Stress (Day 12) - 20 Days of Chill

Stress.  We all have it and it affects our lives, mostly adversely.  So I guess the point of this post, is to not so much talk about stress, or what kinds of stress there are, but how I deal with it.  And you will probably deal with it in a variety of ways, most of which are probably different than mine.  And if it works for you, that's great.

I've always used this blog as a way to advertise my photos. I'm not into making money, but I do like to show off my work.  As I was looking through some photos today for one that I thought would work with what I thought I was going to write about, it hit me.  Most of the shots that I had in that particular album are stress relievers for me, because they pretty much capture what it is that I do to relieve my stress.

These are the things that I love to do, in no particular order.  Geocaching. Travel.  Photography.  They get me to start thinking about other things, they get me to reorder my priorities and they pretty much de-stress me.  

This particular photo is pretty much emblematic of all three of those things.  This was taken while finding either a virtual geocache or an earth cache in Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. I've been geocaching for almost 16 years.  If I didn't like it, I would have stopped a long time ago.  I enjoy the hunt for those hidden treasures and I especially like the hunt when I'm in different areas than my own.  I get to experience hides by different people.  It gives me a new perspective on the hobby.  

Travel is something that I've always done, starting at age 4 when my parents took us on a week long camping trip to Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks.  We tent camped then, but sometime shortly after that, my parents bought a 14 foot trailer to haul all of our gear and family around the country.  Whenever I can get on a road trip, I'll take it.  It's a great stress reliever for me.

I've been a photographer for as long as I can remember.  I used to beg my parents to let me take the Kodak Instamatic when we'd go camping.  Many of the photos that were taken on those trips were taken by me.  My parents bought me my first camera when I was in third grade.  I don't know whatever happened to that camera and it would be nice to have it again, just for old time's sake, but I took many photos with that cheap little thing.

When you're doing something you really love to do, it's pretty much impossible to be stressed.  I think stress just melts away.  As one of my friends said to me one time, "You're not going to be bored when you retire.  You have too many things that you're going to want to do."  Yep.  The less stress, the better it will be.

For more stories on Stress, click here.

Philadelphia (Day 5) - 20 Days of Chill

The two of us stood on the roof of the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  We had been thrown together as part of the Franklin Institute's Fellowship program for educators of technology.  I was from California, while he was a native of the Massachusetts area.  The view from up there gave us a different perspective to the nearby tourist attractions of the "City of Brotherly Love."

One of the people from the Institute who we were working with that weekend in August told us a story about many people running up the steps of the Institute pretending they were Rocky.  Little did they know that Rocky ran up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which was situated to the northwest of the Franklin Institute up Benjamin Franklin Parkway.  The Franklin Institute, which overlooked Logan Square, was featured in the movie "National Treasure" with Nicholas Cage who just knew that there was a treasure map on the back of the Declaration of Independence.

As we stood up there, looking out over Logan Square, my newly acquired friend commented on the tree that was growing in front of the Institute.  We were on the roof, basically five stories above the square and the top of the tree in front of the museum was slightly above our heads, no more than 10 feet at the most.

My friend said, "You know, this is a pretty big tree."

Looking at the tree, I realized, that from his perspective, it probably was.  I remembered one time when I was taking in the sights at Bryce Canyon National Park and my wife and I were walking along a trail with a bunch of other tourists and we came around a corner and encountered a couple of deer.

One woman exclaimed, "Oh, look at the deer."

I said, "Yep, those are deer."

Then, this woman went off on me, exclaiming that I had no appreciation for God's creatures and that I should be excited when I encounter nature in its element.

I looked at the woman and said, "Oh it's not that I don't appreciate nature, it's just that I just came from Yellowstone yesterday."

The look of comprehension on the woman's face said it all.  However, I heeded her remark and decided that from that day forward, I would show more appreciation for other people's perspective.

"Did you hear what I said?  That's a really big tree."

"Yep, it sure is," I said.  I didn't have the heart to tell him that there is a tree in California that had a branch that was larger than this entire tree.  Everything depends upon one's perspective.

....to be continued.

See other stories about Philadelphia here.

Point Reyes

There are many places around California that I have visited more than once, Point Reyes National Seashore is one such place.  One of the interesting things about this particular area is it has a lot of visual evidence for the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.  If you look at a map you can see Tomales Bay separating the northern part of the seashore from the mainland of California.  Tamales Bay is the San Andreas Fault submerged under water.  Point Reyes is moving northward, relative to the rest of California to its east which is moving southward.  Needless to say, there is a lot of tectonic activity that is responsible for this entire area.

My son and I visited here about 10 days ago with the intention of visiting the lighthouse at the point.  There is a virtual geocache out there.  You can read about what virtual geocaches are here.  The first time we went out there, we were stopped by illness and the second time we were stopped by weather.  It can get rather cold, windy and foggy out there.  Many times, during bad weather, the point is closed for safety.  The day we were out there last week it was cold because it was mid-week.  Budget cuts only allow them to be open on the weekends when there are the most visitors.

We went out anyway, hiked out to the observation point and looked down the 308 steps to the lighthouse.  We were able to get the virtual cache, because we were able to find all of the answers either here, or elsewhere.  It would be very tough to do without getting help from someone else unless you actually visited the site, which is really the purpose.

It would have been nice to have walked all the way down to the lighthouse, but it would have been very cold too.  The wind was gusting to about 25 mph on that day.  It was very brisk.  The walk out with my son was enjoyable and we enjoyed ourselves even though we weren't able to get to everything, which we knew was going to happen anyway, because of our itinerary.  I'll talk about that in my next post.

On Safari

I've been recently reading about the Minnesota dentist who went to Africa on Safari and the killing of Cecil the Lion.  The hue and cry over this has been just short of amazing in my opinion.  I have yet to weight in on the subject very heavily, mainly because what I say will little matter in the grand scheme of things.  I've found, many times over, that once people set their opinion about something, there are two chances that you will have to sway them to change their opinion - Slim and None.

