Category: travel

Handle With Care is today’s theme.

We flew home tonight. It wasn’t too many years ago that my carry-on contained clothes, magazines, and make-up.  Now it has my laptop, kindle, camera, lenses, and all the technology items needed to support these products. I definitely need to find a better solution than the system I am currently using.

This is my rolling laptop bag, in which I have put inserts from my regular camera bag to carry an extra lens, the speedlight, and the camera wrapped in a fleece jacket (!)- in addition to the laptop, cords etc.  Yikes! After arriving at my destination, I add my camera and 35mm lens to my Lowepro bag, which I use as a purse.  Eventually, I think I will have to get a rolling camera bag that will also fit my laptop.

THREE is the topic for the daily challenge. Here are three pairs of the cute socks I bought at Walmart here in Manhattan. The colors are black and gray, black, and gray.

The rental car was duct taped back together and driven back to Kansas City without incident by my husband, accompanied by his father. We now have an even spiffier car, a Chevy Malibu, which is a newer model of the car Lonnie drove when he met me back in 1970.

Day is done. Gone the sun. And all is well on the prairie.

Okay, now that I’ve got your attention- let me tell you about our day.

Our alarm went off at 3am, so that we could get to the airport for our 5:45am flight to Kansas City, MO, the first leg of our journey to visit Lonnie’s father in Manhattan, Kansas. Our flight was early, there was no turbulence descending to Denver, both flights were relatively uncrowded, there were no problems with luggage, and we landed early in Kansas City. As we got onto the shuttle to the rental car company, I remarked that everything was just smooth as silk today- perfect!

Jinx!

We switched from our reserved SUV to a Ford Fusion, because there is no snow, and plugged in the GPS as we drove out of the parking lot.  We should have taken the time to make sure it was operational, but I played with it and also loaded in directions on my iPhone and thought we were good to go.  Unfortunately, between the continued loss of power in the Garmin and operator error with the iPhone, we ended up going the wrong way out of Kansas City. After driving the half hour loop back to the correct freeway and discovering that we had the GPS plugged into the wrong slot, we got on Hwy 70 W to make the 2 hour drive to Manhattan. Whew!

After driving through Topeka, a police car sped PAST us (whew, again). We drove for another few miles and then came to a complete stop behind a long line of cars- the right lane was closed. Eventually we could see lights and emergency vehicles way far ahead at the crest of a small hill.

This was my view.

For almost an hour.

Occasionally the big truck in front of us would start to inch forward- oh happy day! Finally!  But then it turned out that a car further up the road had decided to stop waiting and drive down the embankment of weeds and up onto the freeway heading east. We saw that happen a few times- and also saw a couple fender benders between cars as they inched along.  Things were getting tense.

Finally, traffic started to move very slowly up the hill.  But as we got closer to the top, we could see that sheriff’s deputies were sending all the cars down the embankment and onto the freeway heading east.  A deputy approached our car and told us we would have to do the same, because it would be at least a two hour wait.  The big rigs pulled over and settled in. So down the embankment we drove- while we wished for the Jeep we had reserved.

Long story short, we followed the deputy’s directions and headed south and eventually north and west to rejoin Hwy 70. Although we had lost a couple hours of driving time, we were relieved that the experience was over.

We pulled into a rest stop, where I snapped a few photos while being pummeled by the wind.

Parenthetical note: Last night, while searching unsuccessfully for my Verizon modem, I found the lens cap that had been missing for several months- on my desk!  For about 15 hours, I had a lens cap on every lens, which somehow has upset the balance of the universe- so the photo below shows where today I lost a different lens cap. Order has been restored.

We resumed our drive on Hwy 70, and I started to doze.  My nap was interrupted by an increasingly loud scraping sound, which I thought was from the change in road surface as we crossed the Kansas River.

Here is where we finally pulled off just outside Manhattan, so that I could take a golden hour photo and Lonnie could check out the scraping sound.

It really was that golden!

What Lonnie discovered under the car:  the thingamabob that attaches to the underside of the bumper had become dislodged, probably when we went down the embankment. He shoved it back up and called Thrifty.  Long story short- there is no Thrifty within a few hours’ drive, so we are to take it off and bring it in with the car when we return it.

So, tonight we were chauffeured around after dark by Lonnie’s 87 year old father.

Tomorrow Lonnie is going to try to do something about the bumper with either a screw driver or duct tape.  And then he’s going to buy a new Verizon modem, because the internet connection at the hotel is from the nineties.

