Back from the West! PART 1

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Hello everyone, Its been a while! But I have some great new photos and stories to share!! Early Saturday morning I arrived back at Bradley International Airport after 6 days of traveling out West. To sum up my trip quickly ..
I flew into Bozemen Montana ( a great small airport), rented the cheapest car they had, $135 for the week with insurance, grabbed a cooler from a local grocery store, packed it with bread, cheese veggies, meat, water, juice, and yes, beer. Then I drove 70 miles south of the airport to the West Gate of Yellowstone National Park. This is my second trip in as many years to the park and feel like I could go there every year and never get bored. I stayed in the park for 4 days, then during the peak of the Labor Day weekend ( too many people) I headed down through Grand Teton National Park to Jackson Hole to get a little rest and see some close friends.

While I was there I got to know my new camera ( Canon 30d) intimately. Over the course of the week about 900 captures were taken. This camera is much more professional camera than what I am used to, and the options are endless. Because so much happened out there I decided to break the trip photos into a new post everyday this week. Then I can kind of explain them with out a massive amount of typing. BUT if you would like to get a look at a gallery I posted about 75 pictures on my Yahoo Photos. Please feel free to comment on them or rate them. I would like to narrow them down to the top 15 or 20 to add to my site as final images.

I am going to start off with some Bald Eagle shots. Ironically these were taken on the second to last day of my trip. I spotted him sitting in a dead tree about 300 yards off the road through a narrow strip of burned trees. He was fishing for trout in the Gibbon River. I parked a bit down the road and walked back. After quietly making my way down a hill through the remains of the huge forest fire that destroyed thousands of acres in 1988, I walked up the river bank until I found a perfect tree where I could sit against and wait. I wanted more than a snapshot, I had time on my side and decided to wait and see what he was going to do. Sure enough within about a half hour ( my eye was getting tired of looking through the view finder) he plummeted toward the water. Instead of grabbing a fish he got a mole, or vole. Then ate it while some ravens waited for scraps. Then he took off and that was a wrap. Here are a few of the 40 images I took during the experience.

click Images to enlarge