Each year I drive over to NE Wyoming to visit friends I try to take at least one day to visit Mt. Rushmore. This year proved incredibly fortuitous for me in a few ways. I often see someone trying to take a selfie with the faces behind them. In those situations, many times, I offer to use their phone to take their picture. One of the people this time was a very pleasant lady trying her luck. I offered to take the picture and she said great. After that picture she called her boyfriend over and I took their picture. As I am an outgoing person I asked if they lived in the area. Turns out he is a rancher/farmer from SD. I asked if he had thousands of acres with deer, pheasants and so on he needed some help in thinning out. He smiled and said I would be welcome to come over and hunt anytime. Now I have a SD pheasant license and will stay with him and his family for at least 5 days hunting pheasant. Hopefully more to come next year in the way of hunting whitetail deer.

My next lucky moment was when discussing a photo opportunity with a friend and photo mentor in Southern California. While talking to him I looked on a marble wall on the viewing platform and saw a beautiful praying mantis just sitting there wanting me to take photographs. I told my friend, later, and hung up. I like the photos a lot as one shows the mantis preening his face as a cat might do.

A cup of ice cream in the restaurant area made the day even better.

Dennis