Above the Flight Deck

Kathy and I were recently in San Diego and once again visited the USS Midway Aircraft Carrier Museum. As always, she was patient with me and willingly waited for me while I walked around the Museum's enormous flight deck taking photos. It was a beautiful day featuring the scattered clouds and moderate temperatures common to the San Diego coastline. I have previously photographed the aircraft on Midway’s flight deck, so I was deliberately trying to identify a new way to capture them. I thought a new viewpoint might work. As usual, I was using my tripod and taking ten exposures for each (soon to be HDR) image. The use of a tripod to create HDR images was once an absolute requirement because it allowed you to capture those exposures without moving the camera at all. This ensured the post processing software could successfully merge these images into a single HDR image without generating unwanted visual artifacts. What I found was that the software has evolved over the years and has become much more powerful and capable, enabling me to try something new. I set a five second shutter timer on my tripod mounted camera and held it over my head, tenuously raising nearly $8000 of camera equipment about fourteen feet above the flight deck. Not being able to look through the viewfinder, I was trying to align my camera lens in the general direction of what I wanted to capture and to hold the tripod steady, which was exceedingly difficult. I failed several times but succeeded more times than not. I got a few stares from other museum visitors and volunteers, but I ignored that and pressed on, hoping to capture something good.

The photos below are the results.

Splendor in the Grass

We often hear it's not a good idea to park your car on the grass while the engine is hot. Your catalytic converter could start a fire. I think this slammed 1930's car is safe as it predates catalytic converters by at least 40 years. The incredibly stylish body and mirror like finish on this car is what stopped me in my tracks at the San Diego, Chicano Park car show on this day in 2023. I just love the exuberant styling common to cars of the late 1930’s. Maybe after the trials of the great depression, exuberance was needed. Things would not be the same after World War II concluded. To poorly quote William Wordsworth:

Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, glory in the flower.
We will grieve not; rather find strength in what remains behind.

Run Silent, Run Deep

During our recent trip to Chicago, Kathy and I visited the Science and Industry Museum. While I had wanted to go to the museum on prior trips, this was my first visit. In my planning for our vacation, my research revealed that the museum had a World War II era German U-boat submarine in their collection including the sub's enigma cipher machine which enabled it to communicate securely with the German Wehrmacht Kriegsmarine headquarters in Berlin. The captured sub also included a full complement of 22 torpedoes. If this were not enough, the museum has created a submarine pen resembling those built by the Nazi's in France at Saint-Nazaire. The photo below does not do justice and cannot convey the scope and scale of this world-class exhibit. The sub itself is about 250 feet long while the pen is longer than the length of a football field. Enormous! We purchased a timed ticket to tour the interior of the sub which was very interesting. The crowded interior was somewhat unexpected given how huge the exterior appears to be. This panoramic image is comprised of 3 sets of 9 HDR sequences for a total of 27 individual images. I want to return and try to find a way to shoot with my gorillapod since tripods are verboten!

Truck Stop

I was taking a moment to change lenses at the Riverside Show and Go car show, when this slammed red chevy truck rolled up and stopped right in front of me it's airbags hissing as it lowered itself to the ground. The driver spent a few minutes talking to some of the car show staff before raising the car off the ground and motoring off. That was enough time for me to abandon the lens change and take 2 full HDR sequences conisting of a total of 18 images.

Elk City Oklahoma to Albuquerque New Mexico

I drove 432 miles from Elk City Oklahoma to Albuquerque New Mexico today. We did have to stop at Amarillo International Airport to exchange our rental car because of a tire that had a slow leak. The helpful Enterprise agent tried to put us in a compact car after we had paid for a full size SUV but we declined. We're driving a minivan now and it's comfortable and roomy. We mainly stuck to highway 40 but did stop for lunch in at the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo Texas. It's a very large restaurant but there were very few people there. Rules regarding social distancing and use of face masks were being enforced so that was good. We had fun and the food was good.

We crossed into New Mexico and once we did the clouds and rain were left behind. It was 46 degrees when we left Elk City. When we arrived in New Mexico it was 79.

Kathy made a hotel reservation for us in Albuquerque, but we wanted to drive down old Route 66 for a bit to see the city of Tucumcari New Mexico first. Our first stop was the Blue Swallow Motel which is a historic attraction on Route 66 and has been serving customers since 1939. We met Rob, one of the owners while we were taking some photos of the property. He rightly asks that no one sells images of the hotel without their permission. We of course agreed to this, so no sales of the images taken here for any purpose. Please respect their request as we do and support this important small business enterprise along with the others along Route 66.

