Two Rivers National Wildlife Refuge consists of five separate parcels of riverine bottomland wetlands, around the confluence of the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers.

In southwestern evenings like this, with the dim light from the street illuminating the frozen limbs of these ancient Cottonwoods – they seem to sparkle with their old lived magical glow.

These spruce and hemlock survive the combined challenge of mountain wetlands- fierce mountain winds, a cold and rainy winter and upland wetland habitat.

Below Gunnison, in Southern Colorado along Cambell Creek, lies the BLM Powderhorn Wilderness, with the Powderhorn Lakes and Calf Creek Plateau.

This majestic and healthy Organ Pipe Cactus, (Stenocereus thurberi) was captured in the midday light, on a cloudless hot day.

Deep in the Colorado Mountains, above Gunnison is the Ski Town of Crested Butte.

Early morning, on the way to feed the horses…..Mt. Yale in the ‘Collegiate Range’ is in the background….

A high altitude, bright early sunrise, looking at the basin lake - on the side of North Pole Basin. The bright yellow/gold of the lake is indicative of the high altitude atmosphere (13,500 ft) and unfiltered air.

Each year the ‘monsoons’ roll through this arid area of the Southwest, bringing much needed rain, thunderstorms and dramatic weather. As they pass over the mountains of dry Northern New Mexico, they can be quite dramatic.

This little, adaptable and colorful plant is found throughout the eastern US and lower alpine zones where the ground temperature is not frozen (Castilleja coccinea).

I used to take evening walks with my Mother and Father through the hills and forests that surrounded our home.

Three stone structures rising out of the ocean - like monuments.

The Ortiz Mountains are an ancient volcanic range that run like a spine from just outside the New Mexican city of Santa Fe south and west of Albuquerque.

An October Midwest sky, with a full ‘harvest moon’ ….and wispy Cirrus clouds, that predict the change of Fall weather.