Among my first views of Yellowstone National Park!
Mule deer like this buck are everywhere in Yellowstone. This particular specimen was grazing right next to the visitors' center. Attention whore!
Ground squirrels!!! They're a lot like the normal kind, but without the tails. These two live near the petrified tree, which makes me wonder if they eat petrified acorns.
But what of sweeping Yellowstone geological panoramas, you ask? Well, this is a start! It's hard to capture scenic beauty, because I've come to the conclusion that "scenic" means "uninteractive and remote," but this is one of the better landscapes that came out of that expedition.
Caterpillars or worms of some sort, crawling all over the handrail of a boardwalk in west Yellowstone. The other tourists were all grossed the fuck out. I was just wondering what they metamorphose into.
BUFFALO! This bison came close enough to the pullout that I could have touched him. I didn't. He looks very sad in this picture, but in real life he looks like a decaying zombie bison.
Yellowstone is of course known for its thermal springs. Here's one of them, practically unmarked, beside the road.
And here is a more famous geothermal feature: Old Faithful in mid-eruption! I have a picture of the geyser at full mast, but it's on its side and this picture does a better job showing what the geyser actually looks like.
Last Yellowstone picture. See the horizontal line in the center of the photo? That's where incinerated forest ends and live forest begins. The transition is that stark. Controlled burns, I guess?
Obligatory Mount Rushmore photo! TR looks left out back there.
And on the way back from Mount Rushmore, I stopped at the Reptile Gardens, which host an impressive collection of gross creatures. These are death's-head cockroaches.
This snake's name has been lost because I was careless about snapping the nameplates, but isn't he pretty? Don't you just want to give him a big hug?
The Reptile Gardens had a bird exhibition, too. Action Wildlife Photographer makes his return in this startling picture of a bald eagle striving for liberty against its oppressive and probably British captor!
The Reptile Gardens cost rather a lot to run.
The Badlands were to my mind much more dramatic than Yellowstone, but they were equally hard to photograph. They're like a mountain range in miniature!
The Badlands are not at all uniform in height, shape, or composition. Every turnout offers a different view!
A pic from the Sioux Falls butterfly garden. These two were kind enough to let me get close. One butterfly landed on me and gave me a kiss!
And in other insectoid news, here is the sculpture that welcomes you to Dr. Evermore's Forevertron. Made entirely out of scrap metal, this waspish monstrosity is a sight to see.
And here is the Forevertron itself! Towering over visitors in its steampunk glory and studded with strange machines and decrepit spiral staircases, it begs to be climbed on! But you're not allowed! >.<
A velociraptor menaces visitors to the dinosaur exhibit at the Brookfield Zoo in La Grange, outside Chicago. His head, arms, and tail move periodically to startle tourists. I can't imagine why these things needed to hunt in packs.
Aleksa was terrified and fascinated by the dinosaurs. She spent that walk clinging to me and cringing whenever an animatronic reptile looked at her the wrong way. But she enjoyed herself, and I did too, partly vicariously thanks to Aleksa!
Polar bear!!! Wait, polar bear? Yes, Brookfield has two polar bears. This one was one of the more active animals at the zoo; he showboated for us a little, lumbering around the front of his cage. His back is dyed green because of the chlorine in his wading pool. I have mixed feelings about that.
And at the other temperature extreme, camels! Two humps means these guys are Bactrian camels. I'm not sure whether you sit on a hump or straddle the space between them.
At Indiana University at Bloomington, the Lilly Library collection of rare books displays this lock of Sylvia Plath's hair alongside a couple poems she wrote. Who got a hold of a lock of Sylvia Plath's hair, why, and at what point did they decide it should be put on display for the edification of the public?
John James Jingleheimer Audubon's illustrated book of birds is as large as a toddler's mattress when opened, though because not many original copies remain I don't suggest you actually use it as such. Every week they turn the page, and this week was grackles!
The proper orientation of this photo of Ogle Lake, east of Bloomington, is left as an exercise to the reader.
And at last, here I am ensconced with Ruth and Robert in Indianapolis after a Haruhi Suzumiya marathon. I'm on the right. It's late in the evening and we're all a little tired, but an Utena forum member threatened to perform certain acts on us that don't bear repetition in a family blog if we didn't post pics, so here we are! Stay away from my butt!
I haven't taken many photos since Indianapolis, and I haven't uploaded the ones I have. I may get to make one more photo post before drawing this blog to a close. Tomorrow night, God willing, I'll be in Savannah, the next night in Orlando, and the following night... well, I'll be back in a place I've been away from for both too long and just the right amount of time.