Now, my opinion is this.  I was dismayed that the man chose to kill a magnificent beast such as Cecil the Lion.  I do not condemn hunters.  In the past, I've eaten elk and goose that were hunted.  Therein lies the difference in the two.  If a person is hunting and will eat the meat, then I'm all for it as long as the hunting is done humanely.  To hunt, just for a trophy, I feel is despicable.  We already know that we are superior to animals due to our superior intellect, but to take a life of another animal, just so you can mount their head on the wall I feel is just wrong.  That being said, I do feel that keeping the head of an elk, or deer as a trophy is fine, if you're also going to eat the animal.  

Now the uproar over this incident is really interesting. Take a look at the photo I've added to this  entry.  The photo is not mine and is in the public domain.  One of our most beloved presidents, one who is on Mt. Rushmore, was an avid hunter.  Theodore Roosevelt went on an extensive African safari following the end of his presidency.  Roosevelt spent about a year in Africa, collecting specimens for the Smithsonian and other museums.  Collecting specimens basically means shot and killed.  Roosevelt, in a year's time, was responsible for the death of over 1100 animals, including over 500 big game animals.  17 lions, 11 elephants and 20 rhinoceros were among the harvest, including 4 white rhinos.  Today, there are only 4 Northern white rhinos in existence anywhere in the world.

I find it rather contradictory that Roosevelt, who preserved many of our national monuments, including the first national monument, Devils Tower, and helped start the conservation movement in our country, could go on this kind of hunting expedition.  Yet, one could argue that his collecting of all these animals might result in better knowledge of the animal because now those specimens are displayed in museums in many different places.  Roosevelt was quoted as saying, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned."

Had Roosevelt gone on his safari in today's Internet climate, he would have been vilified.  I doubt that many people out there know about this chapter of his life. I don't like this aspect of one of my hero's life, but there's not a whole lot I can do about it, because it's in the past.  This is part of his life that balances out some of the good he did during his life.  All people are like that.  

I used to revere Thomas Edison when I was younger.  The more I know about Edison, the more I've come to know that Edison wasn't a very nice person.  But that's beside the point.  Are we going to condemn a man for one incident?  Even if it's a series of incidents, are we going to condemn this man for all eternity?  If that's the case, where's the condemnation of Theodore Roosevelt?

In reality, the uproar over this incident has buried something else.  Social media has excoriated this dentist and in the process has basically forced him to shut his place of business.  Perhaps he can afford to do that, seeing how he could afford $55,000 to bag a lion trophy in Africa.  I would be willing to bet that all of his employees, however, can't afford this time off.  Where's the uproar over that?  And don't try to justify it by saying that they worked for a guy who kills for sport.  Do you know what your employer does in his or her off time?  Probably not.  Think about that for awhile, especially the next time another firestorm runs rampant via social media.

Photo Blogging Challenge (March 2015): Two

Once again, P.J. has posted his blogging challenge.  This month, the theme was two, in honor of this challenge going on for two years.  Last year, I thought I did fairly well when the theme was one.  This year, I felt like I scrambled, which is usually the case, but here, once again, I'm posting March's theme on the first day of April, apparently a day late and a dollar short.  For whatever reason, I kept thinking that I still had another day, but that wasn't the case as March has already disappeared and it is indeed April.  So, without further ado, I give you the month of March's Twos.

1.  Two antennae
Although, you'll have to look closely at this one to see the second one.  Look at the nose of the butterfly and you'll see what looks like a yellow bulb, the second antenna slightly out of focus.  I love taking photos of butterflies and have been known to stalk them for hours trying to get a decent shot of any that come in range.  Several years ago, I learned the main differences between moths and butterflies.  Most people will say butterflies are colorful and moths aren't, but that's not necessarily the case.  The big differences are two-fold.  One, butterflies are out during the day while moths are out at night.  Second deals with their antennae.  A butterfly's antenna is smooth with a round bulb at the end, while a moth's antenna tends to look feathery.

2.   Two butterflies
Oh boy, here we go with an entire series of butterfly shots.  No, but I like this photo for a variety of reasons.  First off, it was taken with my iPhone.  While not the greatest photo in the work, I've been fairly impressed with the lens on this phone and I understand the lens on the iPhone6 is even better.  The second reason I like this shot is this is a new butterfly species for me.  These are Pacific Orange Tips.  I would suspect the one in the upper left hand corner is probably a male since it was pestering the other one to no end.  Either that, or it was defending its territory for some reason.  I took this shot, while geocaching, up in the newly created San Gabriel Mountains National Monument.

The national monument is still being administered by the U.S. Forest Service, and thus, geocaching is still allowed in the monument.  I can imagine sometime in the future, if the National Park Service (NPS) takes over administration of this park, the geocaches will have to be removed.  I understand why the NPS takes the stand that it does, since it views geocaches as litter, but they also seem to be more open to geocaching, which I think is a good thing.  Time will tell on this one.  And ironically, I was out hiking a couple of weeks later in the Simi Valley area and spotted another Orange Tip there.  I guess, once, you see one, they decide they don't have to hide from you any more.

3.  Two peaks

I'm in the middle of my second week of Spring Break.  At the beginning of the first week, I went camping with my friend in Death Valley National Park, where this shot was taken.  We were actually geocaching all three days.  "But wait a minute," you say.  "I thought geocaching wasn't allowed in national parks?"  This is true, but there are certain types of caches, virtual caches and earth caches that are allowed, because they don't have any physical container, to litter up the landscape.  Virtual caches take you to a place and you have to answer a couple of questions about the particular place.  Earth caches are geology based virtual caches where you also have to answer some questions based upon the geology found in that spot.  It's a more specialized type of virtual in a way.

These two peaks, of which I have no names for them, are in the Greenwater range in the southern part of Death Valley.  The wildflowers were pretty much spent down at the lower elevations, but here at around 2500 feet or so above sea level, there was still a profusion of blooms.  Desert mallow, mesquite and five spot mallow were all to be seen in abundance at this site and others as we traveled into the park.  Once we got further down in elevation, we stopped see a whole lot of any kind of vegetation, as the park is pretty stark.  

4.  Two states
Part of the allure of geocaching has always been that it takes me places I might not go just because.  Just over that rise is Pahrump, Nevada and just down to the right off the edge of the photo there is a geocache that hidden out there.  That particular cache was the first cache I've ever found in Nye County, Nevada.  It might not mean much to you, but I think it's kind of cool when I find caches in new places I've never been before.  I can guarantee you that unless I had family living in Pahrump, I would have never visited there.

