Tag Archives: mountains

Death Valley, December 23

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Our alarms were set for 4:50, and when they went off Dan got up and looked outside.

Gray. Gray. Gray. And no stars to be seen.

That meant back to bed and sleeping in (which means up at 7:00 for me). There was no point going out for a non-existent sunrise, after all. It also means that today will probably not be much of a photography day at all, but of course the iPhone will get used so I can post things here.

After sitting around for a bit Dan made us some coffee. Not the in-room stuff, but good coffee using his aeropress. We then walked to the spots that serve breakfast. The breakfast buffet was $21 per person. No thanks! We don’t eat enough to make buying mediocre food worth it. The coffee spot had pretty sad looking pastries and muffins. Instead of those we went back to our room and enjoyed the breakfast food we brought with us, sitting on the little patio outside. Worked great! (And the price was right.) Oh … and some odd fungi outside our door which I’ll include here.

Eventually we drove down to Manly Lake (or is it Lake Manly?) again just to have a look-see. On the way we stopped a bit so I could take some more iPhone photos.

Finding parking at the lake took a bit of time, as there were a whole lot of people out there. Dan opted to only shoot a photo of the crowd, and I did the same with the iPhone, but I can’t quite capture things well.

Then we drove to Natural Bridge Canyon and after parking we took a few photos looking back at the lake.

Then it was walking time. Good thing I read the sign about the snakes. Whew!

On the way I noticed more green. I do love to see green!

The bridge isn’t a terribly long walk. And of course I took photos.

We continued on for a bit, and I continued making iPhone shots.

We opted not to climb the rocks to go up even higher. I had seen a family working on getting down and they were young and agile. I’m not interested in taking a chance of falling. Plus I’m lazy. The rocks, though, are so beautiful. I mostly took photos with my camera, so those will wait until later to be posted and go up on my photography site at some point (if they are decent). But above you can see a few images.

Then back down we went.

While we don’t necessarily feel the need to revisit the Artist Drive, we did so since photo ops weren’t plentiful. I do find the rock colors pretty astounding.

Can you spot someone on the rocks?

More of the drive …

Lunch was at our patio again, using up more of the food we brought with us.

Oh … I forgot to mention the weather! Looking up at the higher mountains, near where we were yesterday, it looked to be snowing. Sure enough, later when we checked there was more snow on them. We had a few tiny drops of rain down below, but that was it.

After lunch, a bit of reading, and whatnot, Dan figured maybe we’d do a loop off of the road to Beatty (I think). So out the door we went.

But wait! What was this we saw?

SUN.

Yep, the sun was shining on the mountains just across the street from The Ranch, too, and so we simply drove across the street and out came Dan’s camera (and my iPhone). They were beautifully lit!

From there we moved on, and stopped a few more times. Dan was sort of chasing light at this point. As he said, anything he got was a bonus since we really hadn’t expected to have the right lighting and all for photos. Quite a wonderful surprise, and a good — maybe great? — reason to have stayed today.

Yep, you read that right: we had actually considered coming home one day early, even while we knew the place was paid for and there was no chance of getting the money back. I think we (okay, Dan, really) made the right choice!

Finally it was back to our room, dropping things off, and then dinner time. Dan had a nice piece of salmon. I had pasta with a mystery white wine sauce, meaning there was no sauce! Oh well. Thankfully I had added chicken to the plate and that was good. Prices here are ridiculous, but as Dan and I frequently say anytime something is a bit off, “It’s Death Valley!” You get no food photos. But heeeer’s Danny! Hah!

Dan decided I “needed” some chocolate since my dinner wasn’t great, so we went to the store. What do we find? A book with Dan’s image featured on the front!

When we returned to our room it was shower and packing time. We are going to head out quite early so we can, we hope, get through DEVA and a bit more before the rain really hits. Stay tuned!

Goin’ Home

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Thursday meant we had to head back home. I was sad to leave, but I suppose I’m nearly always sad to head back to the house, even while I think we live in a lovely area. I just enjoy travel so much!

Before going home we did take the June Lake loop. There just wasn’t anything that caused us to stop and pull out the cameras, so one iPhone shot will have to suffice.

