Shopping the day after Thanksgiving would be torture for me. Instead my family opted to explore and hike.

Rattlesnake Lake, North Bend, WA.

Get outdoors! No shopping for me today. I explored and hiked around Rattlesnake Lake, North Bend, WA.

Pipevine Swallowtail I found feeding in late summer in the Great Smokey Mountains NP TN. These were there along the road in great abundance I took several shots and liked how this one turned out.

This is a shot that took several months ago and posted here. I've gone back to it and did a little more work to it, and I really like the way it came out. I hope you all like it as much as I do.

A couple of days ago I was driving through town when I saw this sunset. This photo doesn't do it justice with that narrow band of light. When I first saw it, the light beam was twice or three times as wide. I couldn't decide where I wanted to shoot from. It was when I crossed the tracks and looked towards the old train station/feed-store that I knew where it had to be done. I probably pissed off a couple of folks turning off and doubling back to my spot, but I made it, didn't kill myself or anyone else and nailed the shot. AND this is my first published shot from my new R5. I hope you all like it.

This is a 25 second exposure I made with a 10 Stop ND filter. It really smoothed the waves and gave this a surrealistic aspect. I hope you like it.

Another in the series I made while on the South Texas coast. This one is a 30 second exposure and made the rough water flat and gave it a surreal look and feel to the shot.

It was cold and windy but fun shooting this one none the less. This is a four-shot Pano and I think it turned out pretty dang good considering it was handheld and as windy as all get out.

I did have the privilege to meet Bob Smith. You have got to see his photos, way out of my league, shoot, if he was a Major League player, then I'd be at the T-Ball league. He is GREAT. Check him out here. www.bobsmithimages.net

This was our second trip through here to Cade's Cove. The day before I had been scouting the river that ran alongside the road. I had picked out several spots that looked like they might be a good place to shoot. Micki sat in the Jeep while I did my best to keep from falling in with or without my camera. The sun was out with a clear sky, so this shady spot worked out for the best and I got several shots along this piece of the river. I had a big time getting this four-shot exposure for this HDR image.

Sun rise on South Padre Island

I had never really looked this closely to the moss that is always growing on the rocks around here until I took a long hard look at this specimen. To me it looked like a forest in Micro, and It made me wonder what sort of tiny creatures lived within that forest. It caught my attention for sure. Maybe I'll go borrow a micro lens and further explore this new land and see for myself what new (to me) things I can see.

Lake Mineral Wells State Park

Mineral Wells, Texas

Another from our time in The Great Smokey Mountains NP. Coral Fungi and Fall colored leaf.

Going into Canyonlands and Dead Horse Point We stopped when I saw the sun hitting the cliff face.

I had pretty much given up on getting anything worthwhile and we were headed out to eat and go home when the thought occurred to me that there was one more place I hadn't tried. So, with the light fading we hurried back into the State Park and took one more look and saw this and a realized that I had almost missed this for another year.

There were dozens of these Pipevine Swallowtail all over these flowers. Most were overhead and I couldn't get the settings right without blowing out the highlights. This one will have to do. I hope you like it.

While I was in the cabin, I ran into some folks who said that their Granny lived there and had spent lots of time as children romping through the woods and surrounding area. It was great to get to talk to these folks who had a personal connection to this home. That spurred me to do a little research into the homeplace and I found the following page link listed below. It's a good read and I only included a couple of points. There's more if you want to read it.

I found this information at this website. experiencecadescove.com/blog/things-you-didnt-know-about-...

1. It’s Not Actually John Oliver’s Cabin

Cades Cove during summer

It’s a little-known fact that the structure identified as John Oliver’s cabin that sits in the national park to this day is not the original! John Oliver’s cabin actually stood about 50 yards or so behind the cabin now identified as the original. The building that you see today in the Cades Cove is the honeymoon cabin which the family built for their son to use whenever he married. Youth were taken care of quite practically during this time period. Honeymoon houses were typical and usually built on the parents’ property.

2. One of the Oldest Structures in the Park

John and Lucretia Oliver arrived at Cades Cove in 1818, making them among first permanent European settlers there. The Oliver Cabin is one of the oldest cabins in the park, estimated to have been completed sometime around the early 1820s. However, the cabin identified and preserved by the national park is actually estimated to have been built around the 1850s.

Two wary Mule Deer Fawns checking things out in Colorado.