Scattered Thoughts . . .

I 'm still recovering from our long cross-country trip so it has been a very quiet weekend here.  Sheila's not feeling much better than I am but she has been keeping busier.   I've been residing on the couch for the most part.  So...  bed...  bathroom...  couch.  I occasionally sit at the piano but that hasn't been going well so I don't stay there long.  I need to have enough energy to focus in order to keep from getting frustrated at the piano.  Needless to say, sitting at the piano has been frustrating so my time there has been limited too.  I think the only things I have accomplished is laundry and cooking and yet I still feel rather lousy.   Here is one of my breakfasts...

T his is a relatively short blog entry with just a few photos showing our attempt at making it to the summit of Garfield Peak at an elevation of just over 8000 feet.  Just 300 vertical feet short of the summit, we made it to 7700 feet where my health forced us to make our way back down this rather treacherous peak.   I should also point out that this was during our first few hours at the higher elevation of Crater Lake and an unexpected road closure prompted us to change plans.  We were simply "looking around" and exploring the area right around the lodge and found ourselves on the beginning of the trail to this summit so we figured, "Why not?"  Our thought was that if this proved to be too much for my health (or for any of us), we could always just turn around and head back to the lodge.  So, we pressed onward toward the summit. The photo below shows the rim trail near the lodge.  Near the lodge, the rim trail is asphalt to minimize trampled ruts....

A fter we checked out of our loft suite at Crater Lake Lodge, we chose to do some hiking for the rest of the day before heading back to Klamath Falls.  This way, we would get two full days at Crater Lake National Park.  So, we checked out of the lodge, packed up the van and headed to the West Rim Drive. When we arrived at the park on the previous day, we found that the East Rim Drive was closed.  I had hoped to access this road for some additional photo opportunities but, due to the unexpected road closure, we now needed to adapt our plan.  Instead, we decided to do some sightseeing along West Rim Drive and then head over to Annie Creek Canyon.   On our way to our next hiking trailhead at Annie Creek Canyon, we stopped at the Watchman Peak Trailhead Overlook.  It was still morning so the sun was still relatively low in the sky and the view was great... The Crater Lake Lodge we had just departed is perched on the rim at the right side of the frame in th...

W hile visiting Crater Lake National Park, we spent a night in Crater Lake Lodge.  Built in 1915, this old timber lodge is perched more than 1,000 feet above the lake on the southern rim of the caldera.   Below, we can see Sheila looking out over the lake near the eastern end of the lodge... As a reminder, here is my reference panoramic photo showing the placement of the lodge...  the lodge is at the yellow box labeled with a "1" at the left edge of the frame. You don't really realize just how steep this 1,000 foot drop down to the lake actually is until you are standing right at the rim looking downward.  Naturally, some areas are significantly steeper than others but slipping off the trail at any location would likely be fatal because, even if you slipped in an area that was just a very steep incline rather than a dizzying cliff, tumbling 1,000 feet down a steep incline would likely be unsurvivable.    This photo, below, was captured looking down to ...

S hortly after we arrived at the Crater Lake Lodge, I captured a series of photos to stitch together to create a panoramic view of the whole width of Crater Lake.  I knew that this would be a good place to start in explaining some landmarks as well as some of the places we visited.   This panorama is a full 180° wide...  with the lodge on my left and Garfield Peak to my right...  we are on the south rim facing north, roughly... I had an ultra-wide angle lens with me but even that very wide lens couldn't fit the whole crater in my field of view while at the lodge. While on some of the surrounding peaks, I was almost able to fit the whole crater in my field of view but still not quite.  The answer was to capture a series of images, left to right, and then stitch those images together once we arrived back home.  And, even though I shot this handheld, it came out well. To get the full 180°, I needed to capture six images in portrait orientation.  I si...

A s I've written here previously, my plan for while we were at Crater Lake was to capture a photo of the Milky Way.  Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate on the single night we had at Crater Lake.   The clouds had rolled in as the sun was beginning to set and, by the time the sky was inky black, the sky was completely obscured by clouds.   I should point out that our original plan was to only do a day trip to Crater Lake and then head back to Klamath Falls at the end of the day.  I got to checking out the lodge online while Sheila was at work after we had talked about this added day trip and luckily fell into a single night availability for one of their loft suites overlooking the lake.  This little change allowed us to cancel one night at a hotel in Klamath Falls and have Adam and Joi join us in the Crater Lake Lodge suite for a night.  This provided us with two full days at Crater Lake but only one night for nighttime photography.  ...