CLOUDLAND CABIN JOURNAL - July 2008

Cloudland Journal Archives, Cloudland Cabin Info Page

Cloudland Deck Cam, 6:51am, July 22 - HOT AND MUGGY at first light this morning

July 2008 Print of the Month

Updated July 22nd - being proud of America

07/01/08 Yesterday I got home around 3am. Today I got UP at 3am and made a quick trip down to Hawksbill Crag, with two tripods, two cameras, three flashlights, and a snake bite kit in tow. I had planned to do this neat lightpainted photo of the Crag against a background of long star trails, but my plans were foiled right off the bat. In the middle of the very first exposure, I realized that I was actually able to look around the landscape and SEE a few things (without having to use a flashlight). That was not a good sign. I could not figure out what was going on since it was still before 4am and it should have been completely BLACK out there. Then I realized that I was not alone in this wilderness - a silver crescent moon was rising, and casting just enough light to illuminate the landscape. That was OK, but it also was rising right into the middle of my photo - where I needed black (or at least dark blue) skies so the stars would show up. Oh well, the best laid plans of mice and men.

Someone a long time ago - perhaps it was my mommy - told me that "If life gives you lemons, just make up some lemonade and you will be fine!" And so I did. (I love lemonade, especially with lots of sugar.) So I took the lemon-moon and used it as one of the subjects of the photo - which works great to balance against the lit-up Hawksbill Crag. It all came together when the horizon began to glow pink and red and orange (the sugar) along with a few of the brighter lingering stars in the deep-blue sky. I think I'll have to find a spot for this in the new book - it has become one of my alltime favorite photos ('tis also the July Print Of The Month - you should see this with a BLACK MAT - holy moonlight batman!)...

Here is a better image file for this photo - Crescent moon and stars at Hawksbill Crag

07/06/08 A nice bright yellow sun just broke above the horizon to the east, lighting up a freshly-washed landscape below that was drenched with more than four inches of HEAVY rain yesterday (including over an inch of rain in less than 30 minutes). It hailed for nearly an hour once, the longest I've ever seen it hail non-stop before. The first drops came as GIANT raindrops that I could see a half mile away. We also had quite a lightning show, and rounds of thunder that echoed all around most of the afternoon and into the evening. I was unable to work much of the day due to the lightning - I'm getting weak in my old age and tend to shut down and unplug everything when storms approach.

But this morning all is forgiven, and the wilderness is singing a lively tune - especially the Buffalo River far below, which is understandably flooded and muddy and wild. Lots of music in the air up here around the cabin too as throngs of little tweety birds dance and play about - they were mostly all tucked away yesterday, with only the frogs happy about all of the rain (some of them were really LOUD, even in the middle of the day!).

Amber is off to Harrison early this morning to play in her FIFTH basketball game THIS weekend! Whoever set all of this up was an idiot, or worse. They have our high school girls playing college teams and getting beat up pretty bad. And this is supposed to be healthy competition, for who? One gym they played in during the heat of the day Friday was not air-conditioned, there were no concessions, and the powers that be did NOT allow the girls to even have any water during the game - come on folks, pull your heads out! Some group in Kansas City put the tournament together and has made a great deal of money off of it - each of the teams paid them a lot of money for the "privilege" of playing in this tournament.

On a much brighter note I got a call yesterday from Annie Dunning, the young lady who fell off of the bluff near Hawksbill Crag last August. She is doing quite well and sounded great - much better than she did as we were hauling her out on the stretcher! She spent a month in the hospital being sewed up and getting her bones put back into proper locations; and three months in a wheelchair. She was able to attend a local college (she is from Kansas) for the spring semester with a reduced class load, and this fall plans to return to the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville fulltime. She wants to return to the wilderness one day soon, but I'm not sure she will ever get back on the bluff with ropes again - who could blame her!

