Great Falls

...is gorgeous. (Ha. I didn't even catch that pun. Jim did.)

Chincoteague

After we camped for two days we drove a bit south into Virginia's Eastern Shore and ended up in Chincoteague. Gorgeous! It's a cute beach town with beautiful sunsets and the wildlife refuge is amazing - it has endangered squirrels (ha) and wild ponies. They were beautiful.

This is taken from Main Street in Chincoteague...



The inside of the lighthouse. I think it's neat.
The outside of the light house - it's neat too.
This is taken from the beach on Assateague- the ocean's to my back and below the sun is the wildlife refuge and the marsh. The town of Chincoteague is straight ahead, but you can't see it.
OK, so, this is supposed to be a picture of wild horses, and they're there - they're the tiny little white dots near the trees. Ah well.

An oak toad. Isn't he cute?

Aaaak!

A Cyclops Rudolph is hiding in the backseat! RUN!


Notes:
a. Jim wants me to say it was a bike seat. I think he's wrong.
b. This was at a Dunkin' Donuts. Not quite sure what that means.

Janes Island

Six miles of empty, undisturbed beach on an uninhabited island only accessible by boat.

A variety of calm and more exciting waters to explore by kayak.

More seabirds (and more kinds of seabirds!) than you can shake a stick at.

(Also, chiggers, blackflies, poison ivy and stinging jellies, but you know, they're kind of interesting too).

We went to Janes Island State Park in Maryland for a couple days last week, and spent the time kayaking, watching the mama osprey feed her baby, and sitting by the canal watching the sunset over the bay. It was lovely.



To get to the beach, you kayak across the canal, and follow the trails through the marsh till you get to a narrow spit of beach - about 10 feet of sand wide - that divides the marshy side of the Chesapeake from the bay side. Either way, the water is basically the Atlantic at this point, and you can't see across the bay. Lovely, quiet, undisturbed beaches...

This picture and the one above were taken from the same spot. That's the narrow beach we landed at, and then there's a bit of sand, and then there's the Atlantic.
The post is supporting a large osprey nest, and you can see the nearly-full-grown baby leaning out over the side, crying pitifully for his mother to come back and feed him. He was also testing his wings pretty frequently- flapping, and taking off for a few inches before crashing back into the nest. Poor guy, he must be frustrated up there.
That would be the stinging jellies that got both of us - Jim's ankle and my thighs. I swelled up pretty nicely, but it wasn't too bad, all things considered.

We found this unfortunately deceased blue crab (a male) near the swamp - pretty colors, though! Lots of people were crabbing and fishing at the state park.


We also found turtle eggs! They were right on the side of the beach, it looks like the waves may have washed away the top layer of sand.



This laughing gull was very bothered by our presence... makes me wish we had a better camera for pics like this. One day! I love the pattern of the water and the sand.

Right as we were getting ready to leave, we came across another lady who was kind enough to take a picture for us!

We also saw a fox and lots of fiddler crabs - it was a pretty awesome place.


I miss the beach already...

Florida wildlife

Before July my experience in the great flat state of Florida was limited to ports (some nice, some less so) and interstates- not the best way to see an area! But after three weeks in Gainesville, I have a new appreciation for Florida, and now I get why someone would want to live there!

I had a great trip visiting a lab down there - wonderful people, interesting work, and the promise of future collaborations! Pretty sweet.

Plus, it's pretty. Still flat, but also pretty.

At the Natural History museum, there is a butterfly room where you can go in and see thousands of butterflies flying around beautiful gardens. It's really something special. This one is a relative of a monarch, and I think it's my favorite.

We went to the beach at St. Augustine! It was really nice - palm trees, warm water (especially considering what I'm used to!) and yummy mexican food. It's a pretty town, too.

The spanish fort at St. Augustine has this oven for heating up coals to put into cannon balls that they'd fire at wooden ships to set them on fire. Glad to see human barbarism is nothing new...

Mangroves on the University of Florida's campus! The 'knees' are to help the tree respire in wet and salty water.

Gators!! I was really excited to see these. Where we went to college, students would swim and boat in the pond. I guess that's not happening so much at UF. They're just hanging out near the road.

This is where I go jogging in the morning- sandy paths, cool plants, spanish moss...

I just think spanish moss is so romantic! Even if it does have lots of chiggers.

That's one big gator! It was probably about 6 feet long!

Dinosaur Park! aka Jim's Birthday Adventure

Everyone needs adventures, lest they grow old and stale.

A late birthday adventure (well, he knew about it *on* his birthday, but didn't know what the adventure was) took place at Dinosaur Park in Maryland last weekend. It's an old brick factory that is now an industrial park where they've set aside some land for research because there be DINOSAURS!

It's still really new and they're figuring out how to best manage the site, but totally awesome and worth visiting if you have any interest in the wonderful world of dinosaurs!

You can actually explore for your own fossils here, but before you begin, they do a short orientation to let you know what you're looking for. Here's Jim, with a dinosaur bone IN HIS HAND (!)

Jim happily overlooking the fossil bed...


And ecstatically finding 110 million year old plants! (Which were everywhere. As common as dirt).

Here's Stephanie in her best dinosaur bone searching pose (note the closed eyes)...

But she's still the one who found the fossil that they kept to send to the Smithsonian! Behold the imprint of a long pine cone (apparently this is rare).



Still, though, it was a great day, it's an awesome place to visit, and was lots of fun!

Always take the time to smell the roses!

I spent a lovely week visiting friends in Boston and Hartford last week - oh man, I wish we lived closer.

Washington's cherry blossom festival

I'd never seen the cherry blossom festival before, and while I'd heard that it was beautiful, words cannot describe how cool it actually is. There are thousands and thousands of trees- all different kinds of cherry trees - all blooming at once. It's magical, and pictures absolutely don't do it justice.

So pretty

Jefferson Memorial

The Washington Memorial rising out of the fluffy pink flowers...

Sunset over the trees and the memorial

Flowers, flowers, everywhere!

New York, New York

(It's raining so hard we might wash away...)

My friend, R, from grad school and I went up to NYC to visit my brother and our other friend from grad school a couple of weekends ago- leaving warm spring weather for chilly NYC "spring". But it was great! My brother got us onto the ferry to visit the Statue of Liberty without having to wait on that interminable line.

Southern Manhattan from the water

Statue of Liberty!

The museum for the Statue is actually pretty neat. Here we are sitting on a replica of Liberty's foot...

Her shadow is truly impressive....

My brother and I on the ferry...

Statue of Liberty!

The cranes look like dinosaurs

New York, New York......