Fox or coyote?

This week my critter cam captured this.  If looks awfully large for a fox.  Coyotes have been spotted around this area.  Could it be?

I will soon be applying to be a Monarch Waystation.  I need more milkweed to be a great place for Monarchs, but am working on that.

Yangtze River

After a visit to the Shanghai Museum, pictured here, and a silk factory, we left Shanghai for the Yangtze River.

The museum is lovely.  I especially enjoyed the ceramic and furniture collections.  The building is shaped like a dumpling steamer. ( that is how the locals describe it).

We flew from Shanghai to Yichang, to board our ship.  Apparently the river is not particularly scenic between Yinchang and Shanghai, and that adds several days to the trip.  From the airport, a bus took us through the city of Yichang, to the the dock.  The river boats dock in a rather remote area, that was actually rather seedy looking.  Our guide asked us to not get off the boat, even though we would not be leaving for several hours. What looked like an abandoned hotel was there, along with a lovely garden.  It was an incredibly steep road down to the dock, and a very undeveloped area.

A bit about the river.  The actual name of the river is Long River, or Chang Jiang.  Sometime in the early years of Western mapping of China, it was heard and then written, as Yangtze.  There are many such misunderstood names in China.  The river is the longest in Asia, and they want to claim it is the longest used for shipping, but most would give that to the Mississippi.

Our boat, the Century Paragon, was lovely.  Admittedly, this was our first cruise, so I don't have a lot to compare it with, but many of the other travelers had positive comments as well.  The boat holds about 400 people.  It being the early season, it was only about half full, which made it very nice.  No long lines getting on or off.  This is also the first year that a 'up river' tour has been offered, so we were among the first for that experience too.

We spent four days on the boat, with excursions each day.