We also took a VERY brief detour so Dan could shoot some clouds. I didn’t get my cameras out, but I did shoot a bit with the phone, including a bit of a typo on the sign, as I’m sure you can see.

Then we went over Sonora Pass to get home. We barely stopped, and I only had the phone out for this view.

From there it was only one more stop in the mountains, somewhere near the Dardanelles, and then the obligatory Starbucks gotta-stay-awake bit. Finally, back to the house and back to work.

Wednesday, Continued …

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After spending time in our exciting motel room we went back out to shoot around 4 PM. The first spot was one we planned on returning to when it was a bit later and the light would be better, but still, we stopped and I did a bit of shooting.

As you can see, we had color and we had bare trees. I like ’em both!

At this point I think we ran into Charlotte again … or at least close to this time. She was enjoying some water reflections, I think. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with from her travels!

Then I managed to pull out the macro lens, amazingly enough … but those photos will wait for another time, as I might use them for my “daily flora” photos and I don’t like to post things twice!

But what a wonderful day we had, and it was our last full day in the area. Thursday we packed up, but of course that didn’t mean we didn’t stop anywhere, so I’ll post a wee bit more about that later.

Wednesday, October 11, 2023

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And now it’s Wednesday … or it was … on Wednesday.

Hah! See how funny I can be? I should be on stage.

But I AM on stage. They just don’t let me talk.

There … funny again.

Okay. I will stop now. Promise.

So let’s move on to Wednesday. I can’t remember now if we woke up early or not. Crazy how I can forget something so awful as an early morning wake-up call, right? But I do know we headed out to spots Dan had chosen. Looking at my iPhone photos it looks like I had moved on to using the Canon more frequently and the phone much less. I guess I’ll have to post some of the Canon (and maybe Fuji if I pulled that out) images in order to really see what I did for Wednesday.

We went to a spot we’ve frequently visited only to be rather disappointed in much of what we saw, and OH was it windy! Still, we managed to do a bit of work (and I’m certain Dan will have much more since he stayed out after I headed back to the car to warm up).

This first photo is using the Canon and a TRIPOD. Yes. I did use a tripod on occasion. (People who know me know that I hesitate using one so much of the time, and when I don’t use it I always regret it later!) Still, with the wind, nothing will be super focused if I zoom in. So it goes.

Now when it’s windy there ARE fun little things to play around with. Like water. Who says everything has to be realistic … right?

These two were on my way back to the car. I kept trying to find something I could manage to shoot! (Then I gave up, got in the car, and turned on the heater for a short while, including the seat warmer, because “happiness is a warm …” um … never mind!)

When Dan got back to the car we went to destination #2. Again, cold and windy. We shot very little. But as you can see, there was certainly color.

There were also spots that made it clear there would be more color to come. (And yes, I do know that green IS a color. You know what I mean … right?

After this we started to drive further in and, lo and behold, there was Charlotte Gibb … and Evan Russel as well. We spent time yakking and verified where we’d meet for brunch.

Dan then acceded to my request to go down a favorite little dirt road, where photography wasn’t all that great, but it just makes my heart happy to drive it … or have HIM drive it, anyway.

After meeting our friends Charlotte, Gary, and Evan for brunch and good times, we went back to our motel since the midday sun isn’t conducive to capturing much of value.

Now you might be dying to know what followed … but it’s dinner time here and I have a concert after that, so I will finish up Wednesday sometime later … stay tuned!

Tuesday, October 10, 2023

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Tuesday was moving day: we left Lee Vining, and our destination was Bishop. Of course that doesn’t mean we go directly to Bishop — we couldn’t check in to our hotel until 3:00 PM anyway, but there are also places to visit between the two towns.

Dan always has good ideas about where to go for a sunrise, so we went to one of “his” spots. I had stupidly forgotten to bring my really long lens, so while he used his in this area, I shot different things. I prefer shooting a different direction than Dan in any case: once he aims at something I tend to turn around and do something in the opposite direction! No point doing something that the master photographer is doing, at least much of the time.

Then it was more driving, more exploring …

And yes, those trees in the last image were leaning.

