Day 2

Got off to an early start today - I left Tucumcari around 8:30, headed west. I stopped at Cline's Corners (a gift shop on I-40 at US 285) because someone told me it was a cool place. Pointless crap and junk - sorry Tina, no shot glasses for you, ha ha. Here's a thumbnail:
Click to view the large image - check out how high gas was (so far, that was the highest I've seen it - Paris peeps should be glad it's as "low"as it is back there).
From there I drove north - up 285, headed for Farmington (with scenic places to stop at on the way). Driving through Santa Fe was a biatch - construction, small lane roads (but not as small or as crowded as Taos) and confusing signs, all of which led me to miss my exit at one point. Which isn't unusual in itself, since I can't navigate worth a durn, but the worst part was I couldn't just get off at the next exit and turn around - oh no, you had to get off, travel down some highway, then detour (CONSTRUCTION!!!), get lost, and try to find out how the heck to get back to where you were before you were trying to get back to where you were.
So then I battled my way through Taos - tiny, tiny lanes, too much traffic, and lots of pedestrians who don't seem to realize they would lose very badly if they went up against a moving vehicle.
Moving on: driving along US 84, or US 64 or something, I saw this river and scenic views, so I pulled over to snap a few pics.


One of the rafters seemed to notice I was taking pics. They waved right after I took this.

A little while after the river, I found the Rio Grande Gorge - pretty cool, and the pics don't do it justice, but here's a few:



And finally, a panoramic view (click on it to see it large - looks much more cool that way) of some mountains.



Then I drove on to Farmington - through windy roads, construction (they had US 64 torn up at one point for a few miles - it was just a dirt road. Imagine 271 as a dirt road, and you'll get the idea) - but I finally made it here. Tomorrow, my first destination is Ship Rock, then either Window Rock or the Four Corners, then off to Page, Arizona to see Horseshoe Bend - pics to follow!

live from Farmington, NM
-B.J.

Movie Night!

There's very little on TV here in Tucumcari, so I think I will watch one of my movies on my laptop. The cool thing is that the motel TV has inputs for s-video, and my laptop happens to be able to export that,and I happen to have a cable for that, so I can watch my movie on the big screen, ha ha. My flick for tonight: Psycho, by Alfred Hitchcock. On second thought, I maybe should choose another movie (lone traveller, finds a motel, shower, knife, blood, etc), but I've never seen Psycho before - just the famous shower scene. We'll see if it was such a good idea later tonight, ha ha.

And we're off...

...like a herd of turtles (Dad will laugh). After a slow start this morning due to rain, rain, and more rain, the weather finally cleared about an hour away from OK City, and clear skies prevailed. There was so much construction, though - I guess Oklahoma decided to fix the entire length of I-40 all at once. Bummer. Another thing about Oklahoma - they will name a road or bridge or anything, after ANYONE! I swear they have more "John Doe Memorial Highway" and "Jane Doe Memorial Bridge" and "Joe Six-Pack Memorial Ditch" signs than any other state I've ever seen, with the exception of Arizona, where you can (for a fee) put up a memorial sign to anyone along the highway - but you aren't naming anything after anyone. In Oklahoma, if you die, apparently you are guaranteed something named after you.

I stopped at the Cadillac Ranch too - very weird but cool place. The lighting was much better than last time I was here (late afternoon today, as opposed to the harsh noon sun the last time) so my pics turned out better, IMHO. Anyway, the plan for tomorrow is...to do whatever I feel like, and see (and photograph) whatever I want. Now THAT'S the way to do a vacation.

Live from Tucumcari, NM
-B.J.

Preparing to go

The countdown is on - only two more days (plus a few hours) until I leave for Arizona. And I am SO looking forward to this - so many photo ops, ha ha. My hope is to do a sort of photo blog here, posting as I go - we'll see how it goes.

Start Speech Recognition

This is just a test.  I am using Vista's new voice recognition features to dictate this post. I am also using a new Firefox extension called ScribeFire to post directly to my blog - it is interesting, but the voice recognition is really really much more fun.  I might even dictate posts while driving to Arizona - with voice recognition, it is hands free, so no problems there.  The only problem is that the computer does not understand everything I say yet - I still need to run the speech tutorial so it learns my voice. Still, what a wonderous age we live in. Now all I need is a flying car, a transporter (who needs a flying car then?), and some blasters installed on my flying car to shoot down all the idiot flyers out there. Maybe superpowers would be nice as well, but I won't be greedy.

