Flagstaff Arizona to Kingman Arizona

I only drove 147 miles across Arizona today but most of it was on old Route 66. We stopped in the historic towns of Williams (bypassed by Interstate 40 in 1984) and Seligman (bypassed in 1978). Being bypassed often resulted in economic hardship. Williams is known as "The Gateway to the Grand Canyon". The historic downtown area covers about six blocks. We enjoyed touring the town, shopping and taking photos. Once an important stop for railroad traffic, Williams seems to be thriving primarily on tourism.

In 1987 the residents of Seligman convinced the state of Arizona to designate Route 66 as a historic highway and to add "City of Seligman" signs on Interstate 40 to draw people to the town and old Route 66 as well. In 2006, Pixar's movie "Cars" based its sleepy town "Radiator Springs" on Seligman. The result of these actions has been economic success for what might have been called a ghost town in years past. We had lunch at the Snow Cap Drive-In built in 1954. While the food was good, the Drive-In itself has so much history about the owners and visitors old and new on the walls, it was really tough to stop reading everything and order our food. The rest of the town was also very compelling.

Tomorrow with over 6,500 miles and 18 states behind us, We will cross back into California, I will drive the final 300+ miles home and this extraordinary road trip will conclude. We've seen a lot of beautiful country and met some interesting people. I have only posted a handful of photos from the thousands I took. I'll post more and better versions in time. I'm glad I decided to take a chance on only using my iPad Pro and the Affinity Photo software to process my photos. It's not a direct replacement for my normal workflow but it has allowed me to process and post photos relatively quickly while on the road. Many were edited in Amtrak trains moving at upwards of 70 mph or in the hotels we stayed in after many hours driving. WiFi has often been spotty to non-existent so I just used my cell service if that was available. I'll apologize now for the misspelled words and poor grammar in the posts from the last couple of weeks. My time to edit and write has been very limited and frankly, I've been tired from all the traveling. It's a good tired though. I'll go back and make some needed corrections as soon as I can.

Some of you reading this may know that my Mom passed away a few months ago. I hadn't taken a real vacation in several years as I had my hands full being a primary caregiver for her. This has been a cathartic experience and while I still think about her everyday, this trip has helped move me along the path of healing.

While I greatly appreciate and welcome the new readers/viewers of this blog, I'd like to acknowledge the long time readers who have come back after my not posting for several years. Yesterday's post had about 1,100 unique views and the number of visitors has been steadily increasing in the past couple of weeks. For those of you who have kindly taken the time to reach out, I have received your messages and I will respond to everyone as soon as I can.

Thanks for joining me (virtually) on this journey. California and the final post of this Route 66 trip tomorrow!

Greg (Big Pixel Pusher)

Santa Fe New Mexico to Flagstaff Arizona

I drove 384 miles today from Santa Fe New Mexico to Flagstaff Arizona. We really enjoyed staying in Santa Fe. While all of the stores were displaying very beautiful but expensive things, very few tourists seemed to be purchasing things. It was clear that the Covid-19 virus has impacted Santa Fe hard. I would say that fully one third of the stores were vacant, another third were closed, and the remaining third that were open, weren't busy. The town was not packed at all and those tourists that were there were not carrying packages. Anyway, we stayed at the historic La Fonda Hotel. I woke up around 4:30 and decided to check out the Orionids meteor shower. While I didn't see any, there were countless stars in the sky above Santa Fe.

We knew we had a long drive to Flagstaff so we got up early, had breakfast at a nice cafe that has been in the same location since 1909 and got on the road. We refueled the minivan and ourselves in Gallup New Mexico. We then decided to stand on a corner in Winslow Arizona (such a fine sight to see).

Our stop here was brief but enjoyable. The road from Windslow to Flagstaff seemed to mainly be climbing and we passed several towering mesas and red rocks were prevalent.

Tomorrow we intend to return to Route 66 to see the Arizona towns of Williams, Seligman, Kingman, and Oatman.

Hidden in Plain Sight - A Historic Atomic Marker in Santa Fe New Mexico

We only drove about 55 miles today. After having breakfast in the arts district in Albuquerque New Mexico, we decided to visit Santa Fe. I have wanted to visit for a while but especially so after reading a fascinating book called 109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos. 

Today in the courtyard patio of 109 East Palace visitors will find colorful ceramic lizards, chilies, frogs and dragonflies for sale.

Attached to the back wall is a small historic plaque.

With only a small sign that indicates a historical marker can be seen in the patio, the overwhelming majority of tourists miss it.

They pass by unaware that in the 1940's physics luminary's like Edward Teller, Enrico Fermi and Richard Feynman passed through this patio, often bringing their families with them. Each had received secret orders to report to 109 East Palace, Santa Fe New Mexico. They were tired, often having endured long journeys by train to this desolate desert city located high in the mountains at 7,199 feet of elevation.

