Smoke 'em if you got 'em: October 2016

Monday, October 24, 2016

Newport, Oregon

October 15, 2016

This was not a road trip I had been looking forward to, but it was probably inevitable. An uncle of mine had been fighting cancer for a few years and he finally succumbed at the beginning of October. I was down in Nevada at the time and I didn't think I'd have a chance to make it up for the funeral. However, things worked out in terms of scheduling and I was able to attend.

California Sea Lion -- Newport, OR

California Sea Lion

I drove up to Salem on Friday night. I got in around 1:30 or so in the morning. The next morning we drove out to Newport to meet up for breakfast with most of our extended family. After eating and mingling, we still had some time before the funeral. My brother, nephew and I drove down to the wharf to see the sea lions. A big storm was blowing through. The waves were crazy and the sea lions were feisty. The photos I took there were just about all that I shot on this brief trip.

California Sea Lion -- Newport, OR

The sea lions in these photos are all males, or so my brother tells me. The ladies all stay down in California while the males come up to Newport to hang out. I suppose they may be found on other areas along the coast as well. They're a rowdy bunch, I can see why the ladies don't bother accompanying them.

California Sea Lion -- Newport, OR

Saturday, October 22, 2016

Road Trip 2016: The End of the Road

October 7, 2016

Friday was the last day of our trip. I took a few final photos of Red Rock Canyon, most of which ended up blurry because I'd been shooting stars with the lens set to manual focus the night before and forgot to change it back to auto focus. D'oh. I lucked into a couple of in-focus shots, though. That'll teach me to wear my glasses, you'd think.

César E. Chávez National Monument, CA

We bumped into the César E. Chávez National Monument on the way home, so we stopped for a quick visit. It was quite early, so the visitor center wasn't open yet. César and his wife appear to have been laid to rest there in a beautiful garden area with a couple of fountains. It's an unusual little park.

César E. Chávez National Monument, CA

From there, we bombed our way back home. Of course, Pongo was very excited to see my wife and our other dog Charlie. I was expecting to find one or two foster dogs in the house, but for the first time in over a year there was none. Hooray! Pongo ran crazy for about five minutes then curled up in a ball on the couch and went to sleep. I did pretty much the same thing.

Interstate 5, CA

Soundtrack:

Jeff Buckley -- Mystery White Boy

Friday, October 21, 2016

Road Trip 2016: Death Valley National Park

October 6, 2016

It's about a nine hour drive from Las Vegas to home for me. It takes about the same amount of time to get from Death Valley to home. So, it might seem a little weird that I would go through Death Valley on my way home knowing full well that I'm no closer to getting home from Death Valley than when I left Las Vegas. It's a drive I've done before, though, and one I really enjoy. If I could pick one park that I consider MY park, the one park I would choose to visit if I could only visit one, it would be Death Valley.

Las Vegas, NV

It felt strange to leave Las Vegas having not set foot inside a casino. I enjoy casinos. I have a fairly low, hard limit ($200) for losses in a night of gambling which I've never actually reached. I don't think I've been to casinos more than three times in a single year. It's fun, though. Drinking. Gambling. People watching. I'm usually ready to shed myself of this town when I leave, though. This time, I could have spent another night.

Rhyolite, NV

We stopped in Rhyolite, NV before entering Death Valley. It's a cool little ghost town with a nearby large sculpture exhibit. The idea of visiting a Wild West ghost town is cool. This one doesn't quite live up to what I imagine a ghost town should be, Still, it's a fun stop.

Death Valley National Park, CA

So, what is it about Death Valley that I like so much? Part of it is the devastating solitude. All one has to do is stop just about anywhere in the park and walk a couple of hundred yards away from one's car. It's easy to imagine that no one has ever stood exactly in that spot. Then the quiet hits you. It's like no where else. All you may hear is wind, and if the wind isn't blowing it can be dead silent. In certain spots you might look around and see not a single, solitary living thing for miles in all directions. It's an amazing feeling to be that isolated and yet out in the great wide open.

Death Valley National Park. CA

Death Valley National Park, CA

Meep! Meep! -- Artist's Loop, Death Valley National Park, CA

Artist's Loop, Death Valley National Park, CA

Artist's Palette. Death Valley National Park, CA

It's also interesting to imagine what it must have been like for people trying to traverse this place in wagon trains. To have crossed the Mojave just to run into this? I can't imagine. Even worse, to somehow get through Death Valley and over the Panamint Range and then through Panamint Valley and over the next mountain range only to run smack into the tallest section of the 10,000 foot tall, 200 mile long, 60 miles wide sheer granite wall that is the Sierra Nevadas? Poor folks.

