Galveston Island

The family took a long weekend in a rented house just off the beach.
I had never been to Galveston, and enjoyed it much.
Mostly South Texas-based folks, tho' one couple are currently stationed in Minot, North Dakota.

Our niece graduated from high school--the ceremony of which exposed us all to drenching rain and possible death by lightning. Favorite graduate's name heard: Destiny Dream Weaver.

On the second night we had our usual Monopoly game.
Last summer, despite having buildings on Boardwalk and Park Place early, nobody landed on them for hours so I eventually sold out of the game for $20 cash American.
This time I played better and had some luck, and actually won the game.

When the sun finally came out I made a 5 minute trip to the beach with my Sony F828, and shot around 10 variations of the scene below, in infrared of course:

Jumped back in the air-conditioned truck and went back to the house, knowing I had something special.
I love it when that happens, especially the part about not getting greedy and ending up with a sunburn because I kept shooting when there was probably no point.

Pretty sure I missed a good color long exposure the night before (featuring stormy clouds) because dinner ran a bit long, so by the time I went to the beach it was too dark.


On the last full day a few of us went to the restored part of downtown that caters to upscale visitors.
Shot this one with my phone:

I'm weird, shooting with a 13 year old camera--in infrared no less--OR just using my Samsung S5.
The plan is to change this up in the near future and get something approaching a current mirrorless so I'm excited to shoot inconvenient color and night photos again.

Snowmobiles Over The Continental Divide

Finally, the big day!!
We had made a reservation with Good Times Adventures for a two hour tour, and luckily this day featured the very best weather of our entire vacation.
Cold as hell (10 below zero?) but sunny and clear with lots of fresh snow to make everything pretty.

I decided that their loaner boots were better than mine, but all the rest of my gear was fine. Turned out that the heated footwells on our machines made it a moot point.

Now for some contrast:

 This is what the pair of us rode in March 2013 on our Lake Tahoe trip. Terrific fun, but...

 For 2016 we each had our own one of these.
Won't bore you with the specs, but wow! And they were brand new.
Also, because this was Colorado and not California, the throttle didn't have a difficult to operate weasel-lawyer "safety" device that sucked all the fun out of it and sapped your concentration. California sucks, by the way.


One early favorite part of this tour was that after a familiarization cruise through the woods, we got to a big open field with what can only be described as an oval track. Some of the others didn't quite get it, but me and Lisa sure did. I wound that sucker up and flew, passing on the inside and outside a few times and grinning ear to eel. Pretty sure that had the track been bigger I could have hit 60mph or more.
What a rush!
Time for a quick selfie.

Then it was time to get into the meat of the tour--onward and upward to the Continental Divide!

Single file up, sometimes on impossibly narrow trails through the pines, and God was it beautiful!
The sections on roads or across fields were also fun, because you could gawk without getting croaked.
(BTW, our guide was Ivan from Argentina, and he knows almost as much about Ginobili as we do, being their national hero and all).



Up, up, up we went, until the trail spit us out into another world, at around 12,500 feet above sea level .
This is Mt. Guyot, and the slope to the left drains springtime snowmelt waters to the west, while a few meters to the right etc etc. (When I peed behind a tree, I made sure to be on OUR side. California got enough of my whiz on the Tahoe trip).

To me, the divide was more moving than some invisible thing like a border or the equator. After climbing a mountain range, it's very stirring to see and know that everything really does change. Much like the Mississippi River which I've crossed MANY times, or reaching another continent separated by an ocean.
It was a big event in my life--thinking about how it must have felt to all the pioneers hundreds of years ago.


We got to spend a decent amount of time up there--enough for my aforementioned whiz, where I sank into the snow up to my junk and had a vision of needing help to get out--and for pictures and videos.

Remembering photo tips from many years ago, I was glad I had set my phone's camera to +1.5 EV overexposure, because this is almost exactly how I remember it looked up there.


Our trip down was every bit as much fun as the way up.



The scenery was beautiful and my heart was soaring.
One of the very best days of my entire life.

Breckenridge Colorado

We finally made it into Breck on the 2nd full day there. Mostly shopping and feasting our eyes on what a lovely little town it is. I shot a bunch of selfies alone and in groups using my selfie stick, and while they are all incredible works of art, that's not what I planned on posting here.

During a short period of blue skies, while waiting for my girls to exit a T-shirt shop, I used my phone to grab this view between two buildings:

Again, we waited for the gondolas to stop charging $$$ and took a ride up the mountain.
Right into hell.
Something like 9000 kids were up there skiing and 'boarding, and it was freaking cold.
Apparently I chose an inferior quad of socks, because before long my toes lost all feeling.
The weather was crappier than at any other time during the whole trip, so no photos were taken.
We ended up in a bar eating and drinking, then headed back down.

