We went on our first official Boonie Stomp, which is the local term for hiking.
We had an actual guide and hiked through the wilderness (which was mostly red mud and burnt shrubs) to a swimmin' hole, complete with rope swing.
It was about a 30 minute hike to the waterin' hole (and about a 45 minute to hour hike back, back was uphill). The hike down there wasn't too terrible, as it was downhill, but even walking downhill for a long time can be uncomfortable.
This is an example of the road we walked:
Once we got there and set up our little sitting area, Christine immediately got in the water. It was hot, in the 90's. Once in the water, she swam directly to the rope swing and swung off.
I did too, but my back was to the camera so here is a picture of me in my cool new Indy hat:
While we were swimming and jumping and such our tour guide was fishing. Yup, just sitting on the ledge of a huge rock. All he had was one piece of fishing line (not even a spool, just a 20 foot long piece of line) a hook and some bubblegum. About ten minutes later he caught one. He ended up catching around three but only kept two.
Thats one of them, I forget what he called it. When we were watching him pull the fish out of the water we saw an eel. He said it was a fresh water eel, it was about a foot long. It didn't hang around long enough for us to get a picture though.
On the other side of the pond, the side with the rope swing, was a running creek, almost waterfall esque. Christine and I swam over there and sat in the running water. We even saw a crawdad over there too. This is us sitting in the creek.
Then I went on a little photo adventure, looking for creatures. First I came across a frog that was about the size of your thumb, no longer than an inch and a half. He was very camouflaged against the rocks, but you can see him here:
Next I saw this red dragon fly. It was also no longer than an inch, and was hovering all around me. Finally it set down on a leaf near me and I was able to get some decent pictures. I don't have a special macro (close up) lens, so I had to get really close to him. I was about two to three inches away when I took these. I couldn't believe he sat there for so long and didn't just fly away.
If you click on the picture below you can see it larger. Look at his lips, it looks like he has collagen or halloween wax lips. But he did smile for the picture.
These are mud daubers (
click here for more info). They are called that because they buzz around, sip water and use that water to build mud huts usually in the shape of organ pipes to house their larvae in. You can see them flying around with neon green caterpillar like creatures that they place into the mud huts. Then they seal it up and take off, leaving the caterpillars to gestate and turn into mud daubers (guess you don't really need to click on that link now that I told you all you need to know).
They haven't hurt us yet but they do look quite fierce.
Next I stumbled upon a spider eating a wasp!!!!! I didn't know spiders could eat wasps, but here he is. Again click on the pictures to see them larger and in more detail.
Lastly here are some good overall pictures of the area we were in. If you didn't already know you would have never guessed this is Guam. We were probably about twenty miles from the coast and at several points on the hike we could see the ocean.
I keep putting up spider pictures for Bubba but he doesn't seem to comment on them?
This is a turtle Christine saw on her snorkel outing.
It now looks like this:
Which in turn causes my truck to look like this:
Once we got there and set up our little sitting area, Christine immediately got in the water. It was hot, in the 90's. Once in the water, she swam directly to the rope swing and swung off. 
While we were swimming and jumping and such our tour guide was fishing. Yup, just sitting on the ledge of a huge rock. All he had was one piece of fishing line (not even a spool, just a 20 foot long piece of line) a hook and some bubblegum. About ten minutes later he caught one. He ended up catching around three but only kept two.
Thats one of them, I forget what he called it. When we were watching him pull the fish out of the water we saw an eel. He said it was a fresh water eel, it was about a foot long. It didn't hang around long enough for us to get a picture though.
Then I went on a little photo adventure, looking for creatures. First I came across a frog that was about the size of your thumb, no longer than an inch and a half. He was very camouflaged against the rocks, but you can see him here:
Next I saw this red dragon fly. It was also no longer than an inch, and was hovering all around me. Finally it set down on a leaf near me and I was able to get some decent pictures. I don't have a special macro (close up) lens, so I had to get really close to him. I was about two to three inches away when I took these. I couldn't believe he sat there for so long and didn't just fly away.
If you click on the picture below you can see it larger. Look at his lips, it looks like he has collagen or halloween wax lips. But he did smile for the picture.
These are mud daubers (click here for more info). They are called that because they buzz around, sip water and use that water to build mud huts usually in the shape of organ pipes to house their larvae in. You can see them flying around with neon green caterpillar like creatures that they place into the mud huts. Then they seal it up and take off, leaving the caterpillars to gestate and turn into mud daubers (guess you don't really need to click on that link now that I told you all you need to know). 
They haven't hurt us yet but they do look quite fierce. 
Lastly here are some good overall pictures of the area we were in. If you didn't already know you would have never guessed this is Guam. We were probably about twenty miles from the coast and at several points on the hike we could see the ocean.
