anatidae mergus merganser

notice i'm wearing a soft shell. a black one at that. in august. while the sun is up. clearly, i am not in redding.
we went w/ fam to the hamilton brach of lake almanor. i'm seen here with a super-secret rigging of lures of a clandestine nature. we were the only ones getting any hits so it must have been a ingenius combo.
the only action i got was watching a small trout nibble at my lure and swim away laughing at his brilliant avoidance of my hook.
dad, however, nailed a 18.5 inch rainbow. very nice. i got to hike up the trail back to the car with it. we sang songs. (the fish and i).

speaking of cars... ever try to fit three adults over the 5'11' mark in the back of a 4-runner? it's a hoot.
while there, we also saw two hungry osprey catching what we were after, a belted kingfisher zooming by, and a common merganser mama and her young.

¿es el coexistance pacífico posible?

vista perfecciones

does this not look like something out of one of those expensive picture books that lots of people have on their coffee tables but seldom read themselves?
but nay, we were actually here at panther meadows on the south side of mount shasta on saturday. the bubbling brook running through the lush grass was just about the most soothing and heavenly sound we'd ever heard. pam, bryan and i agreed that it was a great day to visit the mountain with the thunder and cool breeze rolling over us.

we all rawred for the camera, drank some homemade mochas, and discussed life's deepest issues like... are we going to get struck by lightning? and, should we maybe get in the car now? and isn't it cool how God made this great big earth for us to tromp in?