One thing she wanted to emphasize was to THANK ALL of the wonderful folks who went way out of their ways to help rescue her - she knows she will never be able to communicate her feelings to most of them but hoped some would read this in the Journal. Annie is a very strong young person both inside and out with an overwhelming faith in God, or she would have never survived this terrible accident; but she also realizes she probably would not have lived if not for the folks who came to her aid.

On that note I shall retire to my "bat cave" over in the print processing wing of Cloudland to make the final selections for inspirational quotes that will go into the new picture book. At one point yesterday during the storm I had narrowed the quotes down to eleven, only to remember that there were only places for eight of them! I have since found spots for two more, but now I have to cut one of them, oh dear! (I also discovered four or five more quotes late last night that I wanted to use, so now I have six quotes to cut out somehow!) The bat cave is where I have my computer set up with three monitors in a corner of the print room, and I do most of my work with the lights turned off and the only window in the building covered up - working in the dark allows me to better judge the quality, color, and tones of the photographs. I have made final selections for all of those and have been processing them as well - hope to get the entire book done by the end of this coming week, a full two weeks behind schedule!

071108 What ever happened to the peace and quiet of the wilderness? It is LOUD outside this morning, and so loud last night at bedtime we nearly had to put in ear plugs! I'm kidding of course, but the volume of the wilderness seems to be going up a notch or two lately. Last night it was the FROGS - these little guys were everywhere and screaming at the tops of their lungs. That is kind of a good sign since that means there is no bear around - we've had a number of "visits" this past week, including once the other night while Pam was standing at the front door - the bear was just a few yards away tearing down a large shelf unit and smashing the contents on the carport floor (and onto the front of her car). When the bear approaches the frogs the frogs will stop singing for a moment or two, so if we hear them LOUD and clear, everything is OK.

This morning the air is filled with the music of a hundred birds. Sitting out on the back deck a little while ago sipping my Earl gray tea and watching the new day begin I counted no less than seven or eight different species of birds calling out. And the river far below is making quite a bit of noise this morning too - we had a good bit of rain yesterday, and the day before, and the day before, so the creeks are full and up and running well. In fact we have had so much rain that the earth is saturated like a giant sponge and is seeping at every opening. I counted eight or ten seeps between the cabin and the gallery yesterday.

We had an incredible rainbow display the other day in the back yard - it was so intense and lasted so long that we even got bored with it and came back inside - can't remember ever doing that with a rainbow before!

Both the squirrels and hickory nuts have returned to the mountain in large numbers. Just about every trail out here has bright green hickory nuts all over the place - I love to pick them up and throw "strikes" as I hike along. And I guess the squirrels have followed them since they seem to be everywhere. I never realized until this past winter that squirrels will migrate out of a region when there are no nuts (makes sense), and then return when the mast crop does. It is going to be a banner year for squirrels, and for nuts!

Speaking of squirrels, I saw something the other day that was really odd. With all the rain has come mushrooms of all shapes and colors. And either squirrels like to eat them or this one was trying something new - I saw a squirrel running up the side of a tree with a large MUSHROOM in his mouth! Yuk, I hate the taste of them, but do love to photograph them.

It is almost time for sunrise today but I don't see any color in the eastern sky. Lately we have had a good bit of color creeping into the landscape early, with lots of baby clouds down in the canyon, but that color faded quickly as the adult clouds moved in (along with the rain). It is nice to see everything so wet and lush and healthy - that bodes well for fall color in a few months!

Speaking of fall, two of my three photo workshops for this fall are now full - we still have space in the October 19th workshop so if you are interested be sure to let me know...(the photoshop class in September also still has space...)

Rainbow at Cloudland, July 6th

07/15/08 Another cool morning today - it was near 50 yesterday and in the mid 50-s today. Felt a lot like an early fall morning with crisp, clear air that fills your lungs easily. While sitting there in the twilight early this morning, sipping on my cup of steaming Earl Gray tea, the very tops of the ridges spread out before me began to glow. For a minute or two I could not tell if that was the sun beginning to hit them or if my blurry vision was playing tricks on me. It was not really sunshine, just a warm glow. Then a few minutes later, as the glow worked its way down the ridges, it was obvious the sun was rising and the new day had begun. Twas a very soft sunrise at first, but it didn't take long for the pink-yellow light to turn into bright white sunshine.

