Today was a second long day of driving. And two time zone changes, so suddenly I’ve lost two hours.
There are many, many pictures of really neat things that will require longer posts later. Then there was the legendary experience of trying to get dinner at 21:30 on a Thursday night in Fort Stockton, Texas…
Tomorrow I’ll be in Kerrville, I’ll meet up with my son, and we’ll start plotting the weekend and doomscrolling about cloud cover and weather forecasts.
It’s an amazing adventure!!
Filed under Photography, Travel, Weather
First off, as a side note, I’m currently on a consecutive days posting streak here of 786 days.
I give that streak a 50/50 chance at best of making it to 800 days at the end of next week. What will kill it, accidentally, will be A) a horribly long day of driving and adventuring at which point I get back to the hotel and crash and burn and sleep for 12 hours, B) not knowing what time zone I’m in to begin with and having midnight click by when I think it’s still 22:00 or 23:00, or C) both.
Eleven hours on the road today to do 8.5 hours of driving. That leaves a little less than 11 hours of driving remaining to get to Kerrville, TX on Friday.
Arizona rest stops have issues.
Are scorpions actually classified as insects? Who knew?
I did not see any, but there are a lot of tall cacti on those hills. I did not get any closer because, well, jeeze Louise, SEE ABOVE!
I did see this guy (and a small flock of his family & friends) who were sounding off just before sunset at the rest stop.
The Cornell Labs ID’d it as a great-tailed grackle. (I think I messed up the title on the Youtube upload. My bad!) That’s a new one for me!
Tonight I’m back in Benson, AZ for the night. (Cue all of the appropriate “Dark Star” 🚀👽🛸 jokes.) Tomorrow it’s on to Texas (4 hours, 271 miles to El Paso) and we’ll see where I end up for the night.
It’s an adventure! It’s awesome!!😎
Filed under Birds, Critters, Photography, Travel
Ready or not…
Tomorrow, the road to Texas awaits. Get to the I-10 and turn left – if you hit Houston you’ve gone too far.
The good news is that the five-day forecast for clouds is improving a bit for Central Texas. It’s not good, mind you, but it’s better. I don’t necessarily need “clear and a million” (although I would of course take it) but I would certainly like something better than what I had seven years ago. Like, a lot better.
We will see. It will be what it will be.
Am I ready? Probably more ready than I was afraid I would be, but never as ready as I would like. It’s like that line about novels or other projects, they’re never “done,” they just get to the point where they’re “abandoned.”
It’s gonna be an adventure! It’s gonna be spectacular!
Filed under Photography, Travel
It’s going to be a marathon and an adventure. It might be stressful at times but I intend to make it glorious, not exhausting.
It’s a four-dimensional finish line to this race – space and time. The space – Kerrville, TX. The time, 13:32:07 on April 8th, 2024.
(Image: NASA Scientific Visualization Studio)
Kerrville is expecting somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 visitors for the day of the eclipse. It’s going to be a madhouse.
To get a room there a four-day minimum was required, non-refundable, and at somewhere between three and five times the normal hotel rates. Ye olde “supply & demand” at work!
I’ll be driving out from Los Angeles, about twenty hours of driving, but over three days. That should give me sufficient slack to allow for any unexpected issues or detours.
I didn’t even think about flying out and getting a rental car – those reservations were pretty much booked and overbooked months ago.
In order to take that time off of work I’m going like a banshee now to try to not only keep up with my current workload but to get ahead and stay ahead for when I leave. (No good deed…)
So, a marathon, to have my butt and hopefully a trunk full of camera gear in a sunny spot in central Texas in the early afternoon twenty-seven days from now.
It WILL be glorious!
Almost twenty years ago. Vermont.
The Connecticut River from the top of Mount Ascutney.
It will be time to try to go back again this summer. Let’s try to make it happen.
Filed under Travel
I was looking for a random photo and I realized that I haven’t shared a panorama in forever. Time to fix that.
Click on it – I’m giving you the full-sized, uncompressed file here.
Central Park, seven and a half years ago.
(Still raining here, but I think we’re near the end of this storm. Probably another in a week or so – El Niño FTW!!)
Filed under Panorama, Photography, Travel, Weather
A bit of frustration (nothing tragic, just…annoying) led to a headache. I didn’t want to take any Excedrin since I’ve got an appointment for tomorrow evening to donate blood again, so I tried just breathing for a minute.
No lotus position – not unless someone’s going to call the paramedics to help me up and unbend me when I’m done. Just some guided deep breaths, a few muscles being forced to unclench.
An app brought up an image – and I had been there. Fushimi Inari in Kyoto.
While my body is here, dealing with *waves hands wildly at all of THIS*, for at least a few minute my spirit was back among the torii gates and the rain forest and the mist.
It helped.
Filed under Photography, Travel
To be clear, it’s an old picture of a hawk, not a picture of an old hawk.
This was up at the top of Mt. San Jacinto outside of Palm Springs in the summer of 2021. I saw this gorgeous red-tailed hawk, but he obviously wasn’t thrilled with hikers or tourists and wouldn’t let me get too close.
I also love all of the structure and detail in this old fallen tree trunk.
I don’t know what Mr. Hawk is staring at so intently, but I’m betting it ended up being lunch!
Filed under Birds, Photography, Travel
Yet another “proof of life” post…
In honor of the victory at Arrowhead by my beloved Chiefs in sub-zero temperatures…
It wasn’t from this weekend and it wasn’t sub-zero, but it was most certainly colder than I’ve been in many, many years.
This is from the December 30, 2018 game we saw at Arrowhead, a week after seeing the Chiefs play the Seahawks in Seattle. That was a great trip!
And we beat the hated Raiders to boot!
Filed under KC Chiefs, Photography, Sports, Travel
My first view of Asia in person.
Not the best photo, but the conditions were what they were. It was hazy (polluted) and near sunset, so from 20,000 feet over the East China Sea everything was grey on grey with hints of brown & green squares. I was trying to figure out what time zone I was in after a thirteen hour flight, so I looked and felt my best.
It was the end of the beginning of a fantastic adventure and I was stoked!
I hope you all get to have an adventure like that some day.
Filed under Photography, Travel
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