A Few Things That Make Me Happy
A List In No Particular Order
![Anhinga, Everglades Natoinal Park, Florida](https://talesfromawanderingalbatross.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/cropped-anhinga.jpg?w=615)
Anhingas also make me happy. Because they’re awesome. I mean, come on. Look at that eye makeup and hairdo. Red eye, blue eye-liner, green eyeshadow, artfully disarrayed frosted spikes. Hotness.
Everglades National Park, Florida
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savoring a cup of tea while wrapped in a blanket in front of the woodstove.
![cape breton highlands national park](https://talesfromawanderingalbatross.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/dscn7983_615x461.jpg?w=300&h=224)
Or savoring a cup of tea while sitting on a rocky beach in Cape Breton Highlands National Park in Nova Scotia, because you don’t have any pictures of leisurely tea drinking by the woodstove.
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waking, realizing there is no real reason to be up yet, and staying in bed, eyes closed, half awake/half asleep, dreaming.
![Memorial Day in the Mountains](https://talesfromawanderingalbatross.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/img_25521.jpg?w=300&h=225)
Camping up on Black Balsam, in Pisgah National Forest, North Carolina.
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the smell of walking through a pine forest in the cool just after dawn.
![H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest Oregon](https://talesfromawanderingalbatross.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/h-j-andrews-experimental-forest-oregon_461x615.jpg?w=224&h=300)
H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest, Oregon. I took this in May 2010. If I recall correctly, it rained pretty much the entire three months I was in Oregon.
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the sound of woodpeckers tapping and hammering on branches.
![red-cockaded woodpecker Carolina Sandhills NWR](https://talesfromawanderingalbatross.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/rcwintree1.jpg?w=300&h=257)
Red-cockaded Woodpecker, Carolina Sandhills NWR, South Carolina. I spent a great deal of time chasing them around in the woods. It was fun. Other than the chiggers and the poison oak.
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getting sucked into a good book for hours, and only coming up for air when you desperately have to pee. Or eat.
![Galapagos Islands lava gull](https://talesfromawanderingalbatross.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/lava-gull-and-chick_615x395.jpg?w=300&h=192)
This has nothing to do with reading a good book, but surprisingly I don’t have any pictures of me reading. So here’s a picture I took of a Lava Gull and chick in the Galapagos Islands back in 2008. The adult is in breeding plumage, which is why it has the red eye-ring. And, it’s eye is closed. It’s napping. Parenting is exhausting, from what I hear.
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having progressively logically ridiculous conversations, that are in turns creative, silly, and in a strange way logical.
Like planning our post-apocalyptic commune, or our skunk ape/NASA/unicorn conspiracy theory, or pretty much any time Meghan, Patrick, and I opened our mouths.
![Dave Shealy's Gorilla Supplier](https://talesfromawanderingalbatross.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/dscf07311.jpg?w=300&h=225)
Skunk Ape Research Headquarters, Ochopee, Florida. Based on the drawings (which are based on a first-person description from someone who wasn’t the artist) in the “Skunk Ape Research Handbook,” that is totally a gorilla statue, not a skunk ape.
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the smell of a rock wall, on the 2nd or 3rd pitch of a multi-pitch route.
![Rock Climbing Utah](https://talesfromawanderingalbatross.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/389434_2354716942066_321705355_n_409x613.jpg?w=200&h=300)
Climbing Castleton Tower with Max. I recommend climbing desert towers with someone who doesn’t say, “You know, if this tower fell over we’d be screwed” as you reach the belay on the 3rd of 4 pitches. Near Moab, Utah.
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singing along as loud as I please to a good song on the radio.
![everglades national park, florida](https://talesfromawanderingalbatross.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/img_1903_615x461.jpg?w=300&h=224)
Thankfully I have no pictures of myself singing, so here’s another cool bird picture (you can never have too many). This is a Purple Gallinule, a sweet bird that lives in Florida. They live other places too, but this one lives in Everglades National Park. Well, that’s where I saw it. Maybe it was just on vacation.
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snuggling with my dog in my tiny bed
![I prefer blonds in my bed](https://talesfromawanderingalbatross.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/img_4692.jpg?w=300&h=225)
Extra happiness: snuggling with both a dog and a cat. All those blond pet hairs covering your person and clothing are just pet love stuck all over everything in your life.
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riding my mountain bike down Game Creek trail, where I discovered one of the meanings of the world “exultation.”
![Jackson Wyoming](https://talesfromawanderingalbatross.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/dscn7028_615x197.jpg?w=615&h=197)
One of the many beaver ponds along the trail. Bridger-Teton National Forest, Wyoming.
And here’s a video of what is probably a Ruffed Grouse on Game Creek. It’s a good thing I ride slow, otherwise I might have run it over. These birds could definitely use some street-smarts.
Look both ways before you cross RUGR!