August 2010

August started off with a nice camping trip to Ranier and Mt. St. Helens in Washington. It was a great trip.  I had the opportunity to visit with some of my Anchorage friends who I don't get to see very often.  It is such a treat to spend time with them.

The second half of the month, I did another rotation at the Incident Command Post for the oil spill in Houma, Louisiana.  My Houma away from home.  I worked until  26th where I was able to come home for a few days.

In that period of time, I did get to do some Boise things, see a movie with some great friends, check out the photography competition at the Idaho Western State Fair and attend Boise's Curb Cup 2.

The following is what happend when you get carried away playing with Topaz post processing software.

Silver City

The weekend of February 13-15 found a 12  IWOW women and one daring husband, Bud snowshoeing and skiing into Silver City in the Owyhee Mountains in South Central Idaho.    We went up via Murphy entrance this time.  We all drove to where we could begin the 8 mile snowshoe in.  Fortunately, our great hosts, Jerri and Roger, and some of their friends, had their snowmachines at the same place to take our gear in.  After they got our gear there, they came back to see which of us poor ladies needed some help in the 8 mile UPHILL drudge there.  I must admit, I did get on that machine after 6 miles of uphill since I was hauling in my camera gear and my back was beginning to get sore.

The hotel is about 150 years old and very rustic.  The place keeps the feel of the old west and you almost expect a ghost from the past to appear in the hallway.  There is no running water so we did have to go without showers for the 3 days.  We had fantastic meals and gathered in the dining room near the wood stove and ate and drank and played games and gabbed when we weren't out snowshoeing or exploring.

Roger opened up the drug store which dates back to early, early 1900s and many of the items that were just left there.  Here are a couple of pics from there.

I can't wait to go again.  It is an near annual tradition for us all.

Thanks to Jan for organizing and the rest of my fellow buddies...Cyn, Norma, Meg, Heather, the other Kathryn, Cheryl,  Sandy, Marion and her hubby, Bud.

I hope to have more pictures included in the near future.

North Carolina

Or should I say "Birds, Birds, Birds!"

These are snow geese that migrate to Mattamuskeet Lake and wildlife preserve for the winter months with plenty of left over grain in the corn fields.  The sound of them was deafening and it was amazing to see them move in waves and take off, circle and then return back to the field. 

Here is a picture of Mattamuskeet Lake

Back to the Outer Banks. This is at Frisco pier. Boy was it cold and windy that morning.....

We also went to beach at Cape Hattaras where we saw enormous waves where the two ocean currents meet.

It was also fun watching the fishermen at the Cape getting into those wild waves to fish and getting battered by the waves.  I didn't see anyone catch a fish.  That water was really cold as was the temperature and the high winds.  Can you see the fisherman in the next two pictures?

Just for some fun and games, Karyn took mom and I to the North Carolina zoo where she volunteers on Mondays.  Here is a few shots from the zoo.

Moab - November 2009

Click on pictures to enlarge

I was able to visit Moab, Utah again this past weekend. This time, however, I didn't bring my bike. I just brought my camera equipment as part of a photography workshop presented by Bret Edge and Todd Caudle (aka "Cloudman"). The workshop was great, largely due to the other great participants and the workshop leaders. It is rare that all the participants get along so well and we all had such a great time taking pictures together.

We all got up very early each day (around 4:30 to 5:00 a.m. for me) to get to a site by sunrise for the good light. Since it is so late in the year, sunsets came early, so we didn't get much of a break between the two main sessions, brunches and recoup time or photo critique time.


In addition, I had the opportunity to stay with Dell again. I was hoping to have more time to visit with her but the workshop kept me very busy. She is such an awesome person so I hope to visit Moab again in the near future so that we can have more time together as well.


Here are a few pictures I took from the class. You can click on them to bring in larger photo.

Ox Ranch - Hell's Canyon

A couple of weeks ago, I went with a few photographers on an outing to Seven Devils Lodge in the Ox Ranch above Hell's Canyon. Our fearless leader was David Cole, a professional photographer based out of downtown Boise. It turned out to be more of just a nice relaxing weekend rather than having many photographic opportunities.

I got there a bit late on Friday and grabbed my gear to run out to meet the rest of the group down the trail looking for critters. Mother Nature wasn't very cooperative in the wildlife department, so the only real critters that night was the numerous cows on the ranch. We did have a full moon on the walk back to the lodge for dinner.




On Saturday, we headed out to a cabin in the middle of nowhere to base ourselves for the day, take pictures and look for critters to shoot (with a camera). Bears are common there and you could see this was in fact true with all the bear scat in the front yard of the cabin by the fruit trees. I mean a LOT of bear scat. We headed on out on a hike and did see a sow with a cub and then another bear, but both were fairly far away. I didn't manage to get a picture, but a couple of other folks did get a good shot in. So Iwill have to settle with some scenery pics.



And then it started to snow.....and snow.....


and snow....

So what better to do than just hang around the fireplace inside where it is nice and warm and just talk about Alaska and cameras and travel until dinner time.

Sunday morning, we did go out in the morning for another critter walk and did see a coyote. I tried to get a few pics of the guy but they did not come out very sharp. Then I took the long drive home. A great time was had by all.

Sawtooths

I have gone to the Sawtooths many times here, mostly backpacking in the most scenic areas locally. I just love this range. Last weekend, I went on a Photographic Workshop held by David Cobb with Best of the Northwest Photographic Workshops. It was so interesting to come to just photograph. Usually, camping or backpacking, I left my main camera at home and just brought the Point and Shoot. This time, I brought the big guns.

We were up early and on site by sunrise at Little Redfish Lake, Stanley Lake or in the area by Stanley. Sunsets we were also in scenic areas. One night, we went out to Redfish Lake and took pictures of the Milky Way and star trails over the silouhette of the mountains.

Western Idaho State Fair

OK. I'm not normally a state fair type of person, but I thought it would be fun to enter the photo contest at the fair. In addition, some folks at the Eagle Camera Club thought it would be fun to take our cameras to the fair and take pictures. The fair is just down the street, almost, so I couldn't resist.

Here are a few pictures from the 2009 Western Idaho State Fair.