Page 2 | Western Road Trip 2017

Salt Lake City the First Two Days

The Family History Library

A trip to the world-famous Family History Library was mandatory for us.  In fact, it was the first thing we did after renting the Forester at the airport.  It was Saturday afternoon and we knew the library would not be open on Sunday, and Monday was to be our day to pick up the truck camper.  Laurie is very interested in family history and looks forward to returning just to take advantage of the resources and available at the library.

Most of my photos during our two-day stay in SLC are mere snaps.  We don’t particularly like cities and Salt Lake City is no exception.  All I can say is thank goodness for GPS and cell phone travel apps, our favorite being mapquest.  Salt Lake City is absolutely covered with highways, merges, double cloverleafs, ramps, exit only lanes, etc.  

The Hampton Inn and Dee’s Restaurant

The Hampton Inn further from the airport (there is also a Hampton Inn close to the airport where we stayed at the end of our trip) was nice but also had two highly prized benefits. First, the sliding windows in our room actually opened!  I hate it when hotels install a stop on the slider which prevents the window from opening more than a few inches.  The second reason we liked it was that across the parking lot was a really fun family restaurant.  Nothing gourmet.  It is called “Dee’s” and there are at least two of these family owned restaurants in Salt Lake City.  It’s the kind of place you go if you want a good burger and fries, a milk shake or perhaps meatloaf and mashed potato.  But don’t forget the homemade pie.  The strawberry pie is wonderful, though for some reason I don’t have a photo of a slice.

Bacon Blue Cheese Burger.

Cobb Salad

Banana Cream Pie

Antelope Island State Park

On Sunday morning (our second day) we drove to Antelope Island State Park out on the Salt Lake.The traffic was reasonable. We were so lucky it was not a weekday.  There is swimming, camping and at least one marina.  It was hot and dry.  That is not surprising because you are essentially on the desert.  The 28,000 acres of wide open spaces were nice, though distant views were hazy, and it was fun to look for the wild American bison.  The bison are not indigenous, but a few were introduced in the 1890s as a way to protect the then near-extinct species. Today the herd is managed at about 600.

Snowbird. Skiing until June 18!

Can you believe it? Skiing available June weekends until father’s day!  After visiting the desert and Antelope Island we headed for the mountains just outside of Salt Lake City.  Within a couple of hours of seeing bison on the desert we were arriving high in the mountains at Snowbird. There  was quite a party atmosphere at the base lodge, even though the skiing seemed so sparse.  Skiers were taking the tramway to the top and picking their way down, sometimes removing their skis or snowboard to get to the next skiable section of snow.  

The final image below is from Alta, a bit further up the road and at (I assume) a somewhat higher elevation.  Though there seemed to be more snow at Alta, it was closed for the season.

Part 1 | Western Road Trip 2017 Completed

Our trip last month to Wyoming was not completely a road trip, I guess.  That's because we took a plane to Salt Lake City from Logan Airport in Boston. It seems to me that to be an "official" road trip you must drive the entire trip. Anyway, it was in SLC that the road trip component of our three-week vacation actually started and ended. Here we hung out for a couple of days seeing some of the Salt Lake City sites via a brand new Suburu Forester rental, and then we picked up our rented (reservation made four months prior) pick-up truck camper from Cruise America and headed out of Dodge, er I mean Salt Lake City.

The main objective of the trip was sightseeing in Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks, and it was in these two parks in Wyoming that we spent most of our time. Some of our travels took us briefly north into Montana (where we camped one night along the Yellowstone River in Livingston… and visited and fell in love with Bozeman the next day), Idaho (most of a seven-hour drive from West Yellowstone south to Salt Lake City at the end of the trip was through Idaho along routes 85 and 15), and of course Utah (where the airport is).

Below is a map showing the roads we drove. Some of them were driven more than once. I am a big fan of driving a scenic road in both directions, as the scenes are different depending on the direction, as well as the time of day. Our total driving distance was about 1,900 miles.

If you are a member, you can pick up free maps at AAA. I often use a clean map after our return home, to record our route as you see here, and we save as a remembrance our well-worn “working” map on which we made all kinds of notes and remarks. Our maps will reside in a pocket folder with other paperwork from the trip.  At least for a few years, we tend to keep a collection of all kinds of things collected, such as receipts, maps, brochures, even the campsite placard that you tape to the front windshield during your stay.

We also used AAA to get our hotel reservations in Salt Lake City and for the car rental.  For years we have been using our local AAA branch for this.  On the other hand, they can not help with RV rentals or with campground reservations. 

