Photo Blogging Challenge (March 2015): Two

Once again, P.J. has posted his blogging challenge.  This month, the theme was two, in honor of this challenge going on for two years.  Last year, I thought I did fairly well when the theme was one.  This year, I felt like I scrambled, which is usually the case, but here, once again, I'm posting March's theme on the first day of April, apparently a day late and a dollar short.  For whatever reason, I kept thinking that I still had another day, but that wasn't the case as March has already disappeared and it is indeed April.  So, without further ado, I give you the month of March's Twos.

1.  Two antennae
Although, you'll have to look closely at this one to see the second one.  Look at the nose of the butterfly and you'll see what looks like a yellow bulb, the second antenna slightly out of focus.  I love taking photos of butterflies and have been known to stalk them for hours trying to get a decent shot of any that come in range.  Several years ago, I learned the main differences between moths and butterflies.  Most people will say butterflies are colorful and moths aren't, but that's not necessarily the case.  The big differences are two-fold.  One, butterflies are out during the day while moths are out at night.  Second deals with their antennae.  A butterfly's antenna is smooth with a round bulb at the end, while a moth's antenna tends to look feathery.

2.   Two butterflies
Oh boy, here we go with an entire series of butterfly shots.  No, but I like this photo for a variety of reasons.  First off, it was taken with my iPhone.  While not the greatest photo in the work, I've been fairly impressed with the lens on this phone and I understand the lens on the iPhone6 is even better.  The second reason I like this shot is this is a new butterfly species for me.  These are Pacific Orange Tips.  I would suspect the one in the upper left hand corner is probably a male since it was pestering the other one to no end.  Either that, or it was defending its territory for some reason.  I took this shot, while geocaching, up in the newly created San Gabriel Mountains National Monument.

The national monument is still being administered by the U.S. Forest Service, and thus, geocaching is still allowed in the monument.  I can imagine sometime in the future, if the National Park Service (NPS) takes over administration of this park, the geocaches will have to be removed.  I understand why the NPS takes the stand that it does, since it views geocaches as litter, but they also seem to be more open to geocaching, which I think is a good thing.  Time will tell on this one.  And ironically, I was out hiking a couple of weeks later in the Simi Valley area and spotted another Orange Tip there.  I guess, once, you see one, they decide they don't have to hide from you any more.

3.  Two peaks

I'm in the middle of my second week of Spring Break.  At the beginning of the first week, I went camping with my friend in Death Valley National Park, where this shot was taken.  We were actually geocaching all three days.  "But wait a minute," you say.  "I thought geocaching wasn't allowed in national parks?"  This is true, but there are certain types of caches, virtual caches and earth caches that are allowed, because they don't have any physical container, to litter up the landscape.  Virtual caches take you to a place and you have to answer a couple of questions about the particular place.  Earth caches are geology based virtual caches where you also have to answer some questions based upon the geology found in that spot.  It's a more specialized type of virtual in a way.

These two peaks, of which I have no names for them, are in the Greenwater range in the southern part of Death Valley.  The wildflowers were pretty much spent down at the lower elevations, but here at around 2500 feet or so above sea level, there was still a profusion of blooms.  Desert mallow, mesquite and five spot mallow were all to be seen in abundance at this site and others as we traveled into the park.  Once we got further down in elevation, we stopped see a whole lot of any kind of vegetation, as the park is pretty stark.  

4.  Two states
Part of the allure of geocaching has always been that it takes me places I might not go just because.  Just over that rise is Pahrump, Nevada and just down to the right off the edge of the photo there is a geocache that hidden out there.  That particular cache was the first cache I've ever found in Nye County, Nevada.  It might not mean much to you, but I think it's kind of cool when I find caches in new places I've never been before.  I can guarantee you that unless I had family living in Pahrump, I would have never visited there.

I've found geocaches in 8 different states.  I've found a geocache in every county in California.  Am I nuts?  Probably.  But, the silly game keeps me out of trouble for the most part and I've made some very good friends who have a like-minded interest in being outdoors and using billion dollar satellites to find pieces of Tupperware hiding in the wilderness.

5.  Two different systems

I can remember way back in the 70s when there was a push for the United States to go metric.  Everything started getting printed in both feet and meters or miles and kilometers.  That's where we went wrong.  If we are ever going to convert to the metric system, which by the way, is one of the most logical systems there is, then we have to jump in with both feet and don't turn back.  And the government is going to have to lead the way.

All the government would have to do is to stop posting signs in two different systems.  Why do we need to know that Badwater is 282 feet below sea level?  Isn't it enough that we know that it's the lowest point in the western hemisphere?  If the sign just read 85.5 meters below sea level, people would get the point.  Eventually, the "Old Schoolers," the ones who complain about anything and everything would eventually die out and everyone who has ever lived wouldn't know any better and we'd all just use the metric system.  Do you need to know the temperature in Fahrenheit?  No, not really.  Celsius is actually pretty easy to use.  If it's in the 10s, it's cold.  If it's in the 20s, it's pretty mild, while the 30s is getting pretty warm.  40s?  Yeah, that's where Death Valley is in the summertime, most of the time.  Death Valley is also a big draw in the summertime, especially for Europeans.  Why?  It's one of the few places that can hit 50 degrees.  That would be 122 for us non metric people.

So there you have it.  Another month of photos dedicated to the number 2.  Please stop by P.J.'s page here to view other's interpretations of the theme Two.