I had been watching this "critter" down in the canyon. It looked like a giant centipede to me, a long narrow cloud with "legs" below that bent and curved and wound around just above the river, with its head close to me and the read end disappearing far upstream. The really weird thing about this long, skinny cloud, was the fact that it was moving, all at once, as if it were all connected, and it was moving downstream, not up, so it appeared to me to be snaking its way along the river. (and since snakes don't have "legs" like centipedes do, I called it a giant cloud centipede) It was very strange looking, and alive!

And then the head of the centipede kept on going while the rest of the body stopped moving. That got me to thinking - how do clouds know when to move, and what parts to move? You know, like up in the sky, why do some particles stick together and move as a single cloud while other parts become other clouds? Sometimes an entire cloud will move as one, while other times the particles will swirl around independent of each other. I'm sure this is all explained easily with physics, but I only went to one physics class in college and then dropped it. Anyway, it was interesting to watch this cloud centipede make it way down the canyon.

The girls have left me. They are gone for this entire week, leaving the pups and me to fend for ourselves! And the cats too, and the bear - not seen hide nor hair of the bear, but I suspect he is lurking about since the dogs get quite disturbed and run off into the woods with the hair standing up on the back of their body often. I hope we all survive the week without them - Cloudland is not quite the same place being void of their voices and feminine forms all about.

I was in a daze on Sunday from working through the book-processing-marathon for a number of weeks, and then all of a sudden, when I completed the book project and turned it over to the printers, it was as if a giant weight/burden had been lifted from my shoulders, and I was FREE! YIPPIE COYOTE!!! These past few weeks - especially the past two weeks - I've felt like a school kid with a pile of homework to do before I could go out and play. There were some really neat things going on out in the wilderness but I was not able to break away from my book chores to go play since I had the book to complete. Folks sometimes wonder why I get to hyper about getting these book projects done, and here is the reason. It takes several months of production time once the project it turned over to the book printing company. We sell about 75% of our picture books during November-December. That means that for every day longer it takes me to get the book completed means a day less of potential sales in November. I try to get the books here by early October, but it almost never works out that way. We are trying a new production method this year though so I am hopeful that the books will arrive in plenty of time.

And for those of you who just can't wait until then to see the new book, I may have an interesting announcement later this week.

I spent my first day of freedom yesterday (from the book project, not from the girls!) doing a 50/50 day - I worked like a dog until noon on printing projects over in the gallery, then spent the rest of the day doing absolutely nothing but reading and watching TV - a wasted half day for sure, but I think I needed it! I think I'll do a 75/25 day today and will get more work done, then perhaps work 100% of the day tomorrow, or heck I may just nap all day long - the boss won't be here to get me back up and going again!

The sun is well up above the horizon now and it is getting warm outside so I had better get out of my pjs and get to work. I hope to be able to spend more time now writing and posting here...

Here is the full view that we get from the back deck

07/18/08 Day five without my girls. Aspen and I are doing OK but suffering from withdrawal. My work plans have not panned out like I wanted them too - the other day I got to work around 6:30am and didn't quit until almost midnight - I just had a pile of work to do that day and everything seemed to take longer than expected. I was planning a short day yesterday, but in the middle of my first nap I got not one but two big orders that I had to get out - the first was for four matted prints that needed to be finished by 3pm. The second call was for a large book order that included 60 autographed picture books - and that order also had to be finished by 3pm (when the UPS truck was slated to arrived). Actually neither of these orders "had" to be finished yesterday, but I enjoy a challenge and so often put a deadline on myself - and that often works. I had other chores to do yesterday that have been waiting for months to do - and they still are!

The other day I made my first trip down to the river in a very long while. It was hot and sunny, and the forest was lush with recent growth from all the rains. The trail down the steep hillside was lined with fresh bright green hickory nuts - it is a great year for them already! It was great to be out in the deep woods hiking again.

