(October, 2020) As noted in our previous post, we spent autumn in Bluff, Utah, visiting with long-time good friends Joyce and Paul M.; seeing many sights in the area; and taking photographs. Paul and I took many photo outings to interesting locations around Valley of the Gods, Comb Ridge, Montezuma Canyon, McElmo Canyon, and other sites around Bluff. I also took quite a few solo photo outings.
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(Late September, 2020) As the saying goes, “There’s gold in them thar hills!”, and we were determined to find it. Or at least, the Aspen gold of fall color high in the San Juan Mountains of southern Colorado. We had just spent a week at the Alamosa KOA, photographing around Great Sand Dunes National Park, and our plan was to move on to Durango, Colorado. Our hope was to arrive in time for the peak of fall color in the San Juans.
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(Early/mid May, 2019) From the Trona Pinnacles we made our way past Ridgecrest to Highway US-395 and turned north through the Owens Valley to our next stop, Lone Pine, California. This route passes through a region of spectacular scenery with the jagged mountains of the Eastern Sierras to the west and the more desert-like White and Inyo Mountains to the east. Due to the particularly cold and wet winter and spring, both the Sierras and Inyo mountains sported snow at higher elevations.
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(Early May, 2019) We kicked off the start of our 2019 travel season with a short stay at the bizarre Trona Pinnacles, a National Natural Landmark in the dry Searles Lake Basin of Southern California. This unearthly landscape of towering calcium carbonate spires (tufas) formed under a deep lake at the end of recent ice ages, between 10,000 to 100,000 years ago, as mineral-rich hot springs percolated up and interacted with cold lake water and algal colonies.
The spires have been filmed in many TV shows and movies, including Lost in Space, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, and Planet of the Apes.
I had first visited this dramatic area in the early 2000’s on a photo road-trip and was looking forward to spending more time exploring and photographing around the spires.
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Deep in the heart of the Anza-Borrego Desert of Southern California lies a valley where towering metal sculptures of extinct or fanciful creatures appear to roam, stalk, and do battle. The sculptures are set amidst stark desert beauty, against a stunning backdrop of low rugged mountains.
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