Wanderlust Wednesday - Cabrillo National Monument

Today's Wanderlust Wednesday brings you back to the Pacific coastline and one of my favorite things to do.  Visit National Parks!!  I love our National Park system which is way more then just the National Parks that you know of.  They also handle our National Monuments, Seashores, and Lakeshores.  Cabrillo is one of those monuments.  Set high on the Pacific coastline at the southern tip of the Point Loma Peninsula, it commemorates the landing of Juan Rodriquez Cabrillo in 1542.  Cabrillo was the first European to set foot on the west coast.

Today's Wanderlust Wednesday brings you back to the Pacific coastline and one of my favorite things to do.  Visit National Parks!!  I love our National Park system which is way more then just the National Parks that you know of.  They also handle our National Monuments, Seashores, and Lakeshores.  Cabrillo is one of those monuments.  Set high on the Pacific coastline at the southern tip of the Point Loma Peninsula, it commemorates the landing of Juan Rodriquez Cabrillo in 1542.  Cabrillo was the first European to set foot on the west coast.

Today's Wanderlust Wednesday brings you back to the Pacific coastline and one of my favorite things to do.  Visit National Parks!!  I love our National Park system which is way more then just the National Parks that you know of.  They also handle our National Monuments, Seashores, and Lakeshores.  Cabrillo is one of those monuments.  Set high on the Pacific coastline at the southern tip of the Point Loma Peninsula, it commemorates the landing of Juan Rodriquez Cabrillo in 1542.  Cabrillo was the first European to set foot on the west coast.

2013 Travel Plans-Well Sort Of...

Part of the fun for me about traveling is the planning.  I LOVE that little zing you get when you pull out a map of the USA and figure out where and when you want to go somewhere.  I also love the, gulp, research about that place you want to go to.  What I don't love haha, is figuring out the expenses of that trip :(.  So as I'm sitting here writing this post, I'm mostly kind of doing this post for me.  I like to have things down on paper(or computer screen) because my travel plans change with the breeze sometimes and I like to have options.  As I list my "planned" trips, I will probably list more then I can do in a year, but at least I have my choices and I can go from there.  Hope you enjoy reading about them.

None of these pictures below are my pictures!!  Below the pictures are the various owners whose copyrights belong to these pictures and the links attached are to their respective websites.  I just know that a post without pictures is a very boring blog indeed and as a fellow photographer myself I would never want to claim pictures that are not mine.

 

 

Trip Number 1 - March Family Road Trip 
Shiloh, TN to Gulf Shores, AL to Vicksburg, MS

Part of the fun for me about traveling is the planning.  I LOVE that little zing you get when you pull out a map of the USA and figure out where and when you want to go somewhere.  I also love the, gulp, research about that place you want to go to.  What I don't love haha, is figuring out the expenses of that trip :(.  So as I'm sitting here writing this post, I'm mostly kind of doing this post for me.  I like to have things down on paper(or computer screen) because my travel plans change with the breeze sometimes and I like to have options.  As I list my "planned" trips, I will probably list more then I can do in a year, but at least I have my choices and I can go from there.  Hope you enjoy reading about them.

None of these pictures below are my pictures!!  Below the pictures are the various owners whose copyrights belong to these pictures and the links attached are to their respective websites.  I just know that a post without pictures is a very boring blog indeed and as a fellow photographer myself I would never want to claim pictures that are not mine.

 

 

Trip Number 1 - March Family Road Trip 
Shiloh, TN to Gulf Shores, AL to Vicksburg, MS

Part of the fun for me about traveling is the planning.  I LOVE that little zing you get when you pull out a map of the USA and figure out where and when you want to go somewhere.  I also love the, gulp, research about that place you want to go to.  What I don't love haha, is figuring out the expenses of that trip :(.  So as I'm sitting here writing this post, I'm mostly kind of doing this post for me.  I like to have things down on paper(or computer screen) because my travel plans change with the breeze sometimes and I like to have options.  As I list my "planned" trips, I will probably list more then I can do in a year, but at least I have my choices and I can go from there.  Hope you enjoy reading about them.

None of these pictures below are my pictures!!  Below the pictures are the various owners whose copyrights belong to these pictures and the links attached are to their respective websites.  I just know that a post without pictures is a very boring blog indeed and as a fellow photographer myself I would never want to claim pictures that are not mine.

 

 

Trip Number 1 - March Family Road Trip 
Shiloh, TN to Gulf Shores, AL to Vicksburg, MS

Winter Blues Beaten Part 1 - Eagles on the River

I am so very happy to check off  Idea Number 5 on my 10 Ways to Beat the Winter Blues post!  Today I picked my son C up from school and we went down the river to go watch for eagles!  It was a lot of fun spending the afternoon with him.  Even though we froze our tushes off in 10 degree weather with some God awful windchill AND I almost got frostbite on my fingertips taking these pictures.  It's all about the moments though isn't it? 

