Greetings From Sunriver

Greetings From Sunriver

 

matty_7.24.10_ 025Spending a week down in Sunriver, OR to get some sun and relax. Brought the camera bag with me. Leave it to me to back 60 lbs of camera bag with me on vacation. No real plans to take any fantastic photos, just some fun and family captures. Much more extreme environment here when compared to the Seattle, WA area, it’s much like Eastern Washington. It’s either very hot or very cold. Even with temps hitting high 90’s here, it’s dipping into the 40’s at night. The dry climate paints an different kind of landscape, plants adapted to live happily with virtually no water, and funny little critters shooting in and out of the rocky land. One such animal that can be found in abundance are chipmunks. They are cute and hilarious to watch. Every movement is a quick twitch, a sprint and a hope from rock to rock, they can’t do anything slow, even whipping their tales from side to side like a dog, but at a lightning-like speed.

The cameras (yes, plural, I overpack whether it’s clothes or photo stuff) didn’t come out during the ride down, not even the first day. The first itch to click the shutter came with the entertaining little chipmunks. Finally! A reason to slap the heavy yet amazing 100-400mm L lens onto the body. Sitting on the deck enjoying the late evening fading heat, these chipmunks were zipping in and out of the rocks, scavenging for any trace of food (the poor guys). For the benefit of their bellies (and the opportunity to get a closer shot, *cough*) we set out some potato chips for them to nibble on. Turns out, not only American humans enjoy super fatty food, but the American wildlife (when given the chance) partake in the junk food. If an article comes out next year about chipmunk obesity I’m gonna feel really bad. Here is a guy down below, probably just thinking he’d already been run over and had died and gone to heaven. “Holy acorns! A chunk of food the size of me.” He’ll sleep good tonight.

Another creature that was an unexpected moment of fun was a distempered squirrel. Ya sure, we have plenty of these guys around up in the Seattle area, but this guy had a beef with everyone and everything around him. He was grunting and squeaking before we even came upon him, but he definitely lets us have it as we approached his tree. He totally reminded me of McSquizzy from the cartoon movie ‘Open Season.’ Here he is, totally staring us down with absolutely no fear. I literally thought he was about to start cursing in a Scottish accent and tossing pinecones at me.

Our sunset walk around the beautiful landscape was fun. Here are a few pics I snapped along the way.

Tomorrow we are tackling the lava fields as well as the lava cave that I visited last year. I’ll be packing my camera for that and I’m hoping for some good stuff. I’ll post some stuff of from that as well. Until then…

Tags: