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You are here: Home / Photo Blogging / On The Road / Albatrossity / On the Road and In Your Backyard

On the Road and In Your Backyard

by Alain Chamot (1971-2020)|  August 1, 20175:00 am| 29 Comments

This post is in: Albatrossity, On The Road, Open Threads, Readership Capture

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On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.

From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.

Submit Your Photos

Good Morning All,

This weekday feature is for Juicers who are are on the road, traveling, or just want to share a little bit of their world via stories and pictures. So many of us rise each morning, eager for something beautiful, inspiring, amazing, subtle, of note, and our community delivers – a view into their world, whether they’re far away or close to home – pictures with a story, with context, with meaning, sometimes just beauty. By concentrating travel updates and tips here, it’s easier for all of us to keep up or find them later.

So please, speak up and share some of your adventures and travel news here, and submit your pictures using our speedy, secure form. <Link coming soon, when form is moved> You can submit up to 7 pictures at a time, with an overall description and one for each picture.

You can, of course, send an email with pictures if the form gives you trouble, or if you are trying to submit something special, like a zipped archive or a movie. If your pictures are already hosted online, then please email the links with your descriptions.

For each submission, it’s best to provide your commenter screenname, description, where it was taken, and date. It’s tough to keep everyone’s email address and screenname straight, so don’t assume that I remember it “from last time”. More and more, the first photo before the fold will be from a commenter, so making it easy to locate the screenname when I’ve found a compelling photo is crucial.

Have a wonderful day, and enjoy the pictures!

 

Due to some competition for my attention, there won’t be more than one Swiss picture for this First of August, Swiss National Day.

One of the many things I’ve always loved and valued in Switzerland is their respect: for historic things, for artists, for tradition, for thinkers, and for the Enlightenment and its interpreted values of peace, prosperity, and freedom of conscience.

 

This is the outside of the HR Giger Museum in the Chateau de Gruyeres, Gruyeres, Switzerland. He occupied it his last 15 or so years. Last time I went there, the Giger Bar was almost open, with oversized Harkonen chairs and bio-organic-looking flooring, roof-beams, furniture, and design elements everywhere. Oddly fitting in a medieval castle.

Giger designed creatures and alien stuff for the Alien and Species movies, and much of Dune. His work is disturbing, often political, highly sexualized, and nightmarish. But there’s something to his horror, especially when you look at one of his giant paintings and scrutinize the detail and complexity and design.

In this photo: the building is part of the castle and is likely centuries old, there’s a a demonic/alien sculpture, a secret society’s commissioned symbol above the door, the famous “population gun” sculpture, and a bio-mechanoid torso of Lil. Quite a huge amount in a small space!

Today, pictures from valued commenter Albatrossity.

Earlier this month (July 2017) I took a road trip through Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and then back through Nebraska. I saw much country, many birds, and way more pickup trucks than cars on those blue highways. Here are some of the images and recollections

Western Nebraska has many iconic chalk/limestone formations that served as markers along the Oregon Trail. Some are more famous than others; here’s one of the lesser known ones, near Bridgeport NE.

This long-legged diurnal owl hangs out in prairie dog towns throughout the West. Found this one near Ogallala NE.

Hay bales, fences, and mountain ranges are ubiquitous elements of any western landscape. This is near the Missouri Breaks National Monument, looking south toward the Judith Mountains.

Prairies resemble oceans in many ways, including the presence of “shorebirds”. This Upland Sandpiper will fly from eastern Montana across the equator to the pampas of Uruguay and Argentina in a few weeks. From the Medicine Lake National Wildlife Refuge near Culbertson MT.

One of a pair of pups on the Medicine Lake NWR who took a curious interest in me. Off the refuge, in this part of the country, that curiosity is probably a death sentence. But they sure are cute!

In North Dakota the glaciers left behind a prairie landscape pocked with lakes and ponds. Here’s a view of that, in the Lostwood National Wildlife Refuge near Stanley ND.

Prairie pothole lakes attract lots of different birds, including ducks, pelicans, grebes, shorebirds, blackbirds, and even wrens like this one. Noisy and busy denizens of the cattails across North America, this one was at Lostwood NWR in North Dakota.

 

Thank you so much Albatrossity, do send us more when you can.

 

Travel safely everybody, and do share some stories in the comments, even if you’re joining the conversation late. Many folks confide that they go back and read old threads, one reason these are available on the Quick Links menu.

 

The form is being tweaked and moved, so a new link will be published when it’s ready.

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Previous Post: « Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Not If We’re Lucky, You Won’t
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Reader Interactions

29Comments

  1. 1.

    raven

    August 1, 2017 at 5:06 am

    Big Sky Mind!

  2. 2.

    MomSense

    August 1, 2017 at 5:19 am

    Amazing.

  3. 3.

    p.a.

