it's fall!

this is real. i walked past this on saturday. beautiful, isn't it?

black eyed susan's

toledo zoo: turtles

we had a great time at the zoo, but going through these photos now, i'm just amazed at the variety of animals there are in the world. so many different sizes - from tiny little spiders to giant hippos; so many colors, especially in the aviary and the aquarium. usually we only get to see the city animals - sparrows, squirrels, domestic pets. mostly everything is brown. but in the wild (or the zoo) the variety of shapes, sizes and colors is truly awesome. and it's even more amazing to think that everything from the animals to the vegetation to the weather all work together to create this ecosystem of life on earth. what a beautiful creation. oh, and if you've already viewed the "zoo flowers" post, check it out again. i didn't mean to publish it, it was incomplete. it's finished now.

ok, on with the show...

i love turtles. they're my favorite animal. i don't know why, i just think they're so cute with their little heads poking out of their shells. even these big ones.

toledo zoo: the big ones!

rhino

hippo

the elephants were hiding, so i didn't get any good shots of them, unfortunately.

toledo zoo: the aquarium

unicorn fish. i've never heard of this before, but i thought it was pretty neat looking.

this could be my favorite picture from the whole zoo. the octopus. all squished up into the corner of the tank. it's beautiful! and somehow gross at the same time.

clown fish really do live in anemones! who knew?

this was supposed to be some kind of glowing coral or something.

jelly fish - so cool.

dori!

toledo zoo: the ape house

these pictures are not very good, but i didn't want to leave out the apes. the lighting was weird in this building, and there was a lot of glare on the glass that i just couldn't find a way around.

anyway, here are gorillas

and orangutans

so, this picture is horrible, but this was a momma orangutan (left) playing with her baby(right). it was SO CUTE, even though the picture is bad, i couldn't leave it out.

toledo zoo: the aviary

toledo zoo: african safari

did you know there were penguins in africa? i didn't.

toledo zoo: the arctic

lake michigan shore line

i took these pictures while camping last weekend at weko beach in bridgman, michigan.

i like this one because the lines are so straight, it looks like stripes. i also like the color contrast.

it was so windy, these guys were "flying" on these water parachute things. sorry, i'm water-sport ignorant, i have no idea what they're called. but it was fun to watch.

in these next two i was trying to capture the wind-prints in the sand. it looked kind of like waves. i don't know, i'm not thrilled with the way the pics turned out, it looked a lot cooler in real life. oh well.

*i'm still working on pics from the toledo zoo. last week was very busy. hopefully i'll get them posted this week.