Author Archives: dkrashb

More Shabby than Chic

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The word “spa” is an evocative word that conjures images of crystalline pools with gurgling waterfalls and people passing by serenely in bath robes, faces covered in green mud, on their way to their next massage.

Since the spa in question was called a “hiking spa” and the hotel was described as a “country inn,” I figured I wasn’t going to get a scene out Sex and the City.  I was, however, somewhat startled by the condition of the hotel, which another guest later described aptly as “more shabby than chic.”  She also called the program a “hiking camp for adults.”

When we walked into the lobby, I was still smiling from having had such an enjoyable ride to the inn via Gramps shuttle service.  The dark and tired looking lobby was not enough to deter my enthusiasm.  What did give me pause was the guy at the front desk who wasn’t the most welcoming character.

Having read reviews on the website where people said the staff seemed like friends, I expected a more enthusiastic greeting.

Everything about the lobby was dingy.  Even the light bulbs seemed dingy, casting a sort of gloom over what should have been a very nice, lodge-like space.  It’s never good when the hotel lobby looks bad.  If the hotel isn’t investing in keeping the first impression good, it’s guaranteed they’re not investing in the rest of the property.

As we navigated the dim halls lined with stained carpet, a putrid colored light flashed around a corner.  When we turned a corner, we were thankful we didn’t have epilepsy because we both would have had seizures instantly.

It was just a fluorescent bulb gone bad in the little room with the ice machine, but it made me think of Joe vs the Volcano and the horrifying office he worked in.  It was the kind of thing you expect to see in a horror film right before an axe murderer jumps out from behind the innocent victim staring into the light.

All of this actually turned out to be a good thing.  I was mentally prepared for a room that made me wish I’d brought my own sheets.  By the time I opened the room door, my expectations were so lowered, I was pleasantly surprised by the homey looking quilt (although it did have a few tears) and the large space.

In spite of the poor lighting and my lack of a tripod, I had to take a few shots. ISO 1600 made that possible.  I’m astounded by the second and third photo.  02 is straight out of the camera while 03 is the same image post-processed using only basic adjustments in Aperture.  I’m impressed by the recovery of detail in the fan and window, which were over-exposed in the previous image.  It amazes me what my camera will record.  I’m also impressed by the lack of graininess in the photo.  With my old camera, I’d start to see grain at ISO 400.

Drive-by Shooting

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Sometimes, I ignore what I’ve learned and regress to just snapping pictures.  They say the definition of insanity is repeating the same actions and expecting different results.  I’m not insane.  I just sometimes decide the awful results I know I’ll get are OK.

Sometimes, I just want to take snap shots.

That said, there is something fundamentally wrong about pulling out a Canon 5D Mark III with a 24-17mm f/2.8 lens on it and shooting from the passenger side of a shuttle van through the windows while moving at speeds up to 55 MPH.  I believe it violates the 11th commandment:  Thou Shalt Not Waste a Really Great Camera by Using it Poorly!

It’s times like these I wish I had one of those little compact point-and-shoots that you can pull out of your pocket and look like a typical tourist.

On the flip side, I hauled 17 pounds of photography equipment with me through 3 airports to get this far and I sure as heck was not going to fail to use my camera.  Unfortunately, when I look at these images, I can’t say I’m glad I did.

What does one do with crappy vacation photos that are too ugly to use for anything but too evocative of memories to get rid of?  If you’re like me, you probably have thousands of pictures that you can no longer identify what the subject of the photo was supposed to be or the subject is obvious but completely blurred or has a street sign coming out of its head or is underexposed, but it’s the only photo you got of that really great subject, so you hang onto it for dear life.

Sometimes, it’s better just to delete.

I’ve written before about the joy of an uncluttered life.  And how that includes an uncluttered hard drive.  So, this is my pledge:  I’m deleting all of these photos.  Well, I might keep the Psychic Gallery one.  And the one of the ski runs.  And maybe the church.  Why is it so hard just to hit the delete key?

But, I digress.

Continuing my travel story from two days ago, having safely arrived at the Rutland, Vermont airport, we were greeted by our driver, Terry, from Gramps Shuttle.    (I’m pretty sure there’s a joke in there somewhere.)  He knew our names, he greeted us like friends, we laughed all the way to the hotel.

Along the way, I shot anything and everything that was even semi-interesting.  The sign for a Psychic Gallery really threw me.  I pictured an art gallery that displayed psychic events instead of art.  Or perhaps performance art installations involving levitation or telekinesis.  Or maybe just a collection of fortunes from Chinese fortune cookies.  Terry enjoyed contemplating what it was, but he didn’t offer to stop to find out.

