Home, Home on the range.....

Where the Deer, and the Antelope Play.....

So, I have been asked by a good friend in Wyoming several times if I'd come visit her. We have known each other for years, through a Yahoo World Thimbler's Group, but we have never met face to face before now.

Got the idea to go Labor Day 2011 weekend. Got a new I-phone, and got the Kia, and off I went to Douglas WY. I left at 6:30, and boy is it a long drive. Whole bunch of nothing to concentrate on. I have never driven I-25 so this was nerve-wracking (especially through Denver and Ft. Collins.)

Saw 4 CAMEL'S on the side of the road grazing. I swear- Camels!!!! No place to pull over... you'll have to take my word on this.

Got to Douglas at 11 am or so. Small town, like 5-6,000 residents?

Hotel Labonte, where I was staying.

Had a nice short time to chill out,, have lunch, and watch my friends husband make me a brass thimble on a metal lathe,  just for me....pretty cool!


Then our other friend from Nebraska came to visit also, so 2 friends I have now met face to face. (Chris - Nebraska, and Ro -Wyoming).

Went and showed them some places w/ geocaches in them, to introduce them to the game. They liked it, and I liked the photo ops.

This cemetery had a turnstile gate.... Hmm,  maybe so the spirits will stay in???

Then we hung out around town and looked around the Train museum like tourist info center.

and then there was this guy guarding,  the grounds...

There was a geocache here, which we found. My friends seem to enjoy the sport of it.

We went in and I adopted a small "plush" Jackalope for myself, and got a license to hunt them, but only for the day of June 31st of each year. No problem, I'll be back! LOL

I was sooo tired by 10pm, went back to my hotel......(my hotel had no staff hardly that weekend... no check-in personnel , no restaurant open on site to have dinner, no bar-tenders on due to the long holiday,  plus no WI-FI- password, no cell service, and not too many cable stations that were clear. Oh and a broken elevator, and musty old smells.
Hmmm, glad it was no more than $50 a night. Oh yeah, my room was smaller than  a medium sized bathroom, ok, maybe a bit bigger.....

Next day - I went to "explore" and drove down to an area a local mentioned that might have a schoolhouse that was very old. Didn't find IT, but did see these....

The Original markers to the Oregon Trail

Then we went to Devil's Tower.. 

OMG!!!

And you can see climbers all around on the sides of it....

Uh, Nope, not a sport I care to try.

On the way out, we stopped at Prairie Dog City - population- too many to count.

These were w/in 3-4 feet from us...

"Put em up, Put em up"

If it was not for the plague infested fleas on these cute lil guys, I may have brought one home....  maybe LOL

These next few photos were found around the trip back to my friends house.....

We had decided to have lunch next...
Best burger I have ever had (well 2nd best maybe) was in this trading post/diner.... Mmmmmm 

He was there to "greet you" as you came in to have lunch.

Next day, we went off to explore the mountains near her home, Esterbrook Church and Laramie Peak were pretty sweet....

So serene to be there.

This guy was in the road and my friend stopped to take a photo, OUTSIDE her vehicle. 

Another car came by too, the driver wanted to kill him, and she begged him not to. I was almost paralyzed w/ fear to get out to shoot 1 photo, but I managed to. When we came back the same road, he was dead... Poor snakey.... R.I.P.

A few final photos, and I came home, driving to see my friend in Westminster, CO (Near Denver) and then home by 12 midnight. 

P.S... I hate Denver, 2 Semi's surrounded me and a sports car nearly caused 1 of the trucks to crash into me after the @$$hole cut between them and sped off the exit, and I was forced to exit too. I couldn't get around the semi and the jersey barrier before my lane ended into the exit..GRRR.

Hope you enjoyed my trip up to the Prairie! 

See ya in 10 days when I go to Mnt Rushmore, Custer State Park, Crazy Horse, 

and some surrounding areas.

New Friends.....

I have been blessed in the friends dept. lately, NLC photo group helped me meet Chris G. A wonderful, knowledgeable photographer who is helping me understand the Not "auto" settings of my Nikon... so Manual is now my new challenge.

While at Starbucks, waiting for Chris......

I couldn't resist the Venus Fly Trap plant. Yes...its alive, I got the buds to close.

I then tried to apply my new lesson and went out and parked at UCCS Recreation center to shoot the Garden of the God's road.....and a cool rainstorm arrived, and the sun came out at same time......

Then..Saturday I was on Facebook and a lady named Dina was asking if anyone wanted to hang out and perhaps show her how to set her camera to capture the beauty of Colorado. She is visiting from Idaho.

We met at Village Inn and chatted for a long time, and then headed to retake some Garden of The God's photos, then Manitou Springs, Down through Rte 24 to Woodland Park and onto Rte 67 towards the Hayman Fire grounds.
(The Hayman Fire was a forest fire that started 35 miles (56 km) northwest of Colorado Springs on June 8, 2002, and became the largest fire in the state's recorded history.)

 and then Today.. I meet up w/ other photographer's.... a few named Try, Brian, Tony and my 2 friends Chris and Dina, and many others I will get to know in a Manitou Springs Photography Club. Can't wait!

Well, off to get some pics edited to upload the FB page for the club meeting tonight at 5PM. See ya later!

Photo Study - Shadows... and some bonus shots.

I am in 2 Photography clubs now... and the one for NLC meets every Thursday at Starbucks.
This week we were given a homework assignment...

Shadows!

Now... I am not good w/ purposely finding a subject... they usually find me....
But I did (in a 2 day span) capture some potential shadow shots......

Some of these will be shown tonight at my Club get together.

I went to Palmer Lake and Spring Valley areas... and tried some more geocaches.

Now, I loaded 5 geocaches in to find... found 1 immediately in Spring Valley area near the schoolhouse I shot on Lorraine Rd.

The Colorado Spirit Quest series took me to Spring Valley Cemetery...I feel so bad for the unmarked graves... no one knows who they are? No one comes to pay respect?

Got a cute geocache here (nestled into a small cornucopia) and I walked around for about 20 mins in all directions because my stupid GPS had an attitude.

Just some macros I tried...

Now after driving to a geocache in a small area of Palmer Lake down a 1 lane, 1 sided switchback road... I looked for a cache w/ a difficulty of a 4. Guess what?? I didn't find it, and I was in the 2PM sun...

I gave up... and drove around P.Lake... and stopped for a few minutes (45 actually) at an ice cream spot. 

Rock House Ice Cream... I had Cake Batter in a sugar cone... Mmmmmm

These 2 shots were just "Fun!"

I drove to a remote spot to spot a Virtual Cache (no container or log book) to spy a "Safari" animal....

I got to the spot, it rained hard on me, spent 20 mins looking at the area in question, and later I e-mailed the cache creator and guessed... I was right. I can't say  what it was in here due to other cachers who may read this and want to go there to spy it themselves.

I finally captured a few more shots in areas...

above.... Tiny chapel is at Ponderosa Conference and Recreation Center

Greenland Open Space area.

Train was not coming to run me over.. It was "parked" the whole time I was in that area.

Well that is all for now... as I need to upload these to a USB port to bring to the club gathering tonight. 

Thanks for looking!