Hyacinth Macaw

Originally uploaded by *Hiro.

This isn’t my picture – but right after Christmas, I’m going to Jungle Island in Miami. I’ve been wanting to go for YEARS. This is one of the best Hyacinth macaw pictures I think I’ve seen, and it was taken at Jungle Island. Its also an open CC license, so I can post it here for a bit of color.

You know, I wonder how many parrot people, and non parrot people, run into problems with Hyacinths because it looks like they are always smiling? While they are well known for their sweet temperaments, they are still macaws…. and on occasion, they will be bratty.

Pelicans over the Mississippi

Originally uploaded by The_Gut.

Taken just a shade over a year ago, on a road trip to the Mississippi. A couple of hundred pelicans took off, and this is a fairly close up photo of part of the flock.

The page needed some color to it.

Big, busy day tomorrow. I get my new car (a 2008 Honda Element LX AWD, in Tangerine Metallic), and I head to Michigan for a week long business trip. I’ll post pictures of both, of course. I’m quite excited about the new car. I’ll be driving it instead of a company car, simply because its new, and I want to. So thats 1400 miles or so in a week. Thats a darn good break in period, in a mixture of snow and rain.

It should be a ton of fun!

Since I’m giving very serious thought to getting a Honda Element (I might have one by the end of the week), I’m also thinking of places to go.

One place I would like to check out, is Edisto Beach State Park. Take a couple of days, go up with a dog, maybe a parrot…

I’ve wanted to check out the coast for years.

When I took the road trip to Missouri, I took a surface tour of the Bonne Terre mines. This is an abandoned, flooded mine system, which is now open for Scuba diving. So, basically, you have this huge, flooded mine, with crystal clear waters up to 300 feet deep. There is a flooded town down there, with a locomotive, buildings, etc. Virtually no current (and very little oxygen in the water). Its in the middle of a small midwestern town. The town actually pulled its water from the mine for many years, but stopped because the mineral content is so high.

I’ve toyed with the idea of learning to scuba dive for years. This place alone might make that worth while.

While I rarely indulge myself in this minor interest, I have a liking for footbridges, stairs, and mason walls. I do have a solid brick house. I just found two large suspension foot bridges in Georgia. Tallulah Gorge State Park, and a bridge over the Toccoa river. I’ll be getting around to both bridges in the near future.

Hows is this for odd? This morning, I was on a Ferry in Missouri, crossing over into Kentucky. There was one other car on the boat, and an older woman was its driver. When me and Dad were chatting with her, guess where she was headed? To visit her grandchildren in Woodstock, Ga. Thats is within 25 miles of where I live. Its a small country after all.

Lets see, as a brief highlight, I saw barges go through a lock, got flashed by a young teen, walked over the Mississippi, took a ferry across the Illinois river, and a ferry across the Mississippi river. I saw two different covered bridges (hmm, so I walked across three bridges total). I visited a flooded mine, saw a flock of several hundred white pelicans, and viewed a reconstruction of a Mastodon skeleton.

On the downside, I also saw two cockatiels in a cage far too small for them, and an Amazon parrot with a beak that needed attention that it wasn’t getting. Not to mention a zillion dead raccoons on the road.

Well I’ll be, one of the most overhyped web sites in existence (www.technorati.com) actually proves useful!

I found the following blog posts about TRC.

Myspace woman who I’ve mentally nicknamed “Flakychick” has this interesting post.

Here is a young woman who is in Peru for two years as a Peace Corp volunteer.

I don’t have the foggiest idea what, or who, this next woman is, except she doesn’t consider herself a tourist.

Well, thats actually three interesting things to read – more than enough for now.

I’ve never been interested in Columbus Ga, because I’ve never heard anything interesting about the place. Until now, that is.Basically, this is a reminder to myself to check out their new treetop trail. I have heard that it requires a reservation…. but I can’t find a definitive link on that, so this is their contact page, for me to follow up on.Charlene, at work, recently went to Costa Rica, where she went on a canopy tour. I envy her for that… plus, she is a total droolworthy looker, at that.