When it was past 3:00 we went to check in to our glamorous (not really) motel in Bishop. Hm. Our room wasn’t ready. But we could still check in, get charged an addition $10 for a “reserve fee” whatever that is, and get our keys. The unavailability of the room wasn’t really a problem, since Dan had said we’d do a “reconnoissance drive” to see where we’d want to be for the next day. So back out we went.

And yes, I really DID take a selfie!

While at the above spot some friends we planned on meeting up with the next day drove past. What a fun surprise to meet up with Charlotte and Gary as we were standing on the side of the road making photos. We chatted a while, agreed where we’d meet for brunch, and said our goodbyes as they went one direction and we went the other.

Yes, we did find color!

We went back, got into our now clean room, and then went to dinner. Another early morning wake-up call meant it was time to hit the hay. But what a lovely day.

Monday, October 9, 2023

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Okay … we did get up at 5:15. And I didn’t whine. I do believe I deserve an award of some sort. Dan had some motel coffee (yuck), and I was actually ready to go so I didn’t hold him back when he was ready.

We headed to destination number one, a bit near Mono Lake. The trees were lovely. So was the view!

Eventually we headed back down, and we met up with some friends to have lunch. What fun to see them! No photos of us all together, though: guess we aren’t the selfie generation, eh?

We headed out again, and Joe and Velda followed in their own vehicle. We all got out at one lovely spot and I even managed to get a photo of Dan and Joe. (Sorry, Velda … I missed catching you!)

From there we drove on up the road, and I just marveled at the beauty! Took a few photos, too.

From here we said goodby to Velda and Joe and drove elsewhere. Some viewers will recognize the spot, I’m guessing. I have more images from Monday on my other cameras, but I will have to look at those at a later time, so these last two are it for the day.

Then it was, again, off to dinner. Because we’d had a nice lunch we opted to eat in our motel room. We always bring food along, so we pulled out crackers, cheese, and other goodies. I went to open a wine bottle and … UGH! … the corkscrew broke. Well it was Dan to the rescue … off he went to the store within walking distance to buy a new corkscrew. He got back and went to open the bottle. AND that corkscrew broke! Heh. Guess I wasn’t supposed to have wine that night. So beer, which was what Dan initially was opting for, it was!

Final Full Day In Kosovo

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Do I surprise anyone by saying we had a leisurely breakfast again today? Probably not.

Not many photos to share today, but oh the mountains are gorgeous here!

After breakfast we took a drive to another mountainous area nearby. The road … ack! … so narrow and sometimes trucks came towards us. One tunnel is too narrow for more than one way traffic, but there’s nothing to tell you to go so you honk the horn and hope for the best. Some of the road was crumbling and the drop off was not a fun one. I just look toward the side where there is no drop off and manage to stay fairly calm.

Photos at the start:

When we got to destination number one we got out of the car and walked up a gravel road. We reached a point where there were large concrete blocks so if you had gone up in a car it wouldn’t be passable. And welcome to Montenegro! We didn’t go many steps into it, as we were told there could possibly be border control police nearby (and, in fact, there were!). (Family shot was taken across the border!)

We hiked back down (or should I say “strolled”?) and then got back in the cars to head to destination number two, which was also our “lunch & dinner combined” spot. We had the most amazing view, and a delicious, final Kosavan meal.


Then it was back down the same route we came and, sure enough, that tunnel was a bit of an issue … we were nearly out when two cars started to come in! Surely they could see us? So they had to back out. Soon after a huge truck came by and I just can’t imagine it getting through.

But we made it back “home”, and after a short while we all sat outside and enjoyed one final evening together. I’m grateful for our hosts!

So not as much to write today, but it was a fun time seeing more natural beauty. (But I’m sad to see all the litter out there.)

Couple of notes: We very rarely see women in hijabs here. I’ve seen only a few. We DO see tons of men sitting around enjoying each other’s company, but the only time I saw women sitting down somewhere was with men as well — never any tables with only women. Of course I might just have missed them. The men, for the most part, all have very short hair, and it is nearly shaved on the sides. I’m not used to seeing so much short hair! The only time I saw a man with a ponytail was in another city … and he was by a VW van! Reminded me of the 70s! Oh … and I mentioned “stray dogs” yesterday, but they are called “street dogs” here. Very sad to see so many.