Had the day off Monday cuz some Italian guy "discovered" a country full of people. Whatever, it was a day off, I'm not gonna argue over it.
I decided early on I wanted to make good use of the day, so after a sleepover at the girl's house Sunday night, followed by sleeping late Monday morning, I set out. (Unfortunately, the girl was forced to work at her labor-camp, becuase evidently the US Government doesn't care who "discovered" our country).
First stop was Huntley Meadows Park in Alexandria VA. I read something about the park in a hiking book I have, and after a bit of research online, I decided it sounded like it had good photography potential. Besides, boardwalks over marshland is prolly one of my favorite things. Don't ask me why. I don't know. I just think it's extra cool.
I managed to spend about 5 hours in the park, taking pix of critters, hiking, talking to a cool retired guy who goes photographing pretty much every day. He gave me some tips, told me about the local bird life at the park (evidently earlier in the day I missed seeing an eagle which lives in the area) and generally shared knowledge which I totally appreciated.
So far, I only post-processed one pic well enough to post at eighteenpercent. A cool little beastie I found on the boardwalk:
Make sure you hit eighteenpercent.net to see the full sized version. It's much better (detail, colors, etc). I also managed to get a ton of heron and egret shots. I have to tweak them before they're ready for prime time. I think I managed to get a few keepers.
Anyway, after the park, I headed home to dump my CF card (cuz the camera was full), and I decided to do an oil change on my truck. Only overdue by...err...too many thousands of miles. Sorry truck.
Finished with the truck and sat down for about 5 minutes when DT calls and asks if I wanna take a quick ride at Wakefield. Sure, says I. Quick change into bike gear and out the door to the park I go.
Got to the park and DT and I set out. We did maybe 45 minutes of the old favorite trails, then decided to go wandering around all these offshoot trails we've never explored. It's amazing, you ride in a park for 3+ years and there are still trials you haven't ridden, cuz they're not on your "normal" loops. So anyway, we spent prolly an hour exploring and bushwacking. Found some interesting stuff, but nothing really groundbreaking. I imagine we'll stick to our normal loops and trails after all.
