BACK IN JERSEY

Dickie and I made the big trip across the country again about ten days ago now. It was a smooth trip with a short stop in Phoenix. We're all re-adjusted to East Coast time and weather at this point, although the past two days have been a bit more humid than we're accustomed to. Guess it's the result of Hurricane Ophelia.

On the past Tuesday we took a ride down to Cape May, just to see what the Atlantic Ocean looks like up, close and personal. The view was great, as the shot below demonstrates:

We had a lot of fun walking around town, taking pictures of the old Victorian houses ("Painted Ladies", according to Dickie) and the famed Inn at Cape May which is what you're looking at in this next photo, with Dickie sitting at a table in the front yard:

After lunch at a restaurant on the beach, we headed back up the road and stopped at the zoo in Cape May Courthouse. I've been wanting to visit a zoo for a couple years now. This was a small one, but there were plenty of interesting animals. Unfortunately for photographers, most of them were behind chain-link fences that it difficult to get a decent picture. If you get real lucky, sometimes the camera will ignore the fencing for the most part. That's what happened when I photographed this lion lying out in a wooded enclosure:

There was no fence between me and the flamingos, so I was able to get a real closeup of this fellow. In fact, this picture below won me a "Picture of the Day" at www.azcolt.com on Wednesday of this past week. I've been sending pictures in to Azcolt and Bestfoto for months and this is only the fourth time I've managed to come up with a winner. I also submitted one picture that our daughter, Gretchen, took in Yosemite and, wouldn't you know, she won on the first try! Of course, taking a good picture in Yosemite is a fairly sure bet, but it still takes a good eye. You can check out her photo at this address: http://www.azcolt.com/images/landscapes0821_2005.jpg

Zoo pictures have a pretty good chance, too, since the animals are not hard to catch. You just have to find them in an intriguing pose. I can't say that about this shot of a toucan who was behind a wire mesh, but it did turn out better than I might have expected:

I did wish this tiger hadn't been behind the chain-link fence, but he's a good-looking creature nontheless:

What surprised me when I got home and displayed the pictures I had taken was that somehow the chain-link fence was completely invisible in this shot of that same tiger headed for his dinner. Rest assured, the fence was still between me and him, but my camera ignored it. Figure that one out if you can:

See you next time!