photography – A Constant State of Hunger

Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park

Back in August, relatively early in my current path to fitness, I wrote this post, in which I articulated some secondary goals related to my fitness. These are not goals about the fitness itself – they are goals that address a theme I’d call “How I Want to Live My Life”. For the record, though I couldn’t have done so when I wrote that post, I can sum the answer to that up in one word now – Adventure.

One of those goals is worth quoting in its entirety:

Start keeping track of bag nights. I love to hike and camp, and I don’t do it enough because it can be hard. I don’t have the energy, and the physical work is just exhausting. It has been on the order of years since I’ve done even minor camping. That has to change, if for no other reason than that I’m committed to introducing my kids to the outdoors.

And so last weekend I took my oldest son on his first camping trip. Continue reading “Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park”

Red, White, and Blue – a few pictures

O beautiful for spacious skies,

In Pangburn, Arkansas, where I grew up, they have been blowing out their 4^th of July celebration for decades. The event is an all-day affair that starts with a parade in the morning and ends with fireworks at night. There is live music, free BBQ (a full blown pig-in-the-ground when I was there), games and contests, and any politician running for anything in the state of Arkansas is obliged to make a pit stop and a quick stump speech. Folks all over the state, if they know Pangburn (pop. 601) at all, know it for this. And this celebration was my introduction to national and civic celebration of the United States of America’s Independence Day.

For amber waves of grain,

And then I grew to be a teenager, and young adult, and on – and I apparently got too cool for that kind of civic engagement. Newsflash for anybody that doesn’t have a calendar – July is hot! And fireworks are OK, but seem to become less awe-inspiring over time. Not to mention the hell that is fireworks traffic. No traffic is good traffic – and fireworks traffic can be the pits. So, for years I pretty much floated above it all. If seeing fireworks was easy, I did that, but otherwise the 4^th of July was just another three day weekend in the summer.

For purple mountain majesties

We moved to Florida last year at the end of April, so by July 4^th we hadn’t been around for very long. We moved into a town, Celebration, known for its civic engagement and pride, and they don’t disappoint on the 4^th. There was a big party downtown, and fireworks, and a parade in the morning. One of the local moms that my wife became friends with signed up an entry into the parade called “The Red Wagon Brigade” – everybody to decorate their red wagons and pull their kids in the parade. We had a 3-year old and a 4-month old, so that seemed to be very do-able. My wife decorated the wagon, we got all excited … and then both kids came down with fevers the day before. No parade, though my wife did go make an appearance at the evening party thrown by that same mom. I listened to the downtown fireworks booming and kept my fingers crossed that they wouldn’t wake my sleeping kids. July 4^th, 2015, was a dud.

Above the fruited plain!

Not July 4^th, 2016, though. This time the 4-year old could ride a decorated bicycle, and both kids were in great shape going into the morning. We met up with the rest of The Red Wagon Brigade and prepped for our part in the parade. It was hot – holy crap, it was hot. And we staged in a parking lot, so no shade. But once things got moving, everybody started having a blast. Because I wasn’t needed to wrangle kids once things got started, I ran ahead on the parade route with my camera and acted as the official photographer for The Red Wagon Brigade. When they’d pass my position, I would sprint ahead and take more pictures. The kids had a blast, and then we all went home and took two-hour naps.

America! America! God shed His grace on thee,

As I was out and about with my camera, it dawned on me that the 4^th of July, Independence Day, is and ought to be a special holiday in America. This is a day for us to celebrate those things that make us uniquely us, and a day to remember that it wasn’t all that long ago that our forefathers had to fight, and sacrifice a great deal, to make sure we today have the unfettered ability to participate in, or ignore at will, great displays of civic pride. Though the parade was fun, I was most struck by the quieter moments. A slowly filling downtown decorated with American flags and kids on bicycles. A woman straightening the flag she’d hung from her second story balcony. The milling about in red, white, and blue before the parade started. These are the moments that hit me – we are a community, both our community in Celebration, Florida, and the broader community of the United States of America. Black, white, red with yellow polka-dots, we love our country and we all want the best for it, even if we disagree on what the best is. And, crucially, if we wall ourselves off and decline to be a part of this community and engage in these displays of civic pride, we allow ourselves to be typecast and stereotyped and defined as “other”, when what we need to be doing is engaging and shaking hands and showing each other that, though we all came in on different ships, we’re all in the same boat.