The river was up higher than normal for this time of the year, naturally, but it was running clear and sounding good. My plan for this day was to explore underwater a bit - I brought along a mask and snorkel, and an underwater camera. I've wanted to spend some time just under the surface trying to capture some of the magic that I see. One thing I found out years ago is that some of the neatest scenes are in very shallow water. I removed my sweaty clothes, spit in my mask, and laid down in the chilly water.

Yup, that shallow world was just as interesting and beautiful as I had remembered - very nice indeed! My first area to explore was the good old skinny-dipping hole. The creek had changed course since my last underwater visit, and the main inlet was in a different place - or should I say there were now two inlets where there used to be just one. This was OK except for the fact that both of them had big shade trees growing nearby and blocked direct sunlight from hitting the point right were the inlet enters the deeper pool - this is the spot where all the scenic action takes place, and is where the little fishies like to gather to feed on whatever the inlet brings to their table. The rushing waters create tiny bubbles, and when there is bright sunshine hitting these bubbles the light show is quite remarkable.

But with no sunshine there I decided to swim around and head for the second spot I wanted to visit - the sunfish nursery! I was thrilled to discover not one or two but five or six active sunfish nests - they were in the exact same spot on the floor of this long pool as they have been ever since I've been coming down to this place - at least 15 years! The bottom of the creek (made up of polished stones) is normally covered with a thin layer of gunk that mostly just looks brown and yucky. When one of these big female sunfishes wants to make a nest they select a spot, and then spend a good bit of time creating a small crater in the gravel - pushing rocks aside and making a perfect nest for them to deposit their eggs into. This action cleans off the gunk and reveals clean rocks, which really stand out in the middle of the rest of the gunky creek bottom.

Once the eggs are deposited the female (and perhaps the male too - I have no idea) spends most of her time trying to keep other fish from eating those eggs, which at times is quite a chore. I have always loved to just float over one of these nests and watch the action. The nests were located in about three feet of water so I am able to float on the surface without disturbing the fish. What I found this year were a bunch of the nests all grouped together - I guess the girls wanted to be closer to each other.

Normally the female hangs out in the middle of her nest (the nests are typically about a foot in diameter), turning back and forth and looking in all directions for anyone who might be looking for a fish-egg meal. (* SEE UPDATE NOTE about this in between the photos below) When another fish does get close she will dart out and intercept them, chasing the fish away. This works just fine with one or two other fish, but what I have seen happen is the other fish will gang up on the poor lone female, and several will come at her at once. When she leaves the nest to chase one of them away, the others will rush into the nest and start feeding. The momma fish will come back and do battle, but sometimes there will be a dozen or two other fish (usually of the same species - sunfish) there and it is just too much for her. The feeding frenzy may go on for a minute or two. I've seen other fish come charging in before and break up the frenzy - in fact I've seen BASS come in and save the day - even though it was a sunfish nest! Not sure what is up with that, but it is kind of nice to see such cooperation in the fish community.

I could have easily spent hours floating there and watching the show, but I had, hum, other fish to fry!

I went downstream to another spot where the river empties into a pool and swam around a little bit but didn't get the photos I wanted. I should point out that both dogs were with me - Lucy is mostly anti-water and spent her time up on the bank and out in the woods running around and having a great time. But Aspen is a water dog, and his feet never touched dry land! He loves to swim, swim, SWIM! That is great, only he also likes to be around me, and so he will often spend a lot of time churning up the water right where I want to be. So funny to see nothing but his underbelly and those powerful legs working.

I headed back up stream, swimming through the long skinny-dipping hole. At one point I spotted something down in the deep reaches of this pool, so I dove down to see what it was. Turned out to be one of the largest snapping turtles I have ever seen underwater before - he was huge! As long as my arm. He was in about 8-10 feet of water, wedged under a ledge. I wanted to get a photo of him but there was not much light down there, and also I could not tell where I was pointing the camera, so I just sort of pointed the camera in his direction and snapped away. I made three or four dives to the bottom and got closer to him each time, hoping the camera was the only thing that was snapping. I never did get a good photo of him, but here is an idea what he looked like down there.

