Destiny vs. Coincidence

I happened onto a feast for the eyes this morning.  I was kayaking around Lake Remembrance, which is close to the intersection of I-70 and Adams Dairy Parkway in Blue Springs.  Did I just happen to witness some of nature's summer display or was it destined to happen?


I traced today's kayak adventure back to this past winter, when during a cabin fever moment for Miki, she said yes to a tutoring position with the school district that would last for about 3 months.  Yes, she retired a year ago and yes she went back to work about 9 months later...go figure.  Any who... I realized very quickly that I would have a lot of time on my retired hands without Miki being around.  Rather than establishing some bad habits at the boats, I bought one (the kayak) instead.


I like to take the kayak our for exercise (me not the kayak needs the exercise) and to get out and see things from a perspective many do not.  This morning it felt like a paddling kind of day and  when I put on the water, it did not take long for me to realize it would be an interesting day of observations.


The first one was rather startling.  Upon seeing the "alligator," it was a moment when my brain struggled with its fight or flight response.

Tell me you wouldn't piddle in your pants a bit if you saw this.

Once I realized that the wetness I felt was sweat running down my thigh, my breathing slowed and I headed for the end of the lake.  Being slightly unnerved, the next glimpse I caught was of a momma duck and her headless babies.

Tell me her babies were born with heads...where are they?

Enough bizarro thoughts... I headed to the north end of Lake Remembrance where I was seated for a feast.  I passed under the walking bridge, that is part of the trail around the lake, and saw before me the spread that nature had prepared.

Seriously, more lilies than I cared to count (who would do that anyway).  There were so many rafts of lilies and I wanted to take a picture of each one individually.  Each seemed more spectacular than the one before.  The color, the lighting, the reflection.  Each time I turned, it was if I was seeing them posing for the first time.

As I drifted around this shallow flower garden, I made a few other observations.  The sea of white was interrupted by this mound of flowers found off by themselves.

A number of birds seemed to be on the lookout for this strange floating object with a paddle in his hands.  Besides a Blue Heron keeping its distance, this Green Heron seemed a little intrigued with me.

Unlike the baby ducks, it had a head...for sure.

This was kind of creepy, but just letting my eyes meander, I stumbled onto this eye looking back at me.

A frog near the center of this photo was not going to let his legs
become an appetizer.

One oddity that set my imagination off were bubbles rising from below, in almost every direction I would look.  Think about it for a minute or two.  What questions can you conjure up, along with plausible answers?  

Of course my first thought was fish farts, but that's just me.

Every once in awhile when I look at the pictures I have taken, a few will catch my eye, for whatever reason.  If you have seen one photo of a white water lily, you've seen them all...right?  Here are a couple that caught my eye.

Who knows if it was destiny for me to be on the lake today, with a camera, or just luck, that I saw an alligator in a Missouri lake, some headless baby ducks, or farting fish.  I do know that I would not have wanted to miss it for anything.  Miki may not have been all that excited to have taken that tutoring job after the first couple of weeks, but I'm really glad she did.


Still thinking about those bubbles huh?

Destiny or bad luck?