It was just as well–it would only have resulted in more bad pictures.

Submission

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I’ve decided to post about my latest adventure.  It’s not about a trip or hang gliding or my dog or birds.  It’s about the decision and process of submitting photos for a contest for the first time.

A few months ago, it would not have occurred to me to submit photos to a contest.  I thought you submit photos to a contest when you think your photos are perfect.  I don’t think my photos are perfect.  I don’t even think they’re contest worthy.  But a couple of things happened to make me reconsider.

First, I went to my first meeting of the Photographic Society of Chattanooga, which happened to also be the awards ceremony for the youth photographers contest.  I still haven’t figured out exactly what that’s all about, but it seems like they have a fantastic program to get young people excited about photography and they offer scholarships for awards.  I watched the photos submitted for that contest and realized that it was largely impossible to sit in the audience and judge what any photo looked like.  I see this as a plus.

Second, I had a conversation with a photographer about my desire to get better at it and he suggested that getting the feedback from a contest submission would be a great way to learn.  I had never considered the possibility that feedback would be provided.

Third, I had a conversation with the folks who run the contests at PSC and was told that the photos are sent out to another group for judging and that they often provide very detailed information about why the photos were scored the way they were.

Fourth, I went to a casual critique at the home of a PSC member and they encouraged me to submit one of my photos to the contest.  This encouragement in combination with the groups gentle suggestions made me seriously consider submitting for the first time.

Finally, the theme for this quarter’s contest was “Sky.”  If there is anyone who has more sky photos in their photo library than I do, I feel sorry for them.  It happens to be one of my favorite subjects.

Having decided to enter, the next problem was culling through thousands of photos to find which ones I would submit to the contest.  I got the list down to about 120 after the first pass through this year’s photos.

On the second pass, the number dropped to something around 70.  By the time I left for Vermont, I had culled this down to just over 30.  But, it wasn’t until after I returned that I found any time to really decide which ones were worthy of submission.

I spent a lot of time considering the merits of each shot.  I spent very little time picking at the flaws.  I re-processed several of them in the process of deciding what I really had.

I’ve included may photos in today’s post.  I’ll let you decide when ones (3) I submitted.

Getting There

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When I was single, I went on a trip with a girlfriend once.  It was a ski club trip to Teluride, Colorado and there were about 50 of us on the trip.  I can’t recall ever getting on a plane to go on a get away with a girlfriend at any other time in my life.  Until now.

When one of my neglected friends back in Columbus decided it was high time for her to take a little time to have a fun for herself given that she’s spent about 30 years dedicating herself to making sure everyone else in her life was having fun, we decided to meet somewhere.

She suggested a spa.  I said, “Ahh!”  My friend suggested the “New Life Hiking Spa.”

I didn’t need to think it over–anything with the words “hiking” and “spa” in their name was too tempting to miss.  Plus, it’s in Vermont–one of the 12 states I’d never been to before.

The hardest part of getting our trip planned was finding time when we could both get on the phone.  We must have traded hundreds of emails and text messages trying to figure out an itinerary that would get us both to the Boston airport in time for a final flight to Rutland, Vermont so we could share a shuttle ride from there to Killington, our final destination.

When we called to make a reservation at the spa, the guy on the phone suggested we might find all the travel wasn’t worth it for a 3 night stay given where we were coming from.  He didn’t understand that it wasn’t about the destination.

I’ve never much believed in miracles, but I flew from Chattanooga to Atlanta to Boston while my friend flew from Columbus to Philly to Boston and we arrived within 30 minutes of each other with no lost luggage.

We had plenty of time to get to the Cape Air ticketing counter tucked amongst hundreds of JetBlue podiums and kiosks in Terminal C.  I can’t recall ever being asked how much I weigh when I checked in before.  They weighed everything I was carrying–I don’t know why they didn’t just have me stand on the scale, too, that way they would know I wasn’t lying and I wouldn’t have had to say my weight out loud while others were listening.

When we eventually got on the plane, it seated 9.  One passenger rode co-pilot.

I managed to take a few iPhone shots before having to shutdown my phone for the duration, but I longed for my 5D Mark III as we made our way over the mountains in the tiny Cessna with huge windows made for shooting.  I can’t recall ever being on a commuter flight that felt like a tour before.

In spite of a little turbulence and the great scenery, I managed to nod off, awakening just in time to see the mountains around Rutland.  It may have been my best travel day ever.

Finding Sanctuary

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I discovered tonight that I’m almost out of digital photos I haven’t used in a blog post!  Who knew a year of blogging could use up 9 years of digital photos?  I’m going to have to start searching the archives again–there have to be more photos in there!

