Those who guessed last week that we were at Mara River on the Kenyan border to watch the Wildebeest Migration got it right. Here is a moment from our approach as we traveled to see this National Geographic moment.

And, another as the Wildebeest slowly make their way to the river crossing. We did not see any crocodiles challenging the crossing midstream but did witness this lioness take down one unfortunate wildebeest.

Below, she has moved her kill to higher grass to catch her breath and announce her kill with a roar.

This was the only casualty while we were there. Most, as you can see below, made the transit without a challenge.

No new Where In the World today. I  am taking a break from Facebook. If you don't want to miss the next posting, click on the  link and subscribe for email updates.

Best wishes.

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All photos and text are copyright Clinton Richardson. If you like these posts, please tell your friends about the Venture Moola blog at Readjanus.com. And, feel free to share this blog. Click here if you would like to get a weekly email that notifies you when we release new entries. Or, click in the side column to follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

Where can you find political courage in the face of a self-proclaimed law and  order President?

In 1963, Michigan’s Republican Governor surprised my hometown of Grosse Pointe when he appeared with black leaders and civil rights activists to march in protest of housing segregation. The Governor spoke to the gathered crowd and promised to establish a civil rights commission to help eliminate “human inequality and discrimination.”  When asked, he said he had chosen to get involved in the march because the issues involved were “so fundamental that they are above the partisan level.”

Our Governor would go on to serve several productive terms as Michigan’s Governor. In 1968, he would run for the Republican nomination as President, beginning the race as the Party’s front runner only to lose to Richard Nixon.

He continued to support civil rights and fight extremism throughout his career, which made him unpopular with many in his church and put him at odds with the Republican Party and his President. When he served as Nixon’s head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, he directed the Department to reject projects from States that promoted segregated housing. The President shut down his program and refused to meet with him. Unable to be effective in the position, our Governor resigned.

His son would inherit his father’s interest in politics and his sense of duty. In 2012, he would even carry the Republican Party’s standard as its Presidential nominee. Later, serving as a freshman Senator from Utah, he would have his own moral reckoning on a national stage.

President Donald Trump had been Impeached by the House of Representatives for withholding Congressionally directed aid to Ukraine to force its leaders to start a dubious investigation into Trump’s likely opponent in the upcoming Presidential election. The evidence was overwhelming - a transcript of the call in question had been made - but the Republican Representatives did everything in their power to discredit the proceedings.

When the proceedings reached the Senate for the required trial, the Republican majority fell in line with the President’s direction and refused to even hear testimony. Making short order of the proceedings, some would say a mockery, a vote was called that declined to convict the President. The vote was on Party lines. The minority Democrats voted almost unanimously to convict while the majority Republicans voted to exonerate.

One Republican Senator, however, broke with his party to vote his conscious and to convict the President on the evidence. And, yes, he was the son of our principled Michigan Governor and the standard bearer for his Party in 2012.

Senator Mitt Romney, in placing his vote to convict, stated in his floor remarks that “Were I to ignore the evidence that has been presented, and disregard what I believe my oath and the Constitution demands of me for the sake of a partisan end, it would, I fear, expose my character to history’s rebuke and the censure of my own conscience.”

He added, “I will tell my children and their children that I did my duty to the best of my ability, believing that my country expected it of me.”

Like father, like son. George Romney, the Michigan Governor and head of Nixon’s Department of Housing and Urban Development who fought for civil justice even when his Party and President disagreed because it he believed civil just to be “so fundamental” as to be “above the partisan level” would have been proud of his son’s actions.

And, when protests erupted over George Floyd's untimely death at the hands of Minneapolis police, who would be the only Republican Senator marching with the crowds to show his support for civil justice and human rights? You, guessed it. Mitt Romney.

It makes you wonder how much of Abraham Lincoln's values survive in today's Republican Party.

For the Romneys at least, principle, civil justice, and country rise above Republican Party politics.

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All text is copyright Clinton Richardson. If you like these posts, please tell your friends about the Venture Moola blog at Readjanus.com. And, feel free to share this blog. Click here if you would like to get a weekly email that notifies you when we release new entries. Or, click in the side column to follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

So, where in the world? It is September and the temperatures are in the low 80s.

And, where were we last week? At the National Museum of the American Indian located in the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Customs House near Battery Park in New York City. Just steps from a great spot to view the Statue of Liberty and not far from Ellis Island.

Here are a few more images.

Even Lady Liberty needs to answer her phone once and awhile.

A different kind of lady liberty.

