Back to Black and White

I had a bit of time with the photos this morning, and I picked one from the holiday in California last year to see how effective it would look in black and white. This was taken down a country road well off the highway (we were looking for horse-stables) and the United States Postal Service obviously don't go too far off the beaten track because all these mailboxes (post boxes?) were together at a junction!

I'm happy with it, think it worked quite well. I have it on my etsy shop for sale, wondering if it will attract much interest? 

In other news, we went for a bite to eat in Kildare this evening, and the Silken Thomas is now serving Crean's lager - a very enjoyable (and Irish-brewed) and reasonably priced alternative to Big Lager. I highly recommend it! 

San Diego

San Diego is a lovely city - we had 2 days here. We got in late, having spent the day in Universal Studios outside LA, and wonder of wonders the staff in the hotel had left a bottle of sparkling wine in our bedroom! A nice treat, and the only "honeymoon" treat we had during the trip.



San Diego was 2 things to us really, given that we only had 1 day there - USS Midway, an aircraft carrier museum similar to the USS Intrepid in New York; and Seaworld, one of the highlights of the trip. There was some walking about in between both of those, and the seafront was lovely, but I just for some reason didn't take many pictures. So you'll have to be happy with some pictures of airplanes;

The A6 Intruder;


The F4 Corsair;


And these mammals.;

A dolphin at the petting area of Seaword;


Orcas, mid back-flip.


After that we had a nice wander around town, in the Gaslamp district (possibly the most atmospheric and busy part of any of the cities we'd visited) before heading back to the hotel and preparing for the 6 hour journey to Las Vegas, Nevada....

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles was our 3rd last stop after Santa Barbara, and we spent 2 nights here near Rodeo Drive. It really is a sprawl, cars everywhere, and clogged up freeways running through the city. We drove in at about 3:30 pm or so and it was the first time I experienced stop-start traffic on the trip. Still, thanks to our satnav system we got to the hotel happy enough and got settled in. Hotel/valet parking, by the way, can be expensive ($20-$30 a night) so if you're planning a trip this might be something to keep in mind.

Of course we went for a walk around to get our bearings, up towards Rodeo Drive. Yes, my wallet was nervous but when we got there it relaxed as it didn't have anything to worry about :P



The full day in between we took a hoponhopoff bus tour, which took us around most of the sights and we were happy to see most of them from the bus. We did get off at a couple of locations including a car museum (which had some great exhibits including a supercar area and cars from film/tv)





Some thoughtful people had also put up a sign - but I think I'll report it as false advertising.




We also decamped from the bus at Hollywood Boulevard, where we saw all of the pavement stars you could see (that gets boring!)



 and the Chinese Theatre, where I realised I have bigger feet than Bruce Willis. Oh, and this sign.



We then switched buses and got down to Santa Monica beach, where there's a nice pier and a sunset (every evening!).



On the way to San Diego we hit the flower market and Universal Studios (a great day out!)

Yosemite National Park, California, Post 2...

I hadn't uploaded all my pics when last I posted about Yosemite.

Half Dome:


This was our view during our picnic lunch:



And we saw more of the valley walls on the way back.




We went in on a second day, conditions on the (main) roads had improved and there'd been no snow overnight. Our plan was to hike (on-road) to the Mariposa grove of giant sequoias, then we'd see how it went.

Parked up just inside the entrance, and started the 3km or so hike up the windy mountain road to the grove. Nice views on the way, but we just wanted to get up there! When we got there, this was one of the first views we got.



As the caption says, those are not benches - they are the tops of mapboards!

The ponderosa pines are very elegant and tall throughout the park, and they are very tall compared to what trees I've seen, so I found myself wondering what the sequoias would be like..... once we got up close they felt big, definitely! And with their red bark, they really do stand out.


And the same trees, with people at their base for scale.....


But these were by no means the largest. The individual trees are well spread out in the grove, it's not an area exclusively populated by sequoias, the forest in between is the local mix of pine etc.

Then we met the Grizzly Giant:


After that we went to Wawona, a little settlement in the park, for a quick look around and a takeaway coffee.

More uploads recently from Santa Barbara and around, once I get those sorted you can have a look!

Yosemite National Park, California

After San Francisco, we drove south toward Monterey for lunch, before heading east to Yosemite National Park.


View Larger Map

Monterey is a nice coastal town, in a similar way to Dun Laoghaire, with a Fisherman's Wharf (pier with shops on) and a yachting harbour. We only stayed long enough for a sandwich above the waves, before we were chased east by some serious looking weather.

We crossed big country on some small roads, passing nut and fruit plantations, and as we headed up into the hills, some meadow.


As we drew closer to our lodge (Tenaya Lodge, near Fish Camp, just outside the park) we stopped in Oakhurst for a quick hamburger - this was our first Carls Jr, and what a burger! Best fast food type burger I've had, hands down. Anyway, I was glad we had this snack. As the road snaked its way up towards Fish Camp, reasonably steep drop-offs protected only by trees on the downhill side, the amount of snow and ice still around markedly increased.

Was I nervous? Well, I was hoping we weren't driving into somewhere that we'd be unable to drive out of 3 days later because of snow, and there was more ice on the road than I expected, so it was a little tense. We got up without snow chains, thankfully!

And Tenaya lodge is a lovely spot to arrive at, with braziers burning outside the front door, and a huge lobby inside. We got our keys to our apartment, and made our way there. Some of the snow had stuck.



