The Big Trip!

I've been hinting for months that I would be going to Zion this winter. Well, after several setbacks and personal issues, I'm on the road and in Utah tonight. I really need to do some computer storage management for all the photos coming in or already stored, in compressed RAW format, of course. The compressed RAW files, like the old print film, need to be "processed" before you can share or print them. Converting the RAW files expands the file sizes from 6.6 megs up to 17 megs. I can always copy some pictures on to a DVD disk and free up some space.

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This evening, I uploaded 225 Bryce Canyon pictures and a few dozen Nevada pics I took along the way. This is an example what you'll find along US Highway 50 in Nevada, also known as the lonliest highway in America. Below is a "shoe tree" out in the middle of nowhere. I've seen four other of these trees where people hang their shoes as a personal show of conquest.

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Here's a pic of the Great Basin National Park, but from the west side of this massive Nevada mountain range near the eastern border with Utah.

In Bryce Canyon this morning, the weather was a mixed bag with clouds and sun coming and going. I couldn't get down close to the hoodoos so I had to depend on my powerful zoom to get us all there. There's so many nooks and crannies, surely chock-full with picturesque discoveries like the one below.

Just this one valley below would be an entire day's shooting for me. This just means that I'll have to come back and take a little backpacking trip.

This last one is very much like an abstract. That 10X zoom gets me to a lot of places that my old film camera never could. Getting this picture meant braving 45 mph winds at 9000 feet above sea level. I'm happy with what I've seen of today's shots, so far.