On the right is an Indian Peace Medal, issued by Thomas Jefferson's administration for the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

This is not an Indian artifact in the strictest sense. It was issued by the General Court of Massachussets in 1676 and  awarded to Christian Indian scouts in a forced internment camp on Deer Island in Boston Harbor. The English recruited these scouts to assist themselves during King Phillips War, a war precipitated by the Wampanaog natives in an effort to drive out the encroaching settlers.

This is a box-and-border robe from the Lakota tribe, probably from South Dakota around 1865. Made of buffalo calf hide and glass beads, it was typical  of robes worn by Lakota women in their puberty ceremonies and by married women.

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All photos and text are copyright Clinton Richardson. If you like these posts, please tell your friends about the Venture Moola blog at Readjanus.com. And, feel free to share this blog. Click here if you would like to get a weekly email that notifies you when we release new entries. Or, click in the side column to follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

We are in Battery Park, across the water from the Statue of Liberty, getting ready to enter the building guarded by these protectors. Can you guess where we are?

And, where were we last week? Dragonfest in downtown Atlanta is the answer, watching the parade with  grandchildren long before social distancing.

Green Lantern and a tommy gunner.

Spiderman working the crowd.

Who you gonna call?

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All photos and text are copyright Clinton Richardson. If you like these posts, please tell your friends about the Venture Moola blog at Readjanus.com. And, feel free to share this blog. The more readers the better.  Click here if you would like to get a weekly email that notifies you when we release new entries. Or, click in the side column to follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

Remember crowds? This image is from a few years ago, along a parade route. We are in downtown Atlanta but can you guess the occasion?

And did you guess? A lot of you knew our last image was from Dead Horse Point State Park in Utah outside of Moab. Here's another image of the bend in the Colorado River from a different vantage point.

And here is a night view. I call the image below Teenage Mutant Ninja Aliens because the meteorite trails looks like look like how a flight pattern might look these were alien space ships piloted by teenagers.

But what is it that makes these meteorite trails so unusual looking. Likely, it is just wind moving the camera ever so slightly during the 30 second exposure needed to capture this image. No one really knows, though. The image title just might be on point.

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All photos and text are copyright Clinton Richardson. If you like these posts, please tell your friends about the Venture Moola blog at Readjanus.com. And, feel free to share this blog. The more readers the better.  Click here if you would like to get a weekly email that notifies you when we release new entries. Or, click in the side column to follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

The sun begins to set 2,000 feet above the Colorado River, as seen from a famous overlook with an unusual name. Can you guess it? In the 1800s, cowboys corralled wild mustangs here.

And, what were the four corpulent visitors waiting to see from their chairs in our last post? If you guessed a civil war reenactment, you got it right. You may have noticed a confederate flag in the background.

Years of living in Atlanta and along with a friend who participates in reenactments, not to mention a  fondness for the  movie Sweet Home Alabama with it's reenactment scene, led me to finally grab my camera and travel to a field outside Aiken, South Carolina to take check out a battle reenactment.

And, this is some of what I saw. A friendly, if not diverse crowd, walked through the exhibits and shops, checked out the northern and southern army encampments, and then gathered to watch a reenactment of this battle that pitted southern troops against an army sent north from Savannah by General William Tecumseh Sherman.

The event's organizers will be happy to tell you that the Battle of Aiken was one of the  few engagements during Sherman's campaign that the southern army warded off their northern counterpart. The  participants are all volunteers and elaborately attired.

Cavalry skirmishes and cannons were part of the battle.The crowd sat behind a rail fence while the two armies squared off and then did battle. Some of the crowd were more actively engaged than others.

As you can see above, one young man, complete with pink ear mufflers and a wooden rifle, is standing against the fence prepared to defend his family for the battling cavalry in front of him. It is a favorite image from the  day, as is the one below for its humorous quality. It looks like someone gained some weight between reenactments.

If you would like to see more images from the day, check out the Civil War gallery at TrekPic.com. Enjoy.

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All photos and text are copyright Clinton Richardson. If you like these posts, please tell your friends about the Venture Moola blog at Readjanus.com. And, feel free to share this blog. The more readers the better.  Click here if you would like to get a weekly email that notifies you when we release new entries. Or, click in the side column to follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

We are not  making this one easy but there are more clues in this picture than you might think at first. Take a look and see if you can guess where this crew is and what they have come to see?

And did you guess the location of this lake scene from the foothills in the background? We are on a TVA lakes in North Georgia on a late May morning.

Here is what the early morning can look like nearby from a kayak. The sun will break up the fog as it rises but for now  the heron has the place to himself.

