Tony's Travels

2009-08-18T21:47:00.001-07:00

When we took our daughter to Boston this month, we made a side trip to Niagara Falls.

Some pictures from our recent trip to Mesa Verde National Park

2009-07-14T06:39:00.000-07:00

Southwest beauty

2009-01-12T20:54:00.000-08:00

Since the last time I posted way back in July, we've been to Louisiana, Arkansas, Houston, Oklahoma, Kansas, and California. Time to update with some new pics! These are from the Grand Canyon and in Southern California. Since I screwed up my Nikon, these were taken with Pam's little Fuji point and shoot, but still, they didn't come out to bad. I just got my Nikon back from repair, but it looks like we'll be staying close to home for a little while.

Pictures from around our hometown and a local flea market

2008-07-17T14:07:00.000-07:00

Shreveport LA

2008-07-17T13:40:00.000-07:00

Since we haven't been anywhere lately due to our usual summer slowdown, I thought I'd post some pics from our trip to Shreveport. We'll be taking a trip to St. Paul, Minnesota the first part of August so hopefully we'll see something worth photographing along the way.

2008-07-01T22:42:00.000-07:00

Pond behind our house during a cloudy sunrise.

We're thinking about having some of our pictures put on canvas and selling them as artwork. Would you buy something like this if it was on canvas? Judging from the pricing we've seen to have these gallery wrapped (ready to hang) it would go for about $175 for a 16 x 20 or $300 for a 24 x 36. Just looking for opinions right now, but if you've seen a picture on the blog that you'd love to have on canvas, we can make it happen.

West Texas storms

2008-04-25T09:36:00.000-07:00

We're in West Texas this week. After Pam's laptop crashed, we lost nearly all the Florida pictures, which was heartbreaking. The "expert" is still trying to recover them, but so far without success.

There's not a lot to see in West Texas other than Mesquite trees and brush, but driving in we got some halfway decent pictures of the building thunderstorms.

Missing Florida

2008-04-06T23:17:00.000-07:00

The hardest thing about being back in Texas is not having those gorgeous sunsets and other great picture ops. We're working long, hard days again instead of the great 10-4 hours we had in Florida. Hopefully soon we'll have some other great photos to post, but until then here are some from our trip home.

Ah well. Looks like Blogger is on the fritz again. Will try again tomorrow.

Getting close to time to head back home...

2008-03-19T17:03:00.000-07:00

Just about 10 days left of our stay in Florida. We've had a ball, worked our tails off, been frustrated by some people's attitudes and charmed by others. The best part has been the chance to take tons of pictures of things we don't see at home.

Update: Caught the two guys at the top watching a golf game with interest this morning. And our Florida stay is over early. We leave Sunday to head back to Texas. We hope to see lots of interesting things on the trip home, though, so stay tuned.

Some of these pictures were taken at the country club where we're working this week, and on Sanibel island.

In Ft. Myers, FL

2008-03-10T17:34:00.000-07:00

We'll be shooting in Ft. Myers FL for the next week. Today we stopped by the Manatee Viewing Center in Ruskin to see if the cooler weather had brought the Manatees in--and it had. There were quite a few in the warm waters put off by the power plant. Our favorite was a female with her calf. Mama kept rolling over onto her back and floating in the water, giving us a good view of her face. I love the way the manatees are always touching with their flippers, their noses, etc. They seem to be very loving creatures.

Also got a few more pics of the Skyway from St. Petersburg. And some sunset pics from Honeymoon Island and Pine Island.

Ah well. Looks like we won't be able to upload any pictures again this week. We don't have wifi at the motel, so we're on dial up, and Blogger can't handle the slower upload.

Check back next week and hopefully we'll have a lot of new pics to show.

2008-03-02T18:38:00.000-08:00

Spent most of today driving to Wikki Wachee and back. Had no idea it was that far away. We found a motel to stay in for the next 3-4 days, then drove out to Pine Island to take more sunset pics.

Does anyone ever get tired of looking at sunsets?

