M/V Avoree Noel

Yeah, it was a little bit foggy this morning at old Lock and Dam 27.

I assume this is the boat's last trip to Monaca. You never know what we'll see if TPP decides to build at Dilles Bottom.

An unexpected photo on Christmas morning

This morning, for the first time in a long time, I didn't have to be anywhere in particular on a morning with clear weather. Before sunrise I was on the road in search of the Avoree Noel, which was upbound with a load for Monaca. By the time I found it, the boat was in fog. I tried getting a few shots anyway.

Then I noticed the Linda Little was downbound with 15 loads of coal drafting more than 10 feet. I got that photo. Again, in the fog.

So I went down the river and waited the fog out. As I waited, I looked up and say a heron flying overhead. I tried getting a shot, just to see how it would turn out.

The photo posted here is 1920 pixels by 1282. The original is 6016 x 4016. I took the resolution down so I wouldn't have wait an eternity for it to load.

Anyway, I zoomed in on the original image and cropped it down to this — a photo that's 442 pixels by 294 pixels, or about 7.7 one half of 1 percent of the original image.

Yeah, that's a bald eagle, not a heron. They've been along the Ohio River for several years, but this was the first time I had been able to photograph one.

It almost makes me want to buy a 600mm lens and go look for another one, but at the present time, I have better uses for $900.