last and signs

Back to the stream side...

Bernie trying to tempt fish...

He's as happy as can be.

But no fish are biting here either so we move on.

Jill: Wait a minute! Did you see that?

Bernie: We can't pull over on the freeway. I'll swing around to the other side of the lake (which is where this picture was taken.)

Could it be?

Sure looks like a bald eagle.

OK...I'm going to say it IS a bald eagle unless someone else has another idea.
Or a more powerful zoom on their camera.

(Well, actually it isn't. Bald eagles don't have white stomachs. Maybe it is a hawk?

Dad???

(Vicki at Wordsandcats identified it for me. It is an osprey! I can't wait to go back for another look and to see if I can video it fishing with its talons!)

On to yet another part of the river.

While Bernie is happily fishing here, I am back to looking for nests.

There's one....

There's another one.

I scan the tree tops.

Nothing here.

Hmmm...nope, nothing here....

Whole lotta o'nada.

wh00t!

I got it!!! I got a picture of a yellow warbler NEXT to it's nest!

Happy dance...happy dance...happy...oh wait.

(I look down and notice that my pant legs are ENTIRELY covered with enormous angry ants. By enormous I mean the ants are about a third of an inch long. And they are moving fast. I begin a new kind of dance: a shoeplattler, where I slap my feet and legs and every part of my body that I now realize has ants crawling and biting. My arms, my neck, and OH NO! The ants are up inside my pants!

Trying to get away from the ant's nest, I try climbing on rocks and fallen trees. It only takes a few moments to realize that where I am standing is in a huge field of ants. There is no escape to be found!

Still slapping and stomping, I race back to the car. Thankfully the doors are not locked. I put my backside into the front passenger seat, put my feet up on the dash and start rolling up my pant legs. Ants are all over my calves...and I suddenly realize that they are now past my thighs and inside my underwear!

Forget rolling up my pant legs! Lifting my hips up, I arch and pull down my pants to ankle level, mindful that the freeway is overhead and that there is another car parked about a block ahead of our car.

I scrunch down as low as possible in the car seat while I pull out the top of my underwear and begin picking ants out of, uh, let's just say "delicate spaces". I can feel ants crawling up my torso as well, but right now I just want kill those perverted ants.

It was at that point that Bernie came strolling back up to the car.

You are welcome to imagine him holding his fishing rod, wearing his fishing vest and hip boot, catching sight of me squirming with my pants around my ankles, shoes on the dashboard and me digging around in my undies with my tee shirt pushed up to just below my bra.

Oh yeah. What a sight. I really don't know what he thought I was doing, but he did manage to ask if I was OK.

I yelled that I had ants EVERYWHERE on me.

He advised me that I should be outside the car as otherwise the ants would get into the car.

Right. I'd be doing what I was doing on the side of the road. That would have stopped traffic for sure!

He suggested I could have stood between the open front and back door.

I suggested that I JUST WANTED THE ANTS OFF ME and didn't think of his idea.

Eventually I got the ants killed. My skin has been crawling with ant bites since Sunday afternoon.

Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh.)

As I continued to squirm and find random ant escapees, Bernie drove us home.

We did stop for a moment to get a picture of the pretty swallows.

Love those tail feathers!

I ain't no spring chicken...so we didn't stop.

We did go down Funny Avenue this trip.

Eventually this adventure will be shared between us as we take strolls down memory lane.

I love going down Memory Lane. Don't you?

Of course there are other folks who prefer to just walk down....

(Yes, there was a T at the end of that word. It is in the shade.)

And so that was the end of our Sunday afternoon adventure.

And that, my friends, is no bull!