Missed photo opportunity

The plan today was to take Mom to her doctor appointment, then have lunch downtown at Schilo's and then take a river taxi to the newly opened section of the riverwalk. But since the day was forecast to be sunny and hot, we decided to just have lunch and skip taking the river taxi. The new section of the riverwalk would have been very interesting, there is even a section where the boat goes through locks!! Similar to the Panama Canal locks. There aren't many trees yet, though, in the new section, so it would have been a hot ride at that point.
So, I left the camera behind.
After lunch at Schilo's, we decided to take a little walk in the shady section of the riverwalk to Starbucks. Along the way, I pointed out to Mom and Guillermo the little shop where Martina loved to get a cookie, and the shop where she had fun looking for Western things. And right after that, we saw a most amazing thing on the banks of the riverwalk. A Yellow-Crowned Night Heron. Right there, not more than 6 feet from us! It was just enjoying life there on the river, with all the people walking right by it. It became a little more vigilant when it noticed that some people (us) had actually stopped and weren't moving on. We stood there for several minutes in awe of being so close to this beautiful bird. And oh how sorry I was that I had left the camera in the car. We couldn't have ASKED for a better opportunity to get some really good pictures. It just stood there, staring just as hard at us, as we were staring at it. Finally, we walked on, thinking how nice it was to have been able to see that heron so close up, and what a shame it was that we didn't have the camera with us.

These are pictures I took yesterday out in the yard.
The first picture shows Guillermo right after he moved the Bleeding Heart plant into the front yard and then a couple of pictures of the Bleeding Heart plant itself.



This is a beautiful zinnia growing in Guillermo's garden. It's a big one!
The sunflowers are starting to come out now.
This is for perspective. These sunflowers are huge!