Drive days - Arizona, California 395

Road trips offer many opportunities for shooting photos out the window.  Memory pictures . . .   Near Wilcox, Arizona was this HUGE dust devil. 

The differences between the Chihuahuan Desert, the Sonoran Desert and the Mojave Desert are striking.  The Mohave has less plant life and more bare ground. 

We spent much of our time in Arizona along the interstate. But we also drove up along the Colorado River near Lake Havasu.  I remember stopping to take photos along the Colorado River, but I am not finding them.  

This is near Needles, California.  

Sunset was gorgeous that night. 

The southern part of US 395 through California goes through volcanoes and lava fields.  

Next stops along HWY 395 are Mono Lake and Manzanar. Both worthy of their own post.

Sauceda Lodge Bunkhouse

Unfortunately, I did not take any photos of the bunkhouse, but it deserves mention in this series of blogs about Big Bend Ranch State Park. On the outside, it looks like a big metal building with a great porch with wagon wheel seating.  Walk inside and it is an inviting great room with a dining area for about 40 and a sitting area around a fireplace. On the right are the entrances to the men and women's sections.  When I heard bunkhouse, I was expecting camp like facilities with literal bunk beds.  Instead, each corridor has little open "rooms" with two twin beds.  There is space under each bed to store your belongings. the bathroom with showers and toilets are on the end.

The big great room is a great place to meet other people from park rangers to other guests.  One park ranger who was getting his morning coffee gave us excellent ideas on where to go for the day.  There was one other visitor, a geology enthusiast who shared his knowledge of the geology of the park at the end of the day.

Meal service is available from the kitchen Friday through Mondays. Prior reservations no later than seven days ahead of arrival with prepayment are required.  Call the Big Bend Ranch 423-358-4444 for reservations.  Breakfast is at 8 a.m. Lunch is at noon. Dinner is served at 5:30 p.m. Because we knew we would spend most of our day exploring and photographing, we did not eat one of the meals. The bunkhouse kitchen is not available for guests, but there is a refrigerator and microwave.  There was also ice tea and coffee available.

The bunkhouse is a comfortable, reasonably priced place to stay at the Big Bend Ranch State Park.  Its informal atmosphere allows pleasant interaction with other visitors and staff.  We were there during spring when the weather was cool, but I did see air conditioning units.

Sauceda Ranch House - Big Bend Ranch State Park

The main road to the interior of the Big Bend Ranch State Park is wide, unpaved and suitable for high ground clearance two wheel drive cars. However, the washboards and the desert washes make it rough.  I recommend only traveling on it with vehicles with sturdy suspensions.  It winds through beautiful volcanic, igneous rock formations.  The roads past the Sauceda Headquarters require high ground clearance rugged 4 wheel drive vehicles as well as special permits from the park.  This is desert country, so plenty of water is critical for travel here.  

After a 27 mile drive on a graded but bumpy washboard road, arrival at the Sauceda Headquarters is a welcome site.  The state park employees offer a cheerful greeting and help you get settled in.  If you are going to go on the true jeep roads, you will need to read through an orientation to the park with all the safety concerns and obtain a permit for travel.  

There are three choices for lodging in the center of the park: the Sauceda Ranch House, the Bunk House and primitive camping along the jeep roads.   

The Sauceda Ranch house was built in 1908 and remodeled in the 1940's. A careful observer will note that the kitchen and one of the bedrooms seems to be an addition to the original structure.  

After entering the adobe fenced area, a delightful screened porch welcomes you to spend time. 

The large living area has a television and games for entertainment.  While there is limited Wifi available at the bunkhouse, this is a good place to disconnect from the outside world and savor a simpler lifestyle for a few days.

The dining room is large enough for families to gather at the end of the day for good food, fellowship, and sharing of the day's adventures.

The kitchen is large and has all the utensils and plates for serving.  If guests plan ahead, prepared food is available in the bunkhouse dining room.

The three bedrooms are tastefully decorated with Texas ranch country themes.

There is one bedroom with one bed and the other two bedrooms have 2 beds.

Each bedroom has a fireplace for cold nights.

Pricing is reasonable. Reservations are made through the Austin state office: 512-389-3919.

