What's your point?

Didn't expect to see me up here, did you?  Yeah, I could tell by the way you hit the brakes and flipped around in the middle of the highway to come back.  I'm just enjoying a midnight snack.  You do know it's midnight, right?  And your friend there in the car with you has to be at work at 7am.  What's that?  You want a couple pictures?  Okay, no problem, I know I'm cute up here looking deceivingly fluffy.  Besides the mosquitoes are hungry, too, and by the looks of the black cloud swarming your head you won't stay long.  I've got all night.
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Hi, PJ here.  Shortly after I left I'm certain the porcupine and mosquitoes were high-fiving each other and laughing it up.  In fact, the mosquitoes probably said something to the effect, "Thanks Earl.  Works every time.  Silly humans stop to fawn over you and we get lunch. Score!!".  Queue music, The Circle of Life.

A day at the park

Caribou in Denali Park

Willow ptarmigan, Denali Park (photo by B. Geier)

Willow ptarmigan, Denali Park

Porcupine in trees, Denali Park near Savage Creek (photo by B. Geier)

Mama moose & baby moose, Denali Park (photo by B. Geier)

Caribou in Denali Park (photo by B. Geier)

 

Thematic Photographic 146 - Aerial

Flying to Maui last month it was hard to resist getting a crick in the neck while admiring the blue sky and fluffy white clouds below the aircraft.

The view changed often.  Varying between a hundred shades of blue and more cloud formations than you could ever describe.  In childhood there were always rabbits, dogs, fish and igloos in the clouds.  I looked but didn't find any of them on this day.

Relaxing comes easy when tropical sands are the destination and I felt pretty relaxed.  Then I looked out once again and saw this.  For whatever reason, any remaining tension fell away like a silk veil.  It was as though I was silently floating at the edge of the stratosphere, a breath away from leaving this Earth and entering the heavens.  Silent.  Weightless.  Pure.  And I understood why astronauts are in awe each time they look down on our Blue Planet.

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(For more Thematic Photographic visit Carmi at Written Inc.)

Keālia Pond

Hawaiian Stilt / Himantopus mexicanus knudseni / Ae‘o (one standing tall).  Endangered.

They're about 15" long and their legs are almost as long as their bodies.

Life on Mars

About a five minute walk from the car through green pastures to the edge of a cliff and you'll think you've arrived on a different planet.  

Saltwater has sprayed up from the ocean over time and eaten away at the rocks here creating the most amazing geological eye candy.  These were near Nakalele Blowhole off the Honoapi'ilani Highway north of Kapalua.  Beautiful up here!  So diverse in it's scenery that I forgot I had the camera and missed multitudes of indescribable rock formations.