Death Valley National Park, CA

Mesquite Flat Dunes, Death Valley National Park, CA

I saw three coyotes coming down the mountains and into Panamint Valley. They all seemed to be begging for food. I'm guessing people feed them on the roadside. Jerks.

Coyote -- Death Valley National Park, CA

It wasn't quite 4:00 when we hit Panamint Valley, so I decided to drive on a little farther to Red Rock Canyon. It has a camp ground I've been wanting to stay at. That turned out to be a pretty good decision. The night was warm and there was little wind. It was very quiet, with only a handful of other sites being occupied. We had a nice dinner while listening to the baseball playoffs on the radio then slept soundly after the game.

Panamint Dunes. Death Valley National Park, CA

Rainbow Canyon, Death Valley National Park, CA

Red Rock Canyon State Park, CA

Soundtrack:

The Beatles -- Let It Be
Loretta Lynn -- Van Lear Rose
Woody Allen -- The Night Club Years [1]
Lou Reed -- Rock 'n' Roll Animal
Left of the Dial [2]
The Dead Weather -- Horehound / Sea of Cowards

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Road Trip 2016: Valley of Fire State Park

October 5, 2016

Las Vegas, NV

Even though we were staying in a motel for couple of nights, we were still up and on our feet at daybreak in Las Vegas. We hit the road without so much as a coffee fill up. We'd get that along the way. I didn't want to be pressed for time at Valley of Fire State Park, which is an easy one hour drive from the Vegas Strip. That included an early morning drive down the length of the strip, by the way. That drive alone would take an hour at night. It's pretty empty at the crack of dawn, though.

Valley of Fire State Park, NV

The Beehives, Valley of Fire State Park, NV

Valley of Fire State Park, NV

Natural Arch, Valley of Fire State Park, NV

Pongo

Like Goblin Valley, Valley of Fire was a great park for Pongo. He could go anywhere as long as he was on a leash. Frankly, he's not an off-leash dog so that was perfect. Honestly, he handles 95% of the 'tough' situations well. By that, I mean greeting strangers and other dogs and seeing wildlife. It's the other 5% that's the problem. Sometimes he forgets himself, especially when he sees little critters. He loves chasing after squirrels and lizards. He bolts before he even realizes he's doing it. What that means is that on a trip like this he's on a leash the entire day, either tethered to my arm to to something stationary like a picnic table or the car. I imagine that wore on him over the course of the trip. That's one of the reasons I was looking to stay in a motel at this point. He could be off leash in the room, which wasn't particularly large but at least he had something close to the normal amount of freedom he has in the evening at home.

Valley of Fire State Park, NV

There are a lot of little pullouts on the roads through the park. That was nice. It meant we didn't have to stick to the busy trails but could just kind of wander around and explore wherever we saw something that looked interesting. That was really nice. We didn't see a lot of the named attractions, but we found our own little places that defined our visit to the park. These are the types of parks I like the best. It's probably why I didn't find Arches all that interesting and prefer places like Capitol Reef (although we didn't do much of that on this trip) and Death Valley.

Valley of Fire State Park, NV

Pongo -- Valley of Fire State Park, NV

We didn't see a lot of wildlife on this day. We saw a chuckwalla (briefly), a number of lizards and a few small rodents dashing about. What we did see were a lot of interesting animal tracks in the sand.

Valley of Fire State Park, NV

Pongo -- Valley of Fire State Park, NV

We spent the bulk of our morning inspecting bushes like the one above for lizards. Pongo would see them dash into the bushes but he never seemed to see them dash out the other side. I never had the heart to tell him the lizards weren't there anymore.

Valley of Fire State Park, NV

The one regular trail we hiked was out to the Fire Wave. It was a short trail, marked as 3/5 of a mile one way. We spent a couple of hours on the trail and at the wave. It was hot for us and there is no shade on that hike. We're used to San Francisco weather and tend to melt like popsicles when the mercury cracks eighty degrees. The official high temperature for the day in the park was eighty-one degrees, but it sure felt hotter.

Valley of Fire State Park, NV

After being out in the sun for so much of the day I was beginning to worry about taxing Pongo too much. Neither of us are used to the heat even on what would I'm sure be considered a mild day by Nevada's standards. So, we headed to Lake Mead to cool off in the lake. We both enjoyed the water as we waded along the shore near one of the boat ramps.

Lake Mead National Recreation Area, NV

After dipping our toes in the lake, we drove back to Las Vegas for the evening. We ate dinner and watched our team (the San Francisco Giants) win the National League Wildcard Game. That was pretty sweet. Then we took a walk on Dean Martin Avenue before calling it a night.

Las Vegas, NV

Soundtrack:

Bob Dylan -- Biograph [5]
The Decemberists -- The Hazards of Love
Ryan Adams -- Ryan Adams