White Alligator, Cols, OH, Zoo, 2009

Cory Photography with Tom and Pat Cory

Newsletter, May, 2010, Continued

 While there you also will want to plan to spend some time in the National Naval Aviation Museum, which has a wonderful collection of airplanes. There is also a nice lighthouse close to the museum.  And the cost is perfect—it’s all free. We also took a trip over to Mobile, a couple of hours away to go to Bellingrath Gardens.  This is a beautiful facility but there are really good and not so great times to visit. We hit a not so great time.  If you are thinking of going there, you might want to check what is in bloom. On the way back we stopped at the battleship, the USS Alabama. You are free to roam throughout the ship and if you’ve never been on a battleship it’s quite interesting. There are also some planes, tanks and a submarine that you can also go through in the park. Back on Perdido Key there are a couple of state parks and the Gulf Islands National Seashore with a beautiful white beach, nice dunes and some boardwalks for bird watching. While not prime birding time, there were many nesting Osprey.  It was refreshing to go places that are photographer friendly.

 

 Now for the lesson learned.  When we came home, the electricity was out. It turned out the electricity had been out for 4 days because a bird somehow got zapped and tripped the breaker on the transformer. So I had to throw out everything from the refrigerator and our freezer, which of course was packed—it was bags of stuff.  So, the moral of the story is not only have someone check your house every so often but also leave instructions with them on what to do if they find a problem.  Our plumber had also suggested turning off the water if you will be gone more than 3 days, especially if you have an ice maker.

 

 Smokies Road Closures

 

 Work is progressing on the roads in the Smokies and the Cades Cove Loop Road is now open.  However, much of the other scheduled closures are going a bit longer than originally planned.  If you are heading to the Smokies, you can check the road closures in the park on their official website.

 

 Computer Security Risks

 

 I came across this article that talked about common security risks that I thought I’d pass on.  As we use more free wi-fi in various places, we can really be opening ourselves up to some problems—the easier the use, the more the risk. It’s a good idea to change your password to something else to use when on a trip and then change it back when you return home.  Also, keep sensitive info off your laptop.  For example, that’s not the place to have a spreadsheet with all your bank account numbers on it.

 

 Lightbuckets

 

 If you have a hankering to try a little astrophotography in an easy way you might want to check out Lightbuckets. They have 3 telescopes in New Mexico where the skies tend to be clearer and darker than we have around here.  You buy credits which you can then use to rent the telescope to take a picture for you.  If you don’t have much experience with astrophotography you can simply tell them what you want to photograph and they set the telescope for you.  Or if you are more experienced you can be in total control of the telescope. When it’s over you can download your photo and print it.  Their website has a gallery of photos that folks have taken if you’d like to get an idea of what’s possible.  As a side note, the Science channel has had a lot of programs on the Universe lately with some stunning images.  And if you get a chance to see the Hubble Telescope 3-D movie being shown at Imax theaters now there are some great images in there too.

 

 

 Western North Carolina Foto Fest

 

 Our friend and outstanding photographer and teacher Bill Lea has teamed up with Kevin Adams to offer the first annual Western North Carolina Foto Fest September 17-19 in Brevard, NC. There are a number of other great photographers who will be presenting as well. Check out the website to see some of Bill’s outstanding photography interspersed with a description of the event. It looks like a great opportunity.

 

 Living in the Woods

 

 We love living in the woods.  At the moment we have a barred owl that we see most every day.  Usually the clue that it’s around is that the crows are going nuts chasing it. Sometimes when we come home it’s just sitting quietly on a branch near the bird feeder.  And just two days ago I started hearing two babies calling for Mom to bring dinner. But there is also a down side.  We just had to have some tree work done because there were several really big trees that were leaning toward the house.  (I learned it was best to leave the house when the tree guy was working.)  He called me and told me it was OK to come home and that he’d found where our raccoons lived.  It turned out they had completely hollowed out a tree—there was a mother and two tiny little ones.  I should have taken pictures but instead I got off on the ‘what to do with them tangent’.  We ended up leaving them alone and the mother moved them to a safer place during the night. It was a miracle that the tree hadn’t crashed down on the house.  Return to previous page