I did discover these series of shots taken two years ago during an annual trip to Portland, Oregon.  Pat and I went to the local Audubon Society Preserve there and did a hike through their woods.

It’s an amazing property for many reasons.  First, it’s been meticulously maintained as a natural, native habitat.  Most people don’t associate “meticulous maintenance” with “natural, native habitat.”  Usually, we think of a golf course.  Unfortunately, as I know from volunteering at the Audubon Society here in Chattanooga, without ongoing hard labor to remove the invasive species that pop up every time one turns one’s head, they get out of control and turn native habitat into something completely foreign.  It’s unfortunate we humans can’t agree that invasive species shouldn’t be sold or planted.  Until we do, those of us who value preserving native ecosystems have a lot of work to do to prevent those habitats from being overrun by the rest of the population’s right to decide what to plant on their own property.  But, don’t let me get on that soapbox.

The Portland Audubon Sanctuary is a 150 acre property of dense forest, including a stand of old growth trees, a pond, and a creek that’s carved some small hills within the already hilly Portland topography.

Walking through the forest area made us think we were in the rain forests of the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state.  We didn’t see too many birds while we were hiking.  Those we did see were a tough for me to ID–somehow, even the birds that also live in the East looked different enough that I couldn’t feel confident I’d correctly identified them.

When we stopped at the lovely gazebo on the pond at the sanctuary, we discovered a group who was out watching a Northern Saw-whet Owl perched in a tree and up so high that without binoculars, it couldn’t be spotted.  Fortunately, a kind man let me look through his so I could see it, too.  It was about the size of a Screech Owl (tiny) and very adorable.

The Portland Audubon Sanctuary also boasted some spectacular fungal growths.  Between the mushrooms and the weird, coral-like growths, I didn’t mind my limited success at birding (especially since I was without binocs).

In addition to the Sanctuary, they also provide rescue services for injured birds and keep some unreleasable birds on display for educational purposes.  This mean being guaranteed to see some interesting birds even if nothing in the woods showed itself.  I particularly liked the Americal Kestrels on display.  They looked like they were making faces at me.

It’s a great place to visit and support if you’re ever in the Portland area.

Wild Things

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One of my favorite past adventures was in Columbus, Ohio shortly before we moved to Tennessee.

One of the curious things about living in a place the vast majority of one’s life is the propensity to take it for granted.  For me, making friends with someone who was more connected to the Columbus scene introduced us to some experiences we would have missed completely.

These images are from one such experience.  Our friend learned of a behind-the-scenes tour available at the Columbus Zoo and organized a group of people to divide up the fee.  Even better, much of the money went to a Cheetah rescue program.

The animals we met were the animals who travel with Jack Hannah when he appears on television.  Jack himself was off at his Montana home, so we didn’t get to meet him.  I don’t think any of us felt like the experience was diminished by his absence; after all, it’s the animals who are the stars.

What was so cool about the experience is that these are animals who are used to educate people about endangered species and who have been handled enough to be touchable.  How often do you get to go to the zoo and pet a Lemur or cradle a baby Wallaby?

There are two things about the program I particularly like.  First, they are very serious about trying to save the extremely endangered Cheetah.  Not only do they operate a breeding program, but they also use the funds raised to donate Anatolian Shepherds to farmers where Cheetahs are still wild.  The Anatolian Shepherds protect the farmers’ flocks from the Cheetahs and, inversely, protect the Cheetahs from being shot by the farmers.  It’s a novel approach to solving a root cause that’s win-win.

At the Columbus Zoo, you can buy a children’s book about an Anatolian Shepherd raised with a Cheetah and those funds go to help save the Cheetahs too.  This is a somewhat ironic twist on the plot.  At the Columbus Zoo, instead of scaring the Cheetahs, the dogs provide comfort and confidence to otherwise skittish cats.  I don’t recall the story of what made them decide to raise the first cheetah-dog pair, but the result was a happier cheetah, so they have been raising puppies with the captive cheetahs ever since.

The puppy friend we met along with the cheetah babies there that day was a frisky yellow lab who didn’t seem to quite understand his place in the food chain next to his best friends.

The second part of the program I particularly liked was the number of rescues who were part of it.  The tortoise, the puppy, and the Python were all rescued critters.  In the case of the tortoise and the python, the Humane Society wasn’t equipped to deal with them.  The python had been released in a Columbus Metro Park and was at risk of freezing to death when it was rescued.  What a beautiful snake it is!

