A Cliff Top Pasture

Ireland I'm sure gets a whole lot of rain, especially on the west coast side next to the Atlantic and of course one of the benefits of lots of rain? Green, green lush grass. Ireland has a mild climate to go along with all that rainfall and so earns itself the name of "The Emerald Isle". Contrary to what the dairy industry here in California says, my guess is that Ireland probably has some of the happiest cows in the world with all that rich green pasture to munch on and then you add the views on top of that and they must be some "Happy Irish Cows". 

This photograph was taken in the pastures that overlook the Cliffs of Moher. It always amazes me what is left to rust away be people, especially farmers. I'm not sure what type of farm equipment this is or how long it has been there but, I'm sure it will be there long after I'm gone.

Mountain Lakes

I thought I would you show you a photograph of a quiet day on Big Bear Lake. This was taken in February so the lake is closed to public boating. I used to love the crisp, cold, winter fresh mornings in Big Bear, especially when there was no snow. The snow was beautiful unless you had to commute down the mountain through the it and then when it turned to dirty brown slush it really was nasty and just looked horrible. But if you had the luxury of not leaving the mountain and just enjoying it Big Bear was a great place to live and vacation. I remember the first time I went to Big Bear in 1997, we arrived there late at night and all I remembered was the dark night driving up the winding road. It was too dark to see any of the views that would behold me. The next morning I got up and walked out onto the deck of the house we were staying in, I  just stood there in awe of the view that my eyes were trying to take in. It was mid May, there was still snow on the peaks of the mountains, the sun was shining bright in the blue sky and the air was fresh and clean with a hint of pine smell. That's a memory that I will remember forever and why I will always have a place in my heart for Big Bear.

Evolution of a Radio Site Week 3

Week 3 of Evolution of a Radio Site Shows you just how fast things change in a couple of weeks. All of the grading work has been completed and the foundation for the pre-fabricated building is complete (the concrete pad everyone is standing on). The piece of equipment in use is a drilling rig that is used to drill the three 36inch diameter holes for the foundations of the 100ft tower. Unfortunately the drill managed to hit a solid block of granite about 12 feet down while drilling the 3 holes required. So after a replacement drill bit was found and some more hard work by the drilling crew they managed to get the job done. I also know what everyone is thinking, typical government job with so many people standing around watching, except everyone of these people has a job to do. There was the drilling crew, the construction crew, the contractors construction manager, the counties construction manager and the counties building inspector. All of them were there making sure that the work was done safely and to the standards required by building codes and county standards.

A Tree Top View

Sorry for no photograph yesterday, I decided in my not too infinite wisdom to erase my whole computer (a Mac for those that wonder) and reinstall everything with Apple's new operating system Snow Leopard. Well it took a little longer than expected and it's still not quite 100%. Anyways up, as we'd say in England, today's photograph is a view of the tree tops from the top of the tramway at Palm Springs. This view is looking east towards Indio and eventually Arizona and just captures some of the desert floor on the left. If you every decide to take a trip up the tramway just remember that when you get to the top you are at over 8000ft in altitude and to say you get breathless quickly (and not just from the view) would be an understatement. It wasn't so bad for me as I used to live in Big Bear at over 6000ft but Janet was really feeling it. Southern California really is a pretty place  and in so many different ways. Can you imagine standing here looking at this view in January or February, you would be looking at a forest covered in snow at probably 20 - 30 degrees F overlooking a desert with temperatures in the high 90's. Hopefully in February I will find the time to do just that to show you the difference.

A Lilly Pond

I found this lilly pond in the gardens at Huntington Library. As I have said before the gardens there are beautiful. My parents will be over from England in a couple of weeks and I'm sure my mum would like to spend a day there. So now I know where to look I'll hopefully improve on some of the images I have already posted.

Another Flower

I thought today I would post a photograph of a flower that I took with a macro lens. The image on the left was then processed in Topaz Adjust to give it it's more artificial look. The one on the right is the original with just some exposure and color correction processing. The original was taken in the gardens at Huntington Library.

My Kind of Golf Course

For our first wedding anniversary Janet and I decided to take a cruise around the Hawaiian Islands. It was a fun cruise and Hawaii was beautiful, especially the island of Kauai. The other islands we visited were pretty, the problem with them was they were just so commercialized. Honolulu and Waikiki in particular were just full of people and touristy things to see and do. The one exception I found to this however was Kauai, Kauai is how you imagine a tropical island to be, or at least how I imagine them to be. It had a natural beauty and everything just seemed to blend and not appear artificial. The golf course I played at was a case in point. Kauai Lagoons is built on the cliff tops overlooking the Nawiliwili Harbor and is the most spectacular golf course I have ever played. The photograph above was taken from the tee box of the 13th hole and just took my breath away and I managed to par it.

A Roof Top View

While I was at the top of Mount San Jacinto (pronounced Mount San Hacinto for the Brit's that wonder why San Jose is pronounced San Hose, it's a Spanish thing), I discovered a viewing area I did not see the first time I rode the Palm Springs Tramway. Just to the right side of the bar is a door that looks like a fire exit and has a small sign mentioning a viewing deck. Well I had to walk through it to see what I found and to my amazement I discovered that I was standing above the roof level of the cable car. Now to me this is more interesting than any bit of scenery, you see I just have a fascination with how things work. I can sit somewhere for hours and try to understand what goes into a machine that makes it safe, reliable and just how it plan old works. So here is the photograph of what I discovered and for those of you that like the scenery aspect below is one without the cable car. These photos were both taken after the sun had gone down and darkness was falling. As always click on the image for a larger version.

 

Evolution of a Radio Site Week 2

Last Tuesday I posted a photograph that showed a raw piece of land that would evolve into one of the County of Riverside's new radio sites for public safety. So this week shows just how much changed in one week. During the course of a week a construction crew came in erected a fence around the site and then started the grading of the hill side before pouring the foundations. It amazes me just how much can be accomplished in a short time span, in fact it took longer to deal with environmental reports than it did to build the site.

On Top of The World

On Saturday Janet and I decided to go and have dinner somewhere different, but where was the question. So me being me and thinking about photo opportunities I suggested the Palm Springs Tramway. For those of you living in the UK and thinking that a tramway is a bus that runs on rails down the middle of the street, I'm afraid you would be wrong. The Palm Springs version is, wait for it, you'll never guess, a cable car. Yep a thing that holds lots of people (about 80 in this case) and dangles from steel cables high above the rocks below. The journey from the bottom station to the top, 8500ft above the desert floor takes about 10 minutes. Once you get to the top it's just a spectacular view of the Coachella Valley and all the cities that reside in it. Also at the top is a restaurant, cafeteria and a bar. The other choice at the top is to enter into the Mount San Jacinto State Park and go hiking or any other sort of outside adventure.