Oh Yah! Bin Up Der.

Yah I bin back from up nort. Had some fine time too yeh? I'm sorry but every time I go up to the Tvin Cities, I come back with a damn Portuguese accent. I apologize if I slip back into it from time to time. I be gettin' over it soon aina hey? Anyway, I made my little drive to Minneapolis and back with no outstanding incidents. Sammy took a page from Grandma Jo's book on travel and slept almost the entire trip. On the way up I noted some of the better photo possibilities which I would try to capture on the return ride. The most coolest on the ride up was watching the price of gas decrease at about the same rate as the temperature. I'm not sure where the thermometer bottomed out but the price of gas hit its low in Red Wing Minnesota. (See pic)
On the ride up I encountered a mixture of rain and snow all the way there and on the way home I enjoyed periods of sun and, usually when I stopped to take a picture, periods of clouds.
As a rule when I spotted a potentially perfect picture, by the time I got out of the car and took aim, Casper the friendly cloud would race across the face of the sun. On a few occasions, I tried outwaiting the friendly clouds but then mom nature countered with a nice cool breeze. (The real kicker was, when I spotted my first "Masterpiece" the light was perfect, I was in position, ready to shot "oh boy" and my batteries were dead. A mad dash 5 miles down the road to a gas station, the one with the cheap gas, and when I returned to the spot . . . clouds. This one was worth the chilly wait. See below) In spite of her efforts to completely screw up my photo ops, I managed to get a few nice shots. The shots represent only a tiny tip of nature's iceberg I wish each one of you could ride shotgun with me on my little excursions and enjoy all the beautiful little things out there. Yah sure okay? Here a a few of the 150 or so shots from the trip.

This is the one that sent me scurrying for batteries.

He huffed and he puffed and . . .

What a farm should look like!

A bright spot on the Wisconsin side of the river.

I wasn't the only one heading south today!