Wet Rocks

This was one of the many beautiful waterfalls that exist up near Lone Pine. This was just a small section of one large waterfall, which I believe was at Whitney Portal.

RUINS

Ruins are everywhere we travel; they are part of our lives and our culture. When I started working on the new radio system project at work, I had to attend a class about archeology and how the process works for some of the sites that we wanted to built a radio tower on. Now, coming from a country with hundreds, if not thousands of years of history, this made me chuckle. Then I realized that the old metal ration cans strewn across the desert floor from where General Pattern practiced field maneuvers with his troops and tanks were part of this nations history. In fact, I find the attitudes of people here more than a little sad! I realize that the teepee rings are an inconvenience to where we want to built that 200 foot tower, but if you lose your history, I think you lose your identity. Now understanding that life moves on, work with that history, work around it, but don't just bulldoze it because it stops you from making more money than you know what to do with. This is the sad part of American culture, it's all about the almighty dollar. I miss the fact that in the UK and Europe we have an identity and a culture that is based on our history. America is too young to realize that and so (at least in my experience) is a very shallow place to live. Now, if you live in Europe as much as you think preserving some of the things that are preserved is stupid, remember it was part of a previous generations life and for better or worse we should remember it and preserve it. It gives us a chance to take pride in what we accomplished or at worst we can learn from our previous mistakes. So anyone that is in the archeological field, thank you for fighting the fight and preserving our past, we might need it one day!

Today's photograph was taken in Death Valley at Ashford Mills Ruins built around 1910. When in operation it was used to process gold extracted from the mines in Death Valley. The mines never extracted enough gold to turn a profit, so the mill only lasted 5 years.

A Bigger View

On a side note I finally found the setting to make the blog page wider. This allows me to post a larger version of the photograph and make it easier for you all to see. You can still click on the photograph to get a larger view too. My eyes are getting worse so I need it too. So I hope you enjoy the new larger sized photographs and I'm going to start trying to post some more comments to keep you informed and entertained.

Also remember that all of my photographs are Creative Commons. Meaning that if you would like to download one of my photographs and use it as a background or print it out then please feel free. If you want to post it on a website then just credit it to me with a link back here. Just please don't sell it or use it for commercial use without my permission. Once again thanks for viewing.

Bridges

My wife and my ex-wife will probably tell you that I have a fascination with bridges. If there is a show on TV about a bridge being built, then I need to watch it. Bridges fascinate me, they take us places that would be so difficult otherwise to get too. I guess my fascination with bridges is the engineering involved with building one. When i see the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco I'm amazed that men were able to build it in the 1930's. 

The photograph above was taken just after sunrise in the Mormon Rocks area of Cajon Pass.

A Peashooter

Ok so the last airplane photograph for a while. Taken at the Chino Planes of Fame Air museum this is a Boeing P26 Peashooter. It was the first all-metal production fighter aircraft and first flew in 1932.

A Doodlebug

During the later part of World War II Hitler's Germany used a new kind of weapon to bomb the people of London. Germany invented what was in effect the first cruise missile or self propelled bomb. It was known as the V1 buzz bomb or to the people of London "The Doodlebug". It would take off from a steam catapult in Germany pointed towards London. The theory was that it had enough fuel to fly to London and then when it ran out of fuel it would fall from the sky exploding on impact with the ground. It was powered by a pulse jet engine, the forerunner to the rocket engine, which made a loud buzzing sound, hence the name buzz bomb. The Royal Air Force used planes that were fast enough, such as Spitfires to catch the V1, fly along side it and then use it's wings to tip up the wings of the V1 and make it crash. My grandmother used to tell me the stories of when they would hear the V1's flying over the air raid shelters, waiting for the engine to stop and then the resulting explosion as it hit the ground. 

This V1 is on display at the Chino Planes of Fame Air Museum.

The Bird Feeder

Friday morning was a wet miserable day, but out in the back yard this little guy was getting his breakfast at our hummingbird feeder. A couple of years ago my dad bought Janet a one of these feeders and since then she has pretty much cursed him every other day. We have these amazing little birds hanging around feeding all day and they go through a big jug of sugared bird water once a week. Of course the cats help the thin the flock when one of them is not fast enough, but for the most part the cats just have to sit and watch. 

Wee Willy II

On Saturday I had some time to kill with nothing to do, so I took a trip to Chino Airport, home of one of the Planes of Fame Air Museum's. As museums go this one is a little different in that most of the exhibits are actually regularly flown aircraft. Also you get to literally walk up to the aircraft, see it close up and touch it. In fact you actually have to mind your head while walking around them as there are lots of pointy hard objects hanging from a plane.

This plane is a North American P51 Mustang called Wee Willy II. It looks like this aircraft had a fun life after it's military service as an air racer until it crashed during a race at Reno in 1980. In 1985 it was rebuilt with parts from another Mustang and now flies out of Chino airport.

Black & White Orange

Over the weekend, I kept walking past our fruit salad trees in our backyard. (For those that don't know, a fruit salad tree is one that has four or five different fruits on it.) In our case, that's two varieties of oranges, lemons and limes. Anyway, the oranges just had these little drops of water from the rain dripping off of them and looked very interesting. So, with my camera mounted to the tripod, I took the photo above. I took it at about 9pm and didn't add any artificial light to it. It was just a long shutter speed of about 30 seconds and a camera that is capable of taking awesome photographs in the dark. The photograph above was converted to B&W in Photoshop and than the orange color was added back in. Below is the original color version.

A B-17

These are two of the engines from the B-17 Flying Fortress Return To Glory, which is displayed at March Air museum. The B-17 was the US Air Force bomber of choice in the European theater during WWII. The USAF used these aircraft for their daylight bombing raids on German manufacturing plants, to try and stop the German "War Machine". However these raids were not very successful and and suffered heavy loses. On the 14th October 1943 77 out of 291 B-17's along with 650 men from their crews were lost. In fact during that month of October 177 B-17's were lost.