I've found geocaches in 8 different states.  I've found a geocache in every county in California.  Am I nuts?  Probably.  But, the silly game keeps me out of trouble for the most part and I've made some very good friends who have a like-minded interest in being outdoors and using billion dollar satellites to find pieces of Tupperware hiding in the wilderness.

5.  Two different systems

I can remember way back in the 70s when there was a push for the United States to go metric.  Everything started getting printed in both feet and meters or miles and kilometers.  That's where we went wrong.  If we are ever going to convert to the metric system, which by the way, is one of the most logical systems there is, then we have to jump in with both feet and don't turn back.  And the government is going to have to lead the way.

All the government would have to do is to stop posting signs in two different systems.  Why do we need to know that Badwater is 282 feet below sea level?  Isn't it enough that we know that it's the lowest point in the western hemisphere?  If the sign just read 85.5 meters below sea level, people would get the point.  Eventually, the "Old Schoolers," the ones who complain about anything and everything would eventually die out and everyone who has ever lived wouldn't know any better and we'd all just use the metric system.  Do you need to know the temperature in Fahrenheit?  No, not really.  Celsius is actually pretty easy to use.  If it's in the 10s, it's cold.  If it's in the 20s, it's pretty mild, while the 30s is getting pretty warm.  40s?  Yeah, that's where Death Valley is in the summertime, most of the time.  Death Valley is also a big draw in the summertime, especially for Europeans.  Why?  It's one of the few places that can hit 50 degrees.  That would be 122 for us non metric people.

So there you have it.  Another month of photos dedicated to the number 2.  Please stop by P.J.'s page here to view other's interpretations of the theme Two.

Frosty - Day 15 of the Chill

Three quarters of the way through the challenge and I haven't missed a beat yet.  I'm actually surprising myself with this one.  This is my 16th entry for the year.  Last year, I only wrote 25 blog entries, so I'm well on my way to doing much better on the blogging front than I've done in a long time.

Every now and then, I've camped in some cold climates.  One time, a buddy and I drove all night during our winter break to go to the Grand Canyon.  Little did we know, but while we were driving, it snowed on the south rim and we arrived to a winter wonderland.  We slept in our uninsulated camper in 0 degrees and then hiked along the rim and down into the canyon where it was quite nice.

Camping in the winter, you expect that kind of weather and are usually prepared for it.  Camping in the summer, you're not as prepared, but every now and then, the weather can change and turn nasty in a hurry.

This particular camping trip happened in 2010.  The plan was to camp at the Devils Postpile, something I hadn't done in 33 years and then head up to Lassen Volcanic National Park.  Camping at Devils Postpile, was downright cold.  We knew it had been cold, but weren't sure how cold until we got to Lassen and spent the first night there.  When we got up the next morning, we walked down to the ranger station.  My son and I had remarked on the walk down that it had been warmer that night than the previous two nights at Devils Postpile.  We were greeted at the ranger station with the weather report that the overnight low in Lassen that night had been a frosty 34 degrees.  I can't imagine how cold it got at the Devils Postpile, but it wouldn't have surprised me if it had gotten down into the 20s.

Now, we knew were were going to be in the mountains, and we always bring enough layers, but it was still plenty chilly.  2010 was also an abundant year in California for rain and snow.  The photo above was taken at Helen Lake in Lassen, on July 2nd of that year.  Yeah, you read that right - Winter in Summer.  You just have to remember that it can get frosty even in the middle of the summer.

Bears, Beans and Beer - Day 14 of the Chill

This is part 4 of the Yosemite story.  After finishing up at Bodie, grabbing some caches on the way south, we took a road north of Mono Lake and drove into Nevada, mainly to say that we did and grab a cache in another county in Nevada.  By the time we were done, it was getting late enough that we knew that we needed to find a campsite to spend the night, so we drove to Lee Vining to find a place to eat.

Ate dinner, might have had a beer with dinner, but I doubt it at that point, it was probably closer to Dr. Pepper or Tea, just to give us a caffeine rush to make it to the campsite, but I do know we both had chili, so we did get some beans that evening.  I think we tried three campsites along the Tioga road leading into Yosemite from the east side before we found a place that had open sites.  Interestingly, all three places we camped at on this trip had just opened the day we go there, so we got incredibly lucky.

The following morning, we broke camp and headed into Yosemite National Park, hoping to get there earlier enough to get Craig his hike through on the first day of his trip.  Caching along the road netted us half a dozen or so caches just outside the park and then we hit the Tioga Pass entrance station and then drove down to the ranger station at Tuolumne Meadows.  As we were passing the Tuolumne Meadows campground, I mentioned to Craig that it appeared as if the campground had sites, so we pulled in and inquired about camping.  The campground had just opened up and we were about the 6th group to grab a site.

For the most part, everything seemed to go really well for us that day.   Craig got his exemption and his permit for his hike and then we spent most of the rest of the day grabbing virtual geocaches along the road into Yosemite Valley.  We also documented some benchmarks.  Benchmarks are basically survey disks that you can also log at Geocaching.com. We found one at the entrance to the Wawona tunnel and another one in the back patio area of the Ahwahnee Hotel.  Yosemite has some interesting benchmarks and I was eager to find one that I knew about up on Sentinel Dome, but that would have to wait until the next day.

Driving back to the campground, we spotted a bear, but didn't get very close to it and it had taken off by the time we could find a place to park and get closer to it.  That was kind of disappointing, as Craig had seen it, but I had been driving and hadn't.  At camp, we met a woman camping next to us from Fresno and we shared a campfire.  Company was good and we slept well that night, which really worked out nicely for Craig as he had a big day the next day. Camping in Tuolumne Meadows was a bonus because we were camping at altitude, so he wouldn't have to adjust as much the next night.

The following day, we drove down to the valley and caught the shuttle bus back to Happy Isles where Craig would begin his 211 mile hike to the top of Mt. Whitney.  I hiked with him up to the Vernal Fall bridge, then bid him farewell and watched him walk away.  Part of me would have liked to have gone, but most of me knew that I was in no kind of shape to make that kind of hike.  Perhaps in a couple of years down the road.  I know I in much better shape already.

