Hi everyone! Core_Diver here! I'm curious what you're all doing with your summers this year whenever you're not on ECC! Whether you've just got a neat story to share, or some pictures to post, put 'em here! I'd love to see what you're up to! (Of course only appropriate images and stories please, don't want anything troublesome here on the forums) I myself went boating the other day and have the sunburn to show for it! 8 hours on the lake with family has made for a great day! So? Show me what you've got!
I don't have any pictures, but... We've been doing yard work, grilling, had some relatives over (who will be over again on the weekend, I believe), and just relaxing and playing games. I do plan to make art, though!
GET READY FOR PICTURE SPAM... lololol Anyways I just returned from a 2 week long camping/hiking trip to Yellowstone National Park and Glacier National Park in Montana. I live in Oregon btw, so it was a LOOONG drive... -_- Being a photographer and animal lover, my photos are mostly based on the wildlife I see. In fact the only real reason I go there is to take wildlife photos! I'd been to Yellowstone 3 times, and up until my most recent trip had caught everything on my animal 'gotta-catch-them-all' list except for the moose and the wolf. But I was finally able to get them this year!!! Baby Bison in Lamar Valley... :3 Wild Mustangs near Glacier National Park in northern Montana... Just hanging by the side of the road LOL. Lake St. Mary in Glacier Park.... On a day when there is little wind, you get an almost perfect reflection off of the water! I got lucky with this shot on my last day there. Now a long story about my first wild wolf encounter if you want to read below... And ALL PHOTOS in this post were taken and owned by me. Nkaujzoo Yaj is my real name in my culture, just in case you're wondering. lol Spoiler: My Wolf Encounter Story! LUCKY for me I got one of the most rare moments in any wildlife photographer's dream and that was to capture some of Yellowstone's Lamar Valley's wolves. It all happened by chance too! Was wolf hunting and complaining that we'd never see one and then BAM right by the side of the road, 3 wolves (Big Grey, Middle Grey and one of their yearling offsprings, a young black wolf) appeared out of nowhere... We stopped to take photos only to have our dreams crushed when a bunch of obnoxious motorcyclists drove by and scared away the wolves. They ran up the hill and up into the ridge, where we could barely see them... we followed them until they vanished behind a huge hill. We stood there waiting, and I thought my chance was over to get a clear shot of the wolves... and then BAM everyone was screaming and I saw these 3 wolves come running down the hill charging at our direction. It all happened so fast I was barely able to focus and control my camera! It was rush. If you've never experience 3 wild wolves let alone ONE wild wolf running towards you, you don't know what I went through!!! For a moment I thought they were gonna come for us, and then realized wolves don't just randomly attack people like that especially a large crowd like us.. and then realized the big grey wolf (named "Big Grey") was nowhere to be seen now and the other two (Middle grey and their black daughter) was chasing after a different wolf, one wearing a radio collar... It turns out that one lone wolf was a relative of this pack but he had been going from pack to pack from inside of the park and outside... so a lot of tension had built up between these wolves, thus them chasing him... I figured he was smart enough to think that if he ran towards us humans, the others would stop chasing him... but there was no fear in the wolves' eyes, they chased him down towards us none the less... The wolves even looked over at us for a second and it was a moment I will never forget when our eyes met. Freaking amazing experience!!! Anyways, ONCE in a lifetime someone will get this opportunity. I could not tell you how funny it was walking around the visitor center at the park with these epic photos in my camera while everyone else was just taking repetitive pictures of bison and elk lol. That's the story I have to share from my trip this summer!!! =) And now onto my photo spam!!! I am a photographer, so excuse the spam, I can't help but share the amazing wildlife photos I took this summer. Spoiler: More photos by me BABY MUSTANG HORSEEE!!! <3 AWWWWW ^ Drinking sulfuric water is NOT recommended... Look at this cow elk's face expression after drinking it. lol ^ I searched 3 years for a moose and this was the best shot I could get. -_- ^ LOL it all happened so fast this lady missed her shot... xD LANDSCAPE ^ brainzzzz And here I am on the 'going-to-the-sun" road in Glacier park! We were in the clouds so couldn't get a good shot of the valley below. -_- Lol sorry for long post!
Goin' to the French River, and gonna go swimming down rapids :3 So much fun, and gonna maybe try get into more water sports than just kneeboarding and tubing This is where we go: http://moonlightbaycottages.com/
Well On Sunday I will be going to a camp for church, which is Bike Camp. I will be bused Monday morning from here in Ohio at the camp down to somewhere in Pennsylvania and for 3 days (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday) will be biking the Allegheny trail 50 miles a day into Maryland. On Thursday we will be white-water rafting (so fun!) and then Friday we will be bused back up to my camp. This will be a memorial experience for me. And then the Monday I get back from camp I go to Cincinatti (sorry for spelling) for 3 days to the Aquarium and then to Great Wolf Lodge since it is bigger down there than in Sandusky. That is my vacation plans for the next two weeks.
Over the weekend, my cousins and I went to Mt. Olympus Water and Theme Park in Wisconsin Dells The Almighty Hermes has a drop flight of 180ft!
Bike camp is a camp for my church where over half of each day we go biking and we have to cook our own foods and put up tents every day. I just got back today and I will get a CD of pictures sometime in the future and I will try to post some of the pictures we got here. It was really fun and I loved to meet all the people there!
I'm going to California in a couple weeks to meet up with some family in the Orange County area. I'll be in LA, San Francisco, and Modesto mostly. Hit me up if you'll be there too. I just got back pretty much from a trip to Grand Junction and Montrose, Colorado (freaking looong trip too. It's 6 hours from Denver to Grand Junction). Other than that I've just been working and playing ECC.
