Went for a ride

I am looking for a different place to shoot the milky way and possibly the Perseids this weekend. We decided to head down to Crescent City, it is about a 30 minute drive. Here is the picture in the daylight that I think will make a great foreground for the stars. I am however not sure what I was thinking after I took this picture. Let me explain. When I step outside of the car just to take a documentary image I close the door. So, one would think when the picture is taken you open the door to get into the car. I ended up closing the door and giving Roy this look like how I ended up on this side of the door. You can now have that image in your head. Well, when a door is open what do you do you close it. I’m just glad Roy did not drive off. Once I got back in the car we decided to explore the coast of Crescent City. I love the unique rocks and beaches that dot the landscape. Look for some pictures from here in the future.

We finally are heading home it is dark and I am pulling my let’s fall asleep while Roy drive. As you can tell from this video, I did not stay asleep for long. I am also glad Roy was a truck driver. I am also glad we have both views from the camera.

You can see Roy’s lips move and catch a light going by us. He said that it looks like we will only see one logging truck on the way home. He also explained that he loved driving at night because there was usually little to no traffic. My though was yeah with little to no traffic you get animals. That is how we lost a windshield in 2000. That was compliments of a wild mustang. That is just about when I had my reaction. This was a half mile out of town, and she was standing right in our lane. I grew up in the Midwest and have seen deer in the middle of the road, I will say they are small compared to the cow elk in the middle of the road. The cows can weigh between 400 and 500 pounds.

I have to say I am glad we got home safe, and the cow decided to head back off the road.

Chickens in the ‘Wild’

I am so glad we did not go any farther down the dirt road we were on. Had that happened, I would not have photographed the chickens. Towards the end of our afternoon drive, we were headed home when the car was actually being chased by a dog, and that is what I was paying attention to. Roy, on the other hand, was paying attention to whatever moves. In this case, it was some movement on the side of the road. Roy said, “I’m sure I saw chickens,” and I’m thinking, “Okay, if you say so.”

A u-turn occurred, and the dog resumed its chase. He found the movement and made another u-turn. I pulled out my camera, and Roy straddled the road so I could take some pictures of the chickens. Realizing we were in the middle of the road and there was traffic coming down that road, the photo op was finished. We did flag down the car to let them know chickens were on the side of the road. The other driver said, “I will call the owner and let them know their chickens are loose.” The chickens were the end of a fun road trip down a dirt road up an elevated dit road. The start of this was watching kites trying to fly.

Sometimes when you are waiting for someone to come back and they don’t, you have to change plans. We needed to talk to the office where we are staying, but it was closed. A whole afternoon of free time. Our normal routine is to drive through the harbor to see if the kites are flying, then park by the river that drains into the ocean to see if there are any egrets or maybe common murres or pelicans. This day, however, the only thing flying was a solo light green kite.

We needed to explore something different, of course it was sunny and that in itself is rare. Down Winchuck River Road or the Oregon Redwoods Trail, time to see a few large trees. This is also where we saw the chickens. The road itself was a maintained county road until it wasn’t. I will say, on a side note, that this summer the forest service roads are in better condition than in the past. We did take the paved forest service road until it turned into gravel.

The first road had a bridge over (not troubled) water. I was able to take advantage of the sunlight falling through the trees onto the river. It was great to stay in the car and just shoot from the passenger side of the car. Not wanting to go any further down the road because it had turned into gravel, we started heading back to civilization. Before that happened, I suggested let’s head up to the Ludlum campground; it is only 2 1/2 miles up another road. This road quickly turned into a narrow, one-lane gravel road with nowhere to turn around. (Not one of my better adventure ideas.) We were able to find a wide spot in the road to turn around.

Roy is always paying attention to the environment I do not notice as much as he does. I am learning. I mention this because the pictures below are of a fallen tree with its root ball intact and all of the tiny trees and brush growing out of the trunk. Mother Nature’s nursery.

In my opinion, the forest is peaceful and a tad unnerving. The quietness is deafening until you start to hear the sounds of the forest. Just about then, I’m out of the car taking pictures, looking over my shoulder for the bear or bobcat, or maybe a mountain lion. I saw or heard none of them. I did end up jumping though and getting scared. It was caused by Roy and his horn. As I went to the other side of the car after lovingly telling him he was #1, he pointed out how high above the river we were.

On the way home and after we ran into the chickens we went to see Oregon’s largest Monterey Cypress. This tree than 130 feet tall. I had trouble fitting it in the farme. It is interesting what gems are hidden in plain sight.

With a full day of no fog it was great discovering the area.

