Local trips to the rescue

FIL and BIL are visiting.. we spent a lot of time in the house, playing with a three month old baby that is delighted to find its own voice and in providing us with hours of amusement and happiness!

Jr. and the little one finally declared they wanted to go places. Their preference was indoor fun ... read "shopping" and we cleverly steered them outdoors.

We went to Christmas in the park for a little over an hour yesterday and the kids enjoyed it thoroughly!

Today the sun was not out but it stopped raining and the backyard was bright green. So off we went to a place that has been on our radar for a long time but we always drove past it.. 

Elkhorn Slough near Moss Landing on the way to Monterey. The drive was only an hour and the visitor center folks were great.  We went on a long hike for almost 2 1/2 hours and saw tons of birds and enjoyed the walk..

The photos are still a processing.. but here is a nice sample!

More tomorrow..

Death Valley trip Panoramas

Day 4 trip photos are here..

Day 5 of the trip was our return from Ridgecrest to San Jose with a stop at Lake Isabella for 15 minutes to enjoy the serene waters. There were two other vehicles there and the rest of the way we did not cross a single vehicle on either side for almost a good 20 miles!

It was a beautiful drive along the Kern river which at places was moving rapidly and having calm waters to catch reflections of mountains.

These stitch shots are actually really large. Each of them is ~ 100 Mb and the originals are 12000 to 16000 pixels wide by 3000 to 5500 pixels in length. Have resized them to a 1200 pixel max width for the website. 

They were all made by composite merging 8-21 photos all taken in portrait orientation while panning the landscape in full manual mode with the same setting for all the photographs. 

An example is below:

You get one gigantic image from which you crop the right section and play with it to get this...

Plan to print one of these as a 8 foot by 2 foot poster which should still be good at 96dpi ! 

Hope you enjoyed the pictures. We sure will go back and look at these pictures as our new screensaver.

Would definitely recommend an extra day or two for Death valley trips to enjoy the Kern river, the lake etc. on the way in and see other things like Titus canyon, Racetrack Playa etc. 

Knowing what we know now, next time we will probably stay inside death valley at the expensive furnace creek inn for at least two of the 5 days and will be renting a jeep in advance!

Death Valley Day 4

You have seen the trip details and photos from Day 3..

We did spend a 4th day at Death Valley as a grand finale of sorts.

Did the two hour drive from Ridgecrest early in the morning but with a lot of stops to take pictures on the way of the desert landscape and the valley views. We had reserved this activity for the last day as we rushed past these features every morning.

Then we went to the Badwater Basin! It was the farthest point for us on the last day at Death Valley and our plan was to cover as many spots as possible on our way back to Stovepipe wells.

The old chinese workers at the borax mines tried to make their horses drink the water that was collected in shallow pools but the horses or mules would not drink. So they called it badwater and the name stuck. 

In reality the water is so saturated with salt that it is not potable! Given that, it creates such scenic beauty as it leaves salt to dry in ring like sediments, after some point the salt crystals push out of the ground like seeds germinating and have crystalline patterns that literally emerge from the ground. The sun makes this all the more spectacular and the reflections of the mountains is some sight to behold.

After walking around Badwater we headed to another place that is so unique it is aptly named "Devils Golf Course".. Caked earth, salt deposits, sharp edges that make you worry that you will cut youself to death if you fall on the ground..

It was interesting to say the least. We went back for lunch at Furnace Creek visitor center again and started driving to something that promised guaranteed fun if the brochures were to be taken seriously...

We came to Natural bridges! It was a long walk and it ended at a point where we could not go further but we got some unforgettable memories on this trail. The sun cast shadows that turned the canyon from orange, to red to yellow to purple and the camera was clicking non stop.

At some point I just stopped clicking, sat on a rock, took a deep breath and absorbed the whole thing. Then packed up and started walking to catch up to San, BB and the kids. 

If and when I retire, soooo going back to this place to spend a day in the shade sitting on one of those rocks and watching the sun go by! 

After a reality check that retirement was far away, we drove to Artist Point or Artist Pallette as people call it. The rocks and the minerals within them have been exposed by water erosion and the mountains are glowing in colors! We saw a shade of this at Zabriske point on Day 3, but this was way more colorful. Almost spent two hours on this drive at various vista points. The moon comes out close to 2PM and we had some fun taking photographs with the moon in the background!

The sad thing is that the best views are closer to the exit on this drive than on the entrance side. We spent way too much time climbing a little hill where everyone had parked their car only to realize that the really colorful spots were further down the drive! Still, made it through just as the sun set and we came out of the park with some great memories..

Day 5 saw us driving back from Ridgecrest.. We stopped on the way at a few scenic spots .. a lake, a river.. Those pictures are processed as are all those stitch shot panoramas. Will post the last photoblog from Death Valley trip tomorrow!