Farther upstream I came to one of the other main spots I had wanted to explore - a section of the creek with lots of white water and quiet pools in between, with a water depth of only a foot or two at the most. Some of the water was less than a foot deep. This is where the really neat stuff happens in creeks like this - in the whitewater shallows. I spent the next two hours with my head underwater, crawling along the bottom of the creek and exploring each little riffle that I came to. Sometimes when I would find a scene that was really great I would sit there for five, ten, or perhaps even more minutes, just gazing in awe at the great intimate beauty of this shallow underwater world. I even got to take a photo or two, but that proved to be tougher than I had anticipated. The best scenes were located where the fasted water was, where I had to hang on for dear life to keep from being swept away by the swift water. Only problem was that I needed both hands to do this, and each time I raised the camera to take a photo I would start to get swept away!

Not sure if my spit has reached the perfect chemical composition or what, but for the first time I can ever recall in more than 40 years of using a mask underwater, my mask never fogged up a single time. An old scuba divers trick is to spit into a dry mask and smear it around before you begin your dive (washing it out before actually putting the mask on) - this will keep the mask from fogging up for a little while, but it always does eventually fog up. I did just that, and didn't even realize until I had been in and out of the water for a couple of hours that I never needed to re-spit - no fog at all, even when I was under water for an hour - the mask remained clear.

The only downside to this day was the fact that the creeks were not full of shiner minnows - they were sparse, unlike previous trips where sometimes I would be engulfed with hundreds, perhaps even thousands of them, each one made into a sparkling gem by the bright sunshine. But that was OK by me - I really enjoyed watching the dance of the brilliant bubbles all around me.

I think that perhaps a trip like this may be key to a fully happy life - being able to have the time of your life in one foot of water - sometimes the simple pleasures that are easy and close at hand are the very best. Perhaps it is just me - I am easily entertained and find a short walk in the woods right outside my door, or a quick splash in the creek below, can be the most amazing time. Hey man, I'm a cheap date for sure! Speaking of dates, my lovely bride will be coming home tomorrow - the greatest pleasure of this week will be getting to sit out on the back deck with her doing nothing but enjoying each other's company, and the great other natural beauty around us.

But FIRST I have another long day of work ahead of me - the reason why I dislike Fridays is because not only do I have to get all of my Friday work done, but also the work that I did not get done yesterday (or the day before, or the day before that). Looks like a warm and humid day ahead, and my hope is that many of you will be able to spend the weekend cooling off in your own little water playground, wherever that may be, and however deep you find it...

Here are a few of the snapshots from the river trip...

UPDATE: I just found out from our friend and Journal reader, David Filbeck, that is it actually "the MALES who guard the nest, which they built to attract the female.  The females mate and then move on!" You can find a great deal of scientific info about this activity here.

This is the type of shallow water I love to hang out in - only a foot deep

Lucy - "How can I get back across the creek without getting wet?"

Man, I would hate to run into this critter underwater!

07/19/08 The cooing of a mourning dove matched the serene mood of soft blue mountains, blurry clouds and delicate pink skies. The wilderness was getting in a few quiet last winks before waking up for the weekend. Shrill voices of a hundred other birds filled the airwaves and took that soft edge off - I believe they were yelling at tiny bugs to wake up and take flight so they could have a breakfast snack!

Did you see the moonrise last night? Holy cow it was ORANGE! For some reason all that blue summer haze in the atmosphere makes the moon go orange - somehow that doesn't seem to add up on the color wheel but who is to argue with Momma Nature.

I saw a second squirrel yesterday running up the side of a tree with a large mushroom in tow. Big, fat hickory nuts continue to pile up on the forest floor - that means it takes me longer to hike anywhere since I have to pause often, reach down and pick a nut up, and toss it at a nearby tree - something about summer and hickory nuts and trees bring out the old days of pitching on the baseball diamond within me.