I did not see air conditioning for summer months, but the house is true adobe with thick walls and great windows for cross ventilation.

It was a delight to spend one night here.  I hope to come back again with more nights at this elegant historic home.

Big Bend - The Adventure Begins

Today was the first full day in the Big Bend area. I am traveling with, Nancy Damron a photographer friend.

We began the day taking FM 170, the River Road section of Big Bend Ranch State Park.

It was a chilly morning, the vultures were waiting until it warmed off to soar over the valley.

There were cliff swallows over the river. I was hoping to capture one of them visiting the nests. Perhaps tomorrow I will get lucky.

Big horn sheep showed up above us on our way back to Terlingua. 

Going into Big Bend National Park, I added a new bird species to my life list, a Phainopepla.

I added several birds to my year list - Say's Phoebe, White Throated Sparrow, Black Phoebe, etc.

I was really planning on birding around Santa Elena Canyon, but the golden canyon walls beckoned to be photographed.  Not a great photo, but it is a glimpse of my world today.

Memories of my Trips to Yellowstone

Because we travel so much, people frequently ask me what my favorite place is.  That is a very difficult question for me, because I don't have just one favorite place.  I have  many places that I love - all of them for differrent reasons.  That said, Yellowstone is high on the list of favorite places for me.  We tend to go back over and over again.

I went first as a child when I was 10 or 11.  I went with my grandparents.  It was a very brief visit.  We saw Morning Glory pool and Old Faithful and drove around the park some.  My grandad was very cold natured. The conversation around us made him believe that the available cabins were very cold at night.  We drove south through Jackson, but all the hotels were full.  I saw the Tetons by moonlight.  By the time we found a place to stay it was too far to come back.

My next visit was in 1977.  My husband and I had bought a new extended length van and converted it to a camper complete with bed, closet, and simple porta-a-pottie bathroom.  We spent about three days in Yellowstone as part of a longer trip that took us all the way through Glacier Naitonal Park and Banff and Jasper in Canada. One of the highlights from that trip was going to all of the viewpoints for the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and the beautiful waterfalls.  I went all the way down to Uncle Tom's trail.  I'm glad I did it then while I was young - it is a LONG way down!

We brought our kids to Yellowstone in 1985 - Thomas was 5 and Debra was 1 1/2.  We were tent camping and I think we stayed at Grant Village.  Thomas' memory is that you had to wait along time for the geysers to erupt.  That was the trip that we focused on the geysers.  One day we hit it just right to see Grand erupt with 5 glorious bursts and Riverside. We spent most of the day exploring the Lower Geyser Basin.  When we got back to Old Faithful, it was a short single burst - a disappointment after the other longer geysers.

When it was time to go to Yellowstone when the kids were older, Thomas was old enough to stay home.  Sadly his memories of waiting so long for the geysers made him uninterested in returning.  With a nearby family to watch over him, we left for Yellowston in 1993 with just Debra.  I think it was a tent camping trip and I think we stayed at Tower.

At one of these trips, we went to an evening ranger program where they were talking about the desirablity to return wolves to the greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.  The talk made such an impression that both Henry and I remember it today.

At another trip, the bison were in rut. It was so funny to watch the bulls follow the cows with their unique grunts! Usually the bulls are off by themselves, but that time they were always following a female.
While the kids were at Camp Blue Haven,  Henry and I went again in 1998. We made our home base at the hotel in Canyon Village. Canyon Village is very close to Hayden Valley which is one of our favorite places in Yellowstone. So easy to be at the lookout over the valley at sunset and be close to the hotel.  That was the trip where we really learned how to look for elusive wildlife - the bears and the wolves.  The small moving dark dots on the far hillside were worth checking out because some were bears not bison.  That was also right after the wolves had been released.  In Lamar Valley,  there were scientists monitoring the wolves through the radio collars.  It was fascinating to be around the people who knew which wolf you were seeing and where they were in the valley from the radio signals.

