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.

Dusk in Santa Monica

 

This photograph was taken from Santa Monica Promenade and captures dusk looking across Santa Monica Bay towards Malibu in the distance. The road in the foreground is Highway 1 which runs all the way up the coast of California from Capistrano Beach,south of Los Angeles to San Francisco. If you every have a chance to drive Highway 1 you should just once for the experience, it's one of the most spectacular drives you will take. The houses by the road in this photograph are right on the beach, the owners just walk out the gate at the rear of their garden straight onto the sandy beach. Click on the photo for a larger version.

Hold Up at The Grand Canyon

I had always wanted to take a ride on the Grand Canyon Railway from Williams to Grand Canyon Village on the south rim. Finally 10 years after hearing of the railway we decided to take the trip with my mum, dad and aunt while they were here visiting. The train leaves Williams Depot every morning with a couple of exceptions for holidays. It's about a 2 1/2 hour ride to the south rim and along the way there is plenty of entertainment on the train. The steward in charge of your car is a natural comedian, a singer that wonders through and sings some songs and numerous other entertainers. Of course every one of them wants their share of all the tourist dollars on the train, which I and I am sure many others found very annoying. Once at the Grand Canyon station you have a choice find something to do on your own or take an organized bus tour, we opted for the later. Our tour bus driver was great, she reminded me of an old boss of mine but she knew her stuff and went out of her way to make the tour enjoyable and informative. Of course it probably helped that there were only eight of us on her bus, but hey it was fun. Then after the tour with a stop for lunch at the Grand Canyon Hotel (which was included on the tour) we were back on the train and heading back to Williams. Just to remove the last of the dollars from our pockets we even had a Sheriff on board. It turns out that his job was to foil 3 riders on horse back who hold up the train at gun point and then board it just before Williams. If it wasn't for the fact they also wanted more money from you I'm sure it would have been a lot more fun. The scenery you see from the trin is pretty spectacular. It's hard to believe that this railway was built in 1901 and then closed for 15 years in 1974, but I am so happy that someone decided to reopen it in 1989 and that I got to ride it.

London Bridge

Last year my mum, dad and aunt came to visit us, so we thought a road trip was in order. We headed down east on Interstate 10 into Arizona and up to Lake Havasu on our way to the Grand Canyon. One of the attractions of Lake Havasu and to be honest there really isn't many in my opinion, is London Bridge. Well really it's a London Bridge facade made up of a concrete frame and stone blocks on the outside from the London Bridge that was replaced in 1968. The bridge was sold to Robert P.McCulloch, an American entrepreneur for just under $2.4 million, then every stone was numbered, dismantled and shipped to Arizona. Contrary to popular believe McCulloch was not sold London Bridge thinking he was getting Tower Bridge (the more famous of London's bridges). It was interesting to hear from my dad that he used to driver buses over this bridge before it was dismantled and moved.

A Peaceful Place

This is a photograph of a Karesansui which is Japanese for dry landscape garden. It was taken at Huntington Gardens in Pasadena. When I walked through the entrance to it I was the only person there and it instantly felt calming and peaceful. These dry landscape gardens have been found at Zen Buddhist temples since the 14th century and are often called Zen gardens. The gravel is raked to depict waves in an open body of water and the rocks are placed to represent a body of land or mountains. The benches at this garden are for people to sit and take in the peace and abstract beauty of this garden. As I have said before if you want a wonderful day out walking around some beautiful gardens in the middle of a city the Huntington Gardens is well worth a visit.

By the way remember that to get a larger view of any of these photographs I post just click on the photo and it will take you to a larger version.