After that, I enjoyed the view of the waterfall, then started my hike down the trail and back into the valley.  I came around a bend of a trail and there was a crowd of people standing at the side of the trail looking down to the Merced River.  Figuring it was probably a deer down by the water, I started to make my way by, but something stopped me and told me to look.  Yep.  A mother and cub just hanging out down by the water side.  Interestingly, Craig was required to carry all of his food in a "bear proof" canister and never saw a bear on his entire trek.  Five minutes after I'd left him, I saw not one, but two bears.  This was also the first time I'd seen a bear in Yosemite since 1969.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

To be continued...

What is “chill” and how do I do it? - Day 6 of the Chill

For those of you following along, the 20 days of Chill Writing challenge only happens Monday through Friday, which is why there weren't any posts this weekend. The second reason why I haven't posted this weekend was because I was busy.  7 of us took a road trip to Escondido on Saturday for some geocaching, hiking and other frivolity.  A good day was had by all and I believe I ended up with 31 cache finds.

Moving on with the prompt of the day.  What is "chill" and how do I do it?  Maybe more important, do I care whether I do it or not?  I'm under the impression that "chill" means different things to different people, so does it really matter what I think chill means?

People in most parts of the world probably associate chill with cold.  I've always associated chill with being relaxed.  Chill out dude.  I could always use more of that chill as I've always been pretty high strung about a lot of different things?  NO???  REALLY?  

I believe I'm less high strung than I used to be.  That still hasn't helped my blood pressure much, but I'm working on that.  Then again, maybe it has helped my blood pressure.  So, I'll address what relaxes me, mainly because that's my chill.  Hmmm.  Things that relax me.

Good music.  Pachelbell's Canon in D.  Mozart.  Beethoven.  Vivaldi.   

Roadtripping.  I like to drive and it relaxes me.  Getting in the car and just driving somewhere, preferably with a view of some kind is what I find very relaxing.  I live within two hours of three national parks, Death Valley, Joshua Tree and Channel Islands, and within 6 hours of three other national parks, Sequoia, Kings Canyon and Yosemite.  Put me in any of those places, in a tent and enough food to last me for a couple of days and I'll probably come out of it at the other end pretty chill.

And I will be the first to admit that this challenge is not chilling me at all.  I look at some of the prompts and thing to myself, "Self, now what the hell am I going to write about in response to that one?"  And this is just that.  Ordinarily, I wouldn't write about something like this at all.  Not my style.  But I guess that's part of the game.  And so it goes.

The photo is from Bryce Canyon National Park.  I've been there 3 times.  I could go again and again.  It is my second favorite national park next to Yosemite.  There's not nearly as much to do there as there is in Yosemite, but I just can't get enough of those hoodoo formations.  Plus the hiking down amongst them is something that I just love to do.

And now I need to think about how I'm going to formulate something about 10 hotdogs.  That's not getting me to chill at all.

Travel - Day 4 of the Chill

When I looked over the list of topics for the 20 Days of Chill Writing Challenge, I noticed that this one would be the easiest.  It probably will be the longest as well.   I love traveling and try to get at least one travel/camping trip in every year.  Most years, I'm successful.

This past summer I went on a short week (5 days) camping trip with my friend Craig to help him get to Yosemite National Park and hike the John Muir Trail.  I've already written two posts about it, Part 1 and Part 2.  This is Part 3 and a continuation of the trip to Bodie which I started in Part 2.  If you've just stumbled upon this blog because of the 20 days of Chill challenge, I suggest that you might want to go back and read the first two parts before reading this one.

As I noted last time, we got extremely lucky at Bodie as the photographic elements all came in alignment to give me some great conditions in which to take photos.  We had light sprinkles from some thunderstorms that were passing through the area, but we weren't getting wet and the puffy clouds were just excellent.

After we explored the cemetery in Bodie and found a geocache over there, we then walked over to the main part of town.  Several of the buildings are open and we could walk through parts of them to see some of the insides, but it was mostly exteriors of the buildings.  I think I posted in Part 2 that I went shutter clicking happy, and why not?

There have been so many times in the past when I've traveled when I've had totally cloudless skies.  Now, cloudless skies are nice, but from a photographer's point of view, they don't lend much interest into your shot if a third of it is one color or monotone in nature.  Clouds give your photographs some depth, and I had it that day, so I went nuts.

And it wasn't even difficult to go through the images and decide which ones weren't going to see the light of day anywhere outside of my computer screen as I just love most of the images that I had taken.  I experimented with Black and White with almost all of them, but settled on color for quite a few of the images.  But as you can see, I did process at least on in Black and White.

Historical areas like that have always intrigued me.  As we walked around the town, reading the plaques about the various buildings, we just had to marvel at the intestinal fortitude of people who lived in this area in the 1800s.  People were tough back then.  It was hard work from sunup to sundown with not much relief at all.  Creature comforts like forced air heating were non-existent.  Can you imagine living in a place, covered in snow for most of the winter months without some kind of gas heating system?  I would suspect that most of us if we were instantly transplanted back to the 1870s would be dead within a week.  

But since we were born when we were, I think we should feel very fortunate.  Because of the hard work of people before us, we have been afforded all sorts of luxuries, many of which we probably take for granted.  We have that forced air heating, almost instant access to information, a good educational system and the ability to travel and learn about places such as Bodie.

After walking around the town for several hours, taking in much of the site, but not getting to the mine area of the town, we had to leave to get to our next camping stop, which was a good hour and a half down the road.  Because we didn't see it all, I'm sure I will be back to explore more parts of Bodie, including the mine section.  I just hope it doesn't take as long to get back for a second visit than it did for me to get here in the first place.

The top photo is a photo I submitted for the Sharpshooters International Photography Club.  Each week, members of the club submit photos and the club publishes a photo stream every Wednesday.  Please stop by on Facebook (link above), like our page and view some of the fantastic photos that members have to offer each week.

Thanks for coming by for Day 4 of the Chill Challenge.  I'm actually amazed at myself that I've been able to keep this up for the entire time so far.  Of course, I still have 16 more days to go, but I'm getting into a rhythm right now.

