Aransas National Wildlife Refuge

Today we talked

Rod and Deb into getting up early to go to breakfast.  As you can tell by the look on Deb’s face she wasn’t really excited about the idea of early, but once at

Alice Faye’s, all was good.  After breakfast, we were off to

the Wildlife Refuge.  The first stop was the

Visitor’s Center.  Here, Deb and I found the Park Ranger so we could add

one more cancellation stamp to our national passport books.

Once we had

our books stamped, it was off for the tour.

At

  Jones Lake, we were greeted by

this friendly face.

Rod

was then on the lookout while Deb was all excited about using Mark’s 300 lens for a few close up shots.

On down the road, we found

these footprints in the sand.  We aren’t sure, but were hoping they might belong to the

Whooping Cranes who are know to hang out in this area.  Only one way to find out, and that is to walk

up,

up,

up, to the top of the observation tower.  And,

when Deb and I could figure out which end of this thing to look out of….you could see

for a long way.  And, sure enough….in just a little while…

there they were…the Whooping Cranes we had come to see!  Wow….forget that 300 lens…we need that 400 lens!

Next on the tour, we met up with

Mr, Raccoon, who stopped right beside the car looking for any hand outs we might have.  Sorry, little fellow, the sign says “No Feeding The Wildlife”…guess you are on your own today.

His friend, the

armadillo, didn’t seem to mind us, as he was busy looking for his lunch.  And,

these deer stopped to watch us as they headed across the road to where the grass seemed to be greener.

And, last, we couldn’t resist the

beautiful

butterflies and

blue and

red flowers that are telling us that Spring is just around the corner.

What a great day with great friends…truly…Life Is Good!