We leave Yellowstone

Tonight we had a thunderous hail storm. We three jumped in the truck and went for a drive in the weather.

Our son got his Junior Ranger patch today. Sometimes it's tantamount to pulling that kid through a keyhole to get him to do the Junior Ranger program but when he receives his patch he's all smiles. We got a great ranger today. He had our son read some of his answers out loud, he actually recognized the picture our son drew of a bison (hilarious drawing by the way!) and told him he did a good job. He made an announcement on the loudspeaker congratulating our son, and everyone applauded for him. It's was a good experience! I think the ranger checks so many activity papers (that the kids fill out) that they easily recognize which kids did the work themselves and which ones got their answers from mom and dad. There were two kids in front of our son, they didn't even have mom or dad with them, it was a babysitter, and he didn't do the same for them. This is important life moment material. I'd never send a sitter in my place and miss it.

Tomorrow we leave Yellowstone. We're going to mosey down to Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado.

I submitted my oxbow bend photo to PhotoSig this afternoon and got one response. I'm lucky I got one response. And the person who critiqued my photo gave me some superb pointers.

I have my new camera. It's a Canon Powershot S2 IS! I'm majorly thrilled with it but it has a bigger learning curve than my Olympus C-720. I feel I have so much to learn and I'm in such a hurry to learn it. All the hard thinking ought to help keep the Alzheimer's away.