John Muir camping trip - Part 1

So the hope was that I'd be able to write more than once every other week, but that doesn't seem to be happening, so bear with me as I continue to take you through last summer.  Kind of funny actually that we're almost in winter and I'm still writing about summer, but that's how it goes sometimes.

Anyway, the first weekend in June I had volunteered to help my friend Craig in his quest to hike the John Muir Trail, from Yosemite Valley to the top of Mt. Whitney and then down to Whitney Portal. Craig had everything planned out, so it was just a matter of me going along for the ride and enjoying everything.  We took his truck and my van up to Lone Pine, California, where we were going to leave his truck at Whitney Portal.  Whitney Portal is the major trailhead leading up to the summit of Mt. Whitney and where Craig would be coming down from after his 211 mile hike over two weeks.

So the first day was mostly driving in caravan style as we worked out way up to Lone Pine.  Since Craig is also a geocacher, we caches along the way, mainly because we didn't have any set itinerary outside of making sure we ended up in Yosemite on Sunday, June 8th so he could get his permit to hike the trail, which would begin on the 9th.

We couldn't have asked for better weather, for camping and photography.  There were just enough clouds that I was able to get some pretty spectacular shots.  The shot of Mt. Whitney was taken from the road leading up to Whitney Portal.  No threat of thunderstorms, just puffy clouds that helps enhance the shots I took that day and on subsequent days.  The second shot was taken from an overlook just west of the Mammoth ski area looking over the Ansel Adams Wilderness.  The jagged peaks in the middle of the shot are called the Minarets, which was the original name for the Wilderness back before Ansel Adams, the famous photographer passed away.   

After dropping off his truck at Whitney Portal, we headed up to Mammoth.  Sometime during the day, we'd made the decision to camp at Devils Postpone National Monument.  By the time we got to Mammoth, it was close to 8 o'clock in the evening and starting to get dark.  We got down to the Postpone and the campground was closed.  I think it actually opened a couple of days later.  We found out that many of the campgrounds were closed, or were opening up the weekend that we were there.  Fortunately, Reds Meadow campground, just a couple more miles down the road, had just opened up the day we got there, so we had a place to stay that night.  We pulled into the campground, pretty much in complete darkness, pitched the tent, ate dinner and then hit the sack.  We had a big day planned for the next day.

To be continued.....

Some things change

When I first started this blog, I called it A Photo a day.  I even knew that I wouldn't be posting a photo a day, but I had high aspirations.  I started out well, then slacked off.  Then called myself on it, and wrote some more.  Then I slacked off again.

As I wrote in a comment on another blog I read, I thought I'd write more when I had more free time, like on my vacations.  That's definitely not the case as I seem to have realized that I'm doing so much on my vacations that I don't have time to sit in front of the computer for a long stretch and write about what I've done.  

So I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm going to write about stuff after the fact.  I don't do "Stream of Consciousness" very well, as I tend to ramble on and on as my thoughts move her to there.  But I think this might work better.  

Two or three times per week, I'll sit down and write about something.  Tonight I'll write a little bit about the start of summer vacation.  It's so hot here that it still feels like summer, although we know that it's summer's last gasp before our fall rolls in sometime next week.

As I posted back in July at the last photo contest on P.J.'s blog that I participated in, I ended up camping with a friend of mine along the east side of the Sierra Nevada and in Yosemite National Park at the beginning of June.  He hiked the John Muir trail this summer and I helped get him to his starting spot.  We ended up camping near Devils Postpile, on the east edge of Yosemite and then in Tuolumne Meadows for two nights.

He'd originally asked me to go with him, but I knew I wasn't in shape for a trek like that, but I volunteered to take him to his starting destination.  We left his truck at Whitney Portal where he would be hiking out and then drove north through Owens Valley.  After I dropped him off, I ended up spending a very lovely day walking around in Yosemite Valley, something I've never done before, at least by myself.  

I ended up taking some very nice photos, some of which haven't seen the light of day yet, but the intention is to post some of them over the course of the next couple of weeks.  On the trip, I also decided that I would grow my beard back.  I had a beard in my early forties, but haven't had one for about 15 years or so.  I just decided to see what it would look like.  I've received some nice compliments and I'm probably going to keep it for awhile, mainly because I hate to shave.  Trimming a beard, I don't mind, but I just hate shaving in general.

The top photo was taken on the top of Sentinel Dome in Yosemite.  The beard was about four days worth of growth, so it's basically a before shot and the bottom shot was taken about a month ago, with the beard fully in.  One of my students asked me whether I was going to go all "Duck Dynasty" with my beard and I definitely don't want to do that.  But I like this change, so trimming it occasionally won't bother me.

Photo Blogging Challenge (June 2014): Vehicles

Well, once again an entire month has passed and I haven't written anything about anything and yet I have a wealth of material to write all sorts of pieces.  It's a good thing P.J. puts out his monthly challenge, otherwise I wouldn't be posting anything here.

The month of June has closed and last month's challenge was vehicles.  In reality, I wasn't sure if I'd see 5 different kinds of vehicles over the course of the month, but I figured I'd give this a go.  Many times, I'll not even think about the theme and then when it comes time to put the post together, the photos just jump out at me.  That's pretty much what happened this month.  Dictionary.com identifies the word vehicle as 

"any means in or by which someone travels or something is carried or conveyed; a means of conveyance or transport: a motor vehicle; space vehicles."

I decided to take this literally, which means you're going to see some traditional kinds of vehicles and some non-traditional vehicles as well.  So, without further ado, here's my contribution to the theme of vehicle.

1.  Train show

Nearing the end of the school year, I was approached by one of my students who gave me some tickets to a model train show which was held at the Ontario Convention Center, just south of our school.  Model train owners take their vehicles very seriously as they strive to make realistic layouts in which to run their trains around.  This engine was being run on a modular layout, which means each module had to conform to certain standards so they would all connect together to form one large layout.

2.  In flight

I will be the first one to admit, that I just got plain lucky on this shot.  There are times when I want to believe that I'm a great photographer, but I know my craft and skill pale in comparison to many other photographers I've seen on Flicker and elsewhere.  The wings of the bee are the vehicle in this shot and I've been hoping ever since I took this shot several years ago, to replicate it.  I have had varying degrees of success over the years and I finally was able to get this bee hovering near the flowers.  