When Debra graduated and left for college, Henry and I had the opportunity for extended travel. That first fall, 2002, we discovered the joy of Yelllowstone in the fall.  The elk were in full rut, the air was crisp.  One evening as we headed back to the campground, we could hear the sounds of the elk battling with their antlers for the privilege of mating.  We left at the end of the season as they were closing up the Fishing Bridge RV park as well as other major lodging in the park.

My favorite trip was 2007, once again in the RV.  We came in late May and stayed 3 glorious weeks.  Birds were tending their nests. A coyote den with nine pups was right next to the road.  A grizzly sow with two cubs frequented Dunraven Pass, giving many people a great view.  We started our stay at Fishing Bridge RV Park, but finished up at Pebble Creek Campground in Lamar Valley.  I have so many great photos from that stay.

We've just finished our 2012 trip to Yellowstone.   The wolves were especially easy to see this year, both in Lamar Valley and in Hayden Valley.  Grizzly bears and wolves put on quite a show at a bison carcass in Hayden Valley.  I was surprised that it was still feeding animals even after 3 or 4 days.  We sampled a little bit of everything this trip - wolf and bear watching, geysers, waterfalls, bison, elk, and antelope.  I even did night photography with the beautiful stars and Milky Way.

Some people make it to Yellowstone every year.  We live too far away to come that frequently. But, I never tire of the wonders that I see in Yellowstone. I keep hearing the call to return.  I dream of a winter trip some year.

Yellowstone Memories

As we drove through Yellowstone today to get to our home base this week in Silver Gate, Montana, memories kept flooding in as we passed familiar landmarks.  Regularly Henry or I would remark that we remembered seeing a bear there or that was where the bear with the damaged face was.  Over the times we've been here, we've seen bears many places in Yellowstone and it felt like we were remembering them all.  As we drove through Lamar Valley I remembered the fox den by the creek, the beaver that posed so nicely for me, the many wolf sightings.  We haven't been over to the area where the coyote den was yet, but I know I'll think about all the times on the 2007 trip that I stopped to photograph that family.  

Today we spent the first part of the day in the Grand Tetons, but smoke from the fires early in the day left the air too hazy for good photographs.  I did spend time by the marsh of the Elk Refuge trying to identify a particularly pretty green bird.  I know what I think it was - a female orchard oriole, but they aren't supposed to be here.  When  I had my camera out it never gave me a good enough look-see to photograph it.  We left the Teton area mid afternoon and enjoyed a leisurely drive through the park arriving at our hotel just as it got dark.  

It will be an early morning tomorrow.  No internet at the hotel, so I'm posting this at Canyon on Monday.  

Yellowstone's Geyers

One of the things I realized after we were several hours from home was that I had left my geyser book at home. Each trip to Yellowstone has had a different focus and the last few have been more on wildlife than on the geysers. But it is SO nice to have the geyser book so that when you get to a geyser, you can look at the signs and determine by how full the bowl is as well as other tells and get a rough idea how long it might be before it might erupt. Also the thermal features are always changing.

 So, one night away from Yellowstone I googled to find Geyser Information sites.

  Geyser Watch has interesting information about some geysers whose activity level has increased - geysers that hadn't erupted in a long time that were active this year.

  Yellowstone.net also has good current information about what is going on right now at Yellowstone. They also have 3 pages dedicated to the information I was looking for about the signs to look for. I saved the information as .pdf and have moved them to my iPhone so I will have the information at hand.

 We're in Pinedale tonight. Tomorrow is a Grand Teton day.

Cape Spear Light

Cape Spear in Newfoundland is considered the most eastern point in North America.   At night you can look across the bay and see the lights of the capital city,  St. John.

The tall lighthouse on Cape Spear was built in 1955 and uses the dioptric lens from the original.

The original lighthouse began operation in 1836 in this small square building.  It is the oldest surviving lighthouse in Newfoundland and Labrador. A stone light tower was built inside to support the lantern room in 1850 after a storm lifted one side of the lighthouse several inches off the foundation. The original light came from a lighthouse from Scotland and used seven Argand burners with curved reflectors. The lamps and reflectors were on a metal frame which rotated to produce 17-second flash of light followed by 43 seconds of darkness.   The first fuel was sperm whale oil and seal oil, acetylene in 1916 and eventually electricity in 1930.  The original curved reflectors were replaced by a dioptric lens system in 1912.  A foghorn was added in 1878.

