It rained today

It rained today.  That's not a bad thing, just that it messed with my plans a little.  Then again, in the long run, it was probably a good thing that it did rain.

The plan was for me to go geocaching with a friend of mine who lives in Camarillo.  That's about an hour and a half drive to the west of me.  I was also playing another kind of GPS game which took me down to Carson.  I left the house in a downpour.  


The drive down was interesting to say the least.  I had to come to a complete stop one time on the 605 because the California Highway Patrol (CHP) were doing a traffic break to help a car that had spun out to the side of the road.  


Once I got to my intended spot, I scored my virtual points and then called my friend in Camarillo hoping to hear that the weather was better there.  No such luck, so I made the decision to come back home.  On the way home, I passed five accidents, two of which might have been called Sig Alerts.  Sig Alerts are major traffic stoppages on Southern California freeways.  Fortunately, all the accidents were on the other side of the freeway, so my route home didn't involve any stop and go driving.  I was very fortunate.


As it turned out, I had a stressful week at school and usually when stress is released I'll get a nasty migraine.  Yep, today was no exception, so it was actually good that I ended up back at home.  I was able to rest, take it easy and recuperate.  I also took a walk and got, what I feel, are some pretty nice photos of raindrops on several different kinds of plants.

The first shot has really convinced me that I need to look into getting a macro lens.  Overall, I was pleased with how the shot turned out.  However, using a 200mm zoom lens for shots like that are ok, but I'd really like to get a lot closer so more detail can be seen in the droplet.  


The second shot was taken around the corner from my house, near the end of my walk.  This particular neighbor has lots of flowering plants close to the sidewalk and there was lots of raindrops.  I liked how the petals, which had fallen off the flower, were lying on the dead leaves from the parkway tree.  I used a program called Photomatix to tonemap the shot and enhance the veins in the leaves.  I think it gave it a nice effect.