about us brian (country mouse) is from new hampshire. karel (city girl) is from the new york metro area. in summer 2008 they drove across the US and moved to portland, oregon. here are their adventures, photos, and observations.
I will start this posting with some fun pictures of birds.
These first 3 I believe are a female Anna's Hummingbird. I can't confirm at the moment because I packed away my bird books with everything else. Here is the story with this bird. I woke up around 7:30 and as I looked out the window this hummingbird appeared and tried to feed off of Karel's rear bike reflector because it's red & shiny exactly like hummingbird feeders. Very funny it was. Then I grabbed my camera and hoped it was still around and IT WAS!!! When I opened our screen door it came out and hovered directly in front of me for about 3 seconds! AMAZING!! Our downstairs neighbors have lots of plants on their patio and it took it's time feeding on all of them so I got these pictures. Here take a look!
Next set of pictures is exactly the reason I bring my camera everywhere with me (when I remember). I knew even before I got close to this bird was that it was a strange one because of it's color and it's profile. It's another rare bird with a genetic deformity called Leucism. Animals with leucism are incapable of producing black color pigment so everywhere that should be black is instead white. This is an american crow which is 100% black, so instead this one is 100% white. It's leucistic and not an albino because it doesn't have a red eye. Check it out.
OK. Karel has been searching crazily for a used car because she is getting one. Because she knows very little about cars I have been helping her with checking out cars and filtering out the junk. We have already seen a few and I haven't been entirely satisfied with any because there are problems. I have a large amount of self taught car knowledge so I know when something is wrong. I think I've been noticing things the owners don't even know about. We saw one today that was mostly good except 2 things. Complete new exhaust system is necessary and the tires are bald and severely cracked. Everything else is ok. I'm holding out the one tomorrow because the owner is a mechanic and rebuilt almost everything in the engine, essentially making it new! We drove by it yesterday and outside it's great! The only drawbacks for Karel is that it's a manual transmission and it has NO options at all. I have been teaching Karel how to drive stick but we have been quite busy and finding the time is sometimes tough. If she buys a car with stick shift then she'll have even more reason to learn fast! I'm sure she'll be fine because every time we go out she is noticeably better than the last time.
I've spent enough time here for now. I need to continue packing because I am not slacking and end up trying to pack a bunch on the last day and even the day of! bye for now
-brian-
posted by brian at 9:09 PM
2 Comments:
Mom said...
nice photos Brian! Karel will be fine as long as she relaxes and doesn't panic if she stalls the car. Once she has her own car she will learn the stick shift and will be an old pro in no time!
2 Comments:
nice photos Brian! Karel will be fine as long as she relaxes and doesn't panic if she stalls the car. Once she has her own car she will learn the stick shift and will be an old pro in no time!
Hi Brian - great pictures. Good luck with the move. I'll be thinking of you. Love you. Hi to Karel.
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