The Secret Revealed

This is the secret:

Here is a picture of the previously referred to redheads:

And the person responsible for it all?  None other than that lovely lady with the great blog Travels with Emma, Judy Bell.

We've enjoyed Judy's blog for quite a while now and enjoyed getting to know her through back and forth comments.  As we were posting our travel plans to Pensacola, Florida, she touched base with us and invited us to visit her at the Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge where she is a volunteer.  She had a nice site for us for the night.

Now here is where it gets a little complicated, so stay with me.  A while back, in one of our blogging comment conversations, I volunteered to wash and wax Judy's motorhome one day in the future.  Being we only had one night to visit and we had to get on the road the next day, I knew I wouldn't have the time to take care of it.  So to soothe any disappointment she might have on my failure to be able to deliver this time, Marti and I bought her some flowers and took her out to dinner.

Judy had posted on her blog that she had received flowers and was taken out to dinner without revealing any details, arousing curiosity of her readers.  Not to let the cat out of the bag for her, we kept quiet about the "secret" until she put the details up on her blog.

We had a great dinner with her and early the next morning, before we had to leave, she took us out into the refuge to look for the rare Mississippi Sandhill Cranes.

  We did good, we saw 23 of them!

As we drew near,  groups of the cranes took off and flew around, it was thrilling to see them.

As a bonus, we got to see a bald eagle nest with a baby eagle in it, and one of its parents nearby watching over it.

Sorry the picture is so poor, I couldn't zoom in any closer. :c(

All too soon, we were back at the Visitor Center, where we enjoyed the displays and a short film on the efforts to prevent the extinction of these rare and beautiful birds.

It is amazing to see the effort put in by so many people at the refuge, the scientists, biologists and of course the dedicated volunteers who, without them, the refuge couldn't run.

Thanks Judy for a great time, a great tour and the wash-n-wax offer still stands, we'll be back when we have more time.

Thanks for visiting and feel free to leave a comment.