Getting ready for take off

This place is like a summer camp for researchers - nerdy science kids all grown up, and with grown up toys. Toys like this float plane to track endangered piping plovers around their breeding grounds here in the upper Great Lakes.

I always listen for the unmistakable drone of the engines that signal the planes arrival. I like to watch it cruise in, hover and finally set down on the lake like a big ungainly Canada goose. Maybe one day they'll even give me a ride on that goose.

I'm ready for take off...