Border guards have a reputation; sometimes it’s deserved.

View fullsize

Apparently very minor border crossings in Canada are where that reputation is built and enhanced. There’s no need to go into the details, lets just say two middle–aged, obviously good looking, and harmless Californians do not need to be reamed for getting out of their vehicle when the border personnel don’t show up after a couple of minutes. Maybe we interrupted the morning donut break, I don’t know, but it was the second time (out of two) where crossing into our neighbor to the north was not particularly neighborly. So I had a bad impression of Canadian bureaucrats. That changed this afternoon. We had gone to Glacier National Park (Canada – not Waterton Lakes or the US Glacier – whole different place) and it turned out most of the hiking trails were closed. All of the trails were closed because a sow grizzly and her two cubs had been hanging out with the humans. So we went to the northern part of the park along Highway 1 to look for a place to take a short walk among the magnificent peaks. Got to the trailhead and what do you know? It’s a helispot , eh? Ended up having a nice chat with a very friendly young firefighter named Angus M. We did what firefighters do: we talked about some fires we had seen locally, talked about the weather and if lightning might come soon.  After a while Angus’ boss drove up and he had to go back to work. As we were walking back to our truck Angus stopped us and handed me a Parks Canada fire patch. Made my day and rescued my opinion of Canadian bureaucracy. Angus- wherever you be, may you have fun fires, safe flights, and a long healthy career.

View fullsize

Rainier flowers

So, why do we subject ourselves to a barrage of inconveniences and changed routines?  The long hikes inducing sore muscles and sweat stained clothes, horseflies, mosquitoes, and no-see-ums constantly buzzing around exposed flesh ignoring the 3 layers of deet we diligently applied, too few showers, missed meals, and erratic sleep. 

View fullsize

Spokane lightning

I guess if we had avoided these things we also would not have seen the reflection of the stars around Mt. Rainer at Reflection Lake at midnight, followed a few hours later by the sight of Mt. Rainer, wearing candy-cotton pink at (aptly enough) Sunrise Point at dawn, lasting less than a minute before the full sunlight turned it back to glacier white.  The huge thunderstorms that rolled through Spokane, Washington that provided the fodder for lighting photos we have been seeking for years.  The grandeur of the unbelievably steep, snow capped mountains that make us feel so small and insignificant.  The endless carpet of wildflowers that must grow, flower, seed, and start the cycle over during a few, short snowless months.  Hearing the silence of the woods, the crashing of the thunder, and the pitter-patter of rain.  I remember now - that’s why we do it.

Sometimes when we go out to take photos I think about the "old" days. (What can I say, I'm an old guy). The old darkroom tools were fun, but the new tools are more fun.  For instance, it is so much easier to adjust contrast or change from color to black and white, maybe add a tint. These are all things that could be done in the old days with chemicals and paper. So sometimes you just have to push the envelope to see what can be done with a photo or series of photos. This crossed my mind after going out to Big Lake and the Rat Farm to hopefully take lightning pictures. Of course, things didn't go as planned. There was almost no lightning and what there was, was not close. And the wind was howling. So getting the pictures we hoped for didn't pan out. But sometimes you get something interesting anyway.

View fullsize

Clouds skirt around the locally infamous "Hat Creek Bubble". Taken from the Rat Farm on Big Lake.

The top picture looks back toward town and shows the Hat Creek Bubble. The Bubble (always capitalized, and usually intoned in a sneering or at least derogatory way) has existed for decades now and is known (this is not a theory but a fact) to deflect lightning and fires away from the Hat Creek Ranger District. The Bubble does collapse occasionally, usually in spiteful fits when least expected. In the top picture you can see the clouds as they part and flow around the Fall River Valley. Not a great photo (no lightning – Thanks Mr. Bubble) but I do like some of the lines leading to the cabin, both on the ground and in the sky. And it just seemed like a good subject for the monochrome approach.

View fullsize

Storm clouds gather downstream of the Hat Creek Bubble. 

The middle picture shows the storm clouds coalescing again to the north. Because the camera was looking into the sunset the old cabin would have been black or the sky washed out and too light if I followed the camera’s idea of perfect exposure. With modern tools I am able to blend both parts so the picture looks the way my eyes saw it.