Unexpected day off

2008-02-28T17:14:00.000-08:00

After a grueling 14 hour day yesterday, with a schedule meant for 3 people with only the 2 of us to shoot it, we were happy to learn we had today off. We thought about going to the Strawberry Festival but decided we needed to rest. We've spent nearly every day off so far driving, sightseeing, shooting pictures, etc. So today we only went about 10 miles south, though we took the long way around and drove closer to 40 miles. We stopped at an Amish-style restaurant for lunch and a huge strawberry shortcake (we shared the dessert), checked out the camera stores (nothing but small chain stores that don't carry much in this area), and drove out to Siesta Key to check out the beach. It's beautiful. Miles and miles of pristine white sand. Because it was a cool and windy day, we didn't stay long. Mostly just took some pictures to see if we'd gotten the sensor cleaned off with our makeshift blower. (Yes!)

Manatees!

2008-02-26T17:59:00.000-08:00

Finally got to see the Manatees today. They're very hard to get a decent picture of, but we got a couple. The morning was bright and sunny, then turned off gray and dreary. Rained a bit. Picked up more trash on the sensor while changing lenses to take the Manatee pictures (serious flaw in the Nikon D70 design) and can't find a blower to clean it off. Spent some time watching them ( a male by himself, then a family group), bought some souvenirs at the gift shop, then headed for St. Petersburg.

Going across the Skyway bridge was a real trip. And the wind was high, which made us both a bit nervous. Once across the bridge, we stopped and had lunch at Bennigan's, thanks to our boss and the gift cards he gave us for Christmas. Thanks Bill! Lunch was great! Then we stopped at the St. Pete's beach, but it was raining. Then we drove down to Fort De Soto and hiked around, took some pics, and headed back to the motel. Have to get up at 5 in the morning to go to work. Pam says she does not do mornings!

Tomorrow it's back to work for 4 days before we get another day off.

2008-02-25T19:59:00.000-08:00

Another day off, but most of it was spent moving from Bartow to Bradenton because the motels in Bartow are kind of nasty. Surprise! Bradenton is worse when it comes to motels. They're either dives or very expensive. Right now, we're in the worst dive we've ever stayed in. Not sure whether to risk a move and possibly end up in a worse place or just stick it out. Sure hope the camera equipment doesn't get stolen overnight.

On our drive here we saw a lot of bald eagle nests, and even saw two baby eagles! Next to dolphins and manatees, eagles are my favorites. But I love the sea birds too. This place is a sensory overload for me, getting to see the things I love in their natural habitats.

Anyway, we went to Manatee beach and got some nice pics. Even saw a dolphin.

Don't forget that you can click on a picture to see it full size. Most of them look much better enlarged.

2008-02-24T19:33:00.000-08:00

Today we had our first day off since we arrived in Florida. Unfortunately, we also had to move from Naples to Bartow. We really hated having to leave Naples, but we had a great day watching the dolphins at the Naples pier before we left, then headed up toward Tampa. Stopped off at Apollo Beach to watch the sunset (disappointing) and to look for Manatees near the power plant. Didn't see any Manatees, but got some halfway decent shots of the bay. Also managed to somehow pick up some lint on the camera sensor which shows in every picture.

2008-02-18T17:09:00.001-08:00

We're not getting the time off we'd hoped for, so picture-taking is a hit and miss affair. No sunset tonight because the clouds rolled in just before the sun went down. Took these pictures anyway. The crowd is a funeral service at the beach, where they were scattering someone's ashes at Pelican Bay. We saw an autographed Red Sox jersey on a table at the back of the group. Don't know if the deceased was a player or a fan.

The other pictures are at our hotel.

First Day in Naples Florida

2008-02-16T19:50:00.000-08:00

Naples, FL is a beautiful city. We just arrived late this afternoon, so not many pics taken yet, but here are a few to start with. More to come.

More pictures from daily life

2008-01-15T08:12:00.000-08:00

Some pics from last summer

Lost the Old Blog

2008-01-15T07:37:00.000-08:00

Not sure if it was due to inactivity or the change over to the new Blogspot, but the old one is gone. So we're starting fresh and will be posting photos from our travels and daily life.

This past weekend we spent a day on South Padre Island, TX. The weather was cool, but clear, the sunset absolutely gorgeous.

There were plenty of birds to watch and photograph. The pelicans were especially entertaining, watching them dive for fish.