 

This guy was quite puffed up and proud of his perch let me tell you.

I am so very happy to check off  Idea Number 5 on my 10 Ways to Beat the Winter Blues post!  Today I picked my son C up from school and we went down the river to go watch for eagles!  It was a lot of fun spending the afternoon with him.  Even though we froze our tushes off in 10 degree weather with some God awful windchill AND I almost got frostbite on my fingertips taking these pictures.  It's all about the moments though isn't it? 

 

This guy was quite puffed up and proud of his perch let me tell you.

I am so very happy to check off  Idea Number 5 on my 10 Ways to Beat the Winter Blues post!  Today I picked my son C up from school and we went down the river to go watch for eagles!  It was a lot of fun spending the afternoon with him.  Even though we froze our tushes off in 10 degree weather with some God awful windchill AND I almost got frostbite on my fingertips taking these pictures.  It's all about the moments though isn't it? 

 

This guy was quite puffed up and proud of his perch let me tell you.

10 Ways to Beat the Winter Blues with Kids

I woke up today and it was -20 windchill and barely a dusting of snow on the ground.  Ahhh winter in west central Illinois.  We don't get the snow like northern Illinois and our winters are slightly warmer, not a lot of chances to play in the snow.  Down here we have to get creative with what we do during the winter.  So I sat down these past couple of days and tried to come up with some stuff we could do that didn't require snow.

I woke up today and it was -20 windchill and barely a dusting of snow on the ground.  Ahhh winter in west central Illinois.  We don't get the snow like northern Illinois and our winters are slightly warmer, not a lot of chances to play in the snow.  Down here we have to get creative with what we do during the winter.  So I sat down these past couple of days and tried to come up with some stuff we could do that didn't require snow.

I woke up today and it was -20 windchill and barely a dusting of snow on the ground.  Ahhh winter in west central Illinois.  We don't get the snow like northern Illinois and our winters are slightly warmer, not a lot of chances to play in the snow.  Down here we have to get creative with what we do during the winter.  So I sat down these past couple of days and tried to come up with some stuff we could do that didn't require snow.

Photo Friday - Balboa Park Tree

I love linking up with people so I am going to try and post a Photo Friday picture as often as I can.  These will be just random travel or nature pictures that fit different Photo Friday links and my own interests.  For my first Photo Friday I am posting a picture of a neat looking tree that I spotted in Balboa Park, San Diego, California on my recent trip there from May 2012.


Balboa Park tree, San Diego California

I took this picture because I loved all the knobbies that were coming up through the ground and thought they were neat looking.  We had gotten to the park too late to see many of the neat museums that they have there, so we were just walking around the park enjoying all the fun stuff they have outside of the museums when I spotted it.  It was actually on a pretty steep hill, but we were able to walk amongst the trees that were in this little grove I guess.

As I was looking at this picture I realized that I had several pictures like this of just weird, funky, trees that would be fun to show everybody.  So this is picture one and I am going to do a funky tree picture for the next week on my Facebook page.  I would love for you to "like" my Facebook page to follow along.

This picture was posted for Photo Friday on Delicious Baby and Budget Travelers Sandbox.  R We There Yet Mom also does a Photo Friday as well.

Please visit my Flickr page for this picture and other fun photos to look at.

Happy Friday!!!

I love linking up with people so I am going to try and post a Photo Friday picture as often as I can.  These will be just random travel or nature pictures that fit different Photo Friday links and my own interests.  For my first Photo Friday I am posting a picture of a neat looking tree that I spotted in Balboa Park, San Diego, California on my recent trip there from May 2012.


Balboa Park tree, San Diego California

I took this picture because I loved all the knobbies that were coming up through the ground and thought they were neat looking.  We had gotten to the park too late to see many of the neat museums that they have there, so we were just walking around the park enjoying all the fun stuff they have outside of the museums when I spotted it.  It was actually on a pretty steep hill, but we were able to walk amongst the trees that were in this little grove I guess.

As I was looking at this picture I realized that I had several pictures like this of just weird, funky, trees that would be fun to show everybody.  So this is picture one and I am going to do a funky tree picture for the next week on my Facebook page.  I would love for you to "like" my Facebook page to follow along.

This picture was posted for Photo Friday on Delicious Baby and Budget Travelers Sandbox.  R We There Yet Mom also does a Photo Friday as well.

Please visit my Flickr page for this picture and other fun photos to look at.

Happy Friday!!!

I love linking up with people so I am going to try and post a Photo Friday picture as often as I can.  These will be just random travel or nature pictures that fit different Photo Friday links and my own interests.  For my first Photo Friday I am posting a picture of a neat looking tree that I spotted in Balboa Park, San Diego, California on my recent trip there from May 2012.