We've had a few human visitors to Cloudland recently. Pam's dad brought by a motorcycle gang the other day - must have been a dozen of them. They had stopped by his house in Mt. Sherman and he loaded them up into a car and a truck and headed for our gallery. They were a fine bunch of middle-aged "whipper-snappers," mostly from Missouri, and included at least six mommas. It has been my tradition since Mother's Day that I've given any mom who visited the gallery a favor - I only had one left so I asked who in the group was the most recent mom, and they all pointed to one lady who said she had a 28-year old son. They all gathered around as she carefully unfolded the pink wrapper - it was a small framed photograph of the momma deer and fawn photo of mine. I did not know it but this very lady and spent most of her gallery visit over in the corner looking at that very same image on canvas. One of the group pointed to another canvas print of a waterfall and wanted to know where it was taken. "Come with me and I'll show you!" So we all trekked on out to the back deck of the cabin. "You see this first ridge, and the drainage right behind it, and then the next drainage - just go there and turn right and you will find the waterfall just upstream." None of us were not up for a hike of that magnitude just then, but I think they all got a kick out of it anyway.

And last week we got to spend some time with our good friends Joe and Gayla Ownbey, who drove up from McKinney, Texas for a couple of days. Joe is the guy who first got me setup as a professional photographer - when I was 18 and going to college. I was a shy young kid who hated school and was terrified of women - so naturally I would become a party photographer surrounded by 75 sorority girls at a time - talk about being thrown into the flames! Joe and I and another party photographer, Greg Heinze, have remained friends all these years and have all gotten together in what we call the OAK Photographic Society from time to time. Mostly these weekends were filled with drinking and photography talk and drinking - this last visit was mostly just photography talk, thank goodness - I kept to my strict limit of two shots and my head thanked me for it! Joe and Gayla have another claim to fame here - they are the ones who got us started with the now famous Cloudland Cereal that we serve at all weekend photo workshops. (granola, yogurt, fruit, honey) Greg was not able to join us this time - he was off to Spain for a month flying some newfangled airplane. Joe teaches photography now and also continues a commercial photography business down in Texas - my head was spinning with all of the photo theory and facts that were constantly flying through the air in all directions.(I'll post a photo Joe took of us in a little while)

Speaking of people coming to Cloudland - my girls will be here tonight - YIPPIE COYOTE, HOORAY!

07/22/08 It was so HOT & MUGGY early this morning! It is so COOL outside this evening! The cold front that brought some serious thunder boomers through the area this afternoon swept the haze away and dropped the temps. We didn't get a single drop of rain here at the cabin, but we would SEE it raining all around us, and FEEL the electricity as it hit the ground.

At the beginning of all this t-storm activity, I was up in Aspen's meadow helping out (read, standing around watching) two guys who where pulling our well pump up from 586' down in the ground. The pump failed about a week ago and today was the day for them to come out and replace it. Our 1,000' gallon holding tank was just about empty early today when I checked it - the girls fled to grandma's house to do laundry, and we've been on hyper water rationing for a while now. Anyway, when the big lightning strikes began, the guys had these 21' steel water pipes high in the air as they were pulling them out of the well and I kind of began to doubt their sanity for doing so under the circumstances. As it turned out, they got the new pump attached and back into the ground just fine, however when we sent the juice to it there was no pumping going on - the pump they installed was DEFECTIVE! So out came all of that steel pipe once again, and we still have no pump. They hope to get a replacement pump back out here by Friday, just about the time the girls decide to move into a hotel!

It is so funny, when you get temperature changes like this - not too long ago 75 degrees would have been WARM to me, even sweaty weather; yet today when the temp dropped from 90-something down to 75 it felt like the coolest day of the year! Same deal happens in reverse - when you get used to cold weather, 60 degrees can feel really nice and toasty when that temp normally is rather chilly. It is so great to live in a place where you get such a wide variety of temps all during the year - it was in the upper 40's just a couple of weeks ago, while it can often be in the upper 70's and even 80's in the wintertime here. 72 degrees is great, but give me four seasons, and mix them up in each month!