By the way if you are 62 or over don’t forget to get your lifetime pass to all the national parks.  It’s only $10!!  And that is for all parks and I presume national historic monuments, etc.  And it is for your lifetime.  There is rumor of the price going up to $80.  My wife even bought a second one in case she lost the first, though if we are traveling together one pass is enough for an entire car load of people of any age.  The pass also got us campground fees for 50% off!

The senior pass is the size of a credit card.
You will also need to show a picture ID.

Photo Story: Another Wyoming Icon, Schwabacher's Landing

Here’s another image from 10 years ago.

Schwabacher's Landing is a boat landing along the Snake River in Grand Teton National Park.  Everybody takes a photo here!  It is only about 5 miles north of the park’s main headquarters in Moose, Wyoming and the river is easily accessed by a short gravel road.  It is so accessible that it is a popular location for wedding ceremonies.  In fact, one was underway off to the right.  The park issues wedding permits for $100. 

As you can see, the view is extraordinary. One reason this view is so popular for photographers is that I am standing only a short walk from the parking area. The combination of dramatic mountains in the background and a classic water reflection in the foreground make for some awesome images. 

I converted this image to black and white because the harshness of the noon sun just didn't work in color.  The next time I am here I want to get there at sunrise, though likely there'd be a very full parking lot.

"Schwabacher's Landing"

Nikon D40 and 18-55 kit zoom @ 35mm

1/400sec, F10, ISO 200

Photo Story: Traffic Jam in Yellowstone

I seem to be celebrating photos from 10 years ago (see prior two posts), when I began by dSLR experience with a borrowed Nikon D40 and kit 18-55 zoom.  It was all during a trip to the Tetons and Yellowstone with my wife, Laurie.

For days we'd not seen bison.  Then, we couldn't get away from them! This scene was so much fun. Obviously, in this location buffalo find it easier walking on the road than clambering through the brush and woods.

"Traffic Jam in Yellowstone"

Nikon D40 plus 18-55 zoom @ 55mm

1/200sec, F5.6, ISO 450

Photo Story: Wyoming's Iconic Moulton Barn

This image of Moulton Barn in Jackson, Wyoming was taken 10 years ago next month, during a two week trip that took my wife and me in a rented car (a Ford Taurus… yuck!) from Salt Lake City to my brother’s home in Spokane, WA via the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone.

My brother's Nikon D40 plus 18-55 kit zoom.

"Moulton Barn"

Mormon Row, Jackson, WY

Nikon D40 with 18-55mm kit zoom @ 38mm

1/40sec, F13, ISO 220

The barn image was taken on my third day with my first dSLR.  Actually, it wasn’t even mine.  My brother (in Spokane) had just purchased a Nikon D40 with it’s 18-55 kit lens.  He’d been eyeing Nikon dSLRs and was waiting until a model was available for under $1,000.  That seems like a lot of money for this 6mp interchangeable lens camera and kit lens, but it is so easy for us to forget just how expensive those early dSLRs were.

I actually had no interest in having a photographic trip.  That’s hard for me to believe now, but I had planned only to take my little 3mp Panasonic point and shoot to document the trip. I had no interest (or so I thought) in lugging around anything larger and heavier.

So, I told my brother this and the next thing I knew a UPS truck dropped off at our house his brand new camera with a note to “use the hell out of it” and to return it to him when we arrived in Spokane.

Camera Set up.

I remember reading the manual on the plane.  The first day, as we drove from SLC to Jackson, Wyoming, I shot in the auto mode.  As I recall there was a green icon of some sort on the mode dial for the no-brainer mode.  Or was it a red heart?  Anyway, that was good for one day.  On the second day I switched to P mode, but since I knew nothing about EV compensation or white balance or ISO adjustments, it didn’t seem to me that P mode provided anything different than the Auto mode.  On the third day (when I took this picture) I switched to Aperture Priority (though I have no idea in the world why I chose F13 instead of, say, F5.6).  Aperture Priority is what I was used to, from 30 years before with a Nikon EL film camera.  

I do wish I had learned about white balance, ISO, EV compensation and RAW during the trip. All my images were shot as jpegs.  

This image is actually on a wall in my office as an 18” print.  It looks great, though because my eyes and my standards have changed over these 10 years, I do seem to be more and more bothered by the color blotches I see in the sky in the 18” print.  On the other hand, from a normal viewing distance, it isn’t noticeable.

Photo Story: Getting a Speeding Ticket in Yosemite Valley

This photo, taken by me in 1977 in California's Yosemite Valley, makes me laugh every time I see it.  Sometimes, it's really all about the title, isn't it?

I really don't remember what was going on here. I was not the driver of the car but merely walking down the street ...but to be honest, the mounted park ranger was giving out a parking ticket, not a speeding ticket.  Nonetheless,  I couldn't resist my chosen title as there's just something laughable about a ranger on horseback versus a Datsun 240Z sports car.

