The trip to Klamath Falls was a long one.  Not only did we arrive well after dark, it had started raining during the last couple of hours of driving.  We weren’t in the desert anymore.  

We woke up to more rain, but because you never know what you’re going to get and since this was our last stop on our trip, we decided to head out to places we had scouted out on our first leg of the trip.  

The next day started early for us.  After brewing a pot of coffee and checking out of the hotel, we headed out to the Alabama Hills.  Unfortunately, finding our tree was much harder in the dark than I expected. 

Our short stay at Kings Canyon was over and we needed to move on.  Ann and I had decided to take the long way home, continuing with the idea that much of the trip was for scouting purposes, so our plan was to head south

The break for lunch was worth it.  Not only did Ann and I get a chance to dry off, warm up and get some fuel in our bodies, the weather decided to cooperate and stop raining.  Given that there were still plenty of clouds in the air, we decided to play it safe and go to the near-by General Grant Grove in the event that the weather turned yet again. 

Our trip to Sportsmobile West only lasted a few hours.  Jonathan took his time to show us how different ideas were implemented in other vehicles they were working on in the shop, and definitely answered all of our questions to make sure we would get the vehicle we want, but we had a good idea of our needs and wants, and quickly went through the list of options available to us. 

I recently purchased a photography education package of e-books and videos that included a 26-week, weekly e-mail from David DuChemin, one of the photographers I follow and have learned quite a bit from these past few years.

To give everyone a change of pace from looking at my stuff, to acknowledge that I don’t photograph by myself on these trips, and to acknowledge not only the significant impact Ann has had on my work, but also the impressive progress she’s made in her own work, I thought I should share her tree photograph that I casually mentioned in a previous Yosemite post.Ann and I photograph well together.

I almost wasn’t going to do this post.  It felt a bit like tempting fate.  You don’t want to mess around with the gods too much; you just might piss them off.  Ann and I are fortunate enough to meet some interesting people on our journeys but you’ll excuse me if I say I’ll pass on butting heads with a Cyclops, getting lured to my death by the Sirens, or having lunch with (ok, being lunch for . . .) a Hydra. 

The next morning we started off where we ended the previous day - in the meadow facing Yosemite Falls.  Once again, the dim light from nautical sunrise proved to be very frustrating in the valley and my early efforts amounted to nothing. 

So as the weeks approached, I was checking the status of the Tioga Road every few days on the website.  Sure enough, two days before we took off, the website had a warning, “Temporary Road Closure - Tioga Road.”  Nothing more.  November 7th, the same date it had closed in recent years.  So we cut across the Sierra Nevada Mountains much further north at Lake Tahoe.  So imagine my surprise when we pulled up to Yosemite’s west entrance and the sign said Tioga Road - Open. 

A couple of weeks ago Ann and I made a trip down to Fresno for the next stage of decision-making for the Sportsmobile. Because it had been a year since our last real photography trip (our trip to Southern Utah which I didn’t really blog about, because I’ve barely worked on the images), we decided to make a trip of it and instead of heading down for just a day, we’d extend it for more than a week.