Reflecting

Monday, 28 January
Maxwell AFB FamCamp — Montgomery, Alabama
Temps: Lo 55F / Hi 66F (13C / 19C)

At the risk of jinxing ourselves, I have to say that we’re still enjoying great weather here.  Sure, the nights dipped down to the mid-40F (7C) range over the weekend, but the days were fantastically warm and filled with sunshine and mostly blue skies.  In fact, we saw 72F (22C) yesterday, and it’s forecasted to go up to 79F (26C) tomorrow.

What follows after that isn’t looking good.  There’s some bad weather moving in from the west that is projected to bring severe weather to the area — heard the “T” word (tornado) on the news last night.  There are no active alerts for our area as yet.  Needless to say, we will be monitoring the weather closely.

The weekend found us walking and triking to take advantage of the nice days.  There’s a figure eight path that we follow around the two lakes; great for our morning exercise walk — as long as I don’t take my camera ;-)  I usually go back out that way in the afternoon to see what I can see and photograph.

The surprising thing — at least to us — is that every time we go out, we have the lake to ourselves.  In fact, the campground has been exceptionally quiet considering the number of rigs.  Mui’s guess is that most of the campers here at the FamCamp are probably students at one of the military schools on base.  They’re probably spending their free time studying.  Glad it’s not us ;-)

Not that we’re complaining mind you.  We’ve been using these quiet days to reflect — and I don’t mean the beautiful “double the pleasure” images the mirror-smooth lakes have been providing for our viewing pleasure.  Sitting on one of the benches on the peninsula that reaches out into the middle of lake #2 … staring across the calm water … the silence broken only by birds chirping unseen in the tangle of trees on the other side of the fence … watching the mallards take flight at the slightest disturbance — it’s hard not to reflect on our life on the road, and give thanks that we are here and not still chained to the nine-to-five routine.

Enough about all that … here are some images from our lakeside strolls this weekend.

Looking across lake #1 towards the old section of the FamCamp and the tent camping area.

a wide shot over lake #1 shows plenty of blue skies and great reflections.

There’s an egret in this reflection shot … can you see it?

A “shooting-from-the-hip” Great Egret photo.  this is the same bird that is on shore in
the previous photo … just so you know that it wasn’t a figment of my imagination.

This shot of a pied-billed grebe is my favorite from Saturday; it popped out of
the water to surprise me just as I was walking away.

I was photographing the two pairs of mallards strolling around the picnic area
when an interloper hopped into the scene.  Can you find the intruder?

Here we go again … a mallard intrudes into the scene causing one of the Canada geese
to turn its head just as I click the shutter!  And then they flew off, of course!

“Double the pleasure” in the golden light of Sunday morning.

this shot of an Eastern Bluebird is my favorite from Sunday.
There were quite a few of them flying about, but only this one stopped for a photo op.

Double-Crested Cormorants were a rare sight in Alabama just a few decades ago; the ban on DDT has led to the recovery of the population.  I never expected to see one here at Maxwell AFB.

The trees get in the way of the colorful sunsets, but here are a couple of shots to wrap up this post.

Hope you’re all enjoying your days on the road … we sure are; even when we’re not out exploring!