Powered by ScribeFire.

What happened???

Yeah, I know it's been awhile - alot has been happening and I just don't have the time to update as much. Actually, the REAL reason is I'm just not on the computer as much as I used to be (gasp!). With all the time I spend walking/jogging, and other stuff, I just don't spend as much time surfing as I used to. Well, the past week has been an exception - but with good reason. I got a laptop (which Mom thought I should have given her for Mother's Day, lol) and I've been configuring it hastily so as to be ready in time for the upcoming Great Western Journey II - starting May 30. I set up a wireless network (like it was hard, ha ha) AND I also set up file sharing between my old computer and the laptop - so I can suck movies and music off the old one like crazy instead of burning to DVD or using a jump drive. Anyway, I also got some maps and other nav aids loaded - to use when between wifi hotspots. Anyway, instead of burning a bunch of music cds, I will run the laptop off the AC power thing that plugs in the cigarette lighter, and hook up the FM transmitter to that - how far does that rate on the geek scale?
So anyway, there is this last full week plus the weekend to get prepared - lots of hiking planned, mostly to find the perfect photo ops. I hope to do alot of sunset and even sunrise photography - that is, of course, the best time for landscape photography. Sunset if often referred to as the 'golden hour' - the light is at an angle, more golden and even red the closer you get to sunset, and that provides a great source of illumination, rather than the harsh flat light of the daytime sun. I also hope to get some great nighttime shots - the moon should be high enough and bright enough to illuminate the landscape at night - we'll see how that goes.

Been Awhile...

Yes it has, since I posted last. Not much has been going on, however, and posting just to post is kinda pointless. Still, today was busy - I did a photo shoot with Mallory and Chase for their prom pics. And I'm getting paid to do this!! Yay!!! Also, I took her graduation pics last weekend, (also got paid!!). And tomorrow, I'm doing a shoot with Darwin at his church for a fundraiser - so I only charge them cost of materials. Too bad he doesn't attend a megachurch, then I wouldn't feel so bad about gouging them for money.
Speaking of money, I went to the casino across the river last year - my first ever visit to a casino. I walked away slightly poorer - by about $20 (I don't like to lose). I haven't been back since - it seems kinda silly to throw away money like that. Well, last weekend, after doing Mal's photo graduation photo shoot, I drove around town looking for more pics, cuz I was in a photographic mood. I wound up driving into Oklahoma for a few hours, didn't really find anything that wowed me, so i headed back home. Along the way, I passed by the casino and thought to myself "Why not play $20 just for kicks?" (this is NOT a habit forming, lol). So I went in, fed the money in the machine, and played my $20. It went up a little, down a little, up a little, down, up, down, up, down...you get the idea. After about an hour, I got bored and decided the next time it went over $20 (breaking even) I would cash out and leave. And then the machine hit - hit BIG! It flashed lights, the spinny things spun backwards, bells rang - I was a little worried something had gone wrong. Anyway, I won $550 off of $20 - not a bad night's work, ha ha. I IMMEDIATELY cashed out - the lady to my left (a frequent visitor, from the look of her) said "Honey, ain't you gonna play that down some? You might hit again." Play it down? Play it DOWN??? Why the heck would I do that??? How weird! Anyway, she got on my machine after I left - I hope she won big.
I other news, the trip to Arizona has hit a snag of sorts - it seems I am going by myself. All the other parties involved had to bail (for important reasons, though) - and I have [psyched myself up so much about going that even though going solo will be so very much not fun, not going will be so very much not funner - I'll probably even get a little down about it if I don't go, I've been looking forward to this for so much and for so long. It's going to be hard - a lot of driving, so I need alot of road trip music. I even thought about taking Snickers, but they don't let dogs into the Grand Canyon unless they're service dogs, which would be hard to convince them she is. If there is anyone out there that wants to go (besides maniacal killers and crazies, although if they can drive I might be able to live with that, ha ha) just let me know - leaving May 30 and coming back June 7-10, somewhere around there, whenever I make it back - maybe never, who knows? So any potential traveling buddies out there? Laptops are a huge plus, so I don't have to buy a bunch of CF cards. Actually, going on my own might be interesting - I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, and no one can say otherwise (well, within limits - let's keep everything nice and legal, shall we?)