Mineral Lake

I've never been to Mineral Lake
...but I've been 5 minutes from there.

Oregon Road Trip - Day 4

Clearwater Falls


Toketee Falls

After Toketee Falls we decided to find Umpqua Hot Springs. Well worth it and a fine ending to our Oregon road trip!

Oregon Road Trip - Day 3

Crater Lake
In my opinion this place has one of the most mind blowing views ever. The first time I saw Crater Lake I thought I was on another planet. As you drive up what appears the same as any other forested mountainside there is nothing to prepare you for a 20.6 sq mi lake filling a 2,148 foot deep caldera to a depth of 1,943 feet with clear deep blue water. It's kind of overwhelming for a photo so I decided to ask this guy if I could take a photo of him painting. He was super cool and we chatted for a bit. Turns out Jay makes some pretty cool jewelry, as evidenced by the cool wedding ring his daughter showed us.

Oregon Road Trip - Day 2

Odell Lake
Apparently Shelley owns a lake?! We found a great campsite at Trapper Creek Campground because there were still snow drifts nearly blocking access to the last two available sites. Thankfully this put us away from the noise of every other site filled with trailer and boat parties. But the nearby freight trains waking us in the middle of the night were quite a puzzling sound at first.


Crack In The Ground
Had to ask at the local gas and mini mart in order to locate the sign indicating directions to this interesting find. Though Christmas Valley itself was quite an interesting find. I watched a guy pull up on his chopper with a black lab perched on the tank like it was nothing. There is also a nearby airport but the only two planes parked there had flat tires. Apparently it does get used as there was an additional plane parked there when we left.


The Crack, as it is known locally, is 2 miles long, 10 to 70 feet deep and varies in width from 2 to 50 feet across. In places you can see parallel cracks through gaps in the rock. According to geologists The Crack formed recently as 1000 years ago when volcanic activity caused rock on the southeast side to sink leaving the northwest side in place. Normally these kind of things fill in with dirt over time but this one has remained deep enough to find snow in places during the summer. Allegedly pioneers escaped the summer desert heat and would have picnics in The Crack, even making ice cream from the snow.

Oregon Road Trip - Day 1

Castle Crags State Park
Still in California I decided to check out the scenic overlook this morning hoping to catch a glimpse of Mt. Shasta. No such luck as the morning fog was quite thick but I did luck out with a peek of the crags.


Salt Creek Falls
There are so many sweet waterfalls in Oregon I had no idea where to start. This one was basically the first one we saw a sign for. I felt like a kid in a candy store photographing this one.

Random Celebrity Photo

Amy Tan

Random Celebrity Photo

Gavin Newsom

Random Celebrity Photo

Maria Shriver

Bryan Graduates From Law School

image #41,000

I'm Such A Rebel!

Image #40,000!!!

Wow!!! 40,000 pictures shot on my Canon 40D!
Shot while photographing the Smart Green Cities conference at Stanford University.

Slots In The Silver Reef

(l to r) myself, Sara, James, Raina
photo credit: Dave

Kite Flying

My friend Sara is a rocket scientist studying the aerodynamics of kite wings for her thesis. Naturally she needs to fly kites for research. So with several days of good wind this week, she invited me to help out with some research.


Pink Duct tape makes it fly better.


This little guy was pesky.


Warming up in a patch of sun and the wind shadow of our "research facility".


This kite liked to go round and round in circles.

Random Quote

Found in the directions for assembling a kite:

The LEADING edge is the FRONT edge. The TRAILING edge is the BACK edge.

Cruising The Coast Highway

My cousin Danielle was in town for the weekend. She was originally going to run the Big Sur Marathon but a ham string injury and good sense kept her from it. But that didn't stop her from having fun. Jefferson, she and I headed to Monterey to pick up her race packet and score some free shwag at the race expo.


We drove down Highway 1 to check out the course she would have run.


I figured since we were already mostly there we should check out McWay Falls too.


image #39,000
photo credit: Danielle


Jefferson had eaten about 10 or so free energy bars from the expo and was feeling a little loaded down after maxing out his calorie intake for the day.


We tried some running photos at Bixby Bridge but the sand dunes north of Monterey turned out better, even if the sun didn't peak through.

Sea Otter Classic

Rich and I headed down to Laguna Seca for our now annual Sea Otter Classic photo safari.

Foothills Park

A little jumpin around after family breakfast at Foothills Park

Andy, Joanna and Tauna


Andy


Steve


me

...and a little peek behind the scenes:

Longboarding

Image #38,000 on the Canon 40D


Trying out the bumper mounted GoPro® HD Camera*


Kambria gets her longboard on!


Jen agrees to do a solo run for "the shot"


Rich makes it look easy



A perfect Saturday for Robert's Random Adventure Tours

* Check out this link for some serious fun with this little gem and stay tuned for future Random Adventures with this baby!

Random E-mail

I never knew there were so many ways to "transcend the boundaries of horizontality." - Until I found this in my inbox:

Dear Amazon.com Customer,

As someone who has purchased or rated Rock Climbing: Mastering Basic Skills (Mountaineers Outdoor Expert) by Craig Luebben or other books in the Mountaineering > Instructional category, you might like to know that Armitage's Vines and Climbers: A Gardener's Guide to the Best Vertical Plants will be released on April 7, 2010.

Product Description
Climbing plants are a largely untapped resource for today's gardeners... By following Armitage's sage advice, gardeners and designers will be well equipped to create dazzling gardens that transcend the boundaries of horizontality.

We hope you found this message to be useful.