I got up freakishly early today.

I thought I would head out for a bike ride on the Salt Creek trail and be back before anyone was awake.

I took pictures!

For some reason, I love the fact that this bike trail has street signs.

It was already light when I headed out, but the sun hadn’t risen yet. Here’s a first peek at it through the trees.

And here it is, a little later. Ladies and gentlemen, the Eye of Sauron!

I saw a huge blue heron at this boggish part of the trail. I stopped my bike abruptly, and scared the damn thing off. So, I took a picture of the bog. You’re welcome.

I saw lots of deer, but didn’t feel like taking pictures of any of them. Well, there was a picturesque scene of a deer urinating just off the trail next to LaGrange Road that would have made an award-winning photograph, but no, I didn’t take a picture of the deer urinating, either.

I *did* however take some pictures of a raccoon eating garbage. My folks got me a nifty camera for Christmas. It has freakish zooming capabilities, which I will show to you now.

This is where the raccoon was. My camera is zoomed out.

Here’s the raccoon at 40x.

Nifty.