Flagstaff Arizona to Kingman Arizona

I only drove 147 miles across Arizona today but most of it was on old Route 66. We stopped in the historic towns of Williams (bypassed by Interstate 40 in 1984) and Seligman (bypassed in 1978). Being bypassed often resulted in economic hardship. Williams is known as "The Gateway to the Grand Canyon". The historic downtown area covers about six blocks. We enjoyed touring the town, shopping and taking photos. Once an important stop for railroad traffic, Williams seems to be thriving primarily on tourism.

In 1987 the residents of Seligman convinced the state of Arizona to designate Route 66 as a historic highway and to add "City of Seligman" signs on Interstate 40 to draw people to the town and old Route 66 as well. In 2006, Pixar's movie "Cars" based its sleepy town "Radiator Springs" on Seligman. The result of these actions has been economic success for what might have been called a ghost town in years past. We had lunch at the Snow Cap Drive-In built in 1954. While the food was good, the Drive-In itself has so much history about the owners and visitors old and new on the walls, it was really tough to stop reading everything and order our food. The rest of the town was also very compelling.

Tomorrow with over 6,500 miles and 18 states behind us, We will cross back into California, I will drive the final 300+ miles home and this extraordinary road trip will conclude. We've seen a lot of beautiful country and met some interesting people. I have only posted a handful of photos from the thousands I took. I'll post more and better versions in time. I'm glad I decided to take a chance on only using my iPad Pro and the Affinity Photo software to process my photos. It's not a direct replacement for my normal workflow but it has allowed me to process and post photos relatively quickly while on the road. Many were edited in Amtrak trains moving at upwards of 70 mph or in the hotels we stayed in after many hours driving. WiFi has often been spotty to non-existent so I just used my cell service if that was available. I'll apologize now for the misspelled words and poor grammar in the posts from the last couple of weeks. My time to edit and write has been very limited and frankly, I've been tired from all the traveling. It's a good tired though. I'll go back and make some needed corrections as soon as I can.

Some of you reading this may know that my Mom passed away a few months ago. I hadn't taken a real vacation in several years as I had my hands full being a primary caregiver for her. This has been a cathartic experience and while I still think about her everyday, this trip has helped move me along the path of healing.

While I greatly appreciate and welcome the new readers/viewers of this blog, I'd like to acknowledge the long time readers who have come back after my not posting for several years. Yesterday's post had about 1,100 unique views and the number of visitors has been steadily increasing in the past couple of weeks. For those of you who have kindly taken the time to reach out, I have received your messages and I will respond to everyone as soon as I can.

Thanks for joining me (virtually) on this journey. California and the final post of this Route 66 trip tomorrow!

Greg (Big Pixel Pusher)

Santa Fe New Mexico to Flagstaff Arizona

I drove 384 miles today from Santa Fe New Mexico to Flagstaff Arizona. We really enjoyed staying in Santa Fe. While all of the stores were displaying very beautiful but expensive things, very few tourists seemed to be purchasing things. It was clear that the Covid-19 virus has impacted Santa Fe hard. I would say that fully one third of the stores were vacant, another third were closed, and the remaining third that were open, weren't busy. The town was not packed at all and those tourists that were there were not carrying packages. Anyway, we stayed at the historic La Fonda Hotel. I woke up around 4:30 and decided to check out the Orionids meteor shower. While I didn't see any, there were countless stars in the sky above Santa Fe.

We knew we had a long drive to Flagstaff so we got up early, had breakfast at a nice cafe that has been in the same location since 1909 and got on the road. We refueled the minivan and ourselves in Gallup New Mexico. We then decided to stand on a corner in Winslow Arizona (such a fine sight to see).

Our stop here was brief but enjoyable. The road from Windslow to Flagstaff seemed to mainly be climbing and we passed several towering mesas and red rocks were prevalent.

Tomorrow we intend to return to Route 66 to see the Arizona towns of Williams, Seligman, Kingman, and Oatman.

National Museum of the United States Air Force - Dayton Ohio

I have always wanted to visit the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton Ohio. The problem has always been that it's a long way to go from California to just see one attraction. My opinion has changed. This museum is so vast, I could easily spend 3 or 4 days just looking around. We were only in the building for about 5 hours and it just wasn't enough time to see everything. This place is high on my list of places I want to return to. We were shocked when my wife asked the security guards at the bag check if they allowed tripods in the museum. The answer was a simple "Sure". My wife entered the museum while my brother-in-law and I trudged back to the car to retrieve the tripods. Wow was it worthwhile. To preserve the artifacts, the lighting level in the museum hangers is kept low. This made using a tripod especially useful. I think I took about 1,000 photos. I have included a few below. After leaving the museum, we drove from Dayton Ohio to Indianapolis Indiana which is only about 120 miles but it was already getting dark and we were tired from the 600 miles we drove the day before. So I'm typing this post on my iPad Pro in a Hilton hotel in downtown. Now that this is done, I'm headed for bed. It's onto St. Louis and Route 66 tomorrow morning.

