Coast Ride

Having found myself with several days before I needed to start a new work project, I started thinking about making photographs of Mono Lake. See http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_Lake#Geology for more information on the formation of the lake.
Approximately 330 miles, it would be easy to get up there in one day, spend the night at a local motel in the town of Lee Vining, and rise early to get sunrise photographs the next morning before returning home.

I went to the computer and started looking at road maps. It was soon apparent that it was only 1,108 miles to Steve Vaughn's new home in Washington. He had recently moved to the West Coast to take an environmental job in Richland. I've known Steve since Kindergarten. We're still speaking to each other.

The overnight photo trip suddenly became bigger. I'd ride up to Steve's for a quick visit, then head for the coast and ride the coast roads home. On the way back, I'd stop and see Al Morrow, who grew up with Steve and I and lives on the edge of San Francisco, then stay overnight with my daughter Megan in Santa Cruz.

I left on the morning of July 24, rode up across the Mojave Desert on US 395, through the Mammoth Lakes area and stopped at Mono Lake to make the next three photos.


There are signs on 395 indicating the scenic viewpoint pulloff. The viewpoint has a good long view of the lake from the southwest. A pathway extends from the parking lot through the long grasses bordering the lake to the beach, for a closer view of the gulls. It's gull paradise.

North of the Mojave, 395 climbs steadily along the east shoulder of the Sierras. You merely have to turn your head to the west to get excellent views of the ridges.

I started thinking about putting some miles on the Road Star as Mono Lake receded behind my shoulders. Geographically, it made sense to stop in Reno for the night, about five hundred miles from home. It would be a good day's ride.

But it was a big city, and I prefer small towns or semi-isolated aging roadside motels. Susanville looked like a better bet, and I'd have about 550 miles on the trip meter. I rode into Susanville around 6:00 pm. The town had at least one fair motel.

My GPS

The next morning I studied the two maps I had with me; A 48 states map, and a map of California. Rather than continue north on 395, I could ride northwest on 44 and 89 to Shasta, see the mountain then swing north on 97 though Oregon. The alternate route would be a good deal west of 395, and should be cooler.

The photos above and below are two views of Mount Shasta.

I had never been in Oregon or Washington, despite living (except for a couple years) in So. Cal. since 1971. Because I was taking secondary roads, Oregon's traffic was moving slow. The State speed limit off the Interstates was 55 mph, and every town had speed limits as low as 25 mph. The residents seemed to take the speed limit seriously, driving conservatively, between 55 and 60 mph. I decided that it was probably a good idea to drive the same speeds. It wouldn't do to go faster and pick up a speeding ticket.

Evidence of logging operations was on the roads in Oregon and Washington in the form of frequent logging trucks. Another reminder was this large group of logs waiting for processing at a mill in southern Oregon.

Across the country the small mom-and-pop gas station/markets that thrived in slower-paced times have largely been abandoned. The gas pump shown below, was in mid Oregon. I wanted to fill up my tank at the 66 1/2 cent price on the pump.

After visiting with Steve for a evening, then sleeping in his living room, I got an early start, leaving around 7:00am. I also delayed his departure for work, so it was probably good that I left as early as I did.

The air was cool in the morning, though the temperature was supposed to climb to a hundred or so by afternoon. South of Richland I made a stop to check the map. For an area that is considered to be an arid steppe, there was a lot of irrigated crop farming underway. The sunflowers seemed to go on forever.

Over the river in Oregon, I planned to follow the Columbia west to Portland, then ride Route 101 down the coast to the Redwoods in California. The photo below shows the Columbia River with Washington on the far side.

This story is continued in Coast Ride, Part 2.

Caribbean Snapshots

Though it has been several months since the photos in this post were made in the Caribbean in April of 2009, it is summer, and it seems appropriate somehow, to post these vacation snapshots.

Resting in the shade. Half Moon Cay, Bahamas.

Local flora, Half Moon Cay, Bahamas.

The wake from a ship moving through the water. Atlantic Ocean.