The trick is your depth of field and a fast shutter speed.  You need a fairly large depth of field to make sure everything stays in focus and you also need a fast shutter speed to slow down the beating of the bee's wings.  I felt, with this shot, that focus was more important and so the wings are just a blur, but I got the bee hovering near the flowers, so I'll count that as a victory.

3.  30s era Packard

I love old cars.  If I had an unlimited supply of funds, I think I'd own several different cars from various time periods.  But I'd own them so I could drive them around.  Nothing's more depressing, I think, than to know that people own classic cars like this and then they just keep them housed in warehouses or in their garages for only themselves or a few select friends to enjoy.  

I think half the enjoyment of vehicles like this is the stares you can get as you drive around town in a car like this.  I know I'm very guilty of doing that exact same thing.  I've pulled out my camera from time to time to take photos and I've had people actually slow down so I could get a good shot of their car.

A couple of years ago, when my son and I were camping in Zion National Park, there was a group of car aficionados who belonged to a Franklin car club.  They would drive their cars around to promote the club and to enjoy their cars and for others to enjoy them as well.  That particular year, they were doing a circle tour of southern Utah and northern Arizona.

I spotted this 30s era Packard in the parking lot at out local community center when I went to vote in early June.  I didn't have my camera with me when I went to vote, so I voted, went home, then came back and it was fortunately still there.

4.  Abandoned truck

In early June, I helped a friend with his trek on the John Muir Trail.  I'm not in shape to hike 211 miles in 14 days, but I was willing to help him shuttle his truck up to the exit point for the hike and then take him around to the starting point in Yosemite National Park.  

After we dropped off his truck at Whitney Portal which is at the base of Mt. Whitney, we then worked our way up the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada, camping near Mammoth Lakes, CA and Lee Vining, before camping the last night in Tuolumne Meadows, in Yosemite.  

One of the days was devoted to geocaching and sightseeing.  One of the places I'd never been before was Bodie, CA, which is the official historic ghost town of California.  It's located out in the middle of nowhere off of Highway 395, close to the California/Nevada state line.  The ghost town is kept in "arrested decay" meaning they don't let things get too bad that they collapse.

As I look at this shot,  you can't help but wonder what kinds of stories this old truck could tell.  It's not conveying anything today, cargo-wise, but it probably helped someone out in the town of Bodie many years ago.

5.  Friendship

The vehicle for this shot is the Internet.  This is my friend Steve on the left and that grizzled old fart on the right is me.  Steve and I met in the fall of 1984 when I started teaching at Cucamonga Middle School, so we've now known each other for 30 years.  

About 14 years ago, Steve left the school and moved to Visalia, California to pursue teaching at the community college level.  Had this happened 100 years ago, the friendship would have probably ended.  Postal service might have conveyed some letters back and forth, but we probably would never have seen each other again.

Because of instant communication now available to us, friendships like this can continue on.  Through my travels around the state, mostly while camping, I've been through or near Visalia enough times that we've been able to see each other several times.  I can count four times for sure: once when my son and I were camping in Sequoia National Park, once when I was taking my daughter up to school in Stockton, CA, once when my wife and I were coming home from Stockton after visiting my daughter and this weekend after I finished helping my son move into his new place in Merced, California.

Steve and I have maintained our friendship via email, and will continue to do so in the future.  I spent an hour and a half with him and his lovely wife Joan Monday afternoon having lunch while we caught up on what all of our kids were doing.  It might have been longer, except that Steve had a class to teach at his school, but I'm sure there will be other opportunities for us to get together again in the future.

And that's my addition to P.J.'s photo blogging theme of vehicles this month.  Please stop by his blog page and see how others interpreted the theme vehicles.

Photo Blogging Challenge (January 2013): New

This should have been posted yesterday, but things got in the way, so here's my take on the theme New, as posted in P.J.'s blog.  At first, I thought this was going to be an easy theme, but there aren't as many new things as you might think, so I'm taking a leap here in my interpretation of the word New.

1.  New Lens - This was my Christmas present from my wife this year, but it wasn't purchased until after the new year and so I didn't take this photo until after the new year, so the photo was taken during the month.  This year, I've decided to try a 365 project again after taking about 7 months off just to recharge my brain with regard to photography.

In 2011 I started a 365 project and did two full years of pure 365.  I got my camera out each and every day and took photos and posted at least one to the 365 webpage.  The work wasn't always quality, because there was a drive to make sure I used the camera every day.  This year, my project already has some fillers in it, but I'm trying to post real quality work.  I'm also using my Prime 50mm lens exclusively at the moment, mainly because I'm trying to learn as much as I can about the lens.  So far, I'm really enjoying the lens and have been taking lots of photos with it.

The learning curve hasn't taken as long as I thought it might and I feel very comfortable with the lens.  I've been shooting mostly in aperture mode mainly because I can.  The one selfie I took so far was really interesting to see that lens open wide with a 1.4 aperture.  I can't remember the last time I've seen a lens open that wide.

2.  Grow Old with Me
This sounds like a contradiction in terms as far as the theme goes, but with this new lens, I decided to create a new series of shots, based upon a central theme.  The theme ended up being my wife's hands and the words, Grow Old with Me, My Love.  All of the shots were in B&W or sepia tone, and all of the shots thus far have depicted her hands doing regular things that she does on a fairly regular basis.  

Some of the shots, like this one, had to be staged, as it's not too practical to give someone a hug and also take a photo at the same time.  So far, I've posted 6 shots on my Flicker page for this series.  I have one more shot that I'd like to take before I end this particular series.  I'm not sure if I'll end up taking more after that or not, but it can be open ended, so I probably will if I see something that I know will work with the series.

3.  How's the weather outside?
In December, I became aware of a group on Flicker called Project Weather.  To be honest, I can't remember if I became aware of it, because one of my shots was invited to the group, or I just stumbled upon it, but I would suspect the latter happened.  Either way, I joined the group and downloaded this new app (well, new for me anyway) - Yahoo Weather.

