Tag: travel photography

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Monochrome Photography – It’s Not All Black & White

Monochrome Photography

Patti challenges us with monochrome photography in this week’s Lens-Artists  Photo Challenge. Thanks, Patti! Monochrome photography is an interesting way to interpret the scene for a photographer like me who somewhat depends on a splash of color. I’ve had fun with it!

To meet this challenge,  I thought I’d share with you a short travelogue of my journeys over the last year. I spend my winters petsitting through TrustedHousesitters, and it’s taken me to some fine, fine places.

What’s Happening Now

I’m currently spending a little time in Colorado. It’s a blast from the past, an opportunity to get back to my roots, revisit landscapes forever held deep in my heart, spend time with family,  and heal. I was fortunate enough to land a housesit in Allenspark, in the southwest corner of Rocky Mountain National Park, which made this sweet sojourn with a land I love possible.

Rocky Mountain National Park
I spent a couple of weeks watching the deer and elk in Rocky Mountain National Park, my first mountain home, last month.

Winter On The West Coast

A year ago today, though, I was on the Long Beach Peninsula, Washington State. I was housesitting a very sweet dog and cat in a lovely old home just 4 blocks from the beach. It was wonderful to spend a whole month immersing myself in the Pacific Northwest, an environment I’d never before had the opportunity to really experience.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge
They call it Long Beach for a reason. You could walk forever.

Long Beach wasn’t my only coastal refuge this past winter. I spent most of the winter on the central California coast. I had a housesit in Monterey

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge
Monochrome sunset on the beach at Carmel

and one in Goleta, where I mourned the loss of the Monarch Butterflies.

Black & White photography
Eucalyptus blossoms in the butterfly groves

I even drove the Big Sur Highway a few times. It is amazing that this road even exists!

Lens-Artists
Pampas grass along the Big Sur Highway

In between house sits, I spent a lot of time camping at San Simeon. It was an unexpected wildlife treasure.

monochrome
The elephant seals were the main draw, but the phenomenal birding was an unexpected bonus.

I finally visited Mystic Hot Springs in Utah, which had been on my bucket list for years.

Monroe Hot Springs
Sitting in the hand of God at Monroe Hot Springs

Spring In The Desert

I visited four deserts, with a wonderful house sit in Tucson giving me a taste of the Sonoran,

Monochrome photography
I really loved my time in Tucson!

a bit of quality time spent on the Colorado Plateau,

Lens-Artists Challenge
The Colorado Plateau is still my favorite desert.

and, as always, following the flowers in the Mojave

Joshua Tree National Park
Superbloom in Joshua Tree this past spring

and the Lower Coloradoan Desert.

Anza-Borrego State Park
Yucca flowers in Anza-Borrego

Summer In Alaska

I always come back to the Wrangells, though. It’s true – there’s no place like home!

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park
This is just a part of the view right from my front porch!
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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge Weathered and Worn – Bodie, CA

You may have figured out from last week’s post on Kennecott, I really love ghost towns.

Bodie is located at the end of a rough dirt road a few miles off CA Highway 395. It is a California State Historic Park. Plan your visit for summer or fall, as Bodie is snowbound for nearly half the year.

Gold was discovered in Bodie in 1859. By the 1880s, the town was booming, with a population of nearly 10,000 people and 65 saloons. In addition to the saloons, there were brothels, gambling halls, and opium dens. Bodie hosted a thriving Chinatown.

Bodie State Historical Park, CA
Buildings reflected in a window

It was a pretty rough place. On one day in 1880, the newspaper reported 3 shootings and 2 stagecoach robberies.

Watch the tumbleweeds roll through the streets and listen to the wind sing as it blows past old pipes and rusted metal.  The sound of a creaking door may draw you back in time to the days when Bodie was the epitome of the Wild West.  Back to the days when outlaws would challenge the sheriff to a gunfight right in the middle of the street.