If you read this far, let me assure you I promise to not write this much tomorrow.

My favorite drive in Yellowstone is through the Lamar Valley, where you always have a good chance of seeing wildlife.  With our ranger son-in-law as chauffeur and tour guide, we were able to see elk, deer, buffalo, and WOLVES!  Wolf observers with their long scopes were grouped in pullouts along the highway, as a group of five wolves (part of a pack of eleven) were being observed making their way down a hillside maybe a quarter of a mile away.  My photos are not really blogworthy,  but watching the wolves cavort in the snow was definitely the wildlife highlight of my trip.

We did have an up close encounter with two buffalo along the road  (not an uncommon occurrence), and I thought this snow-covered face would be a good photo of the day.

f/5, 1/160, ISO 200, 86mm

 

Ever since our daughter moved to Mammoth Hot Springs at the North Entrance to Yellowstone National Park, I have tried to get  a photo of the big horn sheep which can often be found along the road in this one particular section a couple miles from their house.  They are NEVER there when I go by- NEVER!  But today, I accompanied Caitlin when she drove Miles to preschool- and on the way back there was one single sheep along the road- just lying there! Of course he kept his back to me, but I managed to get a profile shot!

f/`3, 1/80, ISO 200, 44mm

Between flights in Seattle . . . what is there to do? Photo of the day!

By the time we get to Yellowstone it will be late, so my husband suggested that I take care of my photo of the day NOW! I had visions of a photo of my adorable grandsons in the snow, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. I managed to capture these huge multi-colored star lights decorating a shop window (multi-colored being the Flickr group topic for today).

 

We arrived home from Carmel less than an hour ago, and I am already having fun editing my photos.  This morning I wandered around town while my husband was at his meeting, and I had fun taking bracketed shots for HDR (as well as endless flower photos- it is so beautiful there!).

I was having trouble deciding which image to post, so I decided that I would look at today’s topic for Our Daily Challenge on Flickr.  Today it is “Joy of . . .” I decided my response to the challenge would be the joy of getting out of town– and that my photo would be of the inn where we stayed (conveniently, an HDR image).

These are the back steps of the inn, leading down to the street- less than a block from the main Carmel shopping area!

 

 

Carmel! My husband had to go to Carmel for an appointment this afternoon, so I tagged along to take photos (171. . .).  Carmel is beautiful and picturesque to say the least!  I have dozens of shots of beautiful flowers, windows, and walkways, but the image that seemed the strongest to me today was this simple closeup of the top of a garden gate.  I can’t really defend this choice other than- I just like it!

We’re home!

Left: entering California (still sunny)

Right: back in the Bay Area (pouring rain)

We left our little family at Yellowstone and started our journey through Idaho, heading to Elko, Nevada, where we would stop for the night.

Can you figure out what is shown in this photo?

If you said a view of our car from inside the cab of a tow truck, you are RIGHT!

When we were at Yellowstone, our car wouldn’t start one day (and wouldn’t hold a charge after being jumped)- and it ended up needing a new alternator.  We took it to a local shop, they ordered the part, and all was well.

Until we ALMOST got to Twin Falls, Idaho.

All of a sudden, there was a clunk- and, one by one, the cruise control, the speedometer, the gears, and EVERYTHING ELSE stopped. My husband coasted onto the shoulder of the busy highway, where we watched the big rigs whiz by as we searched for the Triple A emergency number and phone number of a Subaru dealership.  An extremely nice police officer (state trooper?) came by and checked on us- and, an hour later, the tow truck showed up and towed us to the Twin Falls Subaru dealership..

The problem was- the alternator.  It may or may not have been defective and may or may not have been installed incorrectly. Subaru quickly installed a new one (we thought we would be here for DAYS)- and we are good to go!  Our trip will be a little longer tomorrow then we thought, but things could be worse- and we were impressed with the friendly, helpful service at the Subaru dealership.

 

Barns!

I have been looking for barns to photograph, and today it was barns galore! Caitlin and I had to leave Chico Hot Springs earlier than expected, because we had to take Henry to the doctor (he’s fine).  We drove the East River Road through the Paradise Valley on our way to Bozeman- one of the most scenic routes you could ever find.  She promised me that we would stop and take photos on the way back.  It looks so idyllic- I had to remind myself how windy, icy, and snowy it is most of the year.  Alas, not a retirement spot for the likes of us!

Here’s one of the many rural scenes I experienced today.

f/10, 1/200, ISO 400, 50mm