Weather Photos from Florida

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Lightning in the sky over Tampa Bay.
Treasure Island, Florida

I'm finally back from Florida with some photos of severe weather. Even though the photos show lightning and a funnel cloud, I didn't experience any rain! The weather was great, but I managed to see a lightning show over Tampa Bay as I walked a few miles away on a warm, breezy beach. I caught a funnel cloud over the Gulf of Mexico, but it was just about the only dark cloud in the sky around 6:00 in the morning; the sun came out an hour later.

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Funnel cloud over the Gulf of Mexico

June 22, 2007

We had a great time, saw a lot of firsts and a lot of familiar things too. I'll have to start going through the 1300 photos I took and begin posting them real soon.

Blue Ridge Mountains

Heading home via the Blue Ridge Mountains

St. Augustine Lighthouse

St. Augustine lighthouse
taken with my cellphone

Florida aligator in Lake Tarpon- Tarpon Springs, Florida

Tarpon Springs

Stern of old sponge diving boat- Tarpon Springs Florida
taken with my cellphone

The Don

The famous Don Cesar resort- St Pete Beach Florida
taken with my celphone

Clearwater Beach Sunset

Sunset on Clearwater Beach Florida. We are having a great time!
taken with my cellphone

A trip to Disney World

A day at Disney World
taken with my cellphone

I'm on the Beach

Currently at the beach in Florida!
taken with my cellphone

Fulton County Round Barn Festival

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Larry Paxton Round Barn
Fulton County Indiana Museum

It was the Round Barn Festival in Rochester, Indiana this weekend. I missed the actual festival, so I wasn't able to go on the tour of nine round barns (the most in a single county in the US), but I managed to find a couple the next day that were on the tour and just explored them myself.

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Jerry Calloway Round Barn with Animals Depicted on Roof
Fulton/Miami Indiana County Line

This is the Calloway barn, built in 1915. It's 80 feet in diameter with a 50 foot tall silo in the center of the building.

Dragon

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Dragonfly
Rubio Woods
Cook County, Illinois

Cicada Invation!

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Perodical Cicada
Bachelor's Grove Cemetery

Every 16 or 17 years, the northern Illinois area is swarmed by cicadas. Areas that have or had mature trees are hit heaviest. The cicadas emerge from a 16 year underground larvae stage and burrow up onto the surface to dry out and molt. Once they shed their "skin" their wings grow and dry out in about an hour, then they take flight up to the tree tops where they call for a mate. The cicada's call is the loud, buzzing sound you hear in the summer, but here where there are millions and millions of cicadas, it's almost too loud to think! The combined call sounds like a whaling fire alarm in the forest!

They only live for two weeks, just enough time to mate and lay eggs that will hatch, burrow underground and feed for the next 16 years.

Parts of the woods are literally covered in live cicadas and their skins. You can't walk around without one landing on you. No worries, the cicada does not have any mouth parts or stingers, so they're harmless.
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Cicada on Mike's Neck

Distant Skyline

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Chicago Skyline seen from Mt. Baldy
Michigan City, Indiana

Storm clouds break up and make way for some evening sunlight over Lake Michigan.

Mt. Baldy is a 125 foot tall sand dune in Michigan City, Indiana, and is part of the National Lakeshore.

I Saw the Light (house)

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Michigan City Lighthouse
Washington Park
Michigan City, Indiana

Memorial Day weekend didn't stop us from going to see the Michigan City lighthouse. Here you see the large boulders along the north side of the lighthouse breakwater. These rocks help break the waves and reduce "scour" a process that would undermine the concrete breakwater in a matter of years.

Fog of War

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Smoke fills the battlefield during a Civil War reenactment
Naperville, Illinois

Hersh and the McCarricks

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Lakeshore Theater
May 22

Kristin Hersh performed last night in Chicago with her loyal 50 Foot Wave band members Bernard and Rob, and the McCarricks from London UK. The show was at the Lakeshore Theater on Broadway and Belmont - a perfect, comfortable venue for this type of show.


Kristin Hersh on Stage


Kristin Hersh and Kimberlee McCarrick


Martin McCarrick performs on stage
May 22

Civil War Battle

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Cannon Firing
Civil War Reenactment
Naperville, Illinois

Fire!
This civil war era cannon really lets off a boom during the annual Naper Settlement Civil War Days. Since the cannon was not firing a projectile, only about 1/4 the amount of black powder was used, but you could still feel the explosion a few hundred feet away. They don't use too much black powder in reenactments because it would break the windows in the historic settlement.

Woodland Flowers

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False Solomon's Seal in dappled sunlight
Illinois Woodland

Sheriff Bikes

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Row of Berrien County Sheriff Motorcycles
Outside the Amtrack Station
St. Joseph, Michigan

A rather large crowd was gathering at Silver Beach on the shore of Lake Michigan to attend the festivities at the annual Blossom Time Festival. To help preserve the peace (or as Chicago's famous Mayor Daley once said, "To preserve disorder") several Berrien County Sheriff's officers parked their bikes to take part in foot patrol on the lakefront.

Geese

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Mother Goose and her Gosling
Lake Katherine
Palos, Illinois

Spring welcomes a new generation of geese at the Lake Katherine nature preserve. In addition to the teams of geese, ducks and heron were also seen raising new families.

Lake Katherine is just west of Harlem Ave. slightly north of Route 83 on Lake Catherine Drive and right along the Calumet Sag Channel.