I am making no attempt to wow or to teach with pictures today, just to share. Also no attempt to preach about politics. I am sort of taking a break today. As is usually the case, when I make this sort of post, the pictures were selected in a completely random fashion, no rhyme, no reason.

Bell Flowers

The Painted Desert, Arizona

Male Red-breasted Merganser

Double-crested Cormorant

Sandhill Crane

Female Greater Scaup with Mollusk

Curious Red-tail Hawk

Red Fox

Bleak is beautiful.

God’s Country.

Just remembering.

It’s funny how memories move from our sub-conscience brain to our conscience brain at will, when you don’t expect it.

Yesterday I was thinking about all the dogs that have been in my life, and the one I often forget, Shannon came to mind. Shannon was a Miniature Collie (Shetland Sheepdog, Sheltie) and was the first dog I had after I had moved from my parents house. It was also my first dog as a married man.

My wife and I had made a decision to move from Hartford, WI to Northglenn, Colorado, where some opportunities existed for me to pursue photography as a profession. She and her sister went on ahead of me with our car, in an effort to find us a place to live. I stayed behind to finish my final week on my job testing outboard motors. I had rented a truck, and would follow with our furniture and our sweet little Sheltie, Shannon.

I had gotten a ride from my father in law to Milwaukee to pick up my U-Haul truck, and was on my way back to Hartford with a truck that rumbled and rattled like a covered wagon, and would not go above 50 mph. 1,000 miles to Colorado, at 50 mph?  I did not look forward to this trip.

I loaded up the furniture by myself and grabbed Shannon and headed out the door for the wild west. Shannon did not like the banging and rattling of this truck, and I didn’t like its crawl like speed. Colorado seemed like it was 10,000 miles away.

Somewhere in the middle Nebraska I stopped at a rest area to “brush my teeth” so to speak, and let Shannon out to do the same. We got back into the truck and proceeded down the highway. At least I thought “we” headed down the road. After many, many miles, I realized that Shannon was not on the floor anymore. While still driving (50 mph, ugh) I reached under the passenger side seat where she had crawled once before, and no Shannon. I pulled onto the shoulder of the highway, stopped and reached all around under the seat. Still no Shannon. I thought, dear God, I left her back at the rest area.  I was going to have to drive to Denver, and tell my wife I left our dog in Nebraska. No, I had to go back and try to find her. I got off at the next exit (maybe another 20 miles) to head back and I decided to stop the truck and try one more time to see if there was any way, I missed her under the seat. Dear God, she was under the driver’s seat half covered with an old shirt I had stuffed under there. Shannon and I continued on to Colorado but it was a trip we both were happy to forget.

Despite all the great times we had with Shannon, camping and other things, my clearest memory of that sweet little thing was what happened along a Nebraska highway.

God Bless,                                                                                                                                                     Wayne