Celebrating Autumn

Happy Fall! Here's looking back to last year's roadtrip through Colorado. These trees are somewhere between Silverton and Ouray.

September 2015

Juniper Inlet Lighthouse

You would think that there would be lighthouses all over the place in Florida. When actually we needed to drive an hour down the coast to find the Juniper Inlet Lighthouse. Sitting on the Juniper Inlet along the Loxahatchee and Indian Rivers since 1860 it is still in service today. (I'll let you read the sign yourself). The tower is 108 feet tall and there are 105 steps up to the light. The one lens was damaged in a powerful hurricane in 1928. The Keeper had it sent away to be fixed and it is sill in use. 

Room With a View

The lifeguard shack at the South Beach Park area of Vero Beach, Florida. September 2016

Anhinga

Say hello to the Anhinga. Anhingas are water birds known as darters. They spear their prey with that pointy beak. They also, like a cormorant, do not have waterproof feathers (that's why they sit like this, drying their feathers). By not having waterproof feathers, like ducks, they can swim below the surface of the water. This is why they are sometimes called the snake bird. This one was hanging out at the Indian County Lagoon Wetlands in Vero Beach, Florida.

Sunset Bridge

That moment as soon as the sun dips below the horizon and the real colors haven't quite arrived. Beachland Bridge, Vero Beach, Florida

Pelicans at Sunrise

Some brown pelicans looking for a morning meal. South Beach Park, Vero Beach, Florida.

To Bennu and Back

 Yes, that's the rocket there.

On September 8, 2016 an Atlas V rocket launched from the Kennedy Space Center on Cape Canaveral, Florida. Carrying the OSIRIS-REx (Origins-Spectral-Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer) (but you knew what that meant already). The OSIRIS-REx is headed for the near earth asteroid Bennu. It will land on Bennu sometime in 2018. Release a puff of nitrogen and vacuum up between 2 ounces and 4.4 pounds of asteroid dust. Then return to earth. Flying low over Utah it will release that dust collection vessel and it will parachute down to earth sometime in 2023. Maybe I should start planning my return to Utah in 2023. That would be 40 years since the first time I arrived in Utah.