Scattered Thoughts . . .

I shot quite a few photos while in Manhattan last week but a significant portion of these photos were shot atop the Empire State Building.  I decided to preview a couple of these photos and since they looked so good, I will share them here in this blog entry before I write about our visit to the famous observation deck towering above midtown Manhattan. To be honest, when I first previewed and sorted my photos from the trip, I was a bit disappointed by the photos I shot at the Empire State Building.  Even when I was shooting the photos, I was a bit uncertain about how good they would be for quite a few very good reasons.   First, it was frigid up there so I was shivering and distracted.  It is hard to stay focused and think clearly when you are being blasted by frigid air and wind.   As you would expect at this altitude (1,050 feet),  the wind was whipping so much that I had to brace myself to keep from wobbling and swaying in the wind...  I had no tripod since they are not allowed at

While visiting San Antonio to attend Adam's graduation ceremony, we visited a number of well known places as well as a few lesser known places. One of these lesser known places was the Tower of the Americas.   We had previously spent a rainy day briskly walking the Riverwalk through downtown San Antonio. The Riverwalk can be a beautiful downtown area but when it is raining, that really puts a damper on sightseeing. When it is raining, you are focused on getting to your next destination... quickly... and staying as dry as possible. We were wet and a bit uncomfortable the day we walked (almost ran) the Riverwalk and I think I can safely say that none of us were looking forward to another day dodging rain outdoors. Most of our time in San Antonio was under cloudy skies with precipitation falling from those clouds. By the time our last day in San Antonio arrived, we were pretty tired of getting wet (and, admittedly, tired of all the walking) so we were hoping to visit a place wh