The First Meetup

In the midst of another glorious and early warm spell that will continue through to Sunday, we seized the opportunity to convene our first park meetup of the year.

Of course I took a few photos and will insist on showing them in a bit, but I'd like to begin earlier in the day.

At this time last year, it seems to be that the pond was often full of waterfowl, but everytime we go by this year, it is almost completely empty. I decided to go out earlier than usual on my own while Sue was still doing things around the house. Except for a solitary goose, it was still empty. I did take a picture of His Solitarianiss (I made up the word) because I was there and so was s/he.

Cropped a lot even at full zoom

Later in the morning, Her Specialness and moi went for a little walk on the trail. It is terribly messy and brambly beside the trail and hardly a comely and photogenic woodland. There are shapes and reflections in the spring ponds that look interesting, but there is so much distracting mess that pictures don't turn out well. I took the time to eliminate some distractions in post in this one because I like it otherwise.

Onto the afternoon meetup which I mentioned at the outset.

On a glorious day, this is the scene that greeted us as we exited the car: looking upriver along our lovely Mississippi, which for new readers is NOT THAT Mississippi.

We set up our chairs and waited for our friends to arrive.

Once they arrived, we sat and chatted for almost two hours.

We have today through Sunday to continue to enjoy this unseasonal interlude before we revert to more typical April weather with cooler temperatures and plenty of rain in the forecast next week.