Day 426 - Independence Day

After enjoying the holiday with some friends, we enjoyed a beautiful sunset on the way home.

Day 418

While we were traveling from Philadelphia, PA to Richmond, VA, the clouds were beautiful and fluffy. I took photos of these amazing clouds while riding in the car. Some of them come out as a complete surprise, as photographing while not looking at my view finder (camera pointed up at the sky and sun) and in a moving car is difficult.

Day 413

Our friends had a baby, so we went to go visit the happy family in the hospital. Afterwards, Alex and I admired this wonderful sunset and whipped clouds.

Day 411

Tonight the sun was glowing behind some clouds. While taking photos of the beautiful sky, I noticed the sun was bright and round vs, just a bright blur. The 1st and 2nd photo were taken at a restaurant while we were waiting for our pizza to arrive at the table. The 3rd photo was after dinner, at the beginning of sunset.

Day 382

Tonight, there was a beautiful sunset.

Day 378

The clouds were thick and textured before going inside the movie theater.

We saw this beautiful sunset while leaving the movie theater.

The lines are coming from tall poles. They aren't power poles. I think they are for planes.

Day 373

After spending more time with my family, we went to see my cousin play basketball. The sunset was beautiful by the school. If you look closely at the bottom, you can see mountains.

Day 370

Today we headed to Tennessee to visit with some of my family. Most of my relatives live in Tennessee, so this was a special trip. The trip from Richmond to where my relatives live is about 7-8 hours. We left Richmond, VA at about 10am. Since it is Winter in America, the sun sets at about 5pm. This is the sun setting over the mountains in Tennessee as we get closer to our destination. This is about 6pm at night. The time zone doesn't change where we were headed, but since we were headed west, the sun sat later. If you look closely, you should be able to see 4 layers of mountains.

Day 345

We were headed to the airport to drop off our rental car. While stopped at a gas station, I took some photos of the sun setting. This was at about 6:30pm. It was dark by the time we got to our friends' house for dinner.

Day 344

Today, the sun was shining through the yellow leaves of this tree, making them glow brightly. Later the sun glistened off the clouds, as it set for the evening.

Day 282

Today we went to Busch Gardens theme park.

Rescued eagle

This is one of 5 that live at the park. They were rescued after being injured in the wilderness. They can't fly anymore, due to the injuries, so they live in the park. The park houses many rescued and adopted animals.

One of the Kookaburra birds that lives in the aviary.

One of the Rainbow Lorakets that lives in the aviary.

Sun through the aviary screen

Real squirrel. Fake tree.

Daisy

Moth on yellow flower

Sunset on the way home.

Day 269

This morning, I woke to the windows fogged up and streaked. Before the fog faded, I took some photos.

This is a spider web clinging to the window.

I love how the clouds looked distorted by the fog.

Later in the day we had rain and an amazing sunset.

Day 253

Today, Kit and I traveled to Topping, VA to see a friend from Japan, her husband and his parents. They got married in Japan last year and wanted to celebrate with her family here. Her mom has an amazing garden and spacious farm.

Day 246

Today we started a weekend vacation on Chincoteague Island in Virginia. It's on the other side of the Chesapeake Bay. By a bird's eye view, it's only about an hour away. However, unless you have a helicopter or small plane, you aren't getting there that way. From Richmond, it's about 4 hours away. We had to travel down the coast to Virginia Beach (about 1.5 hrs) and up the island coast to Chincoteague, which is at the very end of the island section of the coast (about 2.5 hrs). Chincoteague has uninhabited beaches. What does this mean? It means that there are no hotels lining their beaches, unlike Virginia Beach. This is mostly due to it being wetlands/marshes which makes the land not suitable for building. This means that the public area is part of a nature preserve and you can't access all of it, but you can access a large portion, which is good enough for us. There is another reason why we chose Chincoteague for our destination. I'll save that surprise for tomorrow.

Marsh land on the way to the island. Marsh is on either side of the road for miles before we get to the bridge for the island.

There were red and orange flowers along the front of the hotel.

Panoramic of the waterway behind the hotel. There was a little balcony for our room, which had this beautiful view.

This is the sun glistening on the water by the bridge.

After dinner, we went to the beach to walk around.

This is a different variety of seagull than we normally see in Virginia Beach.

Birdy foot print

Waves

Sorry that the horizon isn't straight, but this is a good view of the waves crashing. I took a few sets, but this is my favorite.

The other side of the beach area is marsh. There are many kinds of wild life on the nature preserve. Birds are the most common. 

Crane

By the time we got back to the hotel, the sun was setting. We walked along the back boardwalk and watched it set. We also watched what a local called "The Parade of Ducks" and Alex calls "Duck School". It was a large group of ducks. There were two adults guiding the young ones off the board walk and into the water. Then, guiding the group around this isle of land into the main water.