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All photos and text are copyright Clinton Richardson. If you like these posts, please tell your friends about the Venture Moola blog at Readjanus.com. And, feel free to share this blog. The more readers the better.  Click here if you would like to get a weekly email that notifies you when we release new entries. Or, click in the side column to follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

Ready for summer? Aching to shelter outside? Admittedly, this could be most anywhere but can you guess nonetheless. You can easily drive there from Atlanta.

And did you guess our last location with the full-horizon view of the Milky Way? Third rock from the sun is correct but not the answer we were looking for. We are out West in Canyonlands National Park in the  middle of the night just after the clouds cleared.

The image is a compilation of seven images stitched together, each about 20 seconds with a nearly wide open, wide angle lens. Post processing software combines the seven images into this one and then Adobe software enables you to highlight the image to make it into what you see above.

The image below was taken from roughly the same spot but a bit earlier in the night while a class for night photographers was stationed next to the canyon rim to take their own images. The red light is from their headlamps - red light is easier on the eyes at night. The white light from the back of their cameras. I call this image Night Stalkers. If you look closely in front of the photographers, you can see the path they took to get there.

It is wonderfully quiet while you are out there, unless there is a class like this one going on. Usually, it is just you and a couple of other people. This night, after the class adjourned, a young man traveling between marathons kept me company. He had finished one that day and could not sleep so he wandered out to look at the sky.

Sometimes, though, there is no company or only the occasional kangaroo rat or other small critter who is attracted by the light you use to set up. It is inspiring to witness the sky without the now over-prevalent light pollution that covers most of the developed world. It is humbling to bear witness to the immensity of our universe.

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All photos and text are copyright Clinton Richardson. If you like these posts, please tell your friends about the Venture Moola blog at Readjanus.com. And, feel free to share this blog. The more readers the better.  Click here if you would like to get a weekly email that notifies you when we release new entries. Or, click in the side column to follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

What you are seeing is the core of the Milky Way and one of the spiral arms of stars that stretches out from the core. The galaxy's center, or core, is on the right just above the horizon. The bright object near the core is Jupiter.

There are not many places where it is dark enough and flat enough to photograph this much of the Milky Way at one time. It is 5 a.m. in the American West. Can you guess where we are? Or, how this image was captured?

And, how about our last image. Did you  guess where we were last time?

The image above is of the Council House at New Echota State Historical Park in Northwest Georgia. taken one Fall evening just as the sun was setting. This was the governmental center of the Cherokee Nation until the United States absconded with their land and drove them out men, women and children to their new "home" in Oklahoma.

It is from here that General Winfield Scott and his 7,000 soldiers rounded up the Cherokee citizens who had occupied this land for centuries and drove them by foot through winter snows and a hardship that cost many lives on the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma. The Cherokee were a particularly civilized tribe, even by white man's standards, at the time.

They had their own alphabet and published their own newspaper from New Echota. Profitable estates and business were confiscated and, yes, even slaves owned by upper class  Cherokee farmers and businessmen.

It was a land grab sanctioned by Andrew Jackson and enforced by the U.S. military, plain and  simple. The Cherokee were moved to make way for white settlers.

My first encounter with this particular piece of American history came in the summer of 1973, while I was clerking for a law firm in Rome, Georgia. My first assignment was to run the titles on some properties that were being sold.

As I left the office, the partner advised me not to worry about finding any property records before 1835. There weren't any. That was when the government started dividing up the land in and around Rome that was taken from the Cherokee.

Living history, you might say.

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All photos and text are copyright Clinton Richardson. If you like these posts, please tell your friends about the Venture Moola blog at Readjanus.com. And, feel free to share this blog. The more readers the better.  Click here if you would like to get a weekly email that notifies you when we release new entries. Or, click in the side column to follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

We are back on the East Coast, this time in Northwest Georgia. It is evening and the State Park that houses this remarkable structure is closed for the evening.

History was made here in the early 1800s, when this building was constructed. It is not an imposing structure. None of the buildings on the site are, but a great nation formed its first legislature here, issued its first newspaper, and signed away its future. Can you guess where we are? 

Did you guess our location from the last posting. There, we shared this image in black and white. Here it is in full color.

And the location? You probably guessed it is the Grand Canyon. More specifically, we took this image after hiking to Shoshone Point to the east of the main park area. Here is a second view from the other side of the monolith on the Point.

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All photos and text are copyright Clinton Richardson. If you like these posts, please tell your friends about the Venture Moola blog at Readjanus.com. And, feel free to share this blog. The more readers the better.  Click here if you would like to get a weekly email that notifies you when we release new entries. Or, click in the side column to follow us on Facebook or Twitter.