Road Trippin' in Washington - Elk and Family and Beaches!

The Pacific Northwest!  Awww, what a great land of beautiful animals!  Beaches you can drive on!  Bald eagles! And family of course.  

My niece happened to see a large herd of elk just of the road near her house and, bless her heart, ran home to get me so I could see it too!

Look closely at this next picture...it's a little family!

Baby was nursing and we tried to stay as still as possible so as to not disturb them.  Mama was the last elk near us with baby feeding, but as the rest of the herd meandered further into the brush, she got nervous and off they went. 

And now they caught up and feel much safer. 

Later that night we headed out to watch the sunset at the beach.  We were hoping to find some bald eagles, but we got distracted by the beauty so we parked and walked around.  

This is Lee being a real trooper.  You will NOT believe this, but we found a small American flag in a dead porcupine on the beach (no, I did not take a photo).  Sabrina and I talked Lee into taking the flag to the water line because we thought it would be a cool addition to the photos.  And of course WE didn't want to touch it.  

While Lee planted the flag on our newly claimed territory, we watched the kids (especially Logan) run around on the beach. 

LOL!  So the flag is backwards and doesn't look as cool as I thought it would.  

Meanwhile, Lee took pictures of the love of his life.  No, not my gorgeous niece.  His gorgeous truck!

He had the bright idea to capture the sunset in the window, which I thought looked pretty cool so I joined in. 

My beautiful great-niece found a bunch of sand dollars, and I took one of my favorite photos of the day!

As we were driving down the beach, I actually saw what we had originally came for!  A bald eagle!

I hollered and Sabrina backed up, but then he flew away just as I started to take his photo.  lol

I call this "Abstract of Eagle on Waves".

Yay!  And that's the story of the only eagle I saw.  haha

xoxo

Nikon D3300

Mono Lake and the Milky Way!

So.  I'm exhausted.  

Back to work and (mostly) happy about it, but it's emotionally exhausting dealing with Ms. Terminator (tm: Jackie).  But I signed up to go to Mono Lake with one of my Meet-up groups to shoot the Milky Way and I didn't allow myself to talk myself out of it!  

So, without further ado, here are my offerings.  

Oh, but first.  There are these amazing looking abandoned cabins off of 395 that I always want to stop at but never have.  And OH!  

Did I mention that we had our first snowfall already??  In mid-September?  And there was quite a bit still on the ground and in the trees as I went over Monitor Pass!  So exciting!  So then I HAD to stop at the cabins because the mountains in the background were covered with snow and it looked amazing!

I really hope this means we're going to have another wet winter!

So then I got to the parking lot at the South Tufa area of Mono Lake and met up with a new friend.  We were both late and so it was totally meant to be!  We ended up shooting together most of the night and having a blast. 

It was about 6:30 when we arrived and 7:00ish by the time we got to the beach and set up.  We met up with our group leader who gave us some basic info on what shutter/ISO/Aperture we needed and he helped me get my tripod into portrait mode, which I didn't even know it could do!  Yay!

Then we tried to capture some of the tufa with the golden glow from the sunset on them.  Mine were mostly blurry (damn my old, bad eyes!) but I still like this photo.  Just don't look at it too close. 

It's called the Shipwreck (or so I was told) and it was really windy (and freezing), so I like the motion on the water. 

And then, as the sky darkened into a deep purple and the new moon came out, I tried to capture those.

Just in case ya didn't know, these pillars are called Tufa and they were formed many, many moons ago when all of this was under water.  Mono Lake used to be a huge inland sea.  And beneath the lake, underground springs would push calcium-laden water through the lake bed.  When that water met the salty water of the lake, the calcium and carbonate salts formed the limestone towers.

The lake has been drained by drought and by man (mostly Southern California men I think) and now the Tufa Towers are visible around the lake.  If you watch closely at the waters edge, you can see bubbles where new tufa are being formed even now.  Baby tufa!

Anyway, another celestial sight to behold was the Big Dipper sprawled over the North Western horizon.

And then it was time to try to get the Milky Way.  There were clouds out just above the mountains and blocking parts of the galaxy center (or so I was told) but there were so many stars it was simply amazing!

Oh, I should probably say that I have NO idea how to edit the Milky Way to get the fabulous colors and lights that most other photographers do.  I know that most use Lightroom, which I don't have.  I don't even have "real" Photoshop!  So these efforts in my ancient Photoshop Elements 11 is the best I can do.  :-)

This first one was actually a happy accident when Candice turned on her flashlight just as I opened my shutter (I got yelled at for this same thing later.  Some people are very rude.)  It illuminated the tufa naturally and, I think, looks pretty cool!

I had brought some "props", most of which I ended up not using because there were too many people around and I was afraid of getting yelled at.  Maybe next summer I can do some more of my whimsical ideas.  

But I did break out a few glowsticks and place them on the back side of the tufa.  Cool Cool Cool!

These first photos I edited pretty dark and I think I actually took out some of the Milky Way because it was more visible to the naked eye.  But I hate my photos to look grainy!  

