Tag Archives: travel

Grand Canyon

My friend Jo Hunter recently blogged about her trip from Texas to Las Vegas and back. She saw and did many interesting things en route so I would suggest you check it out at Futurshox. Part of her trip took her to the Grand Canyon. Nancy and I made a trip to the North Rim of the canyon quite a few years ago. I decided to take another look at some of the pictures from that time. One point of having pictures is so that you can go back and take another look to remember what you did in days gone by.

Another thing if you are a photographer is to go back and see what you did with those pictures and whether anything you have learned since might give them a new lease on life. One thing is the different processing tools that are available. Another is your approach to using those tools. Consequently, I had a look through a few of the shots and decided to give them a go.

It is a little sad to see how many cameras I have been through since that trip. These were taken with my first DSLR at a time when it was still relevant to use the term DSLR. Nowadays, there are hardly any SLRs around that aren’t digital so perhaps we should just call them SLRs again. Anyway, I digress. Despite the lower resolution, the image quality from that old body is really not too shabby. I had full page magazine images from that camera and they looked great. It might have been a bit restricted in how far you could push it but it still worked well.

Enough blathering, here are the shots. It has got me excited about that part of the world again. I suppose a trip down there may be another thing to add to the list. Of course, the list never gets shorter. Always so many things to be done!

Muir Woods

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Having visitors is always a good excuse to go to places that you haven’ been to for a while. Muir Woods National Monument was one such destination. If only we had known just how many other people had the same idea, we might have aimed to get there a lot earlier in the day. As it was, we got there a bit alter in the afternoon. A short while later and it might have been a lot easier to park. Of course, late in the day in winter means fading light and being in a heavily wooded area means even less light!

Muir Woods is a great place to wander. Having a lot of other visitors means it is a little less tranquil. My previous visits have obviously been off peak and usually involved colder and damper weather. This time it was dry and warm(ish). The trees are majestic and often interestingly shaped. However, being so close to such large trees as coastal redwoods does make it hard to get the images that you have in your mind.

The light is tricky and the angles wide. Some playing with HDR and panoramas certainly helped out. Sometimes it was just fun to look straight up. The shapes there are exactly as you imagine them. The dynamic range is so large that even HDR doesn’t always cover it (at least the way I was bracketing the shots) but it still worked out okay.

Bodega Bay

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Our run down the coast brought us to Bodega Bay. Neither of us had been there before but we had heard it was pretty and also knew about its appearances in The Birds! No attacking avians on this day but we initially passed straight through the town without being terribly impressed. However, we had seen a turning off towards Bodega Bay head so a backtrack took us along a different road around the bay. We were also hungry at this point!

Fortunately, we soon came to an area where the fishing boats tied up and there were two places selling crab sandwiches. One was a small hut which only had a couple of items on the menu and the other was a bigger looking place with a wider menu but a lot less people. We figured the simple option of doing one thing and doing it well might be the case in the hut and went for their crab sandwiches. They were excellent. No wonder the place had a line outside it.

Suitably reinvigorated, we headed up to the headland. Here you had a view back to the bay but a more interesting view of the cliffs and the shoreline. A stroll up the cliff path was in order (that crab sandwich needed to be burned off) and the appeal of more crashing waves on rocks was too much for us to resist. The sun was shining and the wind was not too strong so it was a really nice place to be and, while we weren’t alone in thinking this, with so much space, it never felt like you were in a busy place. What a great end to the trip.

Pacific Coast Highway

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Returning from Mendocino County provided the option of driving along the coast heading south. The Pacific Coast Highway is a great choice if you have time on your hands and we did have. Therefore, we headed this way. The run down the coast is a combination of great views, long runs along the cliffs and the occasional area of twisting road around the inlets that occasionally cut into the shoreline. When the road is quiet it is a lot of fun. If you get stuck behind a bunch of RVs, it suddenly is a little less enjoyable.

We stopped a number of times en route to enjoy the view. One diversion out towards a lighthouse provided a lovely overlook of the shore including a bay below us that was full of sea lions. Despite the crashing waves, this area apparently provided a bit of shelter and the sea lions were seemingly taking it easy behind the protection of some rocky ledges.

There are lots of areas with large rocks slightly offshore. This reminded me a lot of the coast of Oregon (which, since we weren’t that far south, is probably not that surprising). Heading south we were looking into the sun so had some lovely reflections of the light off the water. Occasionally the edge of the road was very close to the top of the cliffs so you do have to stay focused as you drive along but it is a beautiful area on a sunny day. I imagine if a storm is rolling in from the ocean, it is also dramatic but a little less welcoming.

Mendocino

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A weekend away after a bunch of home moving activities seemed like a great idea. We had an invitation away for the Thanksgiving weekend which we would have liked to have taken but the travel involved meant it was not going to be a practical proposition. Instead, we decided to drive a couple of hours north to Mendocino and have a short break there as compensation for the missed trip to friends.

This turned out to be a great idea. We chose a weekend when the weather was gorgeous and the number of people was limited. What a combination! While we were staying in Albion, a little way south of Mendocino itself, we decided to head there on the day we arrived and take a look around. It is a cracking little town. It is a combination destination with people who are getting away from the hustle of life being there as well as city folks doing the same thing if only for a day or two.

There are lots of little shops to deal with the tourists and the place is very picturesque. It is planted right on the coast and you can walk out onto the headland to see the waves crashing in while looking back at the town on the cliffs behind you. Seeing as it was later in the day and the sun was low given the time of year, it all looked even better!

