Monday, May 19, 2008

Northern mocking bird, Scissortail flycatcher

There were lots of birds to watch during the day. Most
of the time, they appeared when I did not have camera in hand.
However, I did manage to take a couple of pictures.


Northern Mockingbird.


Scissor tail flycatcher. This was my favorite.


Scissortail flycatcher. You can really see his tail in this
photo.


Finally caught him in flight.
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Fishing at Lake Tawakoni

Our second visit to Lake Tawakoni has come to an end.
It was a lot warmer and dryer here second time around.
Gary caught fish every day. Most of the time he released
what he caught, but every once in a while, he brought
one or more home for pictures.


Catfish he caught off the dock.


Gary thinks these are drum. He decided to cook one for
dinner but said that trout tastes better. I decided to have
chicken.
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Saturday, May 10, 2008

Audie Murphy museum

The Audie Murphy Museum is located in Greenville,
Texas. The museum is also part of the American
Cotton Museum. Cost to tour the museum is $4
for adults and $3 for seniors. The museum contains
paintings of Audie Murphy which have hidden items
in them. We discovered that besides being a war
hero and an actor, Audie Murphy also wrote many
songs. One of them was called "Shutters and Boards".
Many of his songs were recorded by artists such as
Eddie Arnold. There are exhibits of WWI and WWII items
The cotton portion of the museum has models of
a steam-powered gin and a horse-powered gin.
I enjoyed reading about the history of the thimble
and seeing a thimble collection.


Sculpture of Audie Murphy in which he took
out a German machine gun nest where the
Germans had waved a white flag and then
killed Audie's friend when he stood up.


He sure looks like a very young soldier.


These are the many medals that were won by Audie. Some of
these are copies as Audie was known to have given some of
his medals to his friends.




One of the paintings of Audie by an artist out
of Hollywood. This artist painted numerous
hidden symbols in the picture.
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Thursday, May 01, 2008

The Dallas World Aquarium

One word can truely describe this Aquarium: awesome!!!
Gary and I, along with Sherri, her mother, and Tom, spent
a wonderful day at the Aquarium. There is a lot more to this
Aquarium than fish. The Aquarium has four sections. The
Orinoco section features plants of South America and Andean
Heights. There is a free flight aviary where one can see toucans
flying around. At the Orinoco understory section, one can see
monkey Island where tamarins frolic in the trees. This level
also contains crocodile cove. The Aquatic Level contains various
fish from countries such as Japan, Indonesia, Fiji, and others.
The fourth section is called Mundo Maya. One can view bats,
reptiles, sharks, poison frogs, and axolotls. We ate lunch at Cafe Maya which
features Mexican food. The cost for the Aquarium is $18.95 for
adults, $14.95 for seniors. Oh, I almost forgot, there were about
800 students also visiting the Aquarium. Some of those kids
really got excited seeing the monkeys and birds flying around.



Sea horses are a favorite of mine

This is a scarlet Ibis.


The waterfall is located in the Orinoco canopy level.
We watched various birds take a bath at the top
of the falls.


This pale-faced saki was busy with her baby. But she did take
time to pick some fleas off of her mate.
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