4-Wheeling 4th of July

with my wheelchair. Picture this: coming at you from the darkness, a bright light bouncing up and down adding in some side to side movement. I would be scared, and so were the people who I ended up shining the light in their eyes. It was an accident. I did apologize; their response was, “We had no idea what was coming at us.” One even said how impressed they were that we could baja out on this rocky jetty. My answer was, “I will do anything for a photo shot and a Klondike bar.” I have been out on this jetty before but never at night. I also had thoughts of, something jumping out of the harbor and …. (way too many Stephen King novels).

Roy and I went out earlier in the day to scope out the spot for the tripod and camera to get the perfect image. I was lucky enough to see how they stuff the fireworks. (I love my zoom lens). The picture below is about 600 yards away and about where we settled for the fireworks photos. I couldn’t see this with the naked eye and if you squint you will see what my camera saw.

The jetty is located between the small boat harbor and the Chetco River. I have spent a few days trying to hone my bird tracking skills by photographing the egrets that love to hang out in both areas. Check out this one that took off from the docks. I am amazed at the gracefulness and silence of these birds.

After we figured out where we would set up for the fireworks we headed back to the car and decided let’s go check out the vendors they had for the 4th. We notice them by looking across the harbor. I did end up buying a dress. Fast forward to the evening and we arrived right before dark and wanted to get a good position on the jetty. We weren’t sure how many people would head out to the jetty to watch the fireworks. It turned out we had about 50 people walk past us to head out to the end of the jetty. I heard it was crazy on the beach. I know watching the fireworks that were going off even before the main event. I enjoyed seeing the fireworks all around plus it was a great way to make an hour go by.

Once the main event started I was able to enjoy them because the camera took care of itself. I put my Miops lightning trigger on the camera and let it work for me. I enjoyed watching and being able to share the fireworks with you.

Check out the slide show. I hope everyone had a great 4th. Happy Birthday America.

A Doe a Deer

We had finished shooting images in the fog, I am making progress on these. I was also able to get a few fishes that were being eaten by an egret. I am working on these and I hope to be sharing the images in a few days. I will say that because of a change in environment and landscape I am struggling with the ability to capture some images and writing blogs.

I will leave you with this DEER.

A Few More Buffalo and a Turkey

The turkey however is not who or what you think. Roy is a turkey yes, but he is not a wild one. On one of our last days in South Dakota we decided to do the wildlife loop one more time. Roy and I were talking about how we had not seen any turkeys this year. Someone had to be listening because just about then on the side of the road we saw turkeys. We were able to follow their journey in the brush for a couple of hundred yards.

We had to go off the beaten path to find where the buffalo were hiding. Unlike, the time we thought the day was going to be a bust and discovered them right around a curve where we had never seen them before.

Early evening right before sunset the light is definitely golden and magical. If you add a little dust in the air you can capture (in my opinion some iconic buffalo pictures).

I also loved the fact that the crowds of the summer were gone by late August early September. I think the animals were also happy for that. I love how the buffalo will use anything they have to itch that scratch. He must of spent a good ten minutes just standing around and loving all over this tree stump.

I am in awe especially after spending all summer around these massive animals and the herd.

Seeing the interaction between mom and calf and how it changed over the summer. The powerful image of a male standing firm and tall. I felt blessed and lucky to be able to take photographs this particular night because it seemed like everything came together. The rain had finally stopped so when a buffalo would lay in a ‘mud’ hole you wondered where Pigpen was from Charlie Brown.

I could have spent all evening hanging with the buffalo but that was not to be. We saw some clouds building on the horizon which meant only one thing. There was going to be an awesome sunset. This summer we did not have many colorful sunsets. I am glad that we experienced this one.

I wasn’t done taking photos yet. I was going to try and recreate a cell phone photo that Amanda one of the workers at the campground captured. The backstory: She is a camper and every weekend she would pitch a tent. Then one weekend she was walking towards her tent that was lit up just enough to show a silhouette of her dog Zeus. She snapped the picture with her cellphone. I loved it and thought maybe I could repeat it for her using my camera. We tried to repeat it but the magic was gone. This was one of the nights that the moon looked full so, we decided to try a silhouette of her and her dog with the moon in the picture. I had fun setting the scene and snapping the pictures. It was the perfect end to a day of magical photographs.

When they let you practice.

Birds or for the fact any animal who will stand or sit while I try different settings on my camera. This is what happened one day when I came out of the post office in Keystone SD. Roy noticed it first and was shocked how intense it was in grabbing his seeds.

I grabbed my camera and zoomed in on this American Goldfinch watching him so intent on grabbing the seed off the end of the stalk you could tell he was on a mission. I just wanted to share with you the pictures of him and his seed.

It was a fun 15 minutes spent with this bird.

