Swampland, sky, and a question...

Monday, before heading to the Heron Viewing Station, we swung by this swamp area that we found a few years ago...We did not see one single turtle, or blue heron, or duck....but there were a ga-zillion dragon flies...

Almost all were this kind...it is cropped...mainly just to make it square...we fooled around here and as we were getting ready to leave Roger told me to look....

It was such a glorious day, even if it was hot and muggy.
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Now to the question, did anyone else have problems with youtube today?  Not only did I have trouble with you tube, my gmail account has acted up.

With youtube, if I looked up something, then clicked for google to list the videos, I could click on a video and it would play.  But if I went to Youtube and looked up something, maybe the commercial part would play, but the video I went to see would not load, no matter how long I waited.  This happened even with my chromebook, so don't think it was my computer.  However, I cleared the browsing history and cache and it seems to be working better.  I am almost afraid to say that, though, cause I thought I had solved it a time or two throughout the day only to be wrong.

As for Gmail, I have been able to get my email, but different things about gmail would not load.  I could not check the little boxes to delete an email, the delete button did not show up half the time.  Just so many little things.  It has been a very frustrating day...I think I visited two blogs this morn, and had trouble with both of them.  Restarting my computer, I was able to see them, but then same old thing.

I have just now visited a couple and going to post this while the posting is good.

Just a bit of whining!

I couldn't resist these shots of the thistle...

Not sure how bad out of focus this will look to you...the center is not too bad for me, but the bottom of the pic is pretty bad and the outer portion of the top is none too good.

(In this shot above the outter stickery parts are more in focus.)
 It is the fault of the wind...it never stops here in the Midwest.  At least any time I am trying to take a picture of something like this, it is either blowing or it starts to blow.

So, any picture that is in focus, is simply a stroke of luck and timing.

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It poured the rain last night...at least 3 different times that I am aware of.  The river was up yesterday, but I would bet it is out of the banks today after all that rain last night.  I don't think I have ever seen it rain this hard, except maybe one time in the 1990's.

We were coming home from Indianapolis...I am not sure why we were over there.  We had a Dodge minivan and it was relatively new, so had to be along 1992-93-94...it started raining.  Just literally like pouring water out of a bucket.  Our windshield wipers quit working...the wiper motor torn up.  I have always believed it had something to do with the amount of water they were trying to deal with.  I think it stripped something in the motor.

We were on a state highway, no place to pull off the road.  I had to open my window, hang my head out and watch the side of the road to tell Roger how to drive.  The rain slowed down right after this happened, thank goodness. He could half way drive, and I didn't get soaked too bad.

Anyway, that is the type of rain we had last night, and got up to actual coolness this morn, but it has heated up some this evening.  It was 82ºF the last time I looked.  I just now hung out a load of clothes.  I think they will get most of the way dry.  Rain is in the prediction for almost every day this week...depending on whose forecast you are going by so I wanted to do what I can.

Signposts...

When we were over in Marshall, Illinois, I saw this and could not resist a quick snapshot of it.  that was a big old RV there to the side.  One I would not want to drive...I would love to know how long it was.  I felt like it was as big as some school buses, and bigger than others.
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We had rambling fever today and headed north to the swamp area close to Coffing Brothers Orchard, and from there went on over to Danville, Illinois to the Heron viewing station.  I did get some good shots of a Great Blue Heron, but was disappointed in other ways.  Saw about three of the small water lily blooms, and that was all the blooms I saw.

It was if there had been a huge storm...I have not ever seen as much water in that area as was there today.  There just were not water lilies to speak of and I am not sure why.  And I only seen two turtles.

I am too weary to get much of a post together tonight...I will say it was another glorious cloud day.  So expect some more of those in the next few days, also some more thistle shots if nothing happens.