It's a standard weather app, but it takes photos matched geographically and weatherwise as the cover shots for any location.  In other words, if you're searching for the weather in San Francisco, when you pull up the San Francisco page, you should get a photo of somewhere in San Francisco which also depicts the weather for San Francisco at the time.

I started submitting some of my weather shots figuring I might get a couple in there.  I've been very surprised because I now have 19 shots in the queue for various locations around the United States.  Of those 19 shots, I've actually seen 6 of them show up for the weather places that I follow.  Yeah, I'm a geek, I love weather and I have all the places where I've had photos taken come up in rotation in the Yahoo Weather app.  I did a screen capture of this shot in the weather app in mid January on my iPad.  I took that shot a couple of years ago on my way to work one morning.  Here's a link to all of my shots that are in the Project Weather database for inclusion in the Yahoo Weather app.  No payment for any of them, but my name and a link to my Flicker page appears on the photo when it shows up in the app.

4.  New Trail
Like many of the bloggers who do this photo challenge, I also geocache.  Last weekend, I went with a friend of mine down into Riverside County to hike in Harford Springs Wildlife Sanctuary.  This was a new trail for me, one that I had never been on before. 

The park is crisscrossed with many hiking trails and there are about 15 to 20 geocaches scattered throughout the park.  Up until this past weekend, I was totally unaware this park even existed.  We took several of the trails and looped around the park getting about half of the cache available to us before we started losing the light.  All that means is I'll have to go back another time to find the rest of the caches hidden there and explore the other areas of the park.

That's the real reason I got involved with geocaching in the first place.  I know about the Congress Trail in Sequoia National Park and I know about the John Muir Trail and the Mist Trail in Yosemite National Park.  I've hiked on the Pacific Crest Trail and have read accounts about hikers on the Appalachian Trail.  Those are major trails that most everyone knows about.  Geocaching will take you there as well, but geocaching also gets you out on the trails in your own backyard.  I now hike regularly in Claremont Wilderness Park.  Before geocaching, I didn't even know that park existed.  Were Harford Springs Park closer, I probably would hike in it on a regular basis. I took this shot at the trail head just as we were starting our hike.  The first geocache we found was just up the hill beyond the fence post on the right hand side of the shot.

5.  A new appreciation for the art of PhotoShop
A couple of days ago, I happened to step outside for some reason and realized we were getting a spectacular show outside, one that had to be recorded.

This shot was taken looking over my neighbor's fence from my back yard.  The problem with this shot is there are several telephone wires that criss cross down to our neighbor's house.  When I first pulled the shots up on my computer I loved what I saw, but I didn't like the telephone wires.  So I decided that I was going to PhotoShop them out of the shot.

I have gained an entire new appreciation for people who do this all the time.  The patience and skill required to go through and pixel by pixel remove something that you don't want and then blend in what you've cloned to remove it in the first place takes a lot of time.  I think this photo represents more hours of work than any other I've taken.

For an idea of what the scene looked like originally, here's a shot I took in January 2011 from about the same vantage point.  With the first shot, I had a wider lens, not the prime I'm using now, so the telephone pole to the right was already cropped out of the scene, but you can still see the wires and the antenna I removed from this shot.

I realize that some people will now look down their nose at anything I post because it's probably not a true image.  If that's the case, so be it, but my goal is to produce great shots, not mediocre shots.  I think this shot is much better than the shot I took in 2011.  If PhotoShop helped, then I'm all for it.

Well, that's my interpretation of the theme New for this month's blogging challenge.  Please stop by P.J.'s page to see how other people interpreted the same word.

Please feel free to comment about anything you read here. I really won't bite.

Oh the weather outside is frightful....

Not really, but I thought that would make a catchy title for this entry.  Sometime yesterday, read through the Flicker Blog post I get on a fairly regular basis and discovered a new group on Flicker called the Project Weather.  It looked kind of interesting, so I checked it out and decided to join the group.  After all, what's cooler than a bunch of really cool shots of different kinds of weather right?

If you've clicked on the link already, you'll see that Project Weather is run by Yahoo.  Photos that appear in this group will also appear in the Yahoo Weather app for iPhones and iPads.  In other words, if a photo is accepted, it gets put into the queue.  When using the app, a person checking out the weather for an area should get a photo that corresponds to the area and to the weather of that area at the time.  

I'm not sure if this works all that well as it's nighttime right now and the only shots I'm seeing on the app at the moment are star photos or full moon shots.  I checked out a couple of the photos and one of the photos used for my area was a photo taken in Brazil, but the photo matched up with the weather for my area, so it worked.

So after checking this out, I decided to submit a couple of my shots to the project in the hopes that possibly one might make it onto the app.  The project's site says that I could wait up to a month before seeing any of my shots in the photostream, so I wasn't expecting anything.  I uploaded about a dozen shots or so and didn't even think about it afterwards.

This afternoon, when I got home from work, I logged onto the computer and noticed that the shot of Bryce Canyon above had been favorited by someone.  I found this a little odd since this particular shot has been buried in my photostream, so it gets very few views now.  But I decided to click on the shot, just to see and I saw that it was now in the Project Weather photostream.  It had been less than 24 hours and one of my shots had been included in the app.  Not only that, when I looked more closely, half of the shots I'd submitted were now in the photostream, including this other one I took at Crescent City, California a couple of years ago.

So now, I have the Yahoo Weather app (free by the way) on my iPad and I have the current locations of the places where my shots were taken on there just to see if they ever show up in the rotation.  I guess it's a good way to get some new exposure for some of my shots.  Here's a link to the other shots that Project Weather accepted from my submissions.  Hopefully, the next time it snows up in the high desert, someone using the app will see my shot of Joshua Trees with snow on them.  

Total Random stuff

I have been challenged by my blogger friend P.J. to a post of randomness.  11 random thoughts about me, 11 questions from P.J.  Then I'm supposed to challenge 11 other bloggers to do the same thing.  That's the tough part, which won't get done, and you'll see why in the randomness below.  I hope not to repeat any randomness that P.J. might have already stated, but that's the randomness I guess.

So here goes.

1.  There are 58 National Parks in the United States.  I have been to 24 of them.  I will not list them all here as that would be tedious. At one time I had a goal of seeing them all.  Whether that will happen all depends now upon how healthy I can stay over the next 20 to 30 years.

