MY PHOTO CONFERENCE IS OVER

Here it is Saturday and I’m rather glad to see the end of the conference in a way.  They have kept the hotel way cooler than needed; you shouldn’t have to wear a coat to the meeting rooms when it is in the 70’s F outside.  I seem to have come down with a head cold or infected sinuses which I will blame on the air conditioning.  My last tour the other day was to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.  While they have a large number of animals, getting a good shot proved impossible in many cases.  Sometimes the wire was to tight a mesh and often the glass was way too dirty to be able to shoot through.    Before getting out of the bus at the zoo, we drove past it up to the Will Roger’s Shrine of the Sun perched way up the hillside looking over the city and the prairie beyond.  I will share some of my zoo images next post.

Aileen did laundry on Monday.  Her gluten free bread made Sunday turned out very well and she has made another batch.  After I posted my blog Monday afternoon we went for the drive suggested by the guy I met in Manitou Springs.  We went up 26^th St right beside our RV park here and followed Gold Trail Rd which turned into gravel later.  There were some pretty impressive drop offs and two old train tunnels to drive through.  I was pretty surprised to drive by Helen Hunt Falls which was to be part of my tour Tuesday!  I got my pictures as I imagined it would be difficult to get much Tuesday with the big group.  It is a tiny area to take pictures from and you have to shoot really tight to remove the ugly bridge from the image.  It was an excellent suggestion from that chap.  When I went with the group on Tuesday, I just went for a walk beyond the falls on the path and got considerably higher and saw some other scenery.

Helen Hunt Falls taken on Monday

30 second exposure of Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak.  It was pretty dark still

Pikes Peak in the background is 14,110 feet

My five point buck

The balancing rock with no people in the scene.  You need to get there pretty early to beat the crowds.  The above were my Wednesday morning shots.

I brought my friend JP Bajaneree sp? home with me for supper on Tuesday and we had a good visit.  He and Aileen hit it off too.  I showed him some of my pictures and he thinks I should be presenting at future conferences.  It was nice to be complimented.  Later at the evening when we met people, he kept going on with the same thing.  I chummed around with JP while we were in Yellowstone for the conference two years ago.  He and his wife immigrated to Florida from India about eight years ago and he is very enthusiastic about his photography.  We were on all three tours together this year.

The next door neighbour woke me at 5 am Wednesday morning getting ready to leave for the day with his noisy diesel truck.  Mitzy didn’t like the noise either so was complaining.  I decided to get up about 6 and go up to the Garden of the Gods.  Well it was still dark when I got there and darn cold.  I fired off a 30 second exposure when I first got out.  I moved to the far end of the bank above the visitor’s center as it got lighter.  After a bit I could hear brush snapping and when it got a little lighter, I saw several bucks in a little patch of scrub brush below me.  I had to go to the car for my long lens and did get some good shots of a five point mule deer.

I’ve had a couple longer gaps between programs during the week so I was able to take Aileen shopping for groceries.  I made it home for lunch and supper nearly every day since Wednesday except for one lunch and one supper.  Thursday evening there was a social get together for all the attendees other than the US.  My friend Harbin from Vernon BC, one of the American members, a lady from Sydney, Australia and a lady from Jakarta, Indonesia were at my table and we had a great time visiting and discussing photography around the world and sharing bits of our lives.  The three evening programs Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were excellent with lots of good photos.

I have spent some time trying to lay out some kind of route for us over the next while.  I want to go to the Great Sand Dunes southwest of here since we may never get this far to the east again, then work up through the San Juan Mountains.  Not sure where from there but probably Grand Junction to visit our good friends Ken and Marie.  I think we’ll stay here another night so we can put some time into planning and perhaps some more pictures around here.  We went to the Garden of the Gods again tonight.  I wanted to see some different areas and boy did I ever.  I went to the Siamese Twins and then took an obscure trail since the main one was going the wrong direction.  I have this thing where I prefer to not return by the same way I went which often (as in tonight) makes for a longer and more difficult trip back to the car.  I’m very fortunate to have a very patient (usually) wife.  I ended up climbing to the top of the highest hill before finding a route down to the road again.  I ended up following a creek bed as the trail petered out.  One benefit of my detour was the opportunity to get those two twisted Juniper trees which I have included with this post. 

