Life is But a Dream

Hillsborough River State Park, Florida

Mrs. Phred and I took Mom on a canoe ride yesterday. She's 86. As far as I know, this is her first time in a canoe.

I made a Sockeye salmon spread for sandwiches, with eggs, onions and mayonnaise for our picnic on the river. I brought Mom a bottle of chocolate milk to wash it down with.

The river is beautiful. It's undeveloped with ancient cypress and Spanish moss. I forgot the camera. There were some great reflection shots on the still river, great lighting and lots of interesting air orchids and reptiles.

I'm going though the 10,000 shots I took last year for the 2010 Firecloud Calendar. It's a tedious process. I'll probably pick out 200 shots I really like, then winnow them down to thirteen for the actual calendar. That includes one shot for the cover.

So anyway, the pictures here are from our trip to Spain in April, instead of the river. Just a few I liked the most. The flowers are from the Rock of Gibratar.
Today the doctor took a two-inch diameter cancer off my chest. It wasn't one of the really dangerous ones, but no SCUBA or swimming for about three weeks.

He asked if I had fallen in the last year. Thinking back, I did tumble down the hotel stairs in Madrid and land in the marble floored lobby. Then there was the time a few days later when I stepped off a raised sidewalk in Gibraltar and tumbled onto a bunch of broken concrete blocks.

I damaged my camera during the falls and had to buy a new one in a Radio Shack in the little town of Fort Davis, Texas. They didn't ask for ID for the purchase. Apparently, the don't get much debit card fraud in Fort Davis or they maybe hang the ones they catch.

Because of the training I got in learning to fall in the Air Force, I am immune to injury from falling (probably up to a drop of 17 feet).

Row, Row, Row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily...