Author Archives: explorenewness

NEW updates to my National Parks bucket list

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Happy Monday! I have the day off work, so I’m finally dumping the photos off my camera. AND…I’m updating my National Parks Bucket List. We recently visited Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and Grand Tetons National Park. Here are a couple of my favorite shots (Tetons above and Black Canyon of the Gunnison below). If I counted correctly, we have 45 more National Parks to visit! We’d better make a plan and get busy.

LIST OF US NATIONAL PARKS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

  • Acadia National Park {done}
  • Arches National Park {done}
  • Badlands National Park
  • Big Bend National Park
  • Biscayne National Park
  • Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park {done}
  • Bryce Canyon National Park {done}
  • Canyonlands National Park {done}
  • Capitol Reef National Park {done}
  • Carlsbad Caverns National Park
  • Channel Islands National Park
  • Congaree National Park
  • Crater Lake National Park
  • Cuyahoga Valley National Park
  • Death Valley National Park
  • Denali National Park and Preserve
  • Dry Tortugas National Park
  • Everglades National Park
  • Gates of the Arctic National Park
  • Gateway Arch National Park 
  • Glacier National Park
  • Glacier Bay National Park
  • Grand Canyon National Park {done}
  • Grand Teton National Park {done}
  • Great Basin National Park
  • Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve
  • Great Smoky Mountains National Park {done}
  • Guadalupe Mountains National Park
  • Haleakala National Park
  • Hawaii Volcanoes National Park {done}
  • Hot Springs National Park
  • Indiana Dunes National Park
  • Isle Royale National Park
  • Joshua Tree National Park
  • Katmai National Park and Preserve
  • Kenai Fjords National Park
  • Kings Canyon National Park {done}
  • Kobuk Valley National Park
  • Lake Clark National Park
  • Lassen Volcanic National Park
  • Mammoth Cave National Park
  • Mesa Verde National Park {done}
  • Mount Rainier National Park
  • National Park of American Samoa
  • New River Gorge National Park 
  • North Cascades National Park
  • Olympic National Park
  • Petrified Forest National Park
  • Pinnacles National Park
  • Redwood National Park {done}
  • Rocky Mountain National Park {done}
  • Saguaro National Park
  • Sequoia National Park {done}
  • Shenandoah National Park
  • Theodore Roosevelt National Park
  • Virgin Islands National Park
  • Voyageurs National Park
  • White Sands National Park 
  • Wind Cave National Park
  • Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve
  • Yellowstone National Park {done}
  • Yosemite National Park {done}
  • Zion National Park {done}

Have a great day! Do or learn something NEW today!

photos of our NEW fresh coat of snow

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Happy Monday!

I’m a sucker for reflections, so I think this is the favorite of my shots from today’s photo walk. Reflection in life is important too. I like to reflect on my lifestyle, choices, and accomplishments from last year before l list out my goal for the upcoming year. Yes, I’ve made my 23 for 2023 list. I’m excited to progress, but I know I’ll mess up at times. I’ve learned that’s just how it is…year after year after year! I’m not going to let that get me down. I’m just going to keep on keeping on and try to improve each day. I loved getting out in the snow today. Here are some other shots:

Have a great day! I hope you do or learn something NEW!

UPDATE: Per Terri’s suggestion in the comments, I’m linking to Sunday Stills “White & Gray”. Go take a peek at the other entries.

a NEW photo challenge entry

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Happy Saturday!

Thanks to Cee, I became aware of the RDP (Ragtag Daily Prompt) photo challenge. Yesterday’s challenge was LIMIT, as in, The Sky’s the Limit. So, I had to go see if the shot I took on my phone as I was running errands yesterday turned out.

These contrails, or condensation trails, caught my attention. But the best thing is, I learned something NEW. There are LIMITS to when a jet will leave contrails and there are LIMITS to how long they’ll linger in the sky etc. If you are as curious as I was, you can read the BBC article “Why do aircraft leave contrails in the sky?”

Back in 2016, I posted this quote. Look at all those contrails!

Have a great day! I hope you do or learn something NEW!

Miscellaneous Monday…NEW stuff i gotta share

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Monday eh? No, I know it’s Tuesday. But I just can’t figure out where the entire day of Monday went, haha!

Here’s some of the miscellany from the last few weeks:

I’ll share a nice little didactic story I read recently. A family member was commenting on certain personality traits of some people in his life a few days before I read this, so I think that’s why I paid attention to this story.

The Parable of the Hedgehogs: In the winter, the hedgehogs were cold, so they gathered together to stay warm. But they kept poking each other with their quills. They decided to separate, and all went their own way. But then they got cold again. They came back of course. ‘Tis better to suffer the occasional pokes and pricks of others than live a lonely existence without the warmth and companionship of friends.

Miscellaneous photos of sea lions, seagulls, and pelicans from our December trip to San Diego. A local woman we chatted with said she’s never seen so many pelicans there before:

I thought this plant was so interesting. We have nothing like it where I live. Let me know if anyone knows the name of it!

And lastly, I learned some NEW Latin words: Nulla dies sine linea.

At the university where I work, we get a monthly newsletter-type email. This month it introduced me to this phrase, which inspired me to keep up on my 23 for 2023 list I made, and the many other NEW things or goals I want to do this year. I think I’ll make myself a “Don’t break the chain” chart with Nulla dies sine linea as the title.

That’s it for this week’s miscellany. Have a great day and go do or learn something NEW!

a NEW way to spend our Holiday

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Happy New Year’s Eve! I hope 2023 will be a great year for everyone!

So, we did something NEW this year for the Christmas holiday. Since it’s kind of my pet peeve to give people “gifts” that they don’t need or even want, we decided we’d give the gift of an experience this year instead. We went to San Diego for our Christmas holiday this year. It was a really fun trip. This Bingo game was a hit (since my family is VERY competitive):

After dinner one night, we enjoyed the extreme lights on a house nearby:

Between activities at the resort where we stayed, we’d put a few puzzle pieces in our Christmas jigsaw puzzle:

We went to the beach, and we hiked through the Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve:

The resort had a lot of activities. Some of us played golf, others played foot golf or frisbee golf. We played pickleball, horseshoes, worked out in the resort’s gym and went on bike rides. It was quite different than what we would have done at home in the cold and snow!

We loved the NEW experience.

Again, have a Happy New Year and best wishes for doing or learning something NEW!

a snowy day and NEW books i’ve read this week

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Happy Tuesday!

On my to-do list today, since it’s my day off work, I wrote: “Go shooting” (as in go snap photos type of shooting). But the closest I came was to open my front door and take this pic of my neighbor’s yard with my phone. Because although this photo doesn’t really show it, white flakes are still coming down, and I’d rather hibernate by my fireplace today, haha!

So I’ve been listening to an audiobook while I worked on my “indoor to-do list”! I just finished “The Power of Fun”. My niece recently introduced this book to me when she posted about reading it and publicly wondered what it says about her since she’s reading the book instead of going out and actually having fun. But I’m sure she’ll put what she learned into practice, eventually. As I intend to do! One of the exercises in the book invited the reader to think back to times when they really had fun. The author pointed out that most of the time people have the most fun when they’re with other people. And as I thought of my fun times, I guess I tend to agree. The times when I laugh so hard I get a side ache is definitely not when I’m alone. Lesson learned. Although I typically have fun doing my solitary hobbies, it’s not quite the same as when I’m having fun with other people.

And here’s what else I’ve read this week (actually listened to…mostly on my commutes at 2-times the normal narration speed).

The year is almost over. My Goodreads 2022 Reading Challenge was to read 35 books this year. Well, thanks to audiobooks (at double-speed) I’ve “read” 84. Killed that challenge, haha! Some of my favorites this year were:

52 Ways to Walk by Annabel Streets

Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Kite Runner by Khaded Hosseini

The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson

My Name is Resolute by Nancy E. Turner

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker PhD

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

I love a good book recommendation, so let me know what I should add to my to-read list for next year! Have a great day! Stay warm if you have weather like us, and do or learn something NEW!

a NEW project finished up

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Happy Tuesday! Well, it’s early December and my NEW Christmas PJs project is finished! Woohoo!!! I haven’t done Christmas PJs for a few years, but I thought I’d be ambitious, oh, maybe every 3-4 years…or maybe every 5-6 years, haha!

Here’s a text from my (adult) son in 2019:

I hope he and everyone else enjoys their NEW PJs this year, even though they aren’t onesies!

Oh, and since last December I wasn’t really in the blogging mode, I’ll share my NEW (now a year old) Christmas tree decorations. My good friend went with me to pick out the decorations. She’s THE BEST! I’m loving it…still. :o)

Have a great day! Do or learn something NEW!

another NEW photo challenge..Sunday Stills

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Happy Sunday!

I love a NEW photo challenge because it encourages me to get out and shoot more…or at least flip through my recent photo files. I recently learned about the Sunday Stills Photo Challenge and this week’s theme is shades of brown.

On our trip to NC last month, I appreciated this fellow who was out in the stream fishing. It brought another point of interest to my photo. I figured his pants were a shade of brown, but many of the leaves were a shade of brown as well, so I chose this photo as my entry in the challenge.

Have a great day! Do or learn something NEW!

a NEW photo challenge

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Happy Friday!

Here’s my entry for Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Weathered Wood. Unlike Nora’s great post at norasphotos4u, where she posted a very interesting and educational weathered wood photo, I don’t know anything about this location. Sorry folks! I was simply out on a photo drive, just click, click, clicking away in the boondocks. It’s kind of near an old silver mine, so I could maybe make up a story for you. A post for another day, I suppose!

Have a terrific day! Do or learn something NEW!