Tag: Turtle

Cadbury Tryouts

Happy Easter everyone! This morning I was out on my 16 mile training run on the trails of Jubilee State Park when I came upon not one but TWO Easter Bunnies. At first I was admittedly a bit startled. Not so much that I would come upon them in the middle of running the woods, but they didn’t exactly fit the model. Sure, both had two rather large ears, but wasn’t expecting them to each have 6 legs, 2 arms and stand 6 feet tall! One of them extended a Happy Easter and then offered me a chocolate rabbit pulled from a leather pouch. “We are playing Easter Ambassadors and offering treats to everyone we see in honor of our Savior’s rising.” I extended my appreciation for the thought, but passed – can’t imagine the gooey mess that would be by the time I finished the run. We said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. Note, this happened at mile 14.5 so assuredly the synapses were experiencing some fatigue, however, the large “U” shapes and the ummm… let’s go with presents left on the rest of the trail provided some evidence to the encounter. By the way, those bunnies must east a LOT! Made it home and thought I would get a post out in recognition of the special day and, of course, relay the events from earlier in the day. Spent a significant amount of time going through the 3+ years of backlogged images only to come up empty – NOT A SINGLE BUNNY PICTURE IN THE QUEUE. At a loss, I decided to hold a Cadbury tryout to see what would be the official substitute for the ’21 Easter Bunny. First up…

WTH, that thing doesn’t even have fur.  “..but look at my big cute round eyes and I have Praying right there in my name”.  Uhhhh nope.  Next.

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Slow Motion Life

Well, I kinda lied in my last post.  Ron and I had planned to do a little birding in Allerton Park yesterday, but Ron ran into a bit of bad luck that knocked him out of the event.  Probably not a bad thing in the end due to the stifling heat that we are currently experiencing out her in Flyover Country.  To put it in perspective, I had Linda drive me to the Lake of the Woods Forest Preserve.  I noticed a nice trail in the back of that park while getting in a 6 mile run there Friday evening.  We had a couple of hours after the dog show, so took some time to see if it was worth us hitting it on our next trip over there.  It is actually a pretty nice trail that runs along the Sangamon River – bad thing is after 2 miles I was soaking wet from the heat.  The feels like temperature at home when we got back was 112!

Fortunately, the heat isn’t a problem for today’s featured creature.
Tortoise in Red Rock Canyon - Nevada August 2013

That there is what they call a Tortoise.  Guessing you were thinking Turtle.  They are both reptiles and that is the common name associated with the hard shells, but there is actually a definite distinction between the two.  For starters, Tortoises are land dwellers, where Turtles spend most of their time in water habitats.  Clearly this was the case with these specimens seeing as how we took them outside the headquarters of Red Rock Canyon in Nevada.  This dwelling distinction also leads to another difference – Turtles have webbed feet and very sharp claws to navigate the water and pull themselves up on logs etc. to sun.

Tortoise in Red Rock Canyon - Nevada August 2013

Hit the jump to see a few more pictures and learn a few more facts picked up from some quick research.

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