The 1880 Train

what a ride. It was interesting this summer to be able to ride the train and also take some pictures of it coming round the bend. I should state I never realized how loud a train whistle was until you try and stand 15 feet away from it. I did not stand there for that long and yes, I did miss some pictures.

The train runs from Hill City SD to Keystone SD round trip takes about two hours. There were numerous crossings along the train route, so we had our choice of places to shoot the train. We settled on two different crossings. Here are some of those photos.

After taking pictures of the train from the roadside we decided to take the train. We left from Hill City. I do love my chair especially when it lets me ride around and take pictures I would not have taken before. I decided to run around the station at Hill City. I was able to catch them topping off the steam and blowing off some steam.

The train is ADA accessible with a lift and there is room for 2 wheelchairs or scooters for each trip. We decided to take the earliest train to both beat the heat and the crowds. That was a smart move on our part, because on the return trip from Keystone to Hill City the train was filling up. On the trip to Keystone Roy sat on the left side of the train and I was on the right side we switched sides for the return trip. I saw no animals on my side of the train on the way to Keystone. I was however able to catch some smoke in the air when they blew the whistle at a crossing.

Speaking of blowing the whistle; they use morse code to warn people when the train is coming to a crossing. the Morse Code is for the letter “Q”. (And indeed, it is dah-dah-dit-dah.) He went on to say he was told that British ships in the late 1800s blew long-long-short-long on the ship’s horn—the letter “Q”—as a way of letting other maritime traffic know that Queen Victoria was on board and to yield the right of way. So, we are all royalty. That was what our conductor told us. (He wouldn’t lie.) I digress.

At Keystone the train has to disconnect and hook up to the back of the train. There is no turn table to turn the engine around. So, on the way back to Hill City the back end of the train is out front. I was able to get off the train and take a few pictures of the train engine passing me.

On the way back to Hill City I saw a deer who got spooked when the train blew the whistle his head popped up and I missed the shot. I was however able to capture little boy blue fishing. The garage is actually between two boulders makes for interesting walls. We also passed the remains of an old mine building.

I’m glad Roy and I took the train it gave me a different perspective on the landscape.

The Custer State Park Welcoming Committee.

That’s what these buffalo were for us one morning towards the end of the summer we were heading around the loop. Roy has been pretty good at finding the buffalo because they move about 2 to 3 miles a day. The fun thing was trying to figure out where they would show up. It was kind of a surprise when we pulled around the corner to see this.

There was a small group hanging around the self-pay entry station to the park. (I’m glad we had our pass park.) The buffalo were just hanging around the start or end of Wildlife loop depending what direction you are going. This was really fun just watching them scratch and hanging across the road. In this area is also where the volunteers that work in the State Park stay with their RVs.

They also wanted to make sure we knew buffalo are dangerous do not approach as they stood under the sign.

Just a side note I ran across this article 15 Fun Facts about Our National Mammal

After our welcoming committee it was off to find the burros and maybe my stalker again I had more carrots. Yes, I saw my stalker and I did feed him. All was forgiven and he promised me no more kisses. I do have to say the baby is getting big and has started to let people touch her. Although I do think she is still a tad nervous you can see it in her eyes. Here are a few more pictures of baby and mommy. It is nice that she is still nursing.

We also got to see a mutual petting/cleaning session going o between two of the burros. Roy even moved the car to get a better video. I tried to get a shot of the two but could not get an angle until I moved and caught one of them being a butt licker. It also seemed like Roy needed cleaning because his headlight got some action.

It was still early in the day so we decided to take the dirt road that runs between Wind Cave National Park and Custer State Park. It was here where we had seen quite a few prairie dogs in the past and the bunny who would not move. They seem to have spread out this year. Although we were able to catch a few enjoying peanuts.

We also saw a bluebird and he let me capture his best side. After lunch we ran into the burros again. This time we let them be.

Not to be forgotten I did get my butt shot of the big horn sheep.

They Hang Horse Thieves.

Lucky for me I just got to ride it for two hours. Actually, this summer I rode a horse three different times. My first trip was an hour long and, in my opinion, it was too short. So, what did I do I booked the two hour trip. The rides were amazing. I see know why they say horse therapy is good for MS. I think I will look into that when I get home.

I will say I felt like someone had beat me up the next day. I will have to learn moderation. The funny thing is Roy never took any pictures of me until the last one. I am proud of him he learned how to use my phone for a camera.

I was challenged by the river crossings I did a total 14 crossings. I was an old pro by the end. It was so peaceful and calming just because there was no car traffic or man-made noise. On the ride we caught sight of a deer and lots of wildflowers.

I did not take any pictures on the trail because I would have dropped my phone.

This was at the Blue Bell stables in Custer State Park.