A Year of Blogging, 20 Years of Friendship

Last January 15th I received an email from my friend Mona telling me she had just set up a blog and inviting me to check it out. I had been thinking of setting up a blog to keep in touch with my family and friends as my husband and I traveled around the country. Her email was just the nudge I had been needing to get started. For several years we had been exchanging photos through email as we both explored our digital cameras, so starting a photo blog was an easy next step. Well, the blind leading the blind, and many emails back and forth, through many stumbles and a bit of frustration at times, we both managed to get our blogs going, and, as they say, the rest is history. Many of you know Mona as Montanagirl, and you can go to her blog by clicking here.

Mona and I first met some 20 years ago when we both worked together as legal secretaries at a law firm here in Fairbanks. Our husbands are both carpenters and they had known each other much longer than that. We became good friends, and enjoyed doing a lot of things together, including many dinners out and experimenting with new recipes and using each other as guinea pigs. I believe it was in 2000 that Mona and Don moved to Montana. Our friendship has continued in spite of the many miles between us, and we have managed to visit back and forth over the years. They visited us in May of 2007 and I took the following photo, trying out my new remote control for my Canon.

In October we stopped at Mona and Don's place in Montana and spent several days. We had a great time visiting and we headed out on the the backroads around their area and visited many of Mona's favorite spots for photo ops. It was great to get shots of some of the wildlife that she sees often in Montana, including antelopes......

Many, many birds, including this Meadowlark..... Many different hawks......

And you might recognize this barn that Mona has had on her blog several times. It was fun to see it in person and get a few shots of it.

We took hundreds of photos of wildlife, old buildings, views of the prairie, and whatever struck our fancy. You can see more of the shots I took in Montana by going to the Labels section in my sidebar and clicking on Montana or Roadtrip. The shot below is of Mona taking a photo of me as I took a photo of her.

The next is a photo that Mona worked her Photoshop magic on and merged two photos, one a shot of Don and Marty, and one a shot of Mona and me. These were taken while we were visiting at their place. I wish she could have done a bit more magic and made me look like less of a dork, but I guess there's only so much you can do.
We have both had a great time with blogging and have learned a lot from all our blogger friends. If you haven't visited Mona's blog and enjoy wildlife photography, hop on over to Mona's blog and take a look at some of her lovely photos.

I am still amazed that so many people have chosen to follow my blog, and I thank all of you for taking the time to stop by and visit. I look forward to another year of sharing with all the wonderful people I have met through my blog. Here's to old friends and new blogger buddies.

Elaine