And crown thy good with brotherhood

My son is scared of loud noises, so when it came time to walk from the after-party over to the fireworks he decided he’d pass. We were disappointed – this was to be his first fireworks – but also supportive – it would just be cruel to make him suffer through the booms. We got home at about 9:15 with two exhausted kids when the booms started, and my wife happened to look out the window. To our surprise, the house that we bought in January has what turns out to be an almost completely unimpeded view of the fireworks! We stood out in the backyard and watched them all go, and got to experience fireworks again for the first time, through our 4-year old. Not to get all cheesy, but it was a little bit of magic to end a really long day.

From sea to shining sea!

The 4^th of July is going to become a legitimate holiday in our house. I want to teach my kids about that kind of civic engagement, and I want them to feel pride in their community and their country. If they don’t have that pride, and don’t know how to engage, then they won’t care enough to fight for it when the time comes – figuratively and literally. Good, active citizenship requires more than just voting and bitching about where the country is going – it involves participation, in the good times and parties as well as the bad times and disagreements. It involves knowing and understanding what is going on, and that isn’t possible without being engaged with your community. That engagement is something to be taught and modeled, and is my responsibility to teach and model – so teach and model it I shall.

Happy birthday, America – see you at next year’s party!

Photo-op Saturday

Got up this morning to go for a scheduled 4 mile run, but I was having some gastro issues and lets just say that I was nervous to be 2 miles from the house this morning after having run to get there and move on.

Instead, because I was up and had a rare free morning when the sun was coming up, I grabbed my camera and headed out to the big pond / little lake out here by the house that I see so much wildlife in as I drive by on the way to and from work. This is the same lake where I took the picture of the big alligator a few weeks back, and I thought maybe I’d find something interesting.

And I did. Lots of things.

One thing I have to say about Florida – when the sun isn’t directly overhead the landscape is absolutely beautiful.

Kind of perfect, really... — Kind of perfect, really…

So I walked up and spent a couple of minutes looking around, just to see if there was anything obvious to see. There wasn’t, so I started walking down the edge of the water. Within two minutes, I made a new friend.

This was not the big guy, but I was able to get up very close to him and get some pictures I really like. This was a rush.

Then I went and found the birds. A great blue heron:

A great egret:

A red-winged blackbird (actually a bunch of these, but they didn’t sit still for pictures):

And a little blue heron (which is a distinct species, not just a small specimen):

The light was challenging, but I want to practice my photography and try and get better – there is so much here to take pictures of, and it is frustrating to know what you want the shot to look like and not be able to execute. So I’ll keep practicing – and seeing all of this wildlife is really a rush.

Tomorrow, though, I’ll be running. I’ve got a 4-miler to make up.

You must go to Gatorland

Took the family to Gatorland in Orlando today, and here’s the thing about Gatorland – you need to go.

No, seriously, whatever it is that you have planned in the Orlando area the next time you come around, you need to just go ahead and shuffle that around and make a trip to Gatorland. If you’re here for Disney, just take the half day or even full day and skip Disney and head over there.

We went in with low expectations. Frankly, it seemed like it had an opportunity to be very cheesy. And, in spots, it was. But that was more than made up for by the just unbelievable wildlife – there are so many alligators that counting becomes pointless. And snakes and birds and crocodiles and you name it – this place is incredible.

We didn’t see the “famous” Jumperoo show, but we did go and take in the alligator wrestling. Picture a sand pit in the middle of a little arena, bleachers on all sides. The pit is surrounded by a moat, in which swim a dozen or so alligators and over which is a single bridge that has gates on both ends of it. Some crazy-ass dude walks in there, asks a little kid to pick out which gator he’s going to “wrestle” – and the little kid OF COURSE picks the biggest one in the water. Because, OF COURSE. This thing is mean, and our man struggles to get it out of the water. So he STEPS OFF INTO THE MOAT, WADES OVER AND GRABS IT BY THE TAIL AND DRAGS IT UP INTO THE SAND PIT. This alligator snarling and bellowing and trying to bite him the whole time. And then proceeds to do all kinds of tricks with it.

Are you kidding me?

Seriously, come do this. And bring your camera. There is some amazing stuff to see here. I took all of the pictures included below except the one with the family – that one cost $18.99, but did come with a 1GB flash drive.