Day 239 - Spider

"Spider on Foxglove"

A (mostly) still life. Double-click on the picture to really see the beauty in the detail.

Day 238 - Inchworm

"Two and two are four
Four and four are eight
Eight and eight are sixteen
Sixteen and sixteen are thirty-two"

Day 237 - Foxglove

All along the side of the road were these long stalks of foxglove, or Digitalis purpurea. Because of its toxicity, I personally like one of its other names: Dead Man's Bells.

Day 236 - Color

Don't know what these were, but there were a lot of 'em, and they were the most color in an otherwise drab, rainy forest.

Day 235 - Maple Leafs

Yes, I know the plural of "leaf" is "leaves," but since I was only a stone's throw from the Canadian border, I'm spelling it this way.

Day 234 - Mt. Baker

Hard to believe that there's still snow on the mountains in mid-August.

Day 217 - Sea Pebbles

The beach at Parson's Landing wasn't sand, but rather this amalgamation of small stones, pebbles, and sea shells.

Day 215 - Tube Snails

The shells of these tube snails are cemented to other rocks . . .

Day 214 - Beach / Canyon Pano

The far end of Parson's Landing went from the water back up into the hills that we had hiked along on our way in.

Day 212 - Campsite

Rather than pitch the tent on the shoreline gravel, we opted for a flat patch of dirt nestled a bit further back. More comfortable, less windy, and much quieter . . .

Day 211 - Parson's Landing

Over seven miles and a few blisters later, we made it to our campsite at Parson's Landing.

Day 210 - Texture

I suppose the hike wouldn't have taken as long if I hadn't stopped so often to take pictures . . .

Day 208 - Prickly Pear

Day 207 - Prickly Pear

The prickly pear cactus, or opuntia, were blooming all along our hiking route and campsite.

Day 195 - Grand Canyon National Park

These are the last of my Grand Canyon panoramas; it's been hard to choose which ones are my favorites.


One of the park rangers said that the canyon changes minute-to-minute because of the way the light and shadows strike the surfaces . . . and I'm inclined to agree.

Day 193 - Grand Canyon National Park

While traversing the eastern side of the South Rim, it became almost a game avoiding all the buses that disgorged tourists like ants at a picnic. It became harder and harder to get pristine panos like this one, without clumps of people in the shot.

Day 192 - Grand Canyon National Park

After exploring the middle and western portions of the South Rim, the last day was reserved for the eastern side, also known as the Desert View. You can see the Colorado River in the center of the picture winding its way through the canyon it made...

Day 191 - Grand Canyon National Park

After hiking, we continued walking west along the South Rim of the canyon and saw this Agave utahensis, or Utah agave, with a bloom well over seven feet high. The big bumblebees loved it.

Day 190 - Grand Canyon National Park

When in the canyon itself, there's much more depth and texture than as visible from the rim.

Day 189 - Grand Canyon National Park

The full hike on the Bright Angel Trail from the rim to the canyon bottom is 4.9 miles, but given that it was late June and well over 90 degrees, getting just two miles into the canyon was a remarkable feat. And hiking down was the easy part . . . hiking back up and out, well, that was a little harder.

But with that said, the canyon takes on a completely different perspective, and has a completely different beauty, from the inside looking up and out than it does from the top down.