Interpretation of Montana

I've been painting whenever I get a free moment. That isn't often. Usually, its while Megan and I are watching American Idol-it is pretty much the only TV show that we watch regularly, with the exception of reruns of Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe, which has to be THE funniest show on T.V.

I've put a time limit on these little studies that I've been working on. At the end of the T.V. show, I'm done. That's it...put the brush down, clean up and go to bed.

The inspiration for this piece was a photograph sent to me by my friend Bryan from Montana.

How'd I do? I've been reading "A Painter's Guide to Color" by Steven Quiller and that has been very helpful- especially where it comes to mixing colors and how to create paintings where everything isn't just all bright colors. So far, it has been rewarding to read his book.

Any comments or suggestions about books techniques, etc. would be greatly appreciated.

Tom

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If You Lived in Montana, This Could be the View Out Your Window

My great friend Bryan, who lives in Livingston, Montana, sent me these fantastic pictures that he took looking out his window. Bryan and I go way back to our days at Hiram College in Hiram, Ohio. We also spent three months photographing the wonders of Australia.

Bryan reports: "Here are some long-range shots from my upstairs window this evening (February 17)...at the high elevations, lots of snow last night, followed by lots of sun today. These are looking southeast from Livingston, the mountains are just inside the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness boundary. The first picture Livingston Peak, while the second shows the headwalls of a basin that you can hike into, about a 7 mile hike."
Aren't these stunning? I can only image what it would be like to have this view from my upstairs window. Bryan, you've done well. I think we're going to want to see more images like these!

Megan and I flew to Montana last July for Bryan's wedding. The flight wasn't cheap, but seeing Bryan in this wonderful place was worth every last penny. Coupling the joy of seeing a good friend for the first time in a long time, meeting each others life partners for the first time, and doing everything in such a beautiful place was a mind blowing experience. Here are more than a few shots from our trip to Montana and adjacent Wyoming. Megan and I are just hoping that Skybus starts flying to Bozeman!

The American Dipper, Possibly the Coolest Bird Ever

Ok, so this may not be the most showy bird in the world, but as far as behavior, you just can't beat it. My first introduction to the American Dipper was this past spring when Megan and I were in Colorado. We saw a posting for a nature hike near Denver that highlighted this stream dwelling species. Yes, American Dippers only inhabitat cool mountain streams along the Rockies, all the way down to Central American. Anyways, Megan and I couldn't make the nature hike, we were in town for a wedding, and we just couldn't do everything.

So fast-forward to last week, actually one week ago today, and Megan and I are hiking the Hyalite Canyon Trail in Gallatin National Forest, near Bozeman Montana. A spectacular mountain hike full of blue lupines, yellow columbines, and magenta wild geraniums. Even some very cool sedges, colored very light white and almost chocolate brown. But what was the coolest thing we saw on the hike? Well we took a little side spur to grotto falls, and sure enough, there was a beautiful 20-30 foot cascading waterfall, but in and around the splash zone, I saw a medium sized gray bird, after which I almost immediately shouted, "DIPPER!". Very cool, a life bird for me, Megan and I watched a pair foraging in the stream, going after invertebrates underneath rocks. These birds can actually dive under the water, and see under the water with a thin, clear membrane that covers their eyes. The pair we saw were collecting food, then flying up to a wall covered with moss and a sullivantia looking plant, and about five feet before alighting onto the rocky cliff face, two rather large yellow mouths popped out! The birds took turns landing and feeding their little ones. Anyways, I managed to get some OK pictures, and even a video of one of them. Note the dipping action!

Back to the Olentangy River

I love taking photographs. If you look at this blog regularly, you probably know that by now. And having a blog is a great place for me to put my photos so that I can look and analyze them.

So what do I miss about Montana? I miss all the great photo opportunities! Almost everywhere in every direction, there was something interesting to photograph. The problem? It can get pretty frantic and lets just say the trip was not as relaxing as it could have been because I was trying to photograph every minute of it!

So the last few days I have been somewhat lamenting the lack of mountains and in general, extremely photogenic scenery around Columbus. But, I hadn't gone out and tried to take pictures of anything since I had come home. Tonight, I threw the camera around my neck, broke out the new tripod I purchased in Montana (floor model, great savings, and no Montana sales tax!), and I went to Kenney Park to photograph the Olentangy River.

