Thanksgiving is best shared with family, and I had the privilege of sharing it this year with Steve and Julie as well as Julie's mother Joan in Park City, Utah. The table was set beautifully, all ready for the arrival of guests, and the host and hostess were ready as well.
As always, the food was excellent and we all ended up feeling as stuffed as the turkey!
On another day, Steve and I ventured over to Antelope Island State Park, which is situated in the Great Salt Lake and accessible by a long causeway. The purpose of the trip was to find a life bird (one I had never seen), a chukar, and find it we did, although not until the very end of the day. It's a pretty little bird, originally brought in as a game bird, but it escaped and went forth to multiply.
While we were cruising the island in search of this bird, we also saw pronghorns and bisons. Bisons are huge and they own the road when the decide to use or cross it!
The most unusual thing we saw/heard, at least from my standpoint, was a couple of coyotes wading in the water and stalking ducks for dinner. No joy for them there while we were watching, but we heard coyotes howling behind us and they were eventually joined by one of the ones in the water. While I have seen coyotes before, I've never heard them howling. No pictures of that scene though. My new camera is good for some distance shots but not THAT good! We did, however, chance upon a porcupine ambling up the road. By the time I got to where he was heading off the road, he was somewhat hidden by grasses, so this is a "find the porcupine" shot. He takes up most of the frame, but he shut his eyes! If you look closely, you can see the quills (or click on the shot to enlarge it).
The sunset that afternoon was pretty, even with a cloud cover moving in.
Steve does beautiful photography work, and a neighbor asked him to take a picture of their little girl for their Christmas card. Jasper and I went along for the ride. I was hoping to pick up some pointers; Jasper was just hoping someone would throw something for him to fetch. The photographer at work:
His subject is adorable and was very much into posing for the shot. I couldn't resist taking a couple just for practice.
The subject decided SHE wanted a different background, so off they went up the road to find just the right spot while her mother, Jasper, and I watched from a distance.
While Julie and Steve did other things, Joan and I got started decorating the Christmas tree. It was up but not decorated when we arrived. We had fun with it, but Steve's help (and a ladder) were needed to complete the job. That's a tall tree! Later Cosette (the cat) and Jasper (the dog) decided that under the tree needed some help, too.
It was hard to leave all that. And besides, I don't get sunrises like this from my bedroom window at home!
