More Highway 1

Photos from another trip along Highway 1.  I’ve made it a goal to drive all of Highway 1.  This trip was along the section from Jenner to Fort Bragg.

Point Arena Lighthouse

I got to Point Arena Lighthouse too late in the afternoon to take the tour.  It didn’t bother me that much though, because it seemed to me that the best views of the lighthouse were from quite a ways down the coast.

Point Arena Lighthouse

Point Arena Lighthouse

Fort Bragg Bridge

I liked this cool footbridge in Fort Bragg.  Fort Bragg was largely disappointing though.  It seemed to me that this town had amazing potential, with tons of beautiful coast.  However, most of the coast was fenced off and inaccessible, and the town was pretty dumpy; a tremendously depressing waste of potential.

Lake along Highway 20

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lake Sonoma

Hiking trails near Lake Sonoma

Vulture circling overhead, this could be a bad omen for a hike!

Sunset over the bridge

Lake Sonoma Sunset

Holiday Travel Pictures

A few random pictures from my travels over the holidays.

Multnomah Falls

One

Orion rising in the East, Over the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, and the Bay Area.

I’ve been too busy with work lately to find time for photo editing and posting images.  These are images from a couple weekends ago, when I decided to take a little sight-seeing trip along Highway 1.  It was really gorgeous.  I drove the stretch from San Francisco to Jenner.  Along the way I decided to make it a goal to drive the entire length of Highway 1.

I noticed this hawk on a power line and stopped to take a picture

I thought I might get a little closer to get a better picture, but he wasn’t having any of it!

Experimenting with a long exposure to make the water look foggy.

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

We had quite a bit of rain the last few days.  I almost didn’t go outside for picture taking on Saturday.  But there was a little break in the showers in the late afternoon, so I went out and got a few quick pictures.  I love how rainy days turn green into Green.

Sunday afternoon, the skies finally cleared up.  I decided to go check out the flooding….
The next picture is taken from the exact same spot as this earlier picture.  I’ve cropped the image slightly wider, but otherwise the view is identical.  I had to wade in ankle deep water to get to my spot this time around!  The grape vines were almost completely submerged.

The picture above was taken right next to a gate.  The picture below is the top of one of the gate posts.  Shudder!  It appears that all the neighborhood spiders made for “high ground” when the flood came, and ended up stranded on the fenceposts.It’s still making my skin crawl, just thinking about it!

The spiders weren’t the only ones who noticed all the water!  There were a lot of geese heading into the vineyards to take advantage of the new “lakes.”

Later in the evening I decided to take advantage of the clear weather by trying out some night photography at the Marin Headlands, just north of San Francisco.

One Oh One

Wednesday evening and Thursday, I had the chance to take a slow drive up U.S. Highway 101, along the California and Oregon coasts.  It was a beautiful drive and I plan to do this again in the future.  There’s so much to see.  I hardly even scratched the surface.

I saw an amazing number of elk along the Highway, in the Humboldt County area of Northern California.  This was the biggest one:

My initial plan was to go see the giant redwoods, but I enjoyed the coast so much that I just stuck with it.  I never did visit even one of the giant redwoods parks.

The “Natural Bridges” were really amazing.  There is a trail which leads down to the bridges.  Of course I had to run down, check it out up close, and walk right out on top of the first one….

On one of the Oregon beaches I ran across this wooden sign with a poem and a painting of two swallows on it.  I’m not sure what the story behind the sign is, or if there are other signs like it on other beaches.

San Francisco

My journey this weekend was partially inspired by another another WordPress blog.  Thanks, daydreams & shoestrings!  When I saw that blog entry I knew I would have to visit this staircase.  It’s pretty amazing.  The scale of the thing is really mind blowing.
The staircase leads up to another road, and a smaller second staircase of plain, slightly decaying concrete.  This in turn leads to another road and a much longer wooden staircase to the top of the hill.  The view from the top was pretty spectacular.  I pieced together the following panorama from 11 pictures, using Microsoft I.C.E., my first time using this software.  It’s pretty impressive and a HUGE file size, even in .jpg format.
On the way down the staircase, I met a lady carrying a book titled, “Stairway Walks in San Francisco.”  It had the Mosaic Staircase featured prominently on the cover–another book which is headed for the top of my reading list!
I also tried to visit the Point Bonita lighthouse, but ended up there at the wrong time of day–it’s only open from 12:30 to 3:30.  This is a picture of a decaying brick/concrete dome, near the trailhead to the lighthouse.
A few other random pictures: