Hoogland Epic Adventure 2015

Days 1-3

March 25 - We all met in Paducah, KY, we ate dinner at Flamingo Row (after a super long roundabout way courtesy of Jim and Esther's crazy GPS)

March 26 - We drove from Paducah to Covington, LA. It was my birthday. :) We ate dinner at the hotel and went to bed early to prepare for a super early morning the next day.

March 17 - We started the morning (too early for me) at the Waffle House at 6AM, then we went to Big Branch NWR - we found some red-cockaded woodpeckers and a helicopter kept flying past with someone shooting out the side - we never figured out what that was about. Once we were done with our morning birding, we relaxed for a bit and then got into a limo to New Orleans for my birthday dinner at Tujagues - so good! you to tell your clients more about your story and to describe the type of photographer you are. You can come back at any time to make more changes.

Days 4-7

March 28 - We started the day again at the Waffle House, an hour later than the day before (thank goodness!) We went out in two groups, I went with the group who went to Bayou Sauvage. We finally saw an alligator (super far away, but it was still an alligator!) We also saw a Sora which apparently was super awesome because they don't normally come out into view, and Ken scared the crap out of a baby animal by throwing a penny near it in an effort to get it to move a little bit - it jumped so high! Afterward, Trevor and I went to lunch at a place called the Dock with Jim and Esther, then we drove to Vicksburg. We ate dinner that night at the Wine House - it had the coolest looking bathrooms and really good food, but they were out of half of the food we tried to order.

March 29 - We went out in the morning to Tensas NWR - we broke into a couple of groups - my group saw SIX owls! We also saw an alligator swimming in a river, I decided i needed to get a closer look and ended up sliding down a muddy hill to get closer - good thing it didn't try to come after me, I might not have gotten away! That afternoon we drove through the Civil War memorial across the street from the hotel and then ate in downtown Vicksburg again.

March 30 - We drove to Stuttgart, AR, we went birding along the way and arrived at the hotel at 5 PM - somehow, all the maids quit that day and our rooms weren't clean (and wouldn't be until after 7) so we went to El Canavarel and got some margaritas and dinner until we could get into our rooms.

March 31 - We went birding at White River NWR, after a little while at the first location, we decided to drive around to find another place. we drove back down some road that was supposed to lead to more of the refuge but ended up at a dead end with some pigs. A man drove up and asked us if we knew where we were going - he said "I saw y'all driving and I thought 'y'all's lost!" That evening, we ate amazing pizza at Big Banjo pizza - they had a total of 2 menus in the whole restaurant and the waitress was incredibly entertaining, but the best entertainment was Jane riding on the Woody Woodpecker ride :)