Reflections at Great Plains State Park

Last summer Noah and I went on a surprisingly wonderful little weekend camping trip. It wasn't surprisingly wonderful because I didn't think we'd have a good time. But the remote location was even more enjoyable than I had hoped.  I must add, and the internet as well as Noah can confirm, the bacon cheeseburgers at the 3-table Tom Steed Reservoir Bait Shop are just amazing!  Oddly, my bride narrow-mindedly frowns upon eating in the same store where you can by earthworms and dead crawdads for bait.

Here are a few pics of world famous (not really) Tom Steed Reservoir in the early pre-dawn hours.

Sunset at Morro Bay, CA

Having made multiple trips to the area (Los Osos, CA) to visit a customer, I found a tiny little Travelodge that affords a view of the bay and Morro Rock from one of the few tiny little hotel rooms.  It's a tiny little town where it essentially never rains and practically never gets above 75 degrees.

In keeping with the theme of tiny, so goes their harbor.

Morro Rock, whose outline you can see in the background, is a volcanic plug that rises about 580ft out of the water. For my OKC friends, the Chase Tower is right at 500ft.

I love visiting there and standing on the surf break as the sun sets.

Union Station in the City of Fountains - Kansas City

Everything's up to date in Kansas City
They gone about as fer as they can go
They went an' built a skyscraper seven stories high
About as high as a buildin' orta grow!

At least  that's what Will Parker said about Kansas City in the musical Oklahoma.f

While in Kansas City for a conference, I wandered over (e.g. hiked 8 miles that night) from my hotel on the far north side of town to as far south as the World War I museum.  Of course that included a stop by Union Station which was, for all intents and purposes, completely empty on that week night.  It was far too kind for the operators there to empty the place for me and my camera to enjoy.

Wikipedia says that the height of activity (approx 670,000 passengers) at Union Station occurred in 1945 at the end of World War II.  After that, it was a steady decline until closure in 1985.  It was almost demolished several times until a public/private partnership found means to save the station in 1996.

Here are a few of my favorite images of my private, self-guided tour of the place.

One of the more interesting things about this curvy, wide-angle image is the lighting. Under most circumstances you'd never see such balanced lighting inside a structure with many windows except maybe at noon.  In this case, the light on the left (east) wall was directly from the sun shining in the right (west) windows.  The light on the right (west) wall was reflecting off a large glass building outside and to the east of Union Station.  Confused yet?

Hey that's me.  Or two of me, actually.  All in a long, single exposure, too.

An (almost) thunderstorm over Lake Arcadia

This short video is comprised of 660 individual images stitched together and rolling through at roughly 24fps. I let the intervalometer sequence out too soon and missed some key parts of the sunset.  What a rookie!  Nonetheless, I restarted it and caught the quick death of a little rain shower over Edmond just before the sun finally set.  The best set of images in my opinion are around the 22-24 second mark.

Frozen sunset reflection on Lake Hefner

Let's face it.  The wind ALWAYS blows on Lake Hefner...except for the extremely rare day when it doesn't.  On this particular day of December 10th, I almost froze while taking these pictures. You can see ice on the rocks (always a good combo) on which I was climbing while taking these pics.  But what a sight!

Sunset over Whidbey Island, WA

Idyllic in every way.

Great Blue Heron in the Rio Grande National Wildlife Refuge

Great blue heron hunting at sunset

National World War I Museum in Kansas City

Man, I loved this place.

No doubt in the decades immediately following the Civil War, there must have been much more "we must never forget" sort of sentiment.  And it fades.

World War I...probably the same.

World War II...probably already happening.  Although a certain Tom Hanks movie, among others, will help with that.  But 100 years from now, it won't be near the popular topic it is now.

What will happen with monuments like this?  Will the war be so far removed that we will no longer fund such museums?  I don't know.  Only time will tell.

Regardless, I highly recommend a visit to this one if you ever have a chance to drop by.  The view from the tower is particularly fantastic at night.

Front entrance over the Poppy Fields.

Presentation over 'the trenches.'

Front entrance

Grassy field at sunset just north of the museum.

View looking south.

View of downtown Kansas City looking north.

Ummmm...Sir Longshanks of Edmond.  Low sun = long shadows.

 

Stormin' the Oklahoma State Fairgrounds

Just. Wow.

Lightning strikes near the Oklahoma State Fairgrounds 'space needle.'

Morro Rock and Morro Bay - Los Osos, CA

I already know I'm a sucker for el agua, but I love this place.  It's nice to have a customer located in the same town as Morro Bay.  I probably should visit them again soon and often.

Oak trees and sun rays near Lake Arcadia

Technically these sun rays are actually called 'crepuscular rays.'  Whatever the case, I love them.  The conditions have to be just right to work.  They can happen anywhere there is enough particulate in the atmosphere to reflect the sun's light while contrasting with the background. Another interesting geek fact is that although they appear to converge quickly to a point, they are actually essentially parallel like railroad tracks.

The large white oak in the first pic is one of my favorites in our backyard due to the general lack of small branches up and down its trunk. The last pictures almost looks if it was taken underwater.

One other side note is that I made these images with my cell phone and edited them in Sagelight, only adjusting for contrast.

Hole in the Sky

The clouds and the sun danced in concert all but just a few minutes to create this incredible fleeting scene over Lake Arcadia.

Sunset reflection on Lake Arcadia

9 minutes and an elevation change of about 90 feet.  That's all that separates these two images. (No, it didn't take me 9 minutes to descend 90 feet!)  

Each was taken a couple weeks ago at Lake Arcadia outside Edmond, OK.  The first was taken high atop a hill on the south end of the lake and the next obviously near the water's edge.

My favorite part of either image is the Devon building located at the bottom left of the first.  Depending on the quality of your monitor you may have to view the full-size image to keep it from being hidden in the shadows.  The building seems so incredible in and of itself but amongst the enormity of creation, it quickly becomes insignificant.