Westport For A Few Days

Well we haven’t been doing much lately but some of recent trials were a little stressful.  We decided that a few days at the ocean would be a nice way to relax a bit.  So we headed to one of our favorite short trip locations, Westport, CA, near Fort Bragg.

We are already home but we had no Wi-Fi in our campground so you’ll have to settle for this after the fact account of our trip. The weather was gorgeous, mostly sunny with just one brief shower.  I almost wished for a few more clouds at sunset.

The sunsets weren’t spectacular but I did manage to glean a few nice shots with some nice color in them.

Thanks to Steve and Alice Hensley’s gift of a ride on the famous
Skunk Train, we took the 4 hour ride from Fort Bragg up into the redwoods and back on Tuesday.

We were treated to some great scenery as well as loads of history and stories about the train and redwood logging in this area.  Logging began here in the 1880s.

Here are the happy campers in front of their mode of transportation. You see, it really is called the Skunk Train.

On the way home I got to take a turn in the front seat.  That provides the opportunity for some photos right out the front window.

Evenings are all about the sunsets and seeing what we can come up with for photos.

I just happened to have a motorcycle with me and took a little ride up into the Lost Coast of California where there is no highway along the ocean.  There are some dirt roads however and it’s kind of fun to have the coast almost to yourself.

Here we are tucked into our campsite in an RV park on a creek and practically on the beach.

We love to be able to see and hear the ocean from right inside the trailer.  This will do.

And of course there are the walks on the beach.  This is very relaxing.  Just what the doctor ordered.

But then it was time to go home. So there you have it in a nut shell.  A mini travel log of our mini vacation.

Calendar Cover

The cover photo of Mt McKinley was taken along the Parks highway which runs from Anchorage to Denali and Fairbanks. We spent several days in Talkeetna and drove the hundred or so miles to Denali without the trailer on one of those days. We didn't actually take a tour of the park. The only way into the park is by bus tour and the shortest tour was about 4 hours. We didn't feel inclined to spend that much time on a bus that day so instead we drove up to Healy and turned down Stampede Road. That was the road that Chris McCandless took on is ill fated trip to the bus where he died. We drove to the end of the pavement before we turned around.

This is was just one of many places where you can admire Mt McKinley on the way up the Parks highway.

 

This is the view of Mt McKinley from along the river in Talkeetna. It was taken with a telephoto lens which helps it to appear so large from that distance.

This was the view from a hill just outside Talkeetna. The top of Mt McKinley is cover by clouds about 70% of the time. We were very lucky to get all of these nice pictures of it in the few short days that we spent there.

Calendar January

 

In February of 2009 we took the trailer to Yosemite and spent about 5 days.  At least for photography we couldn't have had more perfect weather.  It was snowing when we got there and quite a bit of snow fell the next day also.  On the second morning I was up before sunrise and there wasn't a cloud in the sky.  The scenery was spectacular with everything snow covered and clear blue skies.  This shot of El Capitan was just one of many pictures I took during that early morning.

This was another shot that I really liked that I took the same morning. All the trees and bushes were heavilly loaded with snow but with the sun shining it only lasted until about 10 or 11 that morning.

PS  This photo was published in the February 2010 issue of Outdoor Photographer.  It received Honorable Mention status in the 2009 Nature's Colors photo contest.

This one was taken from the same location on the Merced river as the first one.  It's just looking more up the valley.  I had to wade through snow above my knees to get to this spot on the river bank.

This is Yosemite Falls from right out in the middle of the valley. It got a little cold waiting for those shadows to slowly creep down the hill as the sun came up. You can see both the upper and lower falls but the lower falls are slightly shaded still.

Calendar February

I took this picture of Horsetail Falls on the same trip to Yosemite. I was very lucky to get this shot because it only occurs during the month of February and then not every year. It is actually the setting sun reflecting off of the falls. The sun is only lined up right during February. The water has to be flowing and it doesn't always. The sky has to be clear and you have to be lined up correctly in order to get one of these pictures. I was there for 5 days and it happened once. There were literally hundreds of photographers vying for a spot to shoot from and it lasts for less than 10 minutes. There are better photos of this, but needless to say, I'm pretty happy to have this one.

This is a reflection of El Capitan in the frozen Merced River.

This is of course a reflection in the river of the sun coming up on the mountains.

Here is Half Dome above the Merced River.

Calendar March

In May '09 we took a trip up to Spokane, WA to visit friends.  I'm always looking to see new scenery, so we swung by the Painted Hills in central Oregon.  It's not exactly on a main route.  I suppose that's why we had never been there.  Photography is all about light.  We were only there for an hour or two so you have to take what you can get.  Fortunately we were blessed with clear blue skies and puffy white clouds that add to this scene.

It's a little hard to see in this picture but there were rows of yellow wildflowers growing in most of the creases in the hillside.

This is not exactly a vacation destination but if you're ever in the area it would be worth a few hours of your time to visit the Painted Hills.  We didn't make it to the John Day Fosil Beds.

This is how Connie and I get around.

Calendar April

Connie and I were in Talkeetna, Alaska photographing a wedding for my cousin Martin and his wife Rebekah.  Their daughter Danielle was getting married.  I was on site at the Talkeetna Alaska Lodge for the rehearsal the day before the wedding when I saw this beautiful patch of wildflowers on a hill behind the lodge.  It was late in the day and the light was good so I snaped a few shots.  This was my favorite.

This is the lucky couple, Danille and Jeremy, sitting on top of the hill where I saw those wild flowers.  If it had been a little less cloudy you would be able to see Mt McKinley behind them.  The whole set of wedding photos can be viewed from the Events link on my home page.

This was another hillside in the Talkeetna area.  The wildflowers were prolific at that time.

The fireweed was in full bloom when we arrived in Alaska.  This photo was taken a few days earlier at a place call Glacier View on the Glenn highway.  All these photos were actually taken around the end of July though.

Calendar May

I wish I could have been a little closer and I wish the water had been smooth but I just had to include this photo.  These are the same 2 swans on the same pond that was in the calendar last year.  Only last year they didn't have a family and this year they do.  We particularly wanted to stop at this same pond to see if the swans were still there and if there might possibly be some loons.  There were no loons and the swans were on the far side.  But then I saw this duck family going the other direction and I knew it would be a fun shot anyway.

This was last year's photo of the same pair of swans.

Here is a bear beside the road in British Columbia.  He was feeding and walking along side the road.  I got up on top of the cargo boxes in the back of the truck while Connie drove the truck and we followed him along the road while he grazed on plants and berries.

This coyote we spotted along the road in the Yukon.  After we stopped to take pictures of him he approached the truck and when he was about 20 feet away from me I decided to get back in.

Calendar June

This is one of the pools of water that form on top of a glacier.  I took this picture from an airplane while flying around beside Mt. McKinley.  These photos are of Ruth Glacier in an area called the Amphitheater.  It's a huge bowl where a number of smaller glaciers flow into the larger Ruth Glacier.  I was in the process of photographing another airplane and I'll tell you more about that on the August photo.

This is the view of just one of the several glaciers that flow into the Amphitheater.  Most of what looks like a pile of dirt at the bottom of this photo is also glacier.  Sometimes they push up so much dirt and gravel that you can't even see any ice.

The top of the glacier can also look like this.  They have many different looks depending on how far up or down the mountain you are.

Usually any water on top of the ice takes on this beautiful blue color of the ice beneath it.  By the way, if you want to see any of these pictures larger you can just click on them.

Calendar July

This is a lot closer to home.  It's the peeling bark on a madrone tree. Madrone trees are found in the foothills and they look like manzanita only bigger.  In the spring the bark peels like this, making some interesting patterns.  I walk past this one every day on my excersize hike.  I made a trail near my house that goes through a canyon with a creek at the bottom, Dry Creek.  This is a very steep trail down to the creek and it's equally  steep up the other side where I turn around and come back.  It's about a 1 1/4 mile trip.

Here is another shot that is not quite so close up.  This tree is only about 8" at the base but madrone trees can be up to 5' at the base and as much as 75' tall.

This is what it looks like right where I cross Dry Creek.  It is a nice place to walk except for the steepness but then that's why I do it.  Sometimes I see deer.  Often I see wild turkeys and in September 09 I saw a bear.

One of the fringe benefits of my trail is that when we are not traveling I still have opportunities to practice my craft.

Calendar August

OK, here is the story behind the airplane photo.  As I mentioned earlier we were photographing a wedding in Talkeena, Alaska.  The bride's uncle is a professional pilot and is affiliated with the Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum.  So as a wedding present he took the bride and groom on a flight around Mt McKinley in this fully restored 1943 Grumman Widgeon.  Wanting some PR photos of this event, the museum sent a float plane to carry the photographer.  That happened to be me! After an hour flight and about 300 photos, I could almost do a calendar on just the flight.

The scerery there was incredable!  What you can see behind the plane is part of a place called the Amphitheater. It's kind of like a bowl on the side of Mt McKinley where a number of smaller glaciers flow into one very large glacier called Ruth Glacier.  This bowl is so large that when we first arrive both planes were flying around in it and we couldn't spot each other.

The enormous size of everything here is hard to comprehend, even when you see it in person.  I'm sure it's even harder to see in the pictures but I think this one might help.  If you look close near the center of this photo you can see the blue plane.  I told the bride and groom that it had looked like they were flying very close to the rocks.  They said they weren't close to the rocks at all and they thought that we were.  I never felt like we go close to the rocks either.  Everything is just so large.

The Widgeon is an anphibious plane and it can land on a runway or water.  They took off from the airport but when we returned they landed on the lake where my float plane had landed so we could have some more photo ops including this one.  It was quite an experience for me as well as for Jeremy and Danielle.