Truck Stop

I was taking a moment to change lenses at the Riverside Show and Go car show, when this slammed red chevy truck rolled up and stopped right in front of me it's airbags hissing as it lowered itself to the ground. The driver spent a few minutes talking to some of the car show staff before raising the car off the ground and motoring off. That was enough time for me to abandon the lens change and take 2 full HDR sequences conisting of a total of 18 images.

On a Dark Desert Highway...

Kathy and I arrived in Tucumcari New Mexico with time to check into our hotel and have dinner before driving over to the famous Blue Swallow Motel to take some sunset images. We spotted their iconic neon sign shining brightly in the dark from quite a way off. The sight immediately reminded me of the opening lyrics of the Eagles song "Hotel California". We had visited Tucumcari a couple of years earlier but didn't stay in town so we only saw the Blue Swallow at mid-day. Tucumcari is a cool little town on Route 66 and very worth visiting.

1950 Buick Eight

This beautiful buick eight which i think is a 1950 model year, was either very well cared for or expertly restored. This is yet another car I stumbled upon just after sunrise at the Pomona auto swapmeet. 

Not Fade Away

I spotted this beautiful 1940 Chevy Deluxe Special convertible sitting quietly by itself off to one side at the Pomona Auto Swap Meet. It seemed a little out of place being surrounded by cars typically considered to belong to the Hot Rod genre. Exactly the type of cars which I generally do not photograph. This Chevy was a different story. While all the cars surrounding her seemed to be ready to emit a throaty roar from their lake pipes, she would probably rather glide serenely and quietly, all grace and elegance over the well-worn pavement. Her stereo playing an oldie tune as she slowly faded from view.

Why you want to leave me?

Kathy and I..., well mostly Kathy decided she wanted to go to the bomb club car show being held in the infield of the Santa Anita racetrack. She had attended this show at the same venue in prior years, but I had never attended before. In fact, It had been a while since I had gone to a car show. There just aren’t many where we live in south orange county unless they are filled with brand new mustangs and dodge chargers. No thanks, not interested. We previously lived in Los Angeles county in a town that was ground zero for lowrider and bomb car shows and I guess I took that for granted. Now I miss seeing the type of cars I really love. So it was with very little hesitation I agreed to acompany my wife to this particular car show. We arrived somewhat late, and the horse track's infield was packed with classic cars from the 1930's 40's, 50's and 60's. In other words, back when style was king. We setup our cameras and started walking around taking photos. We came upon this flamed 1947 red chevy fleetline. In truth I readily recognized it as a fleetline but I have to confess I'm basing my guess on the year by peeking at my wife's photo of this same car. You can see it here. In all the years I've been going to car shows with my wife I've learned one thing. If I happen to be tagging along with her and If I want the best photo I can get of any car at the show, I only need copy my wife's viewpoint for her shot. She has a great eye for composition, so I figure why mess around? I normally would just wait for her to be done and then place my tripod down in the same place and take my shot. Waiting was not an option on this day, the driver of this car was leaving. His engine was running, headlights were on, and he was just waiting for people to move out of his way before departing. I was silently urging my camera to quickly finish shooting the sequence of shots I would need to make this single composite image. I finished just in time. I looked over at Kathy and she said, "Copying my shot again huh?" The nerve.

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.

Long Drive From Washington DC

Kathy and I arrived in Washington DC on the Amtrak Cardinal train from Chicago around 6:30pm Wednesday. We walked to our hotel, dropped off our bags and went back out to find something to eat. We were shocked at how empty Washington's Union Station was. I think Covid 19 has taken a terrible toll on the businesses that once filled the main waiting room and the other retail areas. We found something to eat, took it back to our room, ate, took showers and went to sleep. We had to pickup our rental car at Reagan National Airport at 7:00am this morning. Other than a real lack of customer service at the Alamo car rental counter, getting the car was uneventful. We drove to Maryland to pickup my wife's brother who is riding with us all the way back to California along Route 66. We made it all the way to Dayton Ohio where we will stay tonight and visit the National Museum of the United States Air Force in the morning.

While we didn't have time to take photos in Washington during our short visit, here are a couple from previous visits.

Union Station - Ornate Stairway

This is one of the beautiful stairways leading into Chicago's Union Station's great hall. Amazing!

How I took this shot:

This handheld vertorama was stitched from 4 HDR sequences each containing 3 shots ( -2ev, 0ev, +1ev). I would have used my tripod but one of the security guards was already watching me, I didn't want to give her a pretense to kick me out. It's happened to me more than a few times before.

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.