“We must take all resources under consideration; all resources, because they relate fatefully to our life on earth, reflect certain grandeurs , and deserve not only our attention, but our reverence. Hence, while it is as essential as ever to protect the National Parks and Wilderness Areas, it is also essential that we protect the forests, the crops, the minerals, and the oceans, and it is essential that we preserve the purity of the air we breathe and the water we drink.” – Ansel Adams
The travel bug, that is. 😉
Over this past weekend I was telling our oldest son Scott about our plans for an upcoming road trip. He asked “why?” Meanwhile, our youngest son Kevin is at the beach for two weeks.
If you don’t experience or understand the desire to travel, you just don’t have the travel bug. Scott is a homebody and father, and chooses to stay home. Kevin is an avid traveler and cruise fan like me & Kathy. Nobody is cruising these days, so Kevin followed our lead and went to the beach for a change of scenery. In his job he has a bunch of vacation time that he needs to use by the end of the year, and the clock was ticking!
Our plans are to head to the Pacific Northwest shortly, although in addition to all the Covid stuff we are now looking at the spread of wildfires all over the west. Fortunately our plans are very flexible, and once our Subie is loaded up with a full tank of gas we can go just about anywhere!
The travel bug doesn’t wait – the clock is still ticking and we have 18 states to go to get to 50. With a little luck and a lot of driving we’ll pick up another 5.
Kathy & I woke this morning to a temperature of 68 degrees and a noticeable drop in humidity. We had our morning coffee & tea on the screened porch and almost needed our sleeves! 🙂
Kathy & I met our friend Paul for lunch today, and on the way home Kathy said that the shadows and colors on the houses looked like fall. The air is crispy clear and it does have that fall look. But we’re not fooled! This will only last a few days before the heat and humidity return. In the meantime we’ll enjoy it!
Much is made these days of the idea of “social distancing,” a term I abhor because there ain’t nothing “social” about it. I understand and support the idea of maintaining space, but I can’t help but wish that “they” had come up with a better term for it!
Kathy & I were having a conversation recently where – one of our frequent subjects – we talked about the fact that there is way too much information available these days – that there is a big difference between information and facts. And she mentioned that there needs to be some term for the idea of maintaining “virtual distancing” from all the crap that circulates in the media and on the Internet.
Social Distancing, of course, means that my chances of getting cooties from someone decreases dramatically if they are outside my imaginary 6-foot personal space. By a similar token, if some virtual boogieman – real or imagined – is outside my zone of relevance, it’s importance to me means very little. We as a society pay way too much attention to people, voices and noise that have little or no direct influence on us. Because it is out there we feel some sense of obligation, and we never take the time to think about whether or not it is useful, helpful or relevant.
Case in point: our upcoming presidential election. We now know who the candidates are for each respective party. I now know who I’m going to vote for. Until I get my ballot in the mail, I don’t need to follow every analysis and every story relating to who vs. who or what vs. what or he said/she said. And you can be assured there will be plenty of it – it’s been going on for months and will really get started today (although I would love to see a head to head debate between Ms. Harris and Trumpty Dumpty, which of course will never happen). Send me my ballot and let me vote. Beyond that I have no influence, I have no emotional investment. I’ll do my civic duty as a responsible citizen and live with the results when I read them the next day.
I’m liking the concept of Virtual Distancing even more than Social Distancing. Social Distancing is pretty easy – stay away from people! Virtual distancing isn’t any harder, as long as we pay attention to who and what is trying to get our attention. While the most effective form of distancing means staying completely away from people, their ideas and their opinions, that just isn’t practical. But just like we cast a wary eye on that person behind us in line at the grocery store, we need to approach our media consumption with the same level of caution and skepticism. And turn it off when it makes sense to do so.
Kirk Tuck recently used this phrase in regards to making choices between camera options, specifically about different lenses. The full quote follows:
The “science” of optical design can not have changed a tremendous amount in four or five years so you have to understand that the “new versus old” shift is largely a recalibration of compromises. Buy the new one and watch your left biceps atrophy. Buy the old one and suffer the dreaded effects of manual portage. Suffer the ruinous added weight of the original for the extra 1% of quality in the corners or choose the lightweight version and forever wonder how much optical magic they had to remove to get the lens corpulence under control.
It occurred to me, however, that the concept applies in a much broader context, especially in recent months.
Every decision we make requires some effort to balance the options, to compromise. Do I want the camera with the big sensor that is huge, heavy and requires a large suitcase to cart around, or am I better off with the compact camera with a smaller sensor, small but excellent lenses and “good enough” image quality? We want to travel – we love to fly but not not any time soon. We have spent a lot of time on cruise ships but won’t for a while. Our trip to the beach worked out really well – just like living at home but with better scenery. 😉
We love to eat our but have limited our restaurant outings. We’ve gotten even better at preparing simple but delicious meals at home – much to the delight of the bathroom scale!
