Mom Says I’m Running Away

Day: 345

Sorry for the delayed posts about Yosemite, but Felicia arrived last week and it has been rather busy since then (smirk). Only a few more days and I get off this continent again… I apologize for the long hiatus, but I think the next few months will make up for it.

Yosemite was busy with more early morning pictures and a couple of shots of the standard view, before ending our night with a glass of wine and hundreds of other photographers camped out below Horsetail Falls for the show.

Day: 344

With another morning in Yosemite I decided to force everyone into a pre-dawn photography raid on one of the valleys meadows. It was quite cold but we were able to pick up a few good shots before spending the day wandering about the open trails and fighting off the hordes of other photographers all there for the Horsetail falls spectacle off El Capitan; something I knew nothing about before this weekend, but here goes an explanation.

For two weeks every February the sun aligns itself opposite Horsetail Falls, falling perfectly though the canyon walls to cause the falls to explode with color if you are sitting opposite of the angle of incident (think lighting rules: the angle of incident is equal to the angle of reflection), and lighting only the falls in quite the spectacle.

Anyways, it was a rather nice surprise and I was able to snap a few pictures, although the extreme difference in exposure values between the walls of El Cap and the falls made it tricky.

Day: 343

With Felicia just days away from coming to California; Mom, Mike and I decided to spend a weekend in Yosemite covered in cold and snow. Last night we made our way up to Oakhurst, California to be perched to make our way into the park this morning (after breakfast of course). While not being as cold as I expected, the sun was shining and the skies were blue, which made for a relatively peaceful afternoon of drinking wine and eating cheese underneath Yosemite Falls.

Our form of extreme roughing it was shot to hell in a heated tent and a couple of bottles of red wine for the evening.

Day: 342

Having spent too much time at home saving for the next trip, when Ed invited me to take a day trip out to Joshua Tree, I really couldn’t turn him down.  After 60 miles we gathered up James who lives near the park in Palm Springs (and doesn’t know how to properly dress for a high desert adventure), and headed through he torrent windstorms/rainstorms and found the park cold, but with relatively clear skies.

The day went pretty well (other than when the wind kicked up), with me climbing things and checking out cacti and rocks and stuff…

Oh, and as a recommendation, if you’re in Southern California and looking for an awesome Spanish Tapas bar, be sure to check out Viva Madrid.