Next we visited the TePee Curios shop which I had seen on youtube. We found some great stuff to buy and met the owners who were very helpful.

After that we got back on the highway and saw a spectacular sunset as we arrived in Albuquerque. Tomorrow  we are headed west again although we might backtrack a little and head north to visit Santa Fe or head south to visit Sedona. Either way in the days to come we will pass through Gallup, Winslow, Flagstaff, and who knows where else. Great day today.

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.

Long Drive From Washington DC

Kathy and I arrived in Washington DC on the Amtrak Cardinal train from Chicago around 6:30pm Wednesday. We walked to our hotel, dropped off our bags and went back out to find something to eat. We were shocked at how empty Washington's Union Station was. I think Covid 19 has taken a terrible toll on the businesses that once filled the main waiting room and the other retail areas. We found something to eat, took it back to our room, ate, took showers and went to sleep. We had to pickup our rental car at Reagan National Airport at 7:00am this morning. Other than a real lack of customer service at the Alamo car rental counter, getting the car was uneventful. We drove to Maryland to pickup my wife's brother who is riding with us all the way back to California along Route 66. We made it all the way to Dayton Ohio where we will stay tonight and visit the National Museum of the United States Air Force in the morning.

While we didn't have time to take photos in Washington during our short visit, here are a couple from previous visits.

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.

Chicago - My Kind of (windy) Town

Kathy and I concluded our passage on Amtrak's Empire Builder train in Chicago. After emerging from the beautiful Union Station (once our phones had acquired enough satellites to provide GPS navigation) we walked to our nearby hotel on Franklin street. We were only going to be in town for a single day, so after getting something to eat, we walked around for a bit, taking some photos of the dramatic architecture this city has to offer. Kathy wanted to visit the Chicago Institute of Art but we found it was closed during our visit, so the next morning we walked to Millennium Park and took some photos there. Apparently the park only recently opened to the public but we found some parts open, while others remained closed. In the case of Cloud's Gate also irreverently referred to as "The Bean", visitors were able to view it only from a distance with barricades having been put up to prevent crowds from gathering beneath it. This didn't bother me too much. I was able to obtain some photos of it without a ton of people in the shot. 

The view of Chicago's skyline from Cloud's Gate is truly spectacular. The day was cold and windy but the sky was mostly clear. Any clouds that appeared were quickly carried on the wind to destinations unknown.

A word about Chicago: I know all major cities have issues with homelessness, blight, trash, noise, crime, etc. but my initial impressions on this visit to what was admittedly a very small area in downtown Chicago were these: The streets, sidewalks, buildings, and bridges were for the most part clean. By comparison, the streets and sidewalks in downtown Los Angeles in my experience are filthy and no government agency seems to be charged with more than an occasional street sweeping. After a street sweeping, the ground is still black with dirt, gum, and who knows what else. The people we met were polite and friendly. There seems to be an emphasis on culture and preserving the city's history and finally the city's architecture is beautiful.

I'd love to return in the near future for an extended visit. There is so much I want to see.

While taking photos in the city, I made sure to create several panoramas but the Affinity Photo software which I am using on my iPad Pro does not seem to be able to successfully stitch them. I may have to just post individual HDR merges and stitch the panoramas when I return home. 

We are currently back on an Amtrak train crossing West Virginia. Looking forward to being in Washington DC tonight.

1948 Chevrolet Fleetline and Point Fermin Lighthouse

About 6 or 7 years ago during my vacation from work, I attended a car show at the seaside town of San Pedro, California. The Legends car club was hosting their yearly big event at Point Fermin park. Roll in was scheduled for 7am but we arrived around 5am and found about 50+ cars waiting in the dark to be admitted. The organizers recognized my wife from her attending other events and they kindly granted us both early admission. We walked around the park and found the host club member's cars parked in some prime spots. One of those was this pristine 1948 Chevrolet Fleetline located right in front of the historic Point Fermin Light house. With the moon rapidly setting and the blue hour fading more and more by the minute, Kathy and I didn't waste time. We setup our tripods, cameras, remote shutter releases and started shooting. Later that morning there were thousands of people walking around the park and taking photos the way we like to take them became impossible. That was ok because by that time we were packing up and making ready to leave with several hundred photos each saved on our memory cards.