This was the second lighthouse in Newfoundland.  The first light was placed at Fort Amherst, the entrance to St. John's harbor in 1810.

Today, the interior has been restored to the period of 1839 and is open to the public, giving visitors a glimpse of the life of a light keeper.  Generations of the Cantwell family lived and worked at Cape Spear for over 150 years, maintaining this vital light for the mariners. A detailed history of the Cantwell family and the Cape Spear Light can be found at the Lighthouse Friends website.

I loved the parlor. I can really image the lightkeeper and his family spending time here.

The flag room housed the marine signal flags, an easy and universal way for ships and lighthouses to communicate important messages. 

Cape Spear is also a great place to watch for birds and whales.  During the summer, it is possible to see shearwaters such as Manx shearwater, Sooty shearwater, and Greater shearwater which are usually only seen far out at sea.  Other bird species such as murres, razorbills, skuas, and jaegers may be seen as well. While the humpback whale is the most commonly sighted whale, minke and fin whales are also seen.  Other marine mammals such as beaked dolphins, porpoises, harbor seals, and otters have also been spotted.

Atlantic Puffins

At Bull's Bay, we checked in at Mullowney's Puffin and Whale Tours.  We were the only ones there for the next cruise, but they agreed to take us!  Since our time in Newfoundland was limited, it was such a blessing to get to do the puffin tour without having to come back the next day.

I've been fascinated with puffins since I saw tufted puffins along the Oregon coast.

Off the Newfoundland coast on rocky islands, Atlantic puffins nest in small burrows surrounded by grass.  One parent stands guard.

Puffins nest as far south as Maine and on islands across the North Atlantic from Iceland to Ireland and from northern France to Norway.

Excellent fishers, they float in the water until our boat startles them.  Puffins are fast flyers.  If I could go back, I would use a faster shutterspeed - 1/250 sec wasn't fast enough! They are challenging to photograph because you must lock on for focus before they startle into flight. 

Puffins can carry as many as 30 small fish to bring back to the nest, but usually only carry up to 10.

Atlantic Puffins can live to be 30 years old. They choose their life mate when 3 to 5 years old.  They only come to land to breed and raise their chicks, surviving well far out into the ocean.  Strong swimmers they can dive to 200 feet. In flight they can fly up to 55 miles per hour.

Their greatest enemies are the great black-backed gull which can capture a puffin in flight or on the ground and herring gulls who steal the fish and pull chicks and eggs from the nests.

Burlington, Iowa

I love towns on the Mississippi River.  They are historic, have interesting bridges, and stories to tell.  

The Great River Bridge connects Burlington, Iowa with Gulfport, Illinois.  It is a unique, asymmetric single tower cable stay bridge that is so much fun to photograph. Finished in 1993, it has been part of a successful plan transform the river area into a waterfront district that is a pleasant place to walk, pause to appreciate the river, and shop.

Burlington has a fascinating downtown with historic buildings from various time periods, lovely bed and breakfast homes, and a wonderful bookstore: Burlington by the Book  owned by Christopher Murphy.  Situated downtown a few blocks from the river, you will find interesting books and gifts, with author book signings as well and special events as well. 

Burlington is the hometown of Aldo Leopold, writer of "A Sand County Almanac," a book ahead of its time for conservation and a must read for all naturalists.  He graduated from Yale's Forestry School and had a long career in the Forest Service and became a professor of game management at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  After purchasing 80 acres in Wisconsin, he put his theories into practice to restore the land.  You can still visit this property, part of the Aldo Leopold Foundation.

Cape May Sunsets

A cape is a pointed piece of land jutting out into a body of water.  Therefore, you have opportunities for both sunrise and sunset on the water.  Sunset Beach is on the western side of the cape and is a wonderful place to enjoy the sunset.  There are some lovely benches set up on the beach as well as the Sunset Beach Gift store and The Grille.

Also at Sunset Beach is an interesting shipwreck.  During World War I, about a dozen ships were constructed out of concrete because steel was scarce. One of these ships, the S.S. Atlantus, was docked at Cape May after the war. A 1926 storm ran her aground at Sunset Beach.  What is left of her hulk rests out in the water. 