Union Station - Group Critique Busted!

When I entered the great hall in Chicago's Union Station, I saw about 10 art students sketching the interior. I walked around for 15 or 20 minutes taking photos. When I was leaving, I noticed they had put their sketch pads on the floor and had gathered in a circle. I assume this was a group critique. I thought I could sneak up on them, raise my camera with fisheye lens above my head and get a quick shot. You can see I got busted.

Chicago - My Kind of (windy) Town

Kathy and I concluded our passage on Amtrak's Empire Builder train in Chicago. After emerging from the beautiful Union Station (once our phones had acquired enough satellites to provide GPS navigation) we walked to our nearby hotel on Franklin street. We were only going to be in town for a single day, so after getting something to eat, we walked around for a bit, taking some photos of the dramatic architecture this city has to offer. Kathy wanted to visit the Chicago Institute of Art but we found it was closed during our visit, so the next morning we walked to Millennium Park and took some photos there. Apparently the park only recently opened to the public but we found some parts open, while others remained closed. In the case of Cloud's Gate also irreverently referred to as "The Bean", visitors were able to view it only from a distance with barricades having been put up to prevent crowds from gathering beneath it. This didn't bother me too much. I was able to obtain some photos of it without a ton of people in the shot. 

The view of Chicago's skyline from Cloud's Gate is truly spectacular. The day was cold and windy but the sky was mostly clear. Any clouds that appeared were quickly carried on the wind to destinations unknown.

A word about Chicago: I know all major cities have issues with homelessness, blight, trash, noise, crime, etc. but my initial impressions on this visit to what was admittedly a very small area in downtown Chicago were these: The streets, sidewalks, buildings, and bridges were for the most part clean. By comparison, the streets and sidewalks in downtown Los Angeles in my experience are filthy and no government agency seems to be charged with more than an occasional street sweeping. After a street sweeping, the ground is still black with dirt, gum, and who knows what else. The people we met were polite and friendly. There seems to be an emphasis on culture and preserving the city's history and finally the city's architecture is beautiful.

I'd love to return in the near future for an extended visit. There is so much I want to see.

While taking photos in the city, I made sure to create several panoramas but the Affinity Photo software which I am using on my iPad Pro does not seem to be able to successfully stitch them. I may have to just post individual HDR merges and stitch the panoramas when I return home. 

We are currently back on an Amtrak train crossing West Virginia. Looking forward to being in Washington DC tonight.

Sunrise at the Mission Inn

I had just left my room at the historic Mission Inn and Spa in Riverside, California when I saw the sunrise looked like it was going to be spectacular. Althought it was still quite dark, the horizon was turning more orange by the minute. I went back to my room, grabbed my camera, tripod, expodisc white balancer, and off camera shutter release. I decided to shoot an 4 image wide x 3 image high HDR panorama. Each photo consisted of 10 exposures between -5ev and +5ev for a total of 120 individual exposures. The final panorama was more than 20,000 pixels wide and the color corrected file tipped the scales at 1.4GB in size. After taking this shot, I quietly walked around the property taking more photos until one of the security guards stopped me, asking if I was a registered guest. I produced my room key and gave him my name. He radioed the front desk. Once they confirmed my identity, I was allowed to continue taking photos so long as I didn't disturb any of the other guests.

Chihuly Glass House Sunburst

It's been raining a lot along the route of the Empire Builder train making photos out the windows difficult. The scenery is still beautiful however, especially with the foliage changing colors. We have seen green hillsides with streaks of fiery red or bright yellow leaves extending for miles.

Anyway, since I can't take more photos from the train windows, I have decided to process and post some images from past vacations. This one is from the Chihuly Gardens and Glass museum in Seattle Washington. There is a rule of thumb in photography which states, don't shoot right into the sun. HDR allows me to break lots of rules including this one.

Duty Now for the Future

Devo 2.0 holds down a thunderous bottom line while Nigel and Eugene respectively see to the vocal and guitar responsibilities. Disneyland park, tomorrowland terrace stage.

Now Hear This

Fisheye went vertical! I've been working more and more with video and audio recording. I expect to post some videos on my blog in 2014.

Sunset Over San Diego Bay

Well before the sun got near the horizon, Kathy and I could tell that this sunset might have a lot of potential. As we walked through San Diego's historic train station we noticed that there were many interesting wind blown clouds in the sky which had already taken on a pink hue. By the time we got back to our room the sky was ablaze with color.