One of tonight's images in a different part of the Garden of the Gods

The Siamese Twins

Twisted Juniper and part of the Garden

Another twisted Juniper with Pikes Peak 

An after dark shot tonight with Pikes Peak in the background.  Some one is shining a spot light on the first Garden rock highlighting the so called Kissing Camels.

Close up of the Kissing Camels; they are at the top

This morning’s trip had an interesting start.   Nobody on the bus including our driver knew where these Paint Mines were.   Fortunately someone had given some hand written directions and we managed to find them after driving 35 or more miles.  These formations are scattered in pockets around the grassland and are created by wind eroding the soil from around the harder rock which seems to be composed mainly of little quartz crystals held together with mud.  We spent over two and a half hours there and I only covered about half of the area.   I could see at least two more of the pits and there were likely more I couldn’t see.

Tomorrow is my last tour and it will be a tossup whether I am able to make a post as the evening programs start so my time at the motor home will be rather curtailed.   

Some of my images from the Paint Mines near Calhan, CO

FIRST FIELD TRIP

We went for a drive up the Highway 24 from here and turned around at Divide yesterday morning.  I had expected to see a raft of high mountains when we got up on top and was disappointed to see hardly any and those just barely showing on the horizon.  I guess we have to go further west to find them.  I hope to get some tips on good photo spots this week at the conference.

Yesterday my conference tour took me to Manitou Springs for a walk around the old town which is a real tourist trap although there are some nice distinctive buildings.  I was impressed with the politeness and friendliness of the younger people I encountered.  One interesting point was I got chatting to this guy who wanted to know what I was taking pictures of.  When he saw I was from Salmon Arm, he got really excited and told me he had actually been there for Roots and Blues a few years ago.   In the evening we went to Garden of the Gods but the sky gods weren’t with us.  It clouded over just prior to our getting there and we only had brief flashes of good light.  Usually we were in the wrong place when that happened.   I’m glad I went there the night before to experience better light.  This morning I’m off to the Paint Mines which is another type of geologic formation.

Farming at 9,000 feet

A neat old house getting ready for renovations

Old Manitou Springs

Garden of the Gods again

Garden of the Gods with Pikes Peak in the background

The last shot taken just at dark, I could barely see through the view finder

WE’VE ARRIVED IN COLORADO SPRINGS

We drove a lot of this big sky country in Montana, Wyoming and northern Colorado

Aileen shot these two pictures of the massive traffic going through Denver.  Our friend Char said we should use the toll road.  We were thinking maybe we should have as this went on for a long time

Well here we are in Colorado Springs, CO right on schedule (dang, there’s that plan word again) and it felt like a long way.  It was 2610 kms (1631 miles) and seven days.  There was so much construction on the whole route.  It’s not too much fun driving for many miles at high speed and restricted to single lane, often on the opposite side of the freeway with nothing but some plastic cones between you and the opposing traffic who are doing 65mph or more.  I was amazed at the number of hills there were as the interstates tend to follow the contours which made it difficult to use cruise control for extended periods.  The rig wanted to downshift too far too early which was noisy. 

We had three nights with noisy campgrounds too close to the interstate and three night with quiet ones.  We are crammed cheek by jowl in our site here in Colorado Springs but it is pretty close to my conference location.  The hotel is six miles from here and three of it is on the interstate so about nine or ten minutes driving depending on lights.  Aileen will be able to take her scooter and explore Old Colorado City which is only half a km from here.

I went and found the conference hotel after we got set up this afternoon and got my registration package.  After supper we went for a drive and found ourselves in the Garden of the Gods.  The light was interesting so I did some shooting.  I’m going there on my tour tomorrow afternoon and evening so it will be interesting to see how it compares.

These are all at the Garden of the Gods

These guys were posing for someone else

There is a young girl climbing up near the top

A pair of many deer we saw.  The big guy on the right appears to have a broken left hip as the leg stayed in that position.

