Cave Point Part 4 - The Cool Cairns and the Cool Fungi Too

Originally I was going to make 5 posts out of my Cave Point pictures but with new trips on the horizon I need to get caught up posting so I combined all my best shots (IMHO) from our outing into this last post.  Not too shabby for a girl who's too lazy to use her tripod.

What a surprise when we came around the Point and discovered the beach full of cairns!  Not as colorful as the cairns they have in Utah, but I love the different shape and textures that come from each cairn built.  Not to mention the human element that goes into making them.  Someone took the time to be creative and connect with nature at the same time, what is cooler than that?

In my defense, if I had my large tripod with me I would have gone back to the car to get some long exposures of the water coming in around the cairns.  Luckily they turned out pretty good just holding my breath and trying not to move.  I forgot about the trick of setting the 2 two second timer so I wouldn't have to depress the shutter button.  Can't think of everything, right?

I had to fuss with the exposure on the shot below just a bit to get enough contrast to make it look okay in black and white.  Katrina dragged me away after this shot.  Something about, "how long do you plan to stay out here anyway, Mom?"  Non-photographers don't have the same sense of time that we do.

Time for those cool fungi I promised. When we left the cairns the first thing we saw as we entered the woods was this cute group of orange fungi.  From Widipedia:  Mycena leaiana, commonly known as the orange mycena or Lea's mycena, is a North American species of saprobic fungi in the genus Mycena, family Tricholomataceae. Characterized by their bright orange caps and stalks and reddish-orange gill edges, they usually grow in dense clusters on deciduous logs. The pigment responsible for the orange color in this species has antibiotic properties. 

The rest of these I shot in the rain when I was wandering around by myself.  Since I am in too much of a hurry to use that gorillapod I had to shoot this little mushroom at least 6 times before getting a clear shot.  However, setting up the gorillapod would have taken longer.  If I had continued to struggle I would have dragged it out because I wasn't missing the opportunity to get those little hairlike structures in focus!  When I was out shooting at Kettle Moraine this morning I smartened up and attached the gorillapod and then just left it on.

identification success at last - spinellus fusiger

I've been having trouble seeing what I'm shooting through the viewfinder lately.  Whether it's old age (likely culprit, oh presbyopia you are so cruel!)  or that I accidently bumped the dial above the viewfinder I don't know, but today I finally took the time to dial it in to a setting where I can see the object I need to have in focus when the auto-focus says it's in focus.   Kind of important for those times you want to use manual focus because the camera won't focus on what you want it to.

Not a clue!

 I just spent at least half an hour looking at fungi photos for identification and still can't identify the pics above and below.  It looks like the yellow fungus toward the bottom is Physarum Polycephalum but the yellow one above seems different.  It was very eyecatching!

Our time at Cave Point only lasted about an hour and a half, can you believe it?  (I've spent more time trying to identify everything I saw while there)  On our way in to the park Katrina spotted this boatfull of cuties in someone's driveway.  Aloha!

Tomorrow I'll tell you about my new tent trial at Kettle Moraine where I found a new prime tent spot and trail too!