So that was nice - about 0 degrees in the evening, dropping as it got later. There was a nice electric fire in the room though, so it was pretty cosy. We had been following the news a little bit on our trip, and were wary that that US Federal Government were potentially closing down because of a stalemate over budget. With that in mind, and assured the Park would be open on Saturday anyway, we booked 2 seats on a bus tour.

Boy was I glad! I could enjoy the scenery, I wasn't driving, and there was plenty of snow and ice on the roads so the rangers were sticky on having snow chains fitted (we of course in a rental car, didn't have such things!). We had a nice day touring all the spots in the park, stopping for the occasional photo op,

El Capitan.

and picnic lunch in the valley floor (by Yosemite falls, but more on that later). A couple of snow showers fell just to upset the nerves (were we being snowed in!!!!!???) but other than that the sun shone all day.



The park is stunning. The scenery, the rocks, the mountains are just amazing, and really very imposing.



You could spend weeks in here photographing the place, it's hard to get a bad one (though I managed, I can assure you!) Sometimes disappointing because there is nothing to give you scale, but these are just a couple of the photographs. More to be shared later!




There are a few more images at my pix.ie album, here.

San Francisco, Parte the Seconde.

I has returned, as you can see. I brung with me some more photos that you may or may not be interested in seeing. That said, if you've got this far, well done and I hope you enjoy them!



So the Golden Gate bridge we saw, well, we had to - I wanted to. It's brilliant, elegant in form and orange in colour. Well, International Orange, to be precise. We walked about halfway out, and then came back, had some nice views of SF and the bay too!




And it's worth noting that while the Golden Gate has it's own police, the California Highway Patrol (or CHiPs as I like to call them) still drop in from time to time. I love the gold and blue helmets! They're on BMW R-1200 (I think) bikes now, not the classic Kawasakis, but it's still great to see em.



I mentioned in my earlier post that the cables for the cable car system are all run from the same location. Credit to my disorganisation and poor blog post planning, I kept that photo for today! You can see the main power and gear units in the foreground, and the cables run over the big pulleys. In the background you might see the tension pulleys which move further away as the cable stretches, these keep the cables nice and tight for the grips on the cars.



That brings me to the end of today's few photos - there are more at the album on pix.ie if you're interested!

Next might be the transit to Yosemite....

Honeymoon - the pictures start here.

So, everything's downloaded (all 1500 or so files.....) and I've started to go through them with a view to picking out the most shareable. I've put a few on my pix.ie account so far, feel free to browse and laugh at them.



San Francisco was our first stop, after quite a lengthy pair of flights (5.5 hours transatlantic, and another 5 hours or so transcontinental). Hilly spot! Time differences meant that we were waking up bright and early at about 6am, but getting tired by 8pm or 9pm. San Francisco is a lovely city with plenty to see and do. Highlights for me here were the Golden Gate bridge (another post), the cable cars (see above) the sourdough bread that is everywhere, and eating lunch in the Zoetrope café and realising at the end that it's owned by Francis Coppola!

It's a hilly city - this picture might help you. We walked the hills the first day, heading North from our hotel (The Hilton Union Square on O'Farrell St) without realising exactly what we were letting ourselves in for!



We were to wear ourselves out consistently every day, even with the public transport pass we bought on day 2. The Hilton is very well located, but we were a small bit disappointed with being able to hear not just that our neighbours were on the phone, but all of their travel plans and details through the hotel room wall. Also the in-hotel coffee shop and restaurant were expensive but we could have expected that.

Chinatown was part of our first day's exploration. I was puzzled by some of the signs, and not just those that were in Chinese:


And there was plenty of interesting street art too


Dominating the skyline from almost every viewpoint is the Transamerica Bank Building, or the Transamerica Building. Striking in it's height and form, it looms above everything. Very interesting.



Feminists and U2 fans (it's a line in the song "Trying to throw your arms around the world") will recognise the line "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" well, we saw this in SF which kinda puts a lie to the whole thing:



As I mentioned the sourdough above, these below will illuminate what I meant. SF is famous for its sourdough bread, which is risen using natural yeast rather than cultivated yeast. The bread has a sour taste and a lovely dense texture which is amazing toasted. Or, scooped out and filled with soup as these guys do:




So I'll finish the post with a couple of photos of the cable cars. They are powered by cables running beneath the tracks (where the museum is), and the cars/trams each have a clutch or grip which is used to grab onto the continuously moving cables when they want to move, and let go when they want to stop. There are of course independent brakes on the tram!


There are turntables at each end of the line (certainly on the Powell & Hyde Line), where the driver and brakeman turn the car manually to go back in the direction it came from


As the cable cars pass quite closely to each other, and passengers hang off the side, it is important not to lean out


So I hope you enjoyed the first rather long post. More to come!

Loving being back.....

Not.

We're back (that's wife and I, now) from our holiday (read honeymoon). We were in California, which was lovely, and Nevada, which was also lovely, and Arizona (but just for a minute) as well as New Jersey (well, the airport....). So we're still tired and jetlagged!

I have downloaded my photos. Some culling needs to be done prior to presentation (probably in batches).

In brief - San Francisco, Yosemite National Park, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas. Highlights included Yosemite's natural (and snowy) beauty, the performing animals at Seaworld, the USS Midway aircraft carrier and Las Vegas' car hire desk. Who had a convertible Ford Mustang for rent for a brilliant day at Hoover Dam and Red Rock Canyon.

So I might have whetted your appetite for details and photos? Stay tuned for I hope to say more soon!

(As an aside, I am, having not taken photos since Thursday, considering deciding to stop my photo a day project. All I've learned from it is that I should have my camera with me as much as possible - there was some real rubbish being taken just for the sake of it. A theme is needed for a project like that.)