Tonight, I started my trek through a little goldenrod meadow and noticed several pairs of beetles, that were, um, enjoying each others company. At least they would be if beetles were humans.

 

A short trip down to the river, and I scared up a momma mallard and her three babies. I'm guessing this is this mother's second clutch of the year.

 

Next up, some mature mallards, a male with several females. I was lucky enough to capture them exhibiting their natural feeding behavior. These mallards were scared of people and wouldn't swim over to me when I moved my arms in a motion like I was tossing bread into the water.

 

Finally, I decided to play around with the tripod and take some very long exposures of the river at twilight to see what would happen. Doing this captured an almost surreal, silky image. Check out the bottom of the Olentangy. Anyways, Ohio may not offer the overt scenic beauty that Montana possesses, but it is just as fun, and certainly more relaxing, to take photographs in my own backyard.

 

Montana and Wyoming

Here you go: The best 180 or so pictures from our trip. Enjoy!

Tom

We Are in Montana

Megan and I are in Montana! We are staying at a Ramada Inn in Bozeman. We arrived Tuesday evening after a smooth flight across the Rockies, after which we underwent a rapid descent down to the town of Bozeman. We woke up yesterday morning and went to Yellowstone National Park with our Friends James and Kathleen. The ninety mile drive down to Yellowstone was smooth and sunny, made especially nice by our free upgrade to our Ford Escape four wheel drive SUV. The sights, sounds, and smells of Yellowstone were even better than I remembered. Geyers, paintpots, mudpits, hot springs, and fumaroles were all spectacular. I just kept thinking I was in a huge fake mini golf course with rumbling volcanoes all over the place, but these were real. Real rumbling, real steam, real sulphuric smell pouring out of the ground. And the people! Old Faithful was packed, I would say at least 1000 people watched it explode with us right around 1:15 in the afternoon. Later in the day, we visited the thumb neck area, where geyers and Lake Yellowstone meet. Talk about a juxtoposition! The 45 degree water of the lake meets the thermal shores of geyserland. Needless to say, it was pretty cool, and hot, all at the same time. We finished off the day at Yellowstone Falls, headed then to the Roosevelt Lodge, and finally to Mammoth Springs where we exited the park. Along our way, snaking through mountains on a two lane road, we were treated to spectacular views of the Yellowstone valley below us. Stopped in every possible place were cars, on and off the road, with people peering over the cliff looking at bears and wolves in the valley below! We weren't able to see the momma grizzly bear with her two cubs, or the wolves, but we did see a moose with her baby, and also a full size brown bear. We also had a close encounter with two coyotes, and saw several hundred American bison. I also got two life birds, the raven, which are scavengers in the park like grackles back in Ohio, and two sandhill cranes, which Megan spotted in a lake that contained a floating Island. And wait, I forgot about the white Pelicans we saw in the rapids of the Yellowstone River. There were at least eight birds just hanging out, far away from the ocean, in this great river.

Off to the Wild Wild West, Montana Style

Megan and I will be traveling, courtesy of United Airlines, to Bozeman Montana. We leave tomorrow evening. Who knows what will be in store for us, we haven't exactly planned much for this trip, but we are both starting to get excited. Look for pictures when we get back next Sunday! If I have access to a computer out west, I'll try to post updates. But if I can't, just wait a little bit, and I'll have plenty of cool pictures to post.

Finally, Rain,

Finally, the rain fell on the Olentangy River here in Columbus. As I write this, I'm looking out the window and rain continues to fall. It has actually been raining for about two hours now.

On a totally different front, Megan and I will be traveling to Bozeman, Montana next week for one my friend Bryan Swindell's wedding. Bryan and I spent three months sharing a tent as we traveled around Australia. The trip of a lifetime, my time in "the land of Oz" helped me hone my interests in natural history and helped make me realize that I was more interested in helping solve real world environmental problems rather than being a strict scientist that conducts controlled experiments. After I came back from Australia in the spring of 1999, I documented the trip in a web page on a relatively new thing called the "World Wide Web". Check out pictures from the trip here.

I have never been to the great state of Montana, and I'm starting to get the travel bug. Too bad my camera fell in the river last weekend! Hopefully, Megan will let me take plenty of shots with her machine. We may take the laptop on our journey, so I may be able to blog from our hotel room.

Tom