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My Travel Dustbin From June, part 2; Mount Rainier & Mono Lake

Here's an older shot of Mount Rainier that I never posted from a previous trip. I took it from a ferry one evening.

And here's my first view of Rainier from Mt. Rainier National Park. Looks different up close.

I was in Seattle for a week this time, and I had a free day to take a drive out there. Drove all the way up to the top. Well, the road doesn't go to the peak, but it goes up pretty high.

Rainier is one of those mountains where the closer you get to it, the less impressive it is. From a distance, it looks gigantic. Up close, just another peak.

So what's going on in July, you ask, that I'm still putting up stuff from June? Well not much really. I just got back from Indiana. I've been there a few times now, and every time I go there I get this existential dread. Indiana really horrifies me in an abstract way. What a terrible place to be from. Everybody there is Wal-Mart material, you know what I mean? Except this time I took a wrong turn on the way to my hotel and wound up in Amish country. That was actually pretty cool. I was the only car on those roads, and every time I passed a horse and buggy, or any time there was a group of Amish out on their front lawn having a picnic or an evening meeting of some sort, I got a friendly wave. I found myself hoping that my rental car would break down or get a flat so I could have a pleasantly surprising Amish adventure, but no such luck.

So here's Mono Lake, which is next to Yosemite National Park in California. I know I'm posting these all out of wack, but it's a volume thing, you dig?

There's a big island in the middle; looks kind of volcanic huh? The lake is extremely alkaline, and over to the right of that shot there are a bunch of exposed tufa towers. Which are fun to take way too many pictures of.

They were probably more interesting in the rock flesh. Can you tell which shadow is mine along the shadows of the tufa? Yeah I was trying to look like a rock shadow, but my elbows stick out when I'm holding my camera.

I wandered around here for like two hours. It smelled great and the air was salty. Here's another Where's Waldo game. This is an actual guy though, not a shadow and not me.

So this concludes my June travel dustbin. I don't know what I'm going to post in August because I didn't bring my camera to Indiana. You're just never prepared to get lost in Amish country, dammit.

My Travel Dustbin From June, part 1; Yosemite & Vancouver

The thing about America's National Parks is that while they tend to have breathtaking scenery, unless you're attacked by a bear or something there's very little to say about your trip.

Sure I could tell you about how I almost ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere due to my insane ocd proclivity not to want to stop at a gas station unless I have less than a quarter tank of gas left (and this happens to me frequently, unsurprisingly), but it's not really story telling material.

The other thing about America's National Parks is that pictures rarely do them justice. Especially if the taker isn't Ansel Adams. But I keep trying anyway. As you can see I really got into practicing my slow shutter shots. Difficult without a tripod.

I was away from home for 12 days in June for work; I had a job in California and then I flew directly to Seattle for a job in Tacoma. I was able to hit Yosemite National Park, Mono Lake, Vancouver British Columbia, and Mount Rainier National Park. These pictures are from Yosemite, obviously. I figure I'll get to the others in another post because I take too dang many photos as it is, and this Yosemite brings out the worst in photographers.

I only had a day in Yosemite really, so I tried to hit the important spots but it seems like there is an infinite supply of amazing vistas I probably missed out on.

I spent the night in Yosemite Valley at a place called Curry Village. They had these sort of semi-permanent tents which you weren't allowed to bring food into because apparently there's a Yogi hiding behind every tree. Yogi Bear I mean, not a hungry Yoga practitioner. They didn't let you leave food in your car either, because bears frequently carjack for food. They had these bear-proof bins outside every tent instead.

So I ate my figs and drank my wine in the dark, uncomfortably perched in the middle of tent row on top of a metal box behind a tree in my Half Lotus pose.

Also, tent walls are thin. I don't think I've ever in my life been closer to wanting to commit infanticide than I was that night in Yosemite Valley.

When I was younger I was more willing to put up with such nonsense. In fact I stayed in a nearly identical tent one night in Kruger Park in South Africa and to me at the time it didn't get better than that. But to be fair I slept really well that night, without a screaming baby accompaniment.

One other thing about Yosemite that I found to be irritating was simply how many cars and people were there. It's probably the busiest of the National Parks I've been to. They've built it to be extremely tourist-friendly, a high volume capacity infrastructure. Fast Nature for the masses. Luckily for me, I guess.

As far as my quick ride up to Vancouver from Seattle goes, the reason I threw it in this post along with Yosemite is because I didn't really get any pictures there. It was rainy, I didn't have a lot of time, and I was uninspired. I find it difficult to take vista shots of cities unless they're either A) extraordinary or B) I'm in the mood. And I didn't really feel like being in a city that day so I didn't have the opportunity to get any good walking around shots. However I did head out to North Vancouver to take a hike at Lynn Canyon. They have a suspension bridge over the canyon. Got a picture. It was a nice hike.