The moon over the starboard rail. Caribbean Sea.

A pelican at rest. Florida.

A parasail in the distance. Half Moon Cay, Bahamas.

Why we went there in the first place.

Bees In Trees

"Bees In Trees" is what my wife Lisa called my photographic endeavours in March of this year. As usual, numerous plants were in bloom and it seemed that wherever I looked the blossoms were swarmed by bees attending to them.

The blossoms in this post are all from the orange trees we planted in our side yard five years ago. The two orange trees were a Cara Cara Pink Navel and a Valencia. We figured that since the two varieties produce fruit in different seasons, we'd have a longer time to harvest the fruit when the trees matured and started producing. It was a good theory. But it doesn't seem to be working out in practice, since both trees produced blooms at the same time this year, and the fruit appears to be maturing at a similar rate, with the Navel fruit slightly smaller than the Valencia.

Our only harvest from the trees was a single Cara Cara orange last year. In any event, the blossoms were very attractive to the local honeybees this year, and provided plenty of opportunities to photograph bees in action.

I didn't use any special equipment to make these photographs. Many photographers who specialize in closeup, or "macro" photography, use special lenses designed for the purpose. I don't own any macro lenses.

The lens I used is the 28-80mm "kit" lens from a Nikon N55 film camera. Due to the crop factor (the digital sensor is smaller than image area of a frame of 35mm film), that lens is equivalent to a 42-120mm lens on a 35mm film camera.

I did use one "trick" to make these photographs: I moved in close to the bees. They didn't seem to notice...

Three Risings

Here in Southern California we are typically under a cloud for a month or more at the end of Spring and beginning of Summer. The cloud is called a Marine Layer (For more information, see http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/ocean/marine.htm). The mist laying over the Pacific coast in the mornings usually dissipates in the afternoons.

The misty cloud cover keeps the daily temperatures down and provides a refreshing cooling effect, effectively prolonging the time before the full heat of summer bears down on the land. It is not helpful to the landscape photographer however, since there is no cloud definition. A landscape photograph with a monotonous gray sky is as boring as a clear blue dome of sky. A good landscape photograph usually needs at least a sprinkling of clouds.

The sunrise photographs in this post were made on three successive mornings from Mount Rubidoux after the Marine Layer ended in 2009. Click on a photo to view a larger version.

6/29/09 5:44am

6/29/09 5:50am

6/29/09 6:19am

6/30/09 5:52am

6/30/09 5:53am

6/30/09 5:55am

7/1/09 5:38am

7/1/09 5:48am

7/1/09 5:48am

7/1/09 5:52am

7/1/09 5:54am

7/1/09 6:00am

7/1/09 6:14am

Tehachapi Loop

Considered one of the railroad engineering wonders of the world, the Tehachapi Loop is a spiral of railroad track 0.73 miles long which passes over itself courtesy of a tunnel/bridge combination. The Loop allows trains to ascend "The Tehachapi", the mountain pass at the southern end of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, on an easy grade.

View of the Tehachapi Pass including Walong looking west toward the San Joaquin Valley. Some controversy exists over the naming of the Walong, the area inside the loop. Older sources indicate that it is a bastardization of some dialect of Chinese, with a meaning related to "dragon" - a name given to it by the Chinese workers who built the Loop. Wikipedia cites a different origin, specifically that it was named after Southern Pacific District Roadmaster W.A. Long. I rather prefer the first explanation...

A westbound freight train descends the pass, approaching the Loop.

The freight train passes beneath itself on the Loop.

The tail of the train passes over the body moving through the tunnel.

Palm Trees

When I moved to Southern California I had never seen palm trees, which were not native to the cold northeastern U.S. where I spent the first twenty years of my life. I arrived in the darkness around 4:00am, and was initially fascinated by the abundance of palms, which I began seeing a couple hours after that first sunrise. Now nearly four decades later, I'm no longer fascinated by them, but I still pay them a certain amount of attention.

The photographs in this post were made on the first day of summer in 2009, at Fairmount Park in Riverside, California.