"Getting a Speeding Ticket"

Nikon EL film camera

50mm F1.4 prime lens

Scanned from Kodachrome 64 slide film

Exposure: I have no idea!

1959 Series 62 Convertible Cadillac 390 V8 Automatic

It was Cadillac day at Larz Anderson transportation museum recently, and I found myself gravitated rather quickly to this 1959 Cadillac convertible.  It's a real beauty.  

Wish I'd been able to look under the hood, at that 390 cubic inch 325 horse power engine. And those tail fins... wow! Check them out in a couple of the photos further below.

Photo Story: Wild Mountain Goat on Hurricane Ridge, 1976, Olympic National Park

Let's hear it for Kodachrome 64 and my old Nikon EL with it's 58 mm Nikkor F1.4 lens!  This is one of my dozen or so favorites from the 1970's.  For those that don't know this, Kodachrome was slide film with an ASA (ISO) of 64.  It came in rolls of 24 and 36.  Here the slide has been scanned to a 10mp file and then downsized to 750 pixels wide for blog posting.  I recently made a 24" print for my younger son, and it is plenty sharp.

"Mountain Goat"
Hurricane Ridge, Olympus National Park, 1976

Nikon EL film camera, Nikkor 58mm F1.4 lens

Shutter speed unknown, F stop unknown
ASA 64 (Kodachrome 64)

This image was taken on Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park in July, 1976.  That was more than 40 years ago!

Mountain goats are not indigenous to the area. They were introduced in 1920, eighteen years before the area became a national park. I'm not sure how many were living in the park when I took this picture in 1976.  However, I have read that in 1983 there were approximately 1,100.

I love wild animals but it seems that the Park system is trying to figure out what to do with these animals, as it is reported that they are overgrazing the delicate alpine vegetation and soil.

Incidentally, seen in the distance, beyond the snoozing mountain goat, is Puget sound and Vancouver Island, Canada.

Photo Story: Tons of Maple Tree Helicopters

Our property is surrounded by maple trees.  One of the beautiful things that happens in the spring is that the maples sprout large quantities of little “helicopters”, as we called them as kids. In reality these are seed pods, and they appear before the new maple leaves arrive.

Beautiful colors eventually turn to brown:

Beginning with rich colors of green, pink, red and yellow, the helicopters eventually dry out and loose their color, instead turning to a dried-out tan or brown color.  At that point they loose their touch with the stems to which they’d been attached, and drop to the ground in a twirling motion.  This action is why they are often called helicopters or whirligigs. Where they drop will depend on the wind, as it is often high winds that “set them free”.

"A Squadron of Maple Whirligigs"
Olympus EM-1 with 12-100mm F4 zoom @ 54mm (108mm-equiv)
1/100sec, F4, ISO 200
Processed with Lightroom and Perfectly Clear

A reason for concern:

Of particular concern, however, is the number of helicopters produced.  This particular tree is so dense with seed pods. It’s a “bumper crop”.  But that may not be a good thing. We’ve had drought conditions the last few years and I have learned from an arborist that producing a bumper crop of seeds is often a tree’s way of continuing the species during times of stress, and before the tree dies off.

Photo Story: Driving Through Kansas in 1975

In the summer of 1975 I spent a couple of weeks traveling the USA with my graduate school roommate.  He’d driven to the west coast from Connecticut to deliver his younger brother to (as I recall) the University of California at Berkeley.  I, on the other hand, flew into Los Angeles for the purpose of riding shotgun for the drive back to New England in his green Mercury Capri sedan via Nevada Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, and from there pretty much straight through to Massachusetts where he dropped me off. The experience was terrific… all except the night I spent hanging over a toilet in a campground in Colorado after consuming burritos and refried beens in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Silverton, CO.

"Kansas"

 Along Interstate 70 in 1975

Kodak Retina IIIC rangefinder film camera

50mm Focal Length

Kodachrome 64 (likely)

This photo represents my (unfair?) view of Kansas.  Flat as a pancake and a highway as straight (almost) as an arrow.  This photo was taken along Interstate 70. My recollection is that we were near Salina, and it was just after a thunderstorm blew through.  

One of my strange recollections is of spending the night in a campground off the highway.  We pitched the tent in a field. Usually, we would pound the tent pegs into the ground with any nearby rock.  But in Kansas we could find no rocks! Growing up in New England where farm fields are often lined by stonewalls, I found this rather amazing. I also remember it blowing like crazy all night and wondering if small dogs and young girls were flying through the air on their way to the Land of Oz.