Ice Walk

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I find myself searching for photos of frozen things.  These are from a guided hike we did in the Maligne Canyon our first day out in Jasper on a winter trip a few years ago.

When the temperature is dropping to -25 fahrenheit, what better way to spend the day than touring ice formations?

We were nervous about our first hike in those temperatures–we weren’t sure we’d be able to stay warm in a group hike where we were constrained to the pace of the slowest hiker.  I decided to layer up.

I take layering very seriously.  For anything less than -10, if I’m not going to be moving quickly, this is my tried and true approach:

Layer 1:  quick-dry undergarments, including a long-line bra top that adds warmth all the way to my waist.

Layer 2:  panty hose

Layer 3:  silk long underwear, top and bottom

Layer 4:  Sock liners

Layer 5:  Under Armor for very cold weather top and bottom

Layer 6:  Wool long underwear top and bottom

Layer 7:  Fleece top and bottom

Layer 8:  Waterproof pants and heavy wool socks

Layer 9:  Down sweater up top

Layer 10:  Waterproof shell

To Top it All Off:  A very sexy balaclava with a super thick wool beanie over it.

Add waterproof snow boots with HotHands toe warmers, windblocker glove liners and a pair of waterproof down mittens and I’m ready to roll.

The most difficult part of all these layers is getting into them without breaking into a sweat.  Usually, I’ve soaked through layers 1-6 by the time I get to layer 8 and I have to carry layers 9 and 10 outside with me to cool off before putting them on.

The second most difficult part is walking.  If you have ever seen the moving “A Christmas Story” with the classic scene of the kid so bundled up that when he falls over, he is stuck on his back waving his arms and legs like an over-turned turtle, that’s what I feel like when I dress for really cold weather.  In truth, technology is pretty amazing these days so each layer is impressively thin for the insulating factor and I can walk pretty well.

I eschew cotton because of the sweat factor.  Cotton loses its insulating properties when it gets wet.  With fabrics that keep me warm even when they’re wet, I worry less about wearing too many layers.

Right at the moment, I’m looking out the window at heat lightning flashing in the sky and wondering how on earth I got from thinking about ice to thinking about wearing 10 layers of warm clothes.  The last thing I’d want right now is an extra layer.

But in Maligne Canyon, among the giant ice formations, I was perfectly warm with the cold air against the only exposed skin on my face, content to stand with my mouth wide open in amazement, blowing out clouds of frost with each breath.

Kittens and a Year of Blogging

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This is my 366th consecutive, daily post.  Since it was leap year, I figured I had to get to 366 to say I’d completed a year of posts.  🙂

Collectively, I’ve written over 250,000 words in the course of blogging for one year.  That’s over 1000 pages worth of words.  If I would have said I wanted to write 1000 pages, I probably would have quit after the first 100 or so.

Here are my lessons from a year of blogging:

  1. In the end, it’s about people.  I didn’t expect to meet people through blogging, but I have.  I keep writing because all of you keep reading.  I look for you, I watch for regulars, I peak at your blogs when I have a few minutes.  You matter to me.  Please come back.
  2. I can only write one day at a time–one word at a time.  Thinking about the collective volume is fun after the fact, but not the goal.
  3. The delete key is my friend.  I went from an average of 1200 words a post to setting a limit of 500 words.  Although it initially took me much longer to write 500 than 1200 words, I think we’re all happier.
  4. Sometimes, you do have to think about more than one day at a time.  Scheduling posts ahead of time when I’m traveling has kept me going.  Had I not figured out how to do this, I would have given up on my goal of one post a day about a month into blogging when we spent 2 weeks in Germany.
  5. Every post can’t be my best post ever.  I started with the expectation that every post would be an improvement over the last.  What’s “best” depends on the subject and what people are interested in.  Sometimes I have the need to think about the meaning of life.  Sometimes I have the need to improve my photography skills.  Which one is better?
  6. Some days, I’m writing right before bed, falling asleep as I write, trying to get the morning post scheduled before I pass out on my keyboard.  Those aren’t going to be my best posts.  For each post to be my best ever, I’d need to quit my day job and do this full time.  I don’t love blogging enough to give up food and shelter, so I’ll just apologize for those posts now.  For me, it’s more about establishing the discipline of meeting my commitment to post about 500 words a day every day.
  7. At some point, I will have to consider the possibility that I’ve said enough in this forum and it’s time to move on to the next.  For now, I’m content to keep posting.
  8. Kittens are irresistible.  And since these kittens are indirectly responsible for Tisen coming into our lives (they are foster kittens–my sister-in-law inspired me to foster dogs), I thought they would be a good photographic subject to celebrate the completion of this milestone.

