Hillbilly Crostini

I think the title says it all.

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Stars from the Parking Lot

There is very little light pollution in Wyoming. While on vacation we stayed in a condo just outside of Jackson. The parking area was well lit at night, along with external lights on the condo and in the tennis courts. And yet, it was still easy to just look up and see so many more stars than can be seen in Connecticut. Here’s some proof: I set up the tripod in the middle of the parking lot and took this 30-second exposure!

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Patrick at the Overlook

I’m not sure which turnout in Yellowstone we were at when I grabbed this shot. It was just a quick grab and it’s obviously so wide that the distortion misplaces emphasis, but I still think it’s a fun shot that shows Patrick taking in the view.

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Whitetail Deer

We’ve seen deer in our yard a few times this year, including this female. (Early in the spring I also spotted a fawn one day.) They have no doubt had some interest in coming into the yard to get at Sherree’s garden, but they also like to eat the apples that fall off of the apple trees in our yard.

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Coloring

We taped a large sheet of paper to Patrick’s table for him to color. Sherree and I have sat down to color with him, too. This represents several days of activity.

I drew the blue crayon. When cleaning up the crayons this frustrated Patrick a few times — he kept trying to pick it up, too!

Sherree drew the truck and car, and was very excited that Patrick was able to recognize her drawings as such.

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Crushed Gravel

Some of the geologic features of Yellowstone are unexpected. Old Failthful, Mammoth, and Lake Yellowstone get so much attention that some of the other features are easily overlooked, like this view from a boardwalk in Norris. The area here is very dry and it looks like it has been covered with crushed gravel from a leftover landscaping project. The depressions in the gravel were very clearly Bison hooves (with a few shoeprints mixed in).

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The Hoodoos

When travelling from Norris to Mammoth in Yellowstone, you drive through an area called the Silver Gate. One of the features of Silver Gate is the Hoodoos. Some of the Hoodoos are shown here at sunset.

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B Main, First Place

This has been a good weekend for me at the R/C track: on Friday night I took first place in the B main, then at Saturday’s trophy race I was also able to take first place in the B main. I didn’t win a trophy, but I did win a gift certificate! (“SC” stands for “short course,” the truck class I’m running in.)

I also took a video during one of the heats (I wasn’t racing here, obviously). This video sums it up well: going fast on a technical course, flying over jumps, crashing, and laughing.

Fast & Fun R/C Raceway

I’ve been spending Friday nights at a local R/C track that recently opened in Vernon. The truck on the left is my Traxxas Slash 4x4.

Most of this photo is lit by the overhead fluorescent lights, however the part of the track directly in front of me was quite dark. I placed two flashes on either side of me and blasted them into the ceiling to light the foreground. It worked well in that the track is evenly lit, but there’s not enough light to freeze the trucks as they go racing by.

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Life Jacket Zone

The other day I went kayaking on Middle Bolton Lake. At the boat launch I noticed this sign: life jacket zone. I’ve never seen one of these before!

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Mineral Deposits on Trees

The geysers and hot springs in Yellowstone are the things everyone comes to see, but it’s worth looking around to see some of the nearby features that can easily go unnoticed.

One of the things that Sherree and I commented on several times was that the trees near the springs were sometimes almost completely white. The steam that rises from the springs can carry a lot of minerals (sinter, geyserite, or travertine) with it, and as that steam dissipates on the nearby trees, the minerals are left behind. That builds up, and of course makes the tree look white. Sometimes this kills the trees, sometimes not: we saw some firs that were large and alive.

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Stream and Lone Tree

All of the thermal activity and geologic features in Yellowstone create an amazing landscape.

On the left is a small hot spring bubbling away, overflowing to the stream that runs through the foreground. The stream is leaving behind all sorts of minerals (the orange trail) and providing the green algae whatever it needs to grow, too.

Perhaps the most interesting piece to this landscape, though, is the lone tree growing here. It was only a few feet tall. Presumably this area can’t support a tree — there are no other trees around. Yet their’s apparently plenty of good soil right there because this tree has taken root and is growing.

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Patrick and Jim

Patrick warmed up to my brother Jim pretty quickly, and by the end of the week he was happy to walk and play with Jim, pulling him away from Sherree and I. Here the two of them are going down a slide. Well, they went partway down the slide then Jim got them “stuck” — which Patrick found funny. Plus, he could look out the holes on the side of the slide tube.

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Isabella and Sophia

We spent a lot of time with my brother Jim and his family while we were in Wyoming. One afternoon I took a few photos of Isabella (on the left) and Sophia. This was just a few days before their first birthday.

I’ve learned that the best way to get a good photo of kids is to shoot immediately and often. If they’re in a good mood then it’s a good time to shoot. We were in the harsh mid-day light so headed to a tree for some shade to work under. (However as the sun shines through the leaves and dots them with bright highlights, I’m not sure it was the best choice.) A flash in a Lumiquest Softbox III was at camera left, and another flash is on-camera to provide some fill.

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West Thumb Tree Detail

This is a crop of the tree at west thumb that grabbed my attention, where you can see the texture of the wood and detail of the moss.

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Tree Swallow at West Thumb

While exploring West Thumb in Yellowstone, I saw a tree stump that grabbed my attention. Just as I was about to take a photo of it I saw a Tree Swallow fly out of it. A few seconds later I saw it fly back in, then another appear in the hole it came out of. I watched for a few minutes as they flew nearby. They are presumably a mating pair living in the tree.

The longest lens I was carrying at the time was the 17-55 mm, and I was standing on the edge of the boardwalk stretching as far forward as I could. This is as close as I could get. A tighter shot of the birds would be great, of course, however my initial interest was in the tree and its texture and detail… which would have also benefitted from getting closer. This will have to do.

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Sherree Driving

Here we are on our way home with Sherree’s new car, a 2012 Ford Focus.

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Hibiscus

A few days ago the hibiscus in our yard opened up. Three flowers! I don’t know what species this is; hibiscus syriacus is popular in North America, so maybe that’s what it is.

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Recent Parenting Mistakes

We’ve made a number of minor new-parent mistakes(?) recently, including teaching Patrick how to push the light switch… he now wants to turn everything on and off, over and over.

We’ve also got him helping to throw his dishes in the sink. The trouble is, he’ll empty his bowl of snacks onto the floor, for example, just so he can run into the kitchen and put the bowl in the sink.

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Jackson, Wyoming at Night

One day while on vacation, we drove over the Teton Pass and into Idaho. The Teton Pass road winds up the side of the Teton mountain range to over 8,000 feet high, letting you look down into Jackson Hole and Idaho. During the daytime, it was quite the experience.

I thought it might provide a rather magnificent view at night, too. At the peak of the pass there is a great lookout area, however when I visited at night I discovered there was a huge floodlight at the top! There was no way to take a photo of the night sky and Jackson’s lights from that location because of the large amount of light pollution introduced. I drove back down the pass a short distance to another overlook and set up to take this photo. The view of Jackson’s lights glowing in the valley isn’t as good as from the top, but it’s still nice. The arc of light at the bottom left is from cars driving up the Teton Pass.

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