Speaking of seasons, I saw the first BRIGHT RED leaf on the ground the other day. And some of the Virginia creeper plants are beginning to turn yellow - certainly not from being too dry, since we have had to much rain, but rather I think they are having visions of autumn coming to the forest.

I must share something I received today - I guess the forest service has been keeping a list of "smoke sensitive" people in the area, and my name is on that list. I was asked today if I wanted to remain on that list, and I had to tell them within 48 hours. I have no idea how I got on this list, what the list is for, or what kind of smoke they are talking about - I assume the smoke they generate from setting the forest on fire (which by the way, they have been doing just about every day this summer - mostly small fires down in the Ouachitas). The funny part is that the "signature" line at the end of the e-mail is this -

"Man's mind is not just a container to be filled, but a fire to be kindled."

I told the nice lady that if they would quit kindling so many dang forest fires every year they would not need a smoke sensitive list! (whatever it is for)

I gave a presentation to one of the largest crowds ever for me yesterday - more than 500 delightful folks from the state Farm Bureau Leadership Council (or something like that). I have been worrying myself silly for the past month agonizing about this presentation - the last two big groups that I presented to I had troubles with my computer, and in fact it froze up during both programs and I was totally embarrassed! So I was bound and determined not to let that happen this time, especially with so many people there and such a huge and expensive audio-visual setup these guys had. Since I figured that Bill Gates has been behind my computer crashes (I often joke about how terrible windows machines are - I'm a Mac guy), I decided to tape a little sticker on my computer that said "Bill Gates is King." And I tried not to say anything bad about Microsoft during my presentation. Just in case that did not work, I wiped my computer harddrive clean and only installed a single program on it - the one that creates and runs my slide program. AND I had a second computer with me on stage all set up and running and ready to switch to in case the primary computer crashed. I held my breath the entire program. YIPPPIE COYOTE, no crashes! Whew, that was a close one. I'm giving another program next week to a much smaller crowd, but have another giant convention in September (a regional truckers group) so I will be doing some serious Bill Gates sucking up between now and then.

A couple of notes from the big show yesterday. The guy who followed me on the program was none other than U. S. Congressman John Boozman. He arrived EARLY and came up and sat in the second row and listened to the last part of my presentation. When I was done I hurriedly got out of the way and to the back of the big room so they could introduce the Congressman. About 30 seconds later I looked up and there he was - the Congressman was coming to the back of the room and headed right for me. It was quite an honor for me to have him get up out of his chair in front and come all the way to the back to shake my hand and thank me for what I do - all the while they were still introducing him. I've always liked this guy, and would probably vote for him no matter which party he belonged to.

Later on, out in the hall, a rather large gentleman and his wife came up to me and started talking. He said one of my eagle photos reminded him of an event that happened to him a few years before. They were in New York when the terrorist attack happened and could not get home for ten days afterwards. He lives and works a big farm along the Arkansas River, and when they got home all he wanted to do was get out onto his land. As he started to tell this story to me he began to shake and quiver - he said he looked out to the river and saw this giant bald eagle flying right down the river, then it swooped down, grabbed a fish in its talons, and flew away. He broke down right there in front of me in the crowd and began to sob. "That is what it is all about being an American!" I have a great deal of respect for those who toil long and hard so that the rest of us may enjoy all that we eat - farmers are good eggs.

Another gentleman who I greatly admire and who has seen my programs many times told me afterward that he got a little choked up during one of the slide programs - "I always do" he said. And I don't really consider these programs a success unless they bring at least someone to tears. It's not just the photos, but rather the combination of the images as they move across the screen and the beautiful music that goes with them, and of course, all the other folks around you that share the moment. I don't want to just produce pretty pictures - I want to move folks, stir emotions, get folks to appreciate the great natural beauty that is all around us and that we need to continue to protect. I'm asked all the time about selling these programs on DVD, and the simple fact remains that their great power and beauty would just not come through the same when viewed on a home computer or TV.

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