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H.T. | Travel Photo & Video

@htvaught

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Just curious. 🌎
Exploring places, ideas & unexpected discoveries.
📷 Sharing what catches my eye—and makes me think.

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71. What do you think that means?

A number like that marks the passage of time — and let’s be honest, work eats up a huge chunk of that time for most of us. (Mine took a little over 40 years, if you’re keeping score.) But time isn’t the same as identity. It’s not who someone is, and it’s not their work.

Strength training, travel, photography, some spiritual searching — all of it was already part of my life, long before I ever stopped working. So what’s actually different now? Mostly just more time for all of it — I socialize a lot more than I ever did while working, and I finally have more time to think about who I am and other important questions.

Retirement didn’t hand me a new identity. It just gave me more room for the one I already had. “Retired” has just never fit how I think about myself — plenty of people wear that word proudly, and that’s great. For me, it describes what I stopped doing — not who I am, or what I’m doing now.

And this isn’t just a retirement thing. A job title, a relationship status, whatever you majored in at twenty — none of those were ever the whole answer either.

And notice — I never actually answered the question. No one’s making me define who I am. Figuring that out takes a lot more than one Instagram post, anyway — this is just me thinking out loud, not making a case for anything. Got me thinking about my own answer. No pressure on yours. taken in Sacramento, California by @htvaught

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17 days ago

Crossing the Drake Passage

From Ushuaiai, Argentina we set sail for the Antarctic across the Drake Passage, a 2 1/2 day crossing. The water is sometimes so turbulent, the crossing is called the “Drake Shake”. And on our crossing, the weather and water was so turbulent the rating was 10 of 12 on the Beaufort Scale including 7-8 meter {23-26.3 feet} ) waves and constant wind speeds of 50 knots {57 mph}.

The Drake is known throughout history as one of the most treacherous and dangerous bodies of water in the world. The seas were so strong that one meal basically ended up with lots of broken dishes in the dining room, and one 4 am morning course correction ran into a wave so large that everyone woke up at that time. Glad I took dramamine and did that for every day of the trip!

The ship, named the World Explorer, was very stable, and the captain did a great job of making a course correction to avoid the seas which have been far worse than what we experienced.

#Antarctica
#Antarctic
#Voyage
#Expedition
#Polar
#Memories
#Vacation
#drake
#drakepassage taken in Drake Passage, Antarctic Peninsula by @htvaught

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3 years ago

Our guide, Usko, found a trap door created by the Dancing White Lady Spider. The trap door was completely concealed before Usko exposed it to us. The video shows the trap door exposed after Usko removed the concealed cover. None of us had any idea; or even an inkling that something was amiss in the sand. Usko replaced all of the sand back after we got our lesson about this spider.

The Dancing White Lady Spider Leucorchestris arenicola) live in burrows with a trapdoor, which they use to conceal themselves and ambush prey

The Dancing White Lady Spider, is a species of huntsman spider found in the deserts of Namibia. They are known for their peculiar “dancing” behavior, where they lift their front legs and tap the sand, using vibrations for communication, especially during mating rituals. This behavior is used by males to attract females and also to compete with other males.

Other details:

* Habitat: They are found in the sandy deserts of Namibia, particularly in the Namib Desert.  
* Appearance: These spiders are white or creamy white in color.  
* Burrow: They live in burrows dug into the sand, camouflaged with a trapdoor.  
* Behavior: They are nocturnal and spend their days burrowed in the sand, emerging at night to hunt, mate, and compete with other males.  
* Communication: They use “drumming” – tapping their legs against the sand – to communicate and find mates.  
* Mating: Male spiders travel long distances (over a mile in one night) to find females, often moving up j 40-60 meters from their burrows.  
* Navigation: They navigate back to their burrows using various methods, including using the night sky and computing their position based on steps and direction.  
* Lifespan: Female spiders typically live for about 6 months, while males live for 1-2 months.

#dancingwhitelady #dancingwhiteladyspider #dancingwhiteladyhuntsman #namibia #NamibRandNatureReserve #toktokkie taken in Namibia, Africa by @htvaught

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a year ago

How to actually pick the right Halloween costume — 4 questions I ask myself every year: comfort, will people recognize it, does it hold up over time, and is the payoff worth the effort. Halloween’s your one shot to be whoever you want 🎃. Make it count !

#HalloweenCostume #CostumeTips #Halloween2026 #CostumeHack #RetiredAndThriving taken in Sacramento, California by @htvaught

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24 days ago

I saw something outrageous on social media. Got angry. Then wondered why the person who posted it was so angry.

And then I caught myself. 😅

Sometimes the joke is on me.

#SocialMedia #SelfAwareness #PlotTwist #Mindfulness #RelatableHumor CaughtMyself taken in Sacramento, California by @htvaught

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3 hours ago

The first photo is a scan of my real 1992 print. The folder, the legs and the shoes came from AI. What’s the strangest thing AI has added to your photos?

#VacationPhotosGoneHaywire #AdobeFirefly #GenerativeExpand #AIPhotos #AIFai taken in Big Island, Hawaii by @htvaught

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2 days ago

A childhood TV show sent me looking up a real star.

Lost in Space made me curious about Alpha Centauri—and about worlds we might never see for ourselves. That curiosity stayed with me.

World Space Week, October 4–10, seemed like a good moment to revisit it.

What show, book, or movie sparked your imagination?

#WorldSpaceWeek #LostInSpace #AlphaCentauri #Curiosity taken in Sacramento, California by @htvaught

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5 days ago

🥜 Most of the foods we call “nuts” aren’t actually nuts.
Peanuts? Legumes.
Pine nuts? Seeds.
Almonds? Seeds from a drupe.
“Nut” means one thing in the grocery store—and something much more specific in botany.
And their nutrition varies more than you might think.
I put the common ones side by side so you can compare calories, protein, fats, serving sizes—and what each one actually is.

Save this for later and send it to someone who loves nuts. 🥜
Food at a Glance | @htvaught

#FoodAtAGlance #Nuts #NutritionFacts #foodfacts taken in Sacramento, California by @htvaught

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19 days ago

Robot Wars of 2029 🤖⚔️

This one started as an experiment — could I actually tell a story with AI video tools, not just make a cool clip? Two armies, one collision, and a question: does the world rebuild, or does it end here?

Teaching myself AI filmmaking one battle at a time. More to come.

#AIFilmmaking #AIVideo #ShortFilm #SciFiShortFilm #RobotWars AIArt

@capcutapp by @htvaught

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21 days ago

Who do you think will win?

The battle might get heated!

Learned AI filmmaking in a few days to create this. The tools are gas!

AI Short Film | Made with Higgsfield + Claude + ElevenLabs

#higgsfield #robots #Al #futureoftech #artificialintelligence @higgsfield.ai @higgsfield.creators @elevenlabsio taken in Los Angeles, California by @htvaught

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a month ago

We’ve all got our health journeys. This is one of mine! The lesson for me is “when something doesn’t feel right, speak up”!

#health #surgery #hardwareremoval #speakup taken in Sacramento, California by @htvaught

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a month ago

Triggered by an article in The Atlantic magazine, I know have a new perspective about my recurring dreams about school. What dreams keep showing up for you?

Made with CapCut AI and Captions. The university I’m referring to is UVa, University of Virginia ( I couldn’t get AI to keep the correct text - I guess there are some hallucinations involved.

#dreams
#dreaminterpretation
#dreamjournal
#dreamtheory
#mindsetshift by @htvaught

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a month ago