When they arrived, they were met by Dorothy McKibbin a widow who had originally come to the New Mexico desert hoping to be cured of tuberculosis. After she recovered, she was offered a job by none other than Robert Oppenheimer, a professor from the University of California at Berkeley. Dorothy ran the secret Manhattan Project office in Santa Fe.

She would arrange for temporary lodging (often at the La Fonda Hotel), food, luggage storage and the security passes required for the physicists to travel to Los Alamos, the secret research facility located on top of a mesa where the worlds first atomic weapons were being designed and built. After a good nights rest, the physicists and their families were loaded onto busses for the 35 mile drive up the rutted and unpaved road to the Los Alamos facility. Once they saw their very basic accommodations on top of the mesa, most yearned to return to the luxurious La Fonda in Santa Fe. 

The history of 109 East Palace stretches back to 1939. In that year, Albert Einstein was persuaded to write a letter to then President Franklin Roosevelt, warning him that that in Germany the Nazi's were very close to developing their own atomic weapons. Einstein also understood that the German Air Force, the Luftwaffe was developing a long range bomber to deliver their atomic bomb to the US mainland. He strongly felt that the United States had to develop an atomic weapon first. In 1943 Oppenheimer established the Santa Fe office and the quest to develop the weapons had begun. Although the work was being carried out in the greatest secrecy, the Manhattan Project had several spies working inside the lab. They were dedicated to leaking information to the Soviet Union. Russian agents were meeting with these spies in Santa Fe restaurants, parks and even in the La Fonda Hotel.

National Museum of the United States Air Force - Dayton Ohio

I have always wanted to visit the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton Ohio. The problem has always been that it's a long way to go from California to just see one attraction. My opinion has changed. This museum is so vast, I could easily spend 3 or 4 days just looking around. We were only in the building for about 5 hours and it just wasn't enough time to see everything. This place is high on my list of places I want to return to. We were shocked when my wife asked the security guards at the bag check if they allowed tripods in the museum. The answer was a simple "Sure". My wife entered the museum while my brother-in-law and I trudged back to the car to retrieve the tripods. Wow was it worthwhile. To preserve the artifacts, the lighting level in the museum hangers is kept low. This made using a tripod especially useful. I think I took about 1,000 photos. I have included a few below. After leaving the museum, we drove from Dayton Ohio to Indianapolis Indiana which is only about 120 miles but it was already getting dark and we were tired from the 600 miles we drove the day before. So I'm typing this post on my iPad Pro in a Hilton hotel in downtown. Now that this is done, I'm headed for bed. It's onto St. Louis and Route 66 tomorrow morning.

Union Station - Ornate Stairway

This is one of the beautiful stairways leading into Chicago's Union Station's great hall. Amazing!

How I took this shot:

This handheld vertorama was stitched from 4 HDR sequences each containing 3 shots ( -2ev, 0ev, +1ev). I would have used my tripod but one of the security guards was already watching me, I didn't want to give her a pretense to kick me out. It's happened to me more than a few times before.

Union Station - Group Critique Busted!

When I entered the great hall in Chicago's Union Station, I saw about 10 art students sketching the interior. I walked around for 15 or 20 minutes taking photos. When I was leaving, I noticed they had put their sketch pads on the floor and had gathered in a circle. I assume this was a group critique. I thought I could sneak up on them, raise my camera with fisheye lens above my head and get a quick shot. You can see I got busted.

Duty Now for the Future

Devo 2.0 holds down a thunderous bottom line while Nigel and Eugene respectively see to the vocal and guitar responsibilities. Disneyland park, tomorrowland terrace stage.

Now Hear This

Fisheye went vertical! I've been working more and more with video and audio recording. I expect to post some videos on my blog in 2014.

Is This Room Stretching?

This is the Los Angeles Natural History Museum's Rotunda built in 1913. The statue in the center, "The Three Muses" was the museum's first exhibit. For those who are wondering, this was taken hand held, and consists of 3 vertically stitched shots, each being a HDR image derived from 3 additional exposures. This location has been used in films and TV shows quite a bit.

I See Everything

Last June, my niece Alexandra, her boyfriend Josh and I decided to head down to San Diego for the weekend. Neither of them had really spent much time there and I wanted them to see the Midway aircraft carrier museum. We stayed at the Embassy Suites, San Diego Bay which has a spectacular atrium. Since I had my fisheye lens I decided to try a vertorama with it. This consists of 5 HDR sequences each consisting of 3 shots. I didn't really think Photoshop CS6 would be able to stitch it together but it did it without a problem. Pretty amazing!