RV Travels With Huggy

I bought a new tripod for camera use a couple of days ago. I have had one but it is fairly light weight both in actual weight & in strength. The one I was looking at originally was a Benbo but Pat, the sales lady I deal with at Ken's Cameras here in Mt. Vernon said she thought I would like a Manfrotto 3001 Pro unit better. She had neither in stock but brought them both in for me to see. She was right - I liked the Manfrotto unit better, and I don't think it is just because I like to say that name! Tripods today do not come with a head, or at least the better units don't, so that you can select the type you want. Then you need a bag to carry the whole thing in. By the time I got it all I had spent about as much money as I did on my Sony pocket camera, but I now have a good quality tripod system.

Today in the late afternoon, with a fairly heavy overcast and a few rain drops, I ventured out into the back yard to try out the new tripod with the macro lens on my Nikon camera, so I now have a few more pictures of some of the flowers in my yard. I have set up two of them to post. This first one is from the vine that climbs up over the trellis you go through to go from the deck into the yard proper. I don't know what kind of a flower it is but it is purple:


I do know what this next one is. Annie loved roses and there were two bushes of them beside our storage shed, one red, the other yellow, when we bought the house. I see that I need to go out and trim off the heads that are past their prime so more will grow but there was one yellow one that still looked pretty good, so I took a photo of it:


These were taken by just letting the camera meter the exposure and a little tweaking in Photoshop Elements. They probably both would be better with a bit more depth of field, especailly the rose, but that will have to wait for another day.

Son M & his family came up today and we went to Bob's Burgers & Brew for lunch. That is a place that makes big burgers, with a big price, kind of like Red Robin, but the sandwiches are good. I had a couple of coupons for half off a second sandwich after buying one so we were able to use them and saved almost $9. M is on one of his three day weekends so he will be off work on Father's Day. Son B also got a three day weekend after returning this week from being out to sea a week & a half on his ship, so he will be home with his family for the holiday, too. I don't know what I am doing Sunday after church but will probably go somewhere for dinner. Last year on Father's Day we were camping at Yogi Bear Campground just west of Spokane and went to a long time favorite restaurant of mine over there, the Longhorn BBQ for Father's Day dinner. That place is too far to go this year so maybe I'll just go to Outback. If I took one of the grand daughters they would probably pick McDonalds.