As I was waiting for sunset, I chatted with folks sitting on the benches with me.  One of them introduced me to Cape May "diamonds."  She even gathered some for me from the beach while I was photographing the sunset. I realized after the fact that I had captured some of these "diamonds" during my sunrise shoot.  These "diamonds" catch the light of the rising or setting sun and when they are wet, they glow.  The reality is they are water polished quartz about the size of pearls.  You can buy polished ones at the gift store at Sunset Beach, but I treasure my gifts from a generous stranger.

 

I shot different angles and exposures trying to capture the setting sun and the waves whipped up by the wind that day. I suspect other days have much smaller waves hitting the beach, but I had a beautiful, tranquil sunset to capture with my camera and to enjoy.

L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site

Time to get back to finishing my blogs about our Canada trip last year.

We entered Newfoundland from the North via a short ferry from Blanc Sablon, Quebec to St. Barbe, Newfoundland. We headed to St. Anthony to get our accomodations. We had learned about L'Anse aux Meadows from the Americans we met at Manic 5. The site of the Viking landing in North America, it is both a National Historic Site in Canada and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Naturally, it was on my must see list.

It was a gray, rainy day for our visit and lighting didn't look promising., so I left my good camera in the car and set out to enjoy my day in spite of the weather. These pictures are courtesy of Henry, as he carried his smaller camera with him on our tour.

As you begin your guided walk through the excavated mounds, you pass through this amazing sculpture, The Meeting of Two Worlds. Designed to celebrate the meeting of the European culture with the Aboriginal people who were Newfoundlands first peoples.



The site is grass covered and there are still a few houses in the distance along the sea that will be removed as the original owners have been allowed to remain for their lifetimes. Ultimately the goal is for this site to look much as it did when the Vikings arrived.




We took the guided tour of the site and were so fortunate that our guide was intimately involved - his grandfather had led archaeoloists Helge Ingstad and his wife, Anne Stine Ingstad to a mound on his farm that turned out to be Leif Erickson's Vinland colony. This 11th-century settlement is the first European presence in North America. The excavated ruins are similar to the wood framed peat-turf buildings found in Norse Greenland and Iceland. In some ways the construction is like the sod houses originally built by settlers in the Great Plains - wood timbers with blocks of the peat bog creating thick walls with a sod roof.


Time to get back to finishing my blogs about our Canada trip last year.

This long house is still under construction or they are redoing the peat sod roof, but it gives you an idea of the size and construction of these amazing buildings.




The Vikings only stayed here somewhere between three and ten years, but the archaeologists found a soapstone spindle whorl, a bronze-ringed pin process and toerh iron, bronze, stone, and bone items. I learned that you can get iron ore from peat bogs and the Vikings made nails from the iron found in the peat.

We were lucky to be visiting on a day when public school teachers were visiting for training - so there were hands on demonstrations of making nails, knitting with one needle, and story telling. They have recreated the long houses and the site is a living history with people dressed up as Vikings and showing how the people lived and retelling the ancient stories.

As the day was cold and rainy, I enjoyed sitting by the fire and soaking in the stories and the ambiance of life in the 990-1030 AD time period.

Red Bay, Labrador

I was totally charmed by the small fishing villages in Labrador. The small historic towns each had their own charm. To photograph this one, I fought mosquitoes and another biting insect as I tried to bracket my shots and get decent photos to use. The lighting was such that my guess was correct that I needed to be shooting for HDR so I could catch the subtlety of the clouds and still get the town sufficiently exposed.

Red Bay was the 16th Century World Whaling capital. The Basques Whalers hunted whales in small boats called shallops to render into the oil that lit the Europe's lamps during the late Middle Ages. They built a whale oil factory on Saddle Island to produce this oil. The Basinview Bed & Breakfast has accomodations in Red Bay. Nearby Battle Harbor has accommodations in restored historic buildings. At Battle Harbor there are opportunities for boat tours to see whales and icebergs as well as seabirds.