Kathy and I are currently in the process of planning a road trip to the Pacific Northwest. The places we’re planning to visit are the places where we’re less likely to encounter big crowds. As crazy as it sounds, we’ll probably drive within a few miles of Yellowstone or Glacier National Parks, but have no intention of stopping. First, crowds are not our thing. We probably would be doing pretty much the same thing even without all the Coronacrisis hoopla. But second is that we don’t want to have to deal with the logistics of large crowds. Third is that when we do go to those parks we want to be able to spend several days or even a couple of weeks there. That isn’t the plan for this time.
Our recent drive to Ohio and Wisconsin taught us that we can eat, sleep, pee and get gas just about anywhere. Sometimes it requires a little compromise on location or timing, but it can get done. Ultimately, once we solve that basic equation we can go just about anywhere!
People ask us why we don’t buy an RV. For some people it’s the perfect solution. For us, we like knowing that when we get to the motel, tired after or driving or exploring all day, we don’t need to spend another hour setting up camp. I can have cocktails made within minutes after arrival! And the next morning, we grab a cup of coffee, drop the keys at the front desk and get on our way again. Neither option is right or wrong, just different ways to calibrate the compromises.
None of our choices are either/or or yes/no. We need to consider what we can do instead We have to look at the options and recalibrate our compromises. Our priorities, if you will. It can be hard, particularly for those of us who don’t care for change. But the effort is worth it, because there are still plenty of things to do once we have worked out the details.
I’m going back through my old photos for a website update. This one is already on my website, but I thought I would see what the current software (and my current Lightroom chops) could do with some of the files. This is the first one I’ve tried this go-around, and I think I’ve made significant improvement.
I made a Snapshot in case I messed something up, then hit Reset. Using the Adobe Landscape profile, I went though my usual routine with contrast, etc. I added a gradient to the sky, using a Luminance Mask to apply the settings only to the lightest parts. Overall contrast and saturation is much better, which is hard to see in the web versions.
It will be interesting to see what I can do with other files. This may take a while…. 😉
Canon 20D w/17-40 f4
Several of the commenters on my previous post mentioned the excessive-ness of the huge cottages on Lake Geneva. Kathy & I did find a few that would be more reasonably sized, assuming you could afford the lot. The top image is just the boat house for a larger mansion. The A-frame would be just about right, I think. Anyway, wanted to show what the folks on my side of the wealth curve would buy if we could! 😉
One of the highlights of our visit to Wisconsin was a cruise on Lake Geneva with our friends Jeff and Mary Pat. The cruise featured a look at the numerous “summer cottages” that surround the lake. They ain’t like any “cottages” I’ve ever seen, and would make a lot of the so-called “mansions” around Lake Norman look like guest houses.
I didn’t attempt to document them all, but I did take some photos of some of the most noteworthy ones. It was a nice cruise, a pleasant afternoon with fun people. Good weather and smooth sailing! 🙂
Our first overnight stop on the return home from Wisconsin took us to the town of Jasper, Indiana. We chose Jasper primarily because it was just about the right distance for the day, but also because it looked like it had an interesting downtown area for us to check out.
I was initially attracted by the fact that Jasper has a train station, but we noted that the train station was an anchor for a new mixed-use development called River Centre. A brand new Fairfield Inn sits along the Patoka River and is connected to the Jasper Riverwalk, a 4.5 mile multi-purpose trail that connects several businesses and restaurants, and winds through a scenic section along the river.
Across the river from River Centre and connected by a very nice steel bridge is the historic Jasper City Mill. The current mill building is a replica of a mill that was established on the site in 1817 and was in operation until 1933. Among the customers of the mill is said to have been Thomas Lincoln and his son Abraham Lincoln, who bartered goods for corn meal in 1828.
We got into town late and left early, and it was a Sunday so not too many businesses were open. But we got a good look at the town – enough to determine that it would be worth a re-visit. It is “on the way” to a lot of places we hope to visit, so we will be sure to add Jasper to the itinerary on a future road trip!
If there is something you really want to do, don’t avoid doing it just because things you can’t control make it uncomfortable. Go! (Me)
We had been waiting for a clear evening to try and see the Comet NEOWISE and finally got it on Sunday. Unfortunately, our neighbors are afraid of the dark and we have way too many lights around to see the sky. We had pre-scouted a place out in the country for just such an occasion, and ventured out there after dark on Sunday.
The comet was harder to spot than I thought it would be, but we finally did locate it with binoculars. I tried to make a decent photograph of it, but between not being able to focus and using a too-long shutter speed for the focal length of my lens, I got mostly junk. The in-focus shots are sharp but have long star trails, and the out of focus shots have blurry lines.
Most night photography how-tos suggest using a wide-angle lens, but I was using a longer lens because I knew that with a wide-angle lens the comet would be even less visible than it was with the telephoto.
The first shot was taken at 55mm for about 10 seconds, and even it has some blur. The second one was taken at 200mm, but I made a rookie mistake by using a 12 second exposure when it should have been about 5 seconds or less. Oh well, it was an interesting outing with or without photos and satisfied my desire to just see the comet. My philosophy is that there are other people taking night photos far better than mine, so I don’t need to make my own, just look at theirs instead!