This one I adjusted the midtones lighter and you can definitely see more of the Milky Way.  And a plane! Or shooting star!  I don't know which and don't really care because it looks cool.  lol

And another one!  On this one the top and a little of the bottom of the tufa are red and that's not from a glowstick.  I think someone turned on a red flashlight.  You're supposed to use a red flashlight so it doesn't show up in people's photos (or so I was told) but obviously it does.  But again, cool!  It looked like a Superman tufa.

This is the same photo but with my original, darker edit.  There were pink and blue glowsticks (and the red flashlight). 

Now with this next one I went balls to the walls and lightened the hell out of the midtones! You can see all the freaking stars in the damn universe!  Sorry.  I'm really, really tired.

This is the opposite end of the galaxy with a silhouette of the Shipwreck.  So many stars!

And for my last photo of the night (pun intended! Ha!), we have a black and white (mostly) of the Northern shore of Mono with tufa in silhouette.  The streaks of light on the left are cars driving down 395 where it's just above the shore).  And two planes.  Because it can't be said enough...Cool!

I heard the trailing garments of the Night

sweep through her marble halls!

I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light

from the celestial walls!

I felt her presence by its spell of might

stoop o'er me from above;

the calm, majestic presence of the Night,

as of the one I love. 

Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!

Descend with broad-winged flight,

the welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair,

the best beloved Night!

~~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

xoxo

Nikon D3300

Multnomah Falls Oregon and Columbia River Gorge - August 2017

Words cannot express how sad I am about the fires burning through the West Coast (Best Coast!) states.  So much beauty is being destroyed, animals killed and losing their homes, and people's lives and belongings are threatened as well.   

In the case of the Columbia Gorge, it's somewhere I went when I was young, but I have not stopped on my way through to Washington for many, many years - even though I've wanted to and even planned to on several occasions.

Luckily I listened to my soul and to my sister the last time I was there and took the opportunity to go to the gorgeous and historic Multnomah Falls as well as a quick side trip down to the Columbia River near Troutdale, which is now threatened by this fire.  

You can see the lush, green forest that surrounds the area.  What you can't see is the problem trees - dead trees and vegetation that one great winter could not remedy after 5-7 very dry years. 

Random people taking selfies on the bridge.  lol  I got there pretty early (around 8:30 a.m.) per Rose's advice, and there were already about 10 cars in the two parking lots (that I could see).  

This is the first landing above the main landing (which is where I took most of the pictures above).

This is the first switchback on the trail up to the bridge.  It's a fairly easy trail at this point, but I still had to stop and catch my breath. 

The next few pictures are taken while on the bridge.  You can see the water flowing out of the pool at the bottom of the falls and down a shallow rapids under the bridge.

Although there are signs asking people to not throw anything in the water as there are fish, etc., in the water, you can see scores of coins below the bridge.

This is the lower falls and pool at the bottom viewed looking over the side of the bridge. 

Just beyond the bridge is another little landing where you can stand.  Be careful though if you have a camera!  It's a spray zone!  Along the path I saw a few "locks of love".  This is the first one I noticed, which is probably because I was changing my lens and trying to protect it from the spray.

And the top of the falls as seen from the little vista (with a bigger lens).

I saw my 2nd lock of love just a little further up the path.  I like this one best.  Not only for the pretty green color but because the inscription says "Until the wheels fall off".  

Now that's a good view of love!

I had some grand idea that I might be able to make it to the top of the falls, but I found out differently by the time I reached the first of eleven (11!) switchbacks to get to the top.  I was already quite winded and time was flying by.

So this was where I turned around and told myself I would lose some damn weight and come back here and conquer it all!  The path takes a right turn here and you can see how steep the hill is getting by looking at the trees. 

I headed back down and stopped on the bridge once again to check out the scene.  Now there were a lot more people heading up!

On my way back down I noticed another lock that I hadn't seen previously. 

And a bright spot of yellow flowers in the dense green. 

I made it to the bottom and waded through the throngs of people that were now crowded onto the bottom vista. I'm not kidding!  There was at least 50-75 people, most of them wearing purple shirts so I took that to mean they were a group. 

I headed back to my car which was parked in the overflow lot between I-84. 

35 miles back to Portland!

But first I wanted to stop and walk to the river to see if I could get some shots of the pilings in the water.  I headed West on I-84 and stopped at a small park with a boat ramp.  I took a trail through the dense trees and foliage until I reached the river.  

My view was perfect!

It was so lovely and peaceful!

And the black sand beach was covered with little shells!

Speaking of shells, on the walk back to my car I had a bit of a scare.  I saw what at first glance looked to be a large turtle/tortoise stuck in a tree!!  

Upon closer inspection it turned out to be some kind of fungus/mushroom.  Thank goodness!  lol

So, the moral of this story is this:

Humans!  Stop doing stupid ass shit such as throwing smoke bombs into canyons!!!

Fire is beautiful in the right setting but your errant idiocy just torched a bunch of beautiful land, not to mention history and animals!

xoxo

Nikon D3300