It’s been a good year–thanks!

Savage Falls

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One of the things I love the most about hiking is the solitude.  There is nothing like hearing only the wind whistling quietly through the trees.  It’s like the secrets of the universe being spoken quietly in your ear.

When we did the Stone Door hike, we were surprised at the solitude we found.  In spite of it being a short, easy trail that started out with a paved segment, we only saw people going the opposite direction.  At the top of Stone Door, a breeze blew through the pines and we enjoyed that hard-to-find solitude that usually only less accessible wilderness offers.

For me, this sense of solitude somehow always generates a wondrous feeling of connectedness in what might be one of life’s great paradoxes.  It was so palpable at the top of Stone Door that I had to set my camera aside for 10 minutes and just sit and listen to the wind and feel part of life.

When we decided to walk at least part of the Savage Gulch Day Loop trail, we thought we might see even fewer people–it’s more remote.

When we arrived at the parking lot, another couple was getting ready to head down the trail.  I overheard the man ask the woman, “Got what’cha need?  Need what’cha got?” What a profound question.  One of the greatest mistakes I’ve made in my lifetime is not asking the second question.  But I digress.

Tisen has been limping and so have we, so we didn’t expect to make it all the way around the 5 mile loop trail.  We also got a bit confused because there are about 5 trails that converge with the loop trail.  So, we didn’t start out with the intention of going to Savage Falls, but that’s where we ended up.  But we were OK with having gotten slightly lost–who can resist a waterfall?

When we arrived at Savage falls, we were a little jealous of the people swimming in the water.  We contemplated getting in, but we didn’t see a good path for Tisen to get down to the water and Tisen has put on a few too many pounds to be carried easily.  So, we sat in the shade and watched.

I attempted to shoot with my 100-400mm lens since there was enough of a crowd that my 24-70mm wasn’t giving me tight enough compositions.  Plus, I was shooting for a lot of depth of field, so I figured my faster lens wasn’t doing me that much good anyway.

There were two wrong assumptions about this.  First, the faster lens has an easier time focusing no matter what aperture I have it set on.  Second, the shorter focal length is easier to hold still even though that lens lacks Image Stabilization.

But, I did my best to steady the lens.  If only my subjects would have held still–I had to refrain from yelling “freeze!” at the couple under the water fall.

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Crossing Bridges

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I love my dog.  I love him for many reasons, but today, it’s because every day he reminds me that we can learn, we can grow, we can be completely different than we were before.

How many times do we hear people say “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”?  As someone who strives to learn every day, I know first hand how hard it can be to undo decades of habit to do the thing I will myself to do.  Many days, I feel like it’s an impossibility.  Then, I have days when I do things like fly off a mountain in a hang glider and I know that anything is possible.  But, sometimes I walk away thinking that maybe flying off a mountain in a hang glider doesn’t ultimately change anything at all.

That’s where Tisen comes in.

Tisen has transformed himself from a nearly-dead street dog to a urban-dwelling, middle-class gentleman who likes to hike.  He wants to make me happy.  That’s his bottom line.  While I’m not sure I could handle a person being so into me, in a dog, it’s kind of nice.

When we went to Savage Gulf Natural Area to hike the other day, we encountered something called a suspension bridge.  The dreaded structure was not the kind of suspension bridge you drive over, but rather a flexing, swinging, bouncing rope-and-wood bridge meant for no more than 2 pedestrians at a time.  These bridges make me nervous; I have no idea what they are like for a dog.  For Tisen, it was clearly a gauntlet of terror.

First, he would not step onto the bridge at all.  I walked across first to give him a reason to cross.  Then Pat came behind, encouraging Tisen to come with him.  Tisen considered climbing down a sheer rock cliff to the stream below over walking onto the bridge, but Pat managed to get him up the entrance ramp to the bridge.  But there, he stopped.  It wasn’t until Pat had crossed and Tisen was left standing alone that he decided he’d better cross.

He made it all the way across the gulch (which really wasn’t so far below as to be completely terrifying), got to the top of the exit ramp, stared down at me with his longing eyes, then eye-balled the ramp down to me and decided he’d had enough.  He turned around and went all the way back across the gulch.

We managed to coax him back across and all the way to land on the other side.  We completed our hike to Savage Falls and then wondered what was going to happen on the way back across.  When we got to the suspension bridge, I went across first, Pat coaxed Tisen up to the bridge, and Tisen led the way across looking like he’d been crossing suspension bridges most of his life.

In about an hour, Tisen transformed himself from a ‘fraidy cat to a top dog.  He’s my hero.

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