P.S. This is a view of the Florida Bay from Flamingo at the Everglades National Park. Just got back from a trip to Orlando and southern Florida, details to follow soon.
@Sigma: Thanks. And I took your advice on the Orchids pictures
@Prashanth: Thanks. Just waiting for the weekend to post the details
@Vibha: It indeed felt the same way - calm n soothing with not many people around. Another interesting tidbit - See those small land pieces in the distance, they are mangrove islands.
And bendtherulz, I wanted to show the "Ten thousand islands" in the picture, and hence there was no "horizonless" effect. Small mangrove tree bunches split from the mainland to form these numerous islands in the Florida bay. Must write about it more in a future post.
Sunit and I are big fans of the Wild Animal Park at San Diego - we've been there numerous times and everytime we come back filled with wonder at something new. Spread over 1800 acres, the park provides a lot of space for animals to move and they are not enclosed in small cages as in a Zoo. It also allows the animals to mingle and follow the same natural habits as they would in the wild. The train safari provides a quick tour of the place, but if you have the energy to walk around and view some of the interaction areas, the Park can be a lot of fun. On my second trip to the Park, with Vijay ( a friend who is crazy about wild cats), we caught the Cheetahs during their feeding time. A huge moat separates the viewers from the feeding area, some meat is left on the logs and then far-from-sight the Cheetahs are let loose. One can actually see their long strides as they run to the meat and then feed on it. Vijay gets the credit for this picture. We also went upto the tiger observatory dur
My latest favorite place in the world is Lauterbrunnen. It is a beautiful valley near Interlaken. For most Indians, Interlaken is synonymous with Yash Chopra movies and classic Swiss scenery. But about 20 miles from Interlaken, is this quaint little town and valley called Lauterbrunnen and this place formed the base of our Swiss travel in the Berner Oberland area. While Interlaken boasts of all the touristy stuff, if you want to live close to the mountains and numerous waterfalls (close to nature as my mom would say), Lauterbrunnen is where you need to be. A small town, that leads to a beautiful valley, with waterfalls falling on either side. When we went out for our first walk on the valley floor, I stood at one point and counted the total number of waterfalls visible - the count was 11. Streams trickle down from anywhere and everywhere. My husband remarked - "This is much like Yosemite, but multiplied by 10'. Days in this place just seemed to vanish - there was so much to do
The most interesting thing happened last night. I was at Vons doing groceries, when a friend (who had just walked out of Vons too) called up and asked me to step outside and look towards the sky. I rushed out and an amazing twilight show met my eyes. At first it seemed to be a falling missile but on closer look it seemed the trail had been created by a plane or rocket of some kind. I stood there baffled. Things became clearer today morning when my office mate told me ( he is interested in astronomy ) that a satellite was launched from some base in California. What caused this beautiful phenomenon probably was unburnt fuel particles and water drops in the rocket's contrail that sometimes feeze in the less dense upper atmosphere and get reflected by sunlight at high altitudes, easy to observe because the launch took place shortly after sunset. Here is a picture of what I saw as captured by a colleague at work in his camera.
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and thanks for the visit on my photoblog :)
@Prashanth: Thanks. Just waiting for the weekend to post the details
@Vibha: It indeed felt the same way - calm n soothing with not many people around. Another interesting tidbit - See those small land pieces in the distance, they are mangrove islands.
Amazing shot...gets the "Horizonless" almost...!
Will come again !
And bendtherulz, I wanted to show the "Ten thousand islands" in the picture, and hence there was no "horizonless" effect. Small mangrove tree bunches split from the mainland to form these numerous islands in the Florida bay. Must write about it more in a future post.