The third photo aimed at the sunset. By this time the wind was blowing really hard and picking up lots of dust off the valley floor. I decided to really play with this photo and make it look less like a photo and more of an impression of the evening. This is an effect that would have been really difficult in the old days of enlargers, masks, and multiple exposures on one sheet of expensive color paper. Will it hang in the National Gallery of Art? Don’t think so. But it was fun to play with. And that’s the point – have some fun especially when the Hat Creek Bubble is firmly in place.

View fullsize

The sunset peeks from behind Mt. Shasta and from under the clouds.

If you are looking for photos from our Alaska Adventure, welcome to Cape Disappointment. We had to cancel the trip just as we were getting started (really, we were close to the real Cape Disappointment at the mouth of the Columbia River when we had to cancel). Family obligations required a return home so we can find new housing for a disabled sibling on short notice. Hope to have new adventures though in a few weeks - just won't be Alaska.

View fullsize

237 years later. They could have done a whole lot worse...(ref. almost any where in the Middle East).

Hope you are well engaged in the pursuit of Happiness this weekend. 

View fullsize

Evening comes to High Rock Canyon, Nevada. 

I used to fly recon for SIFC.

You did what?

I sat in the right-front seat of a small single engine aircraft and followed the path of thunderstorms looking for lightning fires for the Susanville Interagency Fire Center (pronounced sif-C). When we found a fire I would radio the ground folks and help guide them into the fire. Since SIFC covers an area from Denio in the Nevada desert to the Ishi Wilderness in the foothills of the central valley and from the Medicine Lake highlands to the Feather River canyon, there was a lot of ground to look at.

Some of the ground was very interesting from the air. One of those spots is High Rock Canyon in Nevada. This is a narrow canyon that stays green long into the summer after the surrounding sagelands have browned up. That made it a good landmark in an area where there are few roads, fewer dominant peaks and hundreds of square miles of nothing (to most people). So when I flew recon it was a welcome sight. I knew where I was. There was something to rest the eye on, if only for a moment.

A few years ago Kathy and I took a weekend and drove to High Rock Canyon. This is something of an expedition as the canyon is between the Smoke Creek Desert and Vya. (Think Burning Man and Nowhere. Still not finding it –try Google Earth.) We got lucky and had a few thunderstorms visit the area while we were there. It made for nice light. Just like when I used to fly recon for SIFC.

View fullsize

A late spring sunset over Crescent City on the Del Norte coast of California. 

Time to prep for the next adventure. The redwood photos are  processed, keyworded, rated and safely tucked away in their little backup hard drives. It was a fun trip and we have some good images to show for it. But that's the past. That means it is almost time to go get fresh photos. Time to clean the trailer, prep the truck, fill out the fly collection, check the camera gear, train the yard kid, and make sure the neighbors have their rifles sighted in on our doors and windows. Am I kidding about the last one? Trust me, you don't really want to find out the hard way. Let's just say its a rural community where people go out and practice being top carnivores on a regular basis and watch what goes on at the neighbors.

We head north in under 30 days.  I hope to keep a running log of where we go and some of the stuff we see and do. The clock's ticking, the to-do list is growing, gotta go.

We've been web people for a whole week now. So given this long period of time and initial feedback, we made some changes to the site. The first change was to make the menu that appears at the bottom more transparent. Hopefully the navigation menus won't interfere with the photos as much in the new iteration. ​Additionally, we have changed the photo on the about page. We've added some photos and will add more soon. Hope you enjoy and keep those comments and e-mails coming.

So sometimes things are intuitive sometime they are not. So far I can say this has been an interesting experience of fumbling through a new program. Some stuff is obvious: click on a square to add something. Sometimes not - don't ask how long I flopped around trying to get auto resize turned on for photos. And adding a picture in a blog was interesting too. Still haven't figured out how to go back and edit a blog entry. I can remove it but editing? ​But I could edit this post but not the previous...hmmm.

"Why do you want to do a blog?" Kathy asked.​ 

"So our friends and family can see what we are up to without having to wade through the latest photos of cute [kitten, puppy, aardvark - you pick] on Facebook. Plus we can actually control the size and quality of our photos better."

OK that was the sales pitch - since you are ​reading this you know we have embarked on this experiment. We'll see where it all leads...