After the sun went down the sky and rocks came together better

MODEL T'S AT BANNACK

There were seven Model T's from a club based in Florence, MT visiting the park.  They managed to get permission to drive in  and take pictures of their cars with the old buildings.  Two of the cars were from Alberta.  All seven were travelling around via back roads without any support vehicles and staying in motels  

There are three more posts from today lined up below this one.  John

CHANGES TO HOW YOU VIEW MY PICTURES

I noticed with this post that when you click on a picture to enlarge it, all the current pictures line up across the bottom of the screen.  You can just keep clicking on the thumbnails to move through all the pictures without having to go back each time first.  You will notice there is a white X in a black background up in the top right.  By clicking on that X, it closes the pictures and takes you back to the text.   They can never leave things alone can they!

I have made three posts today.  This one, one with pictures and text and one with only pictures.

HOWDY FROM CASPER, WYOMING

View over Grand Forks valley

Smokey sunset, Grand Forks

Above Grand Forks

Am I doing this right?

Posing for me

The full moon through hydro poles

We’ve been on the road for five days since the last post and covered 2033 kms (1270 miles) which is making pretty good time for us.  We stayed in Grand Forks, BC the first night.  When the RV park owner heard I was interested in photography, he offered to take me up the mountain after supper.  I said sure!  When he came to get me, I asked if there would be much chance of wildlife, he said, oh, maybe some grouse.  I decided to take my long lens just in case.  First off we saw a bear but too far for good photos.  While up top, I took some pictures over the town but it was rather smoky so not too good.  Then as I was heading over to try some shots of the full moon, a bighorn sheep popped into view.  I went back to the truck for my 100-400 lens and the sheep posed nicely for me when I got back.  He even allowed me to change the lens between cameras so I could take advantage of the higher ISO of my big camera.

We crossed the border at Cascade on Monday morning and it was very smooth.  The lady was pleasant and had hardly any questions.  We made it to St Regis, MT that night and although WiFi was promised, no one was getting on that night.  Next morning it worked well.  We think the lady had the firewall setting too high as she told me how she was paranoid about people downloading the wrong things.

On Tuesday we deviated from the plan (see, sometimes I actually plan ahead) and went to Dillon, MT which was quite away off course.  I had heard about the Bannack ghost town recently and wanted to go there.  I set Aileen up in the campground , unloaded the scooter and rack and went off to the State Park which has protected Bannack  since 1954.  I have to say it was one talked about place that delivered!  I spent several  hours in the town and was the last person there by an hour .  The park guy had no problem with my staying late and in fact chatted along with me a couple times.  I shot mostly HDR in colour and black & white.  I hadn’t shot in camera black & white before and was very impressed with my results.  I took 688 shots at Bannack but only about 150 different subjects since for the majority I took 6 shots for each subject doing HDR for colour and b&w.  I changed between colour and b&w each time so used lots of time up.  I was impressed that my camera battery was still nearly half charged after 688 shots which included lots of peeking (checking to see how the shots looked).  Everything was done on the tripod too.

Yesterday we made it to Billings, MT where we were to visit friends Ken and Char.  Well, we’d had an email a couple days ago that Char had suffered a heart attack and had a stint put in.  She had been home a day already when we saw her last night but she was not resting like she should.  Ken, who is 82, came back to town from planting wheat to take us to the Golden Corral for supper.  He came back to the motor home which was almost next door at Walmart and visited longer.  He will be hauling fertilizer with his Kenworth for the next while from Billings out to Hysham, about 86 miles away, then will probably haul grain or hay.   He had both knees replaced last year and they are working out very well he said.  He crawls around mechanicing and in and out of machinery all the time.

We got an early start this morning and did our biggest day putting on 462 kms getting to Casper, Wyoming.  That’s a pretty big day for us as we don’t push the speed.  We try to keep it about 100 kph or just over 60 mph.  There are a lot of hills along most of our route and we have gained over 4000 feet of elevation with another 2000 to come in the next two days.  We had several days of really warm weather but just about froze yesterday with the high less than 10C (50F).  We are back to low 20’sC (70’sF) today.