One feature of the town I particularly liked was the use of water towers. You could see the evolution of the towers around the town. Some of them were as designed with a timber framework holding up the water barrel. Others had decided to enclose the tower structure to provide some additional room space under the barrel. Then there were those that had gone the whole hog and got rid of the barrel and converted the tower into part of the home. The distinctive shape was still there which is what gives it all away.

Other little details of the place appealed. The weathervane on the fire house was rather cool. If you like chocolate, you would have several places to visit to sample their wares – something that made Nancy a lot happier than me! All in all, a great place to wander around and relax in.

Painswick

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Another famous Cotswold village about which I knew nothing is Painswick. I am beginning to think that I am clueless about my own country! Even so, I managed to get us there (even if a little GPS assistance was involved).

Painswick is another of those old towns that boomed in a time before industrialization when the local production and access to a river meant it was well suited to commerce. Apparently the town flourished in more than one area if the local signs are anything to go by but if you want to know the details, Google will be more helpful to you than I. The town has an interesting selection of old buildings a winding streets but the area that was of most interest to me was around the church.

As befits a community that had a lot of cash, they had a big church. The idea of buying your way into heaven has obviously been around a long time! While the church is impressive, what really catches the eye is the topiary collection in the churchyard. There are many yew trees that have been trimmed and shaped together over a long period of time. The result is many shapes and archways across the paths all formed from the trees. The town may not be the booming center it once was but it still knows how to take care of itself and these displays really impress.

The rest of the town is worth a wander around too and that is what we did for a couple of hours. If you are in the area, pay it a visit. Then you will know as much about it as me!

Bibury

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Nancy had looked at some possible places to visit while we were in the Cotswolds and one of them was Bibury. I had never heard of the place but it turns out that this is one of the most photographed places in the UK. I guess I should have known about it but I didn’t. The photogenic area is a row of old cottages that are down near the river. We certainly took a look but we also wandered around the rest of the village which is pretty without needing the most visited sections.

The heart of the village is the church. It was a pretty nice looking building but surrounded by some places that were either not too appealing or were being rebuilt and were covered in scaffolding. A little careful angling meant I could avoid the worst of the backgrounds. The graveyard was also an interesting place to look around and see just how old some of the grave were.

We did return to the most visited part of the village. Coach loads of people would show up every once in a while so we did our best to avoid them and find times when they weren’t filling up the view. Also, it was an effort to try and minimize the cars in the shot. When you live in an old home, you don’t have parking included. Therefore, you park outside your house. Perfectly reasonable for the homeowner but having colorful modern cars is not what you want when taking a picture of centuries old buildings!

I can certainly see why the place is so popular with the tourists. It really is about as typical of an English country village. No idea why I had never heard of it but now I have so all is good.

Burford

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Our stay in the Cotswolds needed a base and Burford was the place we chose. It is Oxfordshire rather than Gloucestershire but just about sneaks in on the edge of an area that I don’t think has a hard boundary anyway. Burford is an old market town and looks just like you would expect a Cotswold town to look. The buildings are all Cotswold stone and fit your image of what you would want. Apart from providing a nice location and a great hotel, it also provided the opportunity to take some walks without having to drive anywhere.

One walk we took was a loop starting and finishing at the hotel. It was a lovely day for a walk (and not just because I could see Hercules and A330s flying from nearby RAF Brize Norton in the distance!). The sun also seemed to be attracting a large number of pheasants. Every time we came around a corner, there seemed to be more pheasants hanging out in our path.

The walk provided a variety of sights as we went. Some wide open hillsides which had been harvested so were easy to cross, wooded areas, small valleys with trees either side and riverside sections meant the outing was constantly interesting. We saw some very old churches, some long views and a selection of wildlife.

The river had swans and geese that were interested in our presence and one section of the footpath included some young cattle. They were not huge since they were young but young cattle are still pretty chunky. While they were busy eating, we appeared to be of no interest. However, once we got a little closer, they got curious and came to greet us. We took a little care since, while they were not going to harm us, they can push you around without realizing it.

The last part of the walk brought us back in through the village and to the hotel. Given how much we were eating and drinking on this trip, it was a good thing to get some exercise in at last!

Oxford

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Our UK trip included a stay in the Cotswolds. While we were there, we wanted to take a look at Oxford. It has been a long time since I was last there and my previous visit was an ad hoc trip so we didn’t really see all that we could. This time, we took a guided walking tour of the city center. The guy who took the tour, Jacob, was a local lad and a student at the university. He had plenty of information at his finger tips and I suspect most of it was true. How would we know?

The tour focused on the area in the center of the city around some of the older and more famous colleges as well as some of the university buildings. It was a lovely day and the city was very busy. Consequently, pictures taken were holiday snaps – no time to try and be too artistic. We did have a shorter second loop after the tour though so I could go back and look at some places in slower time rather than get hurried on to the next part of the tour.

It is an old city with some great architecture. The school is okay I suppose but there are better establishments of learning if you are serious about your studies! As the parochial cousins go, though, they do okay. It all ended up with us having a pint at a pub down by the river so it really could not be considered a bad day.

Hovercraft Museum

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Pete and I had another detour after visiting Portsmouth. Just along the coast is Lee-On-Solent which used to be a Naval airfield and now is used for a variety of other things. One is a museum of hovercraft. They have quite a collection which I would like to see one day and Pete has taken a look at. They include two Super 4 hovercraft that used to ply their trade across the English Channel taking people and their cars on their way. We used this en route to France a long time ago. Now they are retired and part of the museum collection.

They are not alone with a number of other hovercraft stored alongside them, some of which look like they might be ones I have used on my travels as well. A quick chat to the tower, a healthy eye out for the glider operations and we were clear to do a quick orbit and get some shots. Very nice.