The Seagull

As you may or may not know, my friend Chris and I took a 10-day road trip in May. On May 15th we were headed down the Oregon coast enjoying the scenery and lovely driving weather. It is always nice taking a drive without time limits. We actually took the time to pull over and check out historical markers and interesting sights. Here at this pullout on the road we had a visitor. He stayed with us for quite awhile and allowed us some wonderful close-up shots. We fed him the rest of our cherries and he gobbled them all up. When we were about ready to go I stomped behind him to make him flap his wings and fly away so that I could get some nice close-up shots of it. He was a very patient model. Here are some of my favorites from the photo shoot with him.

Golden Gate Bridge.

Just a quick picture blog.

Road Trip. (I should be travel blogging, but I'm not.) Until now.

I am sitting in Indio, California in a quaint little cheap motel. We have found some very interesting cheap motels, but this one is interesting in a nice way. It is a cute little room with some real ambiance and nice furnishings, not at all like our other cheap motels. It has a drawback if you are not comfortable with trains rumbling by every so often, but I enjoy the trains and I know the noise will not keep me awake, so I am good with it.
The winds outside are very strong and are blowing things about a bit. Every so often something flies off and hits the roof. I imagine it must be the branches from the high palm trees that are around. I am resisting the urge to go outside and stand in the wind with my arms spread out and my eyes closed. I love the wind and it's too warm in here.
I am enjoying my first little glimpse of the desert and I am very excited about going into Arizona tomorrow. Winds or no winds, the landscape is marvelous. Along the I-10 highway around Thousand Palms there is a spot with hundreds upon hundreds of wind mills. (Not the pretty little dutch kind, but those skinny poles with blades atop that I have grown to love when I see them on the landscape.)
We stopped to take some pictures of them from an undeveloped spot off the freeway. There was an exit which led to a gas station and not much else. They are obviously planning a much bigger community around here because they have roads that go no where and freeway exits that lead to nothing.
A little further up we found an exit which led us to a place with beautiful wide boulevards. One of those wide boulevards led to a very fancy Casino/resort and most of the rest led to absolutely nothing. They are beautiful and wide, like this place must be expecting a lot of traffic someday. The one boulevard ran in front of the casino with an intersection at the casino. Three of the connecting roads were completed and one of those was the road into the Casino complex. The fourth road (across from the casino) was not completed and stopped about twenty five feet from the intersection. We pulled in there to take some pictures and when we went to leave there was actually a magnetic strip already in place for those turning left and those going straight across to the casino. This cracked us up since the "road" we were on was not even a road yet, but it was nice to have a green arrow with which to return to the boulevard.

Here are some pics of the windmills:













I also loved the way these clouds hugged the tops of these mountains behind the windmills.












Today was an especially long day. We drove all day, coming from Dublin (near Pleasanton) all the way to Indio. It was rainy near Dublin, but the rest of the trip was fairly nice with high clouds until we came to the mountains before Los Angeles. It poured rain all the way through the pass and until we were almost to Six Flags. Then it was pretty nice again until we were almost through Los Angeles. We had two rolling slow downs due to an accident in L.A. and something unknown near West Covina. The rest of the trip was fairly nice and easy. Tomorrow we head towards Arizona and up to the Grand Canyon. I am hoping we have nice weather but not too hot. It would be nice to enjoy getting out and looking around and taking more pictures.

The Waterfall. (or was it The Rocks?)

Our Sunday drive to Long Beach took us along the Columbia River. We saw a pretty waterfall, and I actually backed up along the shoulder of the highway in order to park, so we could get out and take pictures. There wasn't "that very much" traffic, anyways, to incorporate one of Jeren's classic phrases when he was little. Be sure to double click the pictures to enlarge them. (especially the rock formation pictures)

This is the pretty little waterfall we saw.



This is our view of it as we got out of the car. Notice the rock hill behind the tree, which quickly became our focus.


I was in awe of this rock formation. There are so many textures and colors on this piece of rock.



A better look at the rock. It is hard to know where to look because there are so many things to see. Is this natural or from blasting? or ? I have no idea, but sadly it was too big for me to bring it home.


A close-up of the columnar area of the rock. All I can say here is, "WOW!" I see cheek to cheek smiling faces with boxes stacked on their heads. What about you? It's amazing to think how these stacked boxes were created.


My car looks so far away. Maybe it's one of those "it's closer than it appears" things without the mirrors. (Twilight Zone music, please). That is how far I backed up!


I see faces up there, too, and so did my photo program, lol. Love the mist. It kept coming and going all day long.


Just another view of the up and the mist.


Over on the Columbia we saw this thing. It's not actually on the Columbia proper. It is a little side stream off the main river.


I zoomed in closer to see it was a boat landing. Are those littler gray things showers? or more light?


Where the Columbia and the little stream converge. The water was so still it was beautiful and I love the misty look. Not that I haven't mentioned it several times already.