include images taken during this most recent stay, including this shot of Wild Garlic.

Wild Garlic

You will find photographs on Flickr by clicking here.

In addition to the hours spent on the Trace Trail, we attended on Thursday night a play at the Brownville Village Theater, where Chet Harper directs the plays; he and the actors celebrate your number 42 for the BVT.

We enjoyed Kiss or Make Up, one of the five plays presented this season--you will find a schedule at the preceding link.

Buttonbush