    August 1, 2017 at 5:43 am

    Really nice stuff. Thanks!

  4. 4.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 1, 2017 at 5:46 am

    Soon. Not soon enough but soon.

  5. 5.

    JPL

    August 1, 2017 at 6:38 am

    Lovely pictures!

    @OzarkHillbilly: Did I miss something?

  6. 6.

    Montanareddog

    August 1, 2017 at 6:46 am

    Currently on a train trundling through the Sri Lankan Highlands – either raincloud forest or yes plantations in all directions. It is cold and rainy

  7. 7.

    Yoda Dog

    August 1, 2017 at 6:53 am

    Great pictures. Good morning, everyone!

  8. 8.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 1, 2017 at 7:01 am

    @JPL: No, I have. The great plains are stunningly beautiful and I have been absent from them for…. Well, far too long. Most people find them boring but I never have. I miss them. Long past time I went back.

  9. 9.

    Quinerly

    August 1, 2017 at 7:03 am

    ?

  10. 10.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 1, 2017 at 7:10 am

    @JPL: The Sandhill Crane migration has long been on my list. Maybe next spring.

  11. 11.

    debbie

    August 1, 2017 at 7:17 am

    @raven:

    One really loses sight of that when one is living in a city.

  12. 12.

    Montanareddog

    August 1, 2017 at 7:17 am

    @Montanareddog: that should be tea plantations, of course

  13. 13.

    Baud

    August 1, 2017 at 7:19 am

    The quality of these pics is improving. I feel intimidated.

  14. 14.

    Albatrossity

    August 1, 2017 at 7:43 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: Be forewarned. Once you see 600,000 Sandhill Cranes in March along the Platte, you will want to go back, like the cranes, every year to see it again. It’s addictive.

  15. 15.

    JPL

    August 1, 2017 at 7:45 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: That would be an amazing vacation.

  16. 16.

    Wag

    August 1, 2017 at 7:53 am

    Very cool pictures. Thanks for sharing!

  17. 17.

    satby

    August 1, 2017 at 7:59 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: @Albatrossity: That sounds like something I need to put on the bucket list. Beautiful pictures Albatrossity, thanks for sharing them!

  18. 18.

    rikyrah

    August 1, 2017 at 8:03 am

    The pictures today were great. Nature is so beautiful.?

  19. 19.

    Amir Khalid

    August 1, 2017 at 8:10 am

    @Montanareddog:

    yes plantations

    You meant to say tea plantations but you got FYWPed, right?

  20. 20.

    Alain the site fixer

    August 1, 2017 at 8:44 am

    @Montanareddog: I expect you’re passing plantations that produce some of my favorite black teas. Enjoy!

  21. 21.

    Matt McIrvin

    August 1, 2017 at 9:13 am

    That’s Jail Rock! (It has a larger neighbor, Court House Rock, which I’ve climbed to the top of.) Recognized it because my dad is from Bridgeport, Nebraska and I’ve been there many times.

  22. 22.

    Elizabelle

    August 1, 2017 at 9:56 am

    Love the photos.

    Now I want to see a Sandhill Crane migration. Next spring, maybe. With the Texas bluebonnets too. I will think kindly of Lady Bird, as always.

  23. 23.

    Elizabelle

    August 1, 2017 at 10:13 am

    @raven:

    Found on the Audubon sandhill cranes link:

    How to Tell a Raven From a Crow
    These black birds may look similar in some ways, but several distinctive traits help set them apart.

  24. 24.

    Mnemosyne

    August 1, 2017 at 10:59 am

    @Elizabelle:

    I followed a couple more links after that link and found this nifty video with even more photos and calls. G doesn’t always believe me, but we definitely have both crows and ravens around here. Ravens are pretty common in California, but always cool to spot.

  25. 25.

    Interstadial

    August 1, 2017 at 11:00 am

    That’s a burrowing owl, which doesn’t actually dig burrows but does live in them.

  26. 26.

    StringOnAStick

    August 1, 2017 at 12:02 pm

    Hey, I’ve been to Gruyeres! I recall that bar and knew it was filled with works by the guy who did the critters for the Aliens movies, which scared the hell out of me. the bar was very full though so we looked around and left.

  27. 27.

    MomSense

    August 1, 2017 at 12:51 pm

    The photo of the pup is totally mesmerizing.

  28. 28.

    Gindy51

    August 1, 2017 at 1:35 pm

    We’ve had the sandhills fly over our farm every year since 2001. They changed their migration route as before that we never saw them. Now we see batches of up to 300 birds flying over in waves. So awesome. We lay on the grass and watch as they gracefully coast over head. If they are low enough you can even catch a whooping crane in the mix, they flash out as bright white against the gray when the sun hits the birds as they fly.

  29. 29.

    bluefish

    August 1, 2017 at 5:02 pm

    Giger was an amazing artist — Thank you for the lovely foto !

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