The alligator’s nostrils and eyes poked up through the water’s surface as the beast lay in wait for its next meal. Just 20 feet from us, it was as still as the glassy water.
“I’m going to get a picture just to show J there are alligators here,” J said.
“Sure. Me, too,” I said and lifted my camera to my face.
(click any pic to enlarge)
“I don’t like going to the beach,” my son said.
Start the sound clip below and then click the thumbnail image to get an idea just how much he ended up hating it (earbuds will immerse you, but speakers will work):
I didn’t specify when he said it, because he told me that more than once during the first several days of our Sanibel Island vacation.
“I’m sorry you feel that way, son,” I said. “I would like for you to go with me in the morning. It’s my last day here, and on Saturday mornings you and I always have our father-son time.”
“Okay,” he said.
On top of that, he had another incentive.
Four metal fence posts — the kind farmers and ranchers use to put up barbed wire fences — formed four corners of a square around a low mound of loose sand. A woman wrapped bright yellow tape around the posts to cordon off the area. She wore khaki shorts and a dark green shirt, topped off with a blue denim ball cap. Another woman, dressed similarly, walked to a small white pickup truck and climbed in through the open driver’s door.
(click any pic to enlarge)
He stands on the balls of his feet between the poolside ladder’s safety rails, heels hanging over the water, facing me. The artificially turquoise waves dance below, waiting eagerly to envelop him.
He covers his mouth and nose with one hand and falls backward without bending. His back smacks the water loudly, muffled slightly by his swim shirt, and as he sinks the water quickly sloshes back in to complete his temporary translucent burial.
I review my results on my camera’s LCD.
His head breaks the surface and he rubs his fingertips over his eyes to clear them. “Did you get that one, Dad?” he asks through a wide smile.
“It was pretty good, but can you go again?” I say.
“Yep!”
Rarely when you miss capturing a moment do you get to try again. That moment at a wedding when the groom kisses the bride — sure, you can do a set-up shot, but it just isn’t the same. Same goes for that hug between a diploma-wielding graduate and a teary-eyed, seldom seen relative.
You miss those moments and, well, they’re just gone.
When taking action shots of a seven-year-old jumping into a swimming pool? Opportunities abound. My wife certainly took advantage while I threw the boy up in the air.
My son loves the water and all the wet fun it brings. He wears a swimming shirt that I’m certain must deaden the impact, because he has virtually painlessly performed several huge belly flops and more than one Nestea plunge. If it hurts, then he hides it very well.
Ah, those lazy, crazy days of summer.
Don’t you love it when the unexpected outshines the planned?
Our son spent Saturday night with my local in-laws while my wife and I had a date, and snow began falling. It piled up to 9 inches by the time I woke at 7:30 a.m. — and still was coming down hard.
I wandered around alone a while with my camera, then picked up Benjamin, who wanted to go “back to the forest where you went this morning, Daddy.”
(video clip after the jump)
After Benjamin finished wallering around with the Girl Scouts, I noticed that the bed in the miniature truck was full of fossils. As I called him to take a look, State Park Lady came over and provided detailed descriptions of various extinct Nautilus ancestors, trilobytes, fossilized coral and sea worms.
“The parrotfish lives in the coral reef, and it bites the sea anemone to eat off the algae,” Benjamin said. My eyes widened a bit. Despite my asking him what he learns at school each day, he reveals nothing until it’s relevant, and he never stops surprising me.
I wasn’t surprised that his attention wavered when State Park Lady explained how petrification is different from fossilization, using phrases like, “at the cellular level.” Lady, he may have sounded great with that parrotfish stuff, but they haven’t quite covered cells in his first-grade science curriculum.
(video clip and pics after the jump)
He set his tiny feet on the first rock and wobbled against the water rushing over his knees. I stepped onto the downstream side of the same rock and braced against the cold and the current. Standing firm but paralyzed, he turned his head and looked up at me, but his words weren’t needed.
After our first day at Dinosaur Valley State Park, when I could no longer resist my somnolence in the face of the awful Battlefield Earth, I lifted the sleeping boy from next to his mother and tucked him into the pallet we had made on the floor, then climbed into the hotel bed.
Despite the time change overnight, Benjamin woke me in his usual 6-7 a.m. range asking, “Daddy, will you play with me?”
I got dressed and took him downstairs to scope out the coffee situation. The breakfast buffet, a $10.95 “convenience” easily skipped, did not distract me from the free coffee (despite its inferiority to the fresh-ground I brew at home).
Opportunity. She knocks, yet too many don’t bother looking through the peephole, and spontaneity isn’t even given a chance.
And to think, they could have walked in the footsteps of dinosaurs.
At 8:30 on Saturday morning, Benjamin and I had spent about an hour and a half building with Wedgits, eating breakfast, and just hanging out.
“Would you like to go hike a trail?” I said. It began innocently enough.
“Yes.”
“Please go tell your mommy it’s 8:30.”
Thanks to their perch, these photographers at the Dallas White Rock Marathon finish line were about the only things I could see besides the spectators. (click pic to enlarge)
Nikon D50
200mm Nikkor manual focus
f/4 (best guess)
1/1600 sec
Manual Exposure
Benjamin enjoys his backyard slide on Christmas Day 2009. (click any pic to enlarge)
