Zero Elevation

No one guessed the location of the previous two photographs so here is the final one with the result. This place has a beauty all of it's own and there are a couple of areas of it that I would like to go and see, such as The Racetrack. Anyway the location is Death Valley National Park. It is so desolate it's beautiful and interesting. It's also HOT and I mean HOT! It was 115F while we were there. Janet decided to pick up a rock, it was pretty funny to watch her throwing it hand to hand as it was burning her. For all my English friends, you may remember Roy Castle of Record Breakers frying an egg on a rock in Death Valley, I'd be pretty sure you could do that at the hottest time of the year. By the way if you're in Las Vegas and decide to head back to LA via Death Valley like we did, it may look like a 2 - 3 hour detour, believe me when I tell you the rest of your passengers will not be happy when it adds about 6 hours to the journey. Mind you everyone enjoyed it and was happy to have seen it.

Hey, I Hate Being Below The Sea

So no one figured out yesterdays destination so here is photo two, that I hope will help you out. If not tomorrows will surely give it away.

About 7 years ago I was given the chance to try scuba diving, so I thought "What the heck? I'll try it!" Well I got a wet suit on, an air tank and some flippers, quite a sight I'm sure you'll imagine and headed into the sea at Catalina Island. I swam 10 yards and got about 6 inches under water when I decided scuba diving wasn't for me and promptly got out of the water and vowed never to go below the surface of the sea again. Until that is I visited the place you see above. It is 282 feet below sea level and is the lowest land elevation in North America and 8th on the list worldwide.

Where Are We Now?

Sorry for no photos being posted for the last three days, I took my mum, dad and aunt to Las Vegas and I'm too cheap to pay $14 for the Internet access in the room. We had a great time though and I came away $100 up, so it was a real good trip.

Todays photograph was inspired by my friend Stephen, in England after he mentioned that he prefers Black & White photos over color from the days when he used to print in his own darkroom. I so much prefer the instant gratification of digital, but I still remember putting a piece of paper in developer and watching the image that I just exposed to it magically appear before my eyes. Doing that at school was fine as we had a darkroom, but at home it was just a mess and a hassle to clean up after an evening of photo printing. So back to today's photograph, I'm going to ask you to guess what it is of and if no one guesses right I'll post another photo tomorrow to give you another clue. To see this image (or any of the others for that matter) in more detail, click on the photo for a larger version.

Sorry We're Out of Gas!

If you're ever driving along Highway 62 between 29 Palms and Videl Junction in the most easterly part of Southern California then make sure you fill your gas tank up before you leave either one of them, because if you wait for the 76 gas station in Rice this is what will greet you. The only structure left standing in the vacant town of Rice is this gas station canopy and it's palm tree. Click on the image for a larger version.

How Big Was That Earthquake?

Before moving to California I always wondered (or worried would be more to the point) two things about earthquakes and those two things are as follows:

1. The important one, "What does it feel like to be in an earthquake?"
2. How do they measure the size of it?

Well the first one took about 4 months for me to learn after I moved here or so I thought. One Sunday night I was brushing my teeth when the whole house had a violent jolt, that was a 4.1 magnitude quake. So me being me I thought "Ahh no big deal I can live with that!" How wrong was I. About a month later a 7.1 magnitude thundered it's way through the house like a freight train. Now that was an earthquake and for the two weeks following it I could shower in about 30 seconds, for some reason that was the place that scared me the most to be caught in an earthquake. Until you have experienced the violence and power of the whole world around you shaking you have no idea how it feels.

The second point took a while longer for me to discover and it happened purely by accident while we were out looking for potential radio sites. On a hilltop in Joshua Tree National Park stood a tripod with a dome shaped object on top of it and some other equipment. This turned out to be one of the many earthquake measuring sites located all across California. The photograph above shows one of these such sites in Joshua Tree. For more earthquake information with real time shake map, check out the USGS Southern California web site. Click on the photo for a larger version.

Evolution of a Radio Site Week 5

Things are slowing down now after the initial burst of activity for the counties new radio site. As you can see the grounding has been completed and now it's a matter of the finish grading for the site before the fence is put up and the site is covered with a layer of gravel. Like anything the big things go the fastest and the last 10%, the detailed work, takes the longest. I will not be posting any more photos of this site until it's complete and I get to take some pictures of the inside of the building.

On a separate note thanks for all the input on the photographs yesterday. To start with things seemed pretty even, but the eventual winner was color. The consensus being that it brought out the texture of the scene. Thanks again.

Graffiti in the Desert

Today I would like to ask you all for your opinion, below are two photographs of the same thing except one is black and white and the other color. Let me know which one you prefer as I am not sure which I prefer.

This photograph was taken in Rice, California, a vacant town site in the Mojave Desert. The town of Rice was built around the railway that still runs through there, but the town is now all gone except for one structure that I will show you a photograph of later in the week. I love seeing places like this, it's like the ruins that are in every other part of the world except they are less that 50 years old. What's funny about it is that there is graffiti everywhere in Rice, but generally it's about a persons love for someone else. Even along the side of the railway line people have used different colored rocks to mark their name as a permanent record in the desert. Click on either image for a larger version.

You Want To Jump Out of A Plane?

The conversation went something like this: Janet (my wife) "I want to do a parachute jump". Me: "Why would you want to jump out of a perfectly good airplane?" So last Monday Janet and her brother Russ did just that, they both jump out of a perfectly good airplane. After they both effectively signed their lives away in waivers, they dressed in jump suits and met their tandem jump instructors, Janet's happened to be a Brit called Adi from Cornwall, and off they went to 12500ft. This is a photo of the last turn before Janet and Adi landed on their feet I might add. Before you ask, yes she really enjoyed it very much and no I have no plans to do it. Click on the photo for a larger version.

Where Was I?

Another September 11th has arrived and after 8 years the memories of that sad day still make me think back and remember everything about it. I was trying to find a photograph that I had taken that I thought would be appropriate, but I just could not find one. Then the memory of where I was when I first heard of the attacks on the World Trade Center reminded me that I had a photograph that was appropriate. That morning for me had started like any other, I got up, showered and headed out the door of my house in Big Bear to start my morning commute down the mountain to work in Riverside. It was 6:15 and I was driving around the North Shore of Big Bear Lake, just east of the houses photographed above, listening to the radio. I was having a hard time trying to understand what was being said by the hosts, something about a plane hitting the WTC and then another one not far behind. Then they mentioned that two airliners had gone missing and in that moment for me everything clicked "It must be a terrorist attack!" Those moments have stayed with me as I watched peoples lives and this country changed forever due to that day, the aftermath of it and the wars that followed because of it.

Prevailing Winds

Just a quick entry today as I'm leaving at 5am to drive to five of our furthest flung radio sites in the desert. Hopefully I'll get some interesting photographs, especially at the first one, Joshua Tree National Park. I took this photograph at the top of the Palm Springs Tramway. We've all heard of prevailing winds, but how hard must the wind blow to shape a tree like this? One thing I do know is, I would not like to be in one of the cable cars when this kind of wind is blowing!