Next up: It gets much better.

Views Of Colorado

Vacation fun in the Rocky Mountains!
Flew direct SA to Denver, with only one bit of drama after we landed involving a co-conspirator.
It was snowing at sunrise when we went to get our rental SUVs (4-wheel drive was mandatory to get to our rental house) and continued off and on for the rest of the day. After a hearty breakfast, we went shopping for legal intoxicants and food.
Over some mountains to Breckenridge took an hour+, then we settled-in to a beautiful 3-story house with all the amenities.

This is a look at the home next door from the kitchen table, which I claimed as my personal "office".
It gives you an idea of how we were living.

The view from our rear deck. The town of Breckenridge is at the bottom less than a mile to the left.

The snow came up to our bedroom windows on the sunken bottom floor.

This was only my second time in Colorado--the first being in 1987 when my late brother Ken and I went to fly large and dangerous "model" rockets on a high plateau near Hartsell. We became a bit famous on that trip in large part because the hobby was still small and new and we brought high standards of theory, design, construction and finishing to our rockets. It didn't hurt that Ken was a biker and I was a rocker, and we looked it and partied as hard as expected.  
This time the altitude didn't affect me much, possibly because I stay better hydrated these days and also because I spent the first day going up and down stairs as often as possible to speed acclimation.

More to come.

Deep Eddy Distillery

We recently took a guided tour of the Deep Eddy Vodka distillery in Dripping Springs Texas. (East of Austin on 290)

It was the first cold day of the season. I was under-dressed. 

 This is their "column distiller", which accounts for the incredibly high purity of their vodka. With the old-fashioned kettle method, you have to keep repeating the process, and at a certain point it just takes too much time. My go-to vodka is distilled 4 times. Deep Eddy claims 10x, but because this process is so much more efficient the actual result is probably at least double that. Try their unflavored version against any other vodka--straight--and you'll understand.

                                              

These big tanks are where the all natural flavors meet the alcohol.
The product doesn't spend much time there, because this tiny plant is going to top 800,000 cases this year.

 Paper labels are faster, easier, cheaper, prettier, and classic.
I hated screen printing bottles back when Ken and I owned our print shop.

 So...I only got around 3 hours of sleep the night before because it was an early appointment and a long drive. Didn't eat anything either.
This was my breakfast--all 5 flavors of Deep Eddy.
De-fucking-licious!

Also got to pick one of their signature cocktails, served in a mason jar type pint glass, which we got to keep. Good thing we brought snacks, then went right to a decent pizza place in town. 

                                     

 Couldn't manage one of the slushies.

                                     

LOTS of booze.
Sylvia prefers the iced tea flavor.
I like the lemon.
The Ruby Red is great, too.
Don't like cranberry, but their take on it surprised me.
The tour was very educational.
It's a company that has great values and it's going to be a big player before you know it.
All Natural flavors and super-pure alcohol equals the finest vodkas I've ever tried, and at a price that can't be beat.
Made In Texas, Y'all.

A Lovely Setting

My band played a wedding last night in this event center on the Guadalupe River in the Texas Hill Country.
After setting up our gear I turned around and realized that maybe...just maybe...I should have brought a real camera.
On the other hand, then I would likely have shot it horizontally and sacrificed the reflection on the floor.

When viewed on Facebook--on a smartphone--it's quite effective since it fills the screen.
On a laptop or desktop--not so much.

August In Texas

It's been freaking HOT, but could have been worse.
Rained once or twice this month--not at all in July--so my lawn is no longer the lush creature of beauty it was after the soakings we got all Spring. Again, could be worse.

Here's a phone photo of a cicada on our patio:

Lit with a AAA LED penlight, all handheld.
Was expecting improvements across the board when we upgraded from the Samsung Galaxy S3 to the S5, but a few details disappoint.
The S3 was a macro delight--you could jam the lens right up to something and it would focus on it. Even had a macro focus setting to tell the camera that the subject was close and to stay in that range, and possibly fine-tune a bit more carefully.
The S5 has no macro setting, but even more annoying is that at similarly close range it will focus on the subject, then snap back to a blurry setting an inch or two behind it--every damn time!
So it's capable of doing what I ask, but just doesn't want to.
I hate shit like that.

Luckily, this cicada was a good sport and stayed put while I went inside and changed phones back to the S3 for this shot.
Yes, I keep my old smartphones and use them all the time for almost everything but calls and texts.
Games, camera, discontinued technical apps, and even using one phone as a pink noise generator while I use another as an audio spectrum analyzer.
Since I have Sylvia's old S3 too, I've even been playing with the pair as a stereo 3D camera!
Testing has been positive, just haven't gotten around to building the frame to hold them.


Up next, a handful of vacation photos.