This blog has been a long time coming...
I took a weekend trip to Southern California 04-05 February 2017. I chronicled the second day of the trip a few weeks ago. Here's part I...
I'll start with Friday, 03 February 2017. I took a vacation day so I'd have time to get things together... do laundry and pack. Did laundry and packed up my backpack, daypack and hiking pack. Went bowling (I bowl in a league on Friday nights... Tuesday nights too). After bowling, I loaded up my Mini Cooper with everything I needed for the trip. Planned to take a 3 hour or so nap, which ended up being a 4 hour nap. So I got a little bit of a late start. Wanted to leave at 2:00 AM Saturday morning so I could be at Joshua Tree National Park in time for sunrise, but didn't actually leave Las Vegas until about 3:00 AM. Had to stop for ice and drinks and fill up my 5-gallon water container.
Since I got that late start, the sun started to rise before I made it to Joshua Tree National Park. So I stopped in Yucca Valley for breakfast. Still, I got to Joshua Tree National Park early enough to get some nice morning photos. I took my time going through Joshua Tree National Park, stopping here and there to take photos at some interesting spots. I had planned to hike more than I actually did. I didn't have a map of the park, though I did have the Chimani JTNP app on my phone. Still, I missed a couple of spots I wanted to stop at, like Arch Rock. In addition, some of the places I thought about visiting were accessible only by dirt roads. Even though they seemed well maintained, I was unsure about taking my Mini Cooper on them, so I skipped them this time. Maybe next time. I've been considering buying a Jeep Wrangler or 4-wheel drive truck, but I like Mini Coopers a lot, so I'll probably buy another one when the time comes to buy a new vehicle and forego off-roading except for known well maintained dirt roads.
I did hike to Ryan Ranch. It's a fairly short, easy hike with a small gain in elevation going to the ranch. The small adobe building is mostly gone, but some of the walls are still standing and there are still a few other artifacts there too, though I didn't take photos of them. Took about an hour to hike out and back, with several stops for photos.
Skull Rock is a must stop. It's a popular spot so it gets pretty crowded, especially during peak season, which is October to May. I did hike the nature trail out and back. There are some small placards with short descriptions of various points of interest along the way. I stopped and turned around when I realized the trail led to a nearby campground rather than loop around back where I started. It's an easy hike, especially if you stop and read the various placards along the way.
Getting sleepy on the drive through the southern part of the park, I pulled into a parking area that provides views of Pinto Basin and Pinto Mountain and took a nap for about an hour. I didn't want to backtrack looking for the places I missed so I headed out of the park toward Indio for gas and a late lunch. Before I finish out the story, here are a few of the many photos I took at Joshua Tree National Park. There are many more on Flickr.
ABOVE: A jet tangentially touches the moon (at least visually). I think I framed this well, with the two Joshua trees and mountain.
ABOVE: I don't think I've ever seen a Joshua tree as large or with as many branches as this one. It must have a good water source.
ABOVE: not sure what kind of cactus this is... I found a couple that it could be during research, but the ranges of those don't include southern California, so while one of them could be this one, I cannot confirm it. Regardless, I like the spines so I took a couple of photos. This one is fairly close up.
ABOVE: Joshua Tree National Park has many popular rock climbing spots. This is Intersection Rock, which is adjacent to Hidden Valley Campground.
ABOVE: pretty sure this is Cylindropuntia echinocarpa, more commonly known as Silver Cholla, Golden Cholla or Wiggin's Cholla.
ABOVE: Mt. Baldy (or is it Big Bear Mountain) in the distance.
ABOVE: long dead Joshua tree... probably could have made this photo more interesting by sitting or lying down rather than squatting.
ABOVE: This is what a Joshua tree forest looks like.
ABOVE: there isn't really anything of note in this photo, but I liked the overall scene, especially with the sun visible at top right.
ABOVE: even in death flowers are beautiful. Flowers are one of my favorite photographic subjects, especially closeup and macro photos.
ABOVE: Mt. Baldy or Big Bear Mountain... not sure which one
After my late lunch I decided to head down to the Salton Sea, just planning to make sure I knew where I was supposed to meet @nebula and the rest of the people coming for a day of exploration on Sunday. I ended up staying for an hour or so taking photos of the pelicans searching for and feeding on tilapia.
Below are a few of the photos I took. The rest are on Flickr.
ABOVE: spotted a couple of ladies taking some photos.
ABOVE: I believe the golden hour is started.
ABOVE: I really like my Nikon D3300 camera and Nikon DX VR AF-S NIKKOR 18-200mm 1:3.4-5.6 GII ED lens. Still learning how to use them.
ABOVE: another shot as the sun begins to descend behind the mountains to the west; it's a little under exposed, but I liked the way I shot it so I didn't fix it during post-processing.
ABOVE: This late in the afternoon, quite a few pelicans were out fishing for, presumably, tilapia.
ABOVE: Managed to capture a pelican as it takes off to move to a different fishing spot.
ABOVE: Success! This pelican is swallowing its meal.
ABOVE: Some pelicans fished in pairs and threes.
ABOVE: This one is coming in for a landing.
ABOVE: This one is preparing to take off, I think.
ABOVE: A testament to nature finds a way. The Salton Sea is extremely salty (though not yet as salty as the Great Salt Lake) and contains a lot of toxins from agricultural runoff. Yet tilapia thrive in the sea (and probably other aquatic animals) and various shorebirds, including pelicans eat them.
ABOVE: Although its not always desirable, I do like lens flare is some landscape photos.
ABOVE: I arrived at the Salton Sea late in the afternoon, probably around 4:00 - 4:30 PM. Turned out to be a really good time for landscape and wildlife photography.
ABOVE: Not sure what kind of birds these are, but they were interesting subjects. I really should get some books on birds, animals and plants so that I can identify my subjects better.
ABOVE: I really like the lighting in this photo.
This was the first time I really used my Nikon D3300 and Nikon DX VR AF-S NIKKOR 18-200mm 1:3.4-5.6 GII ED lens. I learned that the lens hood does cause some minor vignetting in the corners of the photo, which you can see in a few of the photos above. Perhaps I should forego using it.
I apologize for taking so long to write this blog. It took me a while to process the photos. Not so much actually editing the images themselves as I can do that relatively quickly: adjust the exposure, contrast, vibrance, saturation, white balance and a few other things as necessary. I'll also adjust the level sometimes so that the photo isn't tilted as that sometimes can be annoying if the horizon or other demarcations are not level. What usually takes a lot of time is all of the metadata: tags, titles, captions, mapping (GPS coordinates), copyright information, categories, and other metadata.
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Stay Tuned...
DeadGuitarist
Besides Suicide Girls, you can find me on various other social, photography and music sites, as well as career oriented sites:
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I'm also on SnapChat (Gri11Sgt), Periscope (GrillSgt) and Uenme (RhythmGuitarist). I usually have my status on Uenme set to unavailable because of work and I forget to change it when I'm available. I'll try to get better about that.
I'm not super active on all of them, but I add stuff to each of them occasionally that you often won't find in my SG blogs and posts.