Balboa Park tree, San Diego California

I took this picture because I loved all the knobbies that were coming up through the ground and thought they were neat looking.  We had gotten to the park too late to see many of the neat museums that they have there, so we were just walking around the park enjoying all the fun stuff they have outside of the museums when I spotted it.  It was actually on a pretty steep hill, but we were able to walk amongst the trees that were in this little grove I guess.

As I was looking at this picture I realized that I had several pictures like this of just weird, funky, trees that would be fun to show everybody.  So this is picture one and I am going to do a funky tree picture for the next week on my Facebook page.  I would love for you to "like" my Facebook page to follow along.

This picture was posted for Photo Friday on Delicious Baby and Budget Travelers Sandbox.  R We There Yet Mom also does a Photo Friday as well.

Please visit my Flickr page for this picture and other fun photos to look at.

Happy Friday!!!

Wanderlust Wednesday - Key West Sunset

The famous Mallory Square sunset picture and for good reason.  Mallory Square in Key West Florida is one of those must do sunset pictures.  People come from all over the place to enjoy the free entertainment in the square and the beautiful sunset and with good reason.  This is one of the MOST beautiful places to take a sunset picture.  Every direction you turn is another gorgeous sight to take in and attempt to photograph.  I had to have taken a good 50 - 75 sunset shots and got several of them that I absolutely love for different reasons.  The picture above was one of them.  Read on to see others....

The famous Mallory Square sunset picture and for good reason.  Mallory Square in Key West Florida is one of those must do sunset pictures.  People come from all over the place to enjoy the free entertainment in the square and the beautiful sunset and with good reason.  This is one of the MOST beautiful places to take a sunset picture.  Every direction you turn is another gorgeous sight to take in and attempt to photograph.  I had to have taken a good 50 - 75 sunset shots and got several of them that I absolutely love for different reasons.  The picture above was one of them.  Read on to see others....

The famous Mallory Square sunset picture and for good reason.  Mallory Square in Key West Florida is one of those must do sunset pictures.  People come from all over the place to enjoy the free entertainment in the square and the beautiful sunset and with good reason.  This is one of the MOST beautiful places to take a sunset picture.  Every direction you turn is another gorgeous sight to take in and attempt to photograph.  I had to have taken a good 50 - 75 sunset shots and got several of them that I absolutely love for different reasons.  The picture above was one of them.  Read on to see others....

Winter on the Great River Road



 

 

 

This was a picture that I took off of Great River Road in Illinois about a week ago.  It was snowing out that day and I was off to have some fun with snow pictures.  I had featured it on my last post, but thought that I would tell more about it for this post.  I sometimes forget how blessed I am to be living on one of the all time great road trips in the United States.  I've been from my home state north and a little south but not too far south.  It's on my bucket list :).



 

 

 

This was a picture that I took off of Great River Road in Illinois about a week ago.  It was snowing out that day and I was off to have some fun with snow pictures.  I had featured it on my last post, but thought that I would tell more about it for this post.  I sometimes forget how blessed I am to be living on one of the all time great road trips in the United States.  I've been from my home state north and a little south but not too far south.  It's on my bucket list :).



 

 

 

This was a picture that I took off of Great River Road in Illinois about a week ago.  It was snowing out that day and I was off to have some fun with snow pictures.  I had featured it on my last post, but thought that I would tell more about it for this post.  I sometimes forget how blessed I am to be living on one of the all time great road trips in the United States.  I've been from my home state north and a little south but not too far south.  It's on my bucket list :).

Winter Joys

I know a lot of people get to January and February and they get a little depressed because there is a loooong winter ahead of them.  At least those of us around here in the midwest feel that way :).  I happen to like January and February.  It's not October(my absolute fav month) but definately better then March, where it's just wet and dreary, and August, where you're dripping because of how hot it is.  Here are a few reasons why...
The snow makes everything so crisp.

 

 Turns the ordinary into something extraordinary.

I know a lot of people get to January and February and they get a little depressed because there is a loooong winter ahead of them.  At least those of us around here in the midwest feel that way :).  I happen to like January and February.  It's not October(my absolute fav month) but definately better then March, where it's just wet and dreary, and August, where you're dripping because of how hot it is.  Here are a few reasons why...
The snow makes everything so crisp.

 

 Turns the ordinary into something extraordinary.

I know a lot of people get to January and February and they get a little depressed because there is a loooong winter ahead of them.  At least those of us around here in the midwest feel that way :).  I happen to like January and February.  It's not October(my absolute fav month) but definately better then March, where it's just wet and dreary, and August, where you're dripping because of how hot it is.  Here are a few reasons why...
The snow makes everything so crisp.

 

 Turns the ordinary into something extraordinary.