Having delivered Abby to the airport yesterday morning for her flight to Baltimore to see her new grandson, and having the entire day yesterday off, I decided to invite my longest-time friend Michael, who I have known since 1975, to grab his new Nikon D7000 and go up to northern Oklahoma to see and photograph the vicinity of the Great Salt Plains State Park and Wildlife Refuge. He jumped all over it, and after breakfast at IHOP in Oklahoma City, we hit the road. As always, we decided we were in “The Zone,” meaning if one of us wanted to stop and shoot something, we did it.

The day ended up being extremely fruitful, not only photographically, but also intellectually, since Michael and I have densely packed conversations about everything, and while we don’t always agree, we are always respectful of each other’s opinions. We ended up having an excellent dinner at El Chico in Enid, Oklahoma.

I just posted an entry about this day on my teaching blog, but I also wanted to express what a great day we had, and how fortunate I am to have cultivated this lifelong friendship with Michael. His website is Zig81.com, and is worth a look.

And as always, I am already missing my wife. When I talked to her on the phone last night, she seemed intoxicated by the presence of her six day old grandson.