Bodie was a synonym for lawlessness to many. Legend has it that one little girl, on learning she would be moving there from San Francisco, said: “Goodbye, God, I am going to Bodie.”

Bodie State Historical Park, CA
General Store

Bodie eventually outlived its bad reputation and become better known as a town where respectable miners eked out a hard living as they tried to raise their families. Peek into the windows at what the last inhabitants left behind and imagine their lives in this hardscrabble town, a place that was bitterly cold, snowy and windy in the winter and blazing hot and dry in the summers.

Bodie State Historical Park
Church and front steps

A major fire in 1892 signaled the beginning of Bodie’s long, slow decline. The Panic of 1907 hit the community hard, bankrupting many of the mines and businesses. The railroad closed in 1917, another blow for the struggling town. A fire in 1932 was the final nail in the coffin for Bodie. By the 1950s, even the most stalwart residents left.

Bodie sat abandoned until 1962 when the state declared the property a State Historic Park. Bodie is maintained in a state of arrested decay. The buildings are prevented from deteriorating further, but not restored, preserving the feel of a village forgotten, offering a tantalizing glimpse of days gone by for today’s visitors.

Bodie State Historical Park, CA
Bodie is one of the best preserved ghost towns in the country.
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San Simeon Beaches

San Simeon Beach

The first time I slept on the beach was at San Simeon.

I was 17 and had hitchhiked from Colorado to California with a friend. Traveling up the California coast one evening, we asked the young guy who gave us a ride if he knew of a good place where we could camp.

Moonstone Beach, Cambria
Even the rocks look like seals here!

He stopped the truck in the middle of nowhere. He said, “Walk through these trees to the beach. Camp there.”

The towering waves were quite impressive to a couple of mountain girls who had never walked a beach. The ocean was so LOUD! I turned to Judy and said “We’ll never get to sleep with all this noise.”

It was one of the best nights of sleep I ever had.I never forgot that night, but it was a very long time before I returned.

Bull elephant seal
What a weird looking animal!

The first time I ever saw elephant seals was on TV. It was a National Geographic show about  South Georgia Island near Antarctica.  They were fascinating.  Elephant seals can dive down as deep as a mile underwater and stay down for up to two hours. I thought they were some of the strangest, most exotic animals I had ever seen.

Immature elephant seals jousting at Piedras Blancas
Practice at asserting dominance starts at a very young age

Imagine my surprise when I found out that I didn’t have to go all the way to the southern hemisphere to see these strange animals. That I could see them in California, just a few scant miles from where I’d first experienced the ocean!

I’ve been back to the Cambria/San Simeon area a few times in the last few years. It’s my favorite place on the central California Coast. Elephant seals are just the beginning.

Moonstone Beach in Cambria, CA
Moonstone Beach

You can find treasures on the beach. Moonstone Beach is famous for its moonstones, but what I really like are the wave-polished, colorful agates. I could sift through the pebbles here for hours.

Cambria is a lovely little town. My favorite place to stay here is the Bridge Street Inn, a sweet hostel/B&B just a block and a half off Main St. The rooms are lovely, there is a good kitchen available for guests, and the hosts are kind. I highly recommend it.

If the weather’s nice, though, I’ll be camping. San Simeon Campground is just an underpass away from the most incredible birdwatching beach. There’s a (barely) offshore island there that is part of the Piedras Blancas section of the California Coastal National Monument.

Pelicans on the Central California Coast
Pelicans on the wing

Pelicans, cormorants, whimbrels, sandpipers, egrets, herons, and vultures are only a few of the birds you can see here with just a short walk.

My main draw, though, remains the elephant seals. You can see them pretty much any time of year, but the best time of year to see them is in the winter, November through February. That’s when all the action – fighting, breeding and birthing – takes place. Viewing platforms are only a few feet from the seals – and the best part  is – it’s free!

California Coastal National Monument sunset
Sunset at Piedras Blancas