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.

Hoover Dam @ Night and some Lake Mead drought

Day or night, I've never regretted a stop at the Hoover Dam. This place is a modern marvel of engineering and a grand human vision.

The star-burst pattern around the lights is an effect typical of many lenses at very high f-stop #'s (very small apertures).

Check out how much the water level has dropped in Lake Mead between the top picture taken in 2001 and the bottom one taken in 2009!

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.

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!

Swoosh!

And we have lift-off (of ye ol' Canadian Geese).

Sunset over Whidbey Island, WA

Idyllic in every way.

Lake Hefner Sunrise

Just some tomfoolery with the camera body and lens while the shutter is open.

Great Blue Heron in the Rio Grande National Wildlife Refuge

Great blue heron hunting at sunset

Still waters @ Oklahoma's Natural Falls State Park

This was taken early one morning at Natural Falls State Park in far eastern Oklahoma.

Yes, it's upside down to prove a point. The water really was like glass. That's some photo-trickery I did there. The little green trash can clinging to the earth so as to not fall kind of gives it away.  You did see that little green trash can, didn't you?

Fall foliage reflections in Arkansas' White River

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.

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.

Cuyahoga National Park and the Cuyahoga River

Not the most well-known national park but full of it's own beauty nonetheless.  Given it's proximity to Cleveland and Akron, it's quite a retreat from the industrial mecca surrounding.

Thunderstorm reflections @ the Oklahoma River

Reflected view of an isolated but powerful thunderstorm that skirted the southeast side of Oklahoma City on Easter.  The elevation of this storm was likely over 25,000 feet in altitude.

As large as Devon Tower is, it really seems so small in comparison to the storm.

Lake Arcadia fog @ sunrise

With a little grain added for a vintage feel.

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.

Fishing pier - Destin, FL