2.  I think most people who read this blog don't realize that I am happily married.  I post a lot of photos of my kids, but very few of my wife.  I've been married for 26 years and they have been the most fulfilling years of my life.  I would not be the person I am with her.  Therefore, every photo in this blog will feature her.

3.   I have had two concussions that I know of, but it could be more.  Perhaps the dain bramage associated with concussions has knocked that out of my memory.  First one was when I was 8 or so and I got run over by a neighbor while we were playing kickball in the street.  I was knocked unconscious and lay there for a long time.  I have no recollection of this incident outside of what my parents have told me about it.  The second time was between 8th and 9th grade in a bicycle incident.  Not saying I wouldn't have gotten a concussion had I been wearing a helmet, but I wish they had been mandatory back then, especially with all the evidence coming out recently over head injuries in sports.

4.  I have broken my right pinkie finger twice and my left arm once, all between February 1972 and July 1972.  Let's just say that the last part of my 8th grade year, I was always splinted up in some way.  I broke and dislocated my pinkie playing basketball.  Three days after the doctor took the splint off of my finger, I bumped into a friend of mine and broke the finger again in a different place.  That splint lasted until the end of the school year.  My left arm was broken in the above mentioned bicycle accident.  As an aside, I am still very good friends with the girl who I bumped into when I rebroke my finger.  She doesn't know about the incident, unless she figures it out by reading this.  Also, when I hold my palm up on my right hand, my right pinkie doesn't meet with the other fingers.  These are the only bones I've ever broken.

5.  I have cool looking eyes. They are bluish gray with gold flecks in them.  Looking at some photos of my youngest son, he has similar eyes.

6.  I do not read very many blogs.  In fact, I don't think I could tag 11 other bloggers to get them to repeat the process, so I won't be doing that part.

7.  I used to do counted cross stitch.  I entered several of them in the Los Angeles County Fair and one year, my design took home a first place ribbon.  Our home is decorated with many of my designs, most from patterns that I used to buy.  When people visit and see them for the first time, they always compliment my wife over her stitchery and she always has to refer them back to me.  I don't do this anymore because it aggravates my carpal tunnel syndrome.  My hands go to sleep in minutes after starting to stitch.

8.  There has been a teacher in my family since 1896.  I consider myself a fourth generation teacher.  My dad was a teacher as were both of his parents.  I have a newspaper clipping from 1896 that shows my great aunt as the teacher in a one room school house.  There is a little doe-eyed kindergartener sitting in the front row - my grandmother.  She was being taught by her oldest sister, who was basically a full generation older than she was.  My daughter has continued on the tradition.

9.  If I wanted to recreate my proposal to my wife, I couldn't.  I proposed to her as we floated over Fantasyland in Disneyland on the skyway.  That ride doesn't exist anymore.  Why Fantasyland?  It was too noisy on the Tomorrowland side, so I waited until we rode through the Matterhorn into Fantasyland where it was a little quieter and then popped the question.

10.  My favorite painter is Pablo Picasso and my favorite photographer is Ansel Adams.  I could look at paintings by Picasso or photographs by Adams for hours on end.  When we go to the Los Angeles County of Art, I always head to the Picasso area first.  After Adams died, I went to a showing of 100 of his photographs.  He is a fine landscape photographer, but I don't think he could do portraits very well.  In my opinion, they lacked something that the rest of his photographs had.

11.  My favorite singer when I was in high school was John Denver.  I saw him in concert twice, once at the Universal Amphitheater and once at the Inglewood Forum.  The concert at the Forum was in the round and he was on a revolving stage, so he faced the entire audience at one time or another.  He put on a very good show both times.

Well, those are my random thoughts about me.  P.J. also posted 11 questions that I'm supposed to answer too, so here those are.

1.  What is your dream vacation spot and why?

One of the national parks I have not visited is Arches National Park in Utah.  I would like to go there, spend an entire day sitting near Delicate Arch and watch the light play over it, all the while taking photos.  I guess, in the long run, any place I haven't been to yet would be a dream vacation for me.  I love to travel and going somewhere new would be incredibly fun for me.

2.  Where did you come up with the name of your blog?

At the time, I was doing my 365 project, taking at least one photo every single day.  So this is another part of it - A Photo a Day.

3.  How do you define blogging success?

I think success is dependent on the blogger.  What some people would consider success, others would consider failure.  As long as I continue to write here, I consider that a success however.

4.  What is your favorite type of "going out" entertainment?

Getting outdoors and hiking with someone, or geocaching with a friend is what I enjoy the most.

5.  How many states have I lived in?

I was born in Indiana, lived there until I was 3 and a half, then my parents moved us out to California where I've lived ever since.  Interestingly, it wasn't until I was in my 20s before I stopped thinking about Indiana as "back home."  

6.  What is my favorite holiday and why?

This may sound selfish, but I like President's day.  It happens right around my birthday which usually means I get a three day weekend out of the deal.  I kind of like that.

7.  What your favorite number and why?

13  My favorite football team is the Miami Dolphins and my favorite football player is Dan Marino who wore 13 during his career.  I also like the fact that most people view 13 as unlucky.  That makes it good for me.

8.  What would be your dream vehicle to own?

Pretty much anything from the 1950s would be really cool to own.  

9.  What is your favorite hobby?

Geocaching.  Some would say it's an obsession of mine, but I enjoy participating in the silly game.  It keeps me busy and out of trouble for the most part.

10.  How do you try and keep your blog fresh?

My first blog was entitled Electronic Breadcrumbs and it was solely about geocaching.  After awhile, you can only talk about geocaching for so long before you end up repeating yourself.  I found I was doing that and started to write less and less on that blog.  That's one of the reasons I started to write this blog.  It's about anything I want it to be, which keeps it fresh.  I don't think I'd write a specialty blog again.

11.  Where do you do your best thinking?

When I'm out mowing the lawn.   Mowing the lawn is pretty mind numbing, so I think about all sorts of things while I'm mowing the lawn.  It keeps me occupied and seems to shorten the process of getting the grass cut.

Well, there you have it.  That's probably way more than you ever needed to know about me.  I'd love to hear your feedback, preferably here as opposed to on Facebook, but I'll take it either place.