Labrador is in the middle of an extraordinary road building project. These small village used to accessible only by boat. This new road goes from the Ferry Terminal at Cartwright and connects with the ferry terminal to New Fewfoundland at Blanc Sablon. We were amazed at the engineering behind this wonderful gravel road. Built high above the perma frost, it has a base of big boulders and towers above the small tiaga trees.



Southern Labrador is an area worth allowing time to explore and savor the beauty of the landscape as well as the ambiance of the historic villages. On a more extended visit to Labrador I would like to explore the northern village that still require the ferry for access.

Canada's North Woods

The road through northern Quebec and Labrador goes through some really pretty boreal forests with bogs, ponds, and streams. As a photographer on a road trip, I found myself frustrated because I was seeing pretty landscapes, but under dull gray skies and unfavorable lighting. We weren't in our camper and there were not many places to stay even if we had had time to linger in this wilderness. But I found myself wanting to capture this subtle beauty with my camera.

I took this first shot more as a memory photo. I suspect it was handheld (if you look close, it slightly motion blurred). The setting was pretty, but the lighting not favorable. But I wanted memory photos if nothing else. I actually think this is at Gagnon, a town that ceased to exist. All that is left are some paved roads, an island dividing the road into four lanes, curbs, sidwalks, and parking lots. The buildings are long gone. Considering that the road is gravel before and after Gagnon, it really makes you wonder what happened. When we got back to Texas, we googled Gagnon and discovered that when the nearby mine shut down, the town was dismantled. In retrospect, I should have taken more pictures around Gagnon, lighting or no lighting, because it was interesting and poignant.



As we neared Churchill Falls late in the afternoon, the sky cleared and I knew I had a chance to get some photographs. We got our accomodations taken care of and headed back along the road where I had seen some ponds that might make good reflecting pools for the sunset.

I could tell that the scene was going to difficult to capture the beauty I was seeing. Straight photography would make me choose between the delicately colored sky and the details in the forest and the pool.



So i carefully shot for HDR - shooting sequences of three or more exposures to capture the beautiful delicate colors in the sky and the beauty of the pond. In post processing I needed to go beyond the Photomatics and Photoshop's high dynamic range mreges, because there was a breeze and the combined images had blurred tamarack trees. By choosing an exposure that was close, I could go in, select trees that were not motion blurred and place them where they belonged in the composition, giving me a scene that was true to what I had seen, but what straight photography couldn't produce.



Finding another possibility in this group of ponds, ordinary photography with one exposure produced this:



Shooting multiple exposures, combining them, some artistic filters from Topaz produced an image much more like what my eye enjoyed.




I was so pleased when we woke up to sunny skies. I finally had an opportunity to capture the feel of northern Canada with this shot at Ozzie's Brook, east of Churchill Falls.

North to Labrador

When we turned north from the St. Lawrence seaway, we entered a beautiful unpopulated area. The clouds had come in, so for the most part we drove the almost deserted road and enjoyed our surroundings. We knew that we would be going by the large Manicougan Crater.



The Manicougan crater has a lake filling the deeper parts. When we were on the edges, the terrain had steep almost mountainous hills to climb. The crater is so large, that you might not realize you were climbing the sides of the crater if you didn't know from the map. Skies were dark, gray and foreboding . . . so I didn't try to get any shots of the rim of the crater. In retrospect . . . I should have tried.

I had a few windows for photography. The scenery is peaceful sometimes flat, sometimes rolling hills, with many lakes that appear as you cross the bends in the road.



I can't resist trying to photograph rainbows. There is just something magic about seeing a rainbow . . . the beauty . . . the symbolism of God's promise . . . the wonder of the phenomenon itself . . .



As we drove along the road, the skies stayed pretty gray, I knew that doing straight photography would leave me with memory photos that wouldn't really show others the beauty of this area. But the in camera motion photography can capture some unique things even when the lighting is less than optimum.





While the lakes tend to look the same as you go down the road and I know that lake photos can also have a "sameness" from one lake to another. I wanted to try something to make a lake image that would stand out as memorable. I think this attempt, a motion blur enhanced in Photoshop with Topaz artistic filters makes a pleasing image of one of those lakes along the way.