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- Thread starter cmartinez
- Start date
Some pictures from yesterday's drive north through the TX panhandle, through the OK panhandle, and the SW quadrant of KS, all on back country roads.
I was trying to capture the immensity of the nothingness, but I failed. I don't know if it's possible. It was cool to see conventional and alternative energy working side by side. I learned that, while TX is the beef capitol, the KS beef game is on another level. In terms of beef per acre or per capita, KS is outbeefing TX to an embarrassing degree.
I was trying to capture the immensity of the nothingness, but I failed. I don't know if it's possible. It was cool to see conventional and alternative energy working side by side. I learned that, while TX is the beef capitol, the KS beef game is on another level. In terms of beef per acre or per capita, KS is outbeefing TX to an embarrassing degree.
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My mother was born in that area, near Happy, TX. My German grandparents went there when Rte. 66 opened up and tried to farm. My granny's turkeys did well on the virgin soil - no disease. But grandpa couldn't raise anything without irrigation so they had to return back up 66 to southern Illinois.
I've got some pictures from about 60 years ago - I'll post them when I find them.
I've got some pictures from about 60 years ago - I'll post them when I find them.
I hope these upload in full resolution. Taken at Royal Gorge in Colorado. My phone really did NOT want to take vertical panoramic shots, not sure why. It seems they really only had horizontal applications in mind when they designed the feature. I turned random features on and off, rebooted the phone several times, not sure what I did to make it work, but persistence paid off and I got what I wanted. Pretty cool shots I think, but I'm a photography layman with a cameraphone so feel free to be unimpressed.
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Don't want to bore anyone with vacation pics but here are some nerdy observations you might enjoy...
This is what happens to chips at high elevation:
We are staying in a log cabin at 11,200ft elevation, 5 miles outside of Alma, CO, the highest town in the USA (10,360 ft). Here's a picture of the chip aisle at Almart in Alma:
The other Boyle's Law thing that happens at high elevation we learned, HAFE. My wife and daughters have been ripping farts like I usually do, and I have been ripping them like something is actually medically wrong with me. I wish there were some way to take a picture of it. I guess you'll just have to take my word on it.
Because I can't resist, here are some pictures of the cabin we are staying in (airBNB). It was built in 1973 by one man, the original owner, from logs he felled on the property. It is off the grid, as legit as it gets. The current owners have installed solar power and a backup generator. It had no electricity from 1977 to 2011. I can't believe how well insulated it is just from logs.
This is the face you make after trudging 50ft through waist-deep snow:
Check out how the snow melted in a weird pattern and ended up looking like wind-blown hair:
I like this picture because of the contrast of colors:
A cool icicle:
This is what happens to chips at high elevation:
We are staying in a log cabin at 11,200ft elevation, 5 miles outside of Alma, CO, the highest town in the USA (10,360 ft). Here's a picture of the chip aisle at Almart in Alma:
The other Boyle's Law thing that happens at high elevation we learned, HAFE. My wife and daughters have been ripping farts like I usually do, and I have been ripping them like something is actually medically wrong with me. I wish there were some way to take a picture of it. I guess you'll just have to take my word on it.
Because I can't resist, here are some pictures of the cabin we are staying in (airBNB). It was built in 1973 by one man, the original owner, from logs he felled on the property. It is off the grid, as legit as it gets. The current owners have installed solar power and a backup generator. It had no electricity from 1977 to 2011. I can't believe how well insulated it is just from logs.
This is the face you make after trudging 50ft through waist-deep snow:
Check out how the snow melted in a weird pattern and ended up looking like wind-blown hair:
I like this picture because of the contrast of colors:
A cool icicle:
I've been through Alma! I'll be there again this summer on our way from Salida to Breckenridge. We camp (near Salida) at 11,500 feet so I know exactly what that thin air is like. It's hard for a flatlander to even sleep, let alone hike and climb. The smell in the tent doesn't help.
PSA: don't drive on the highway in 4WD if your tires have uneven wear. I knew this, in the back of my mind somewhere, but since I only ever use 4WD to get through muddy spots off road, the knowledge was buried deep. I had an alignment problem that caused accelerated wear to all my tires, but worse in the rear. I replaced the rear tires and got an alignment before leaving TX.
We got some snow in the mountains, enough that some people were using chains, but I did just fine driving slow and in 4WD. When we got where we were going (about 50mi), it smelled like the Yukon was burning crude oil. I've destroyed my transfer case and front differential. Currently driving a dealer loaner, an obnoxious blue Transit van while someone else fixes my blunder.
We got some snow in the mountains, enough that some people were using chains, but I did just fine driving slow and in 4WD. When we got where we were going (about 50mi), it smelled like the Yukon was burning crude oil. I've destroyed my transfer case and front differential. Currently driving a dealer loaner, an obnoxious blue Transit van while someone else fixes my blunder.
Those pictures are surprisingly good! My family's pictures from that time period look about 100 years older than yours. What's the secret? Proper storage? Quality of the film? Quality of the camera? Something else?
The originals were slides. A few years ago I got myself a Nikon film strip scanner and an adapter for slides. It does an amazing job, including using an infrared scan to figure out how to see past any surface dirt, scratches or mold.
This is a good opportunity to ask something I've always wondered. Did "old looking" pictures look old when they were new? If those slides had been printed photographs would they look as good?
No way. Both photos and negatives degrade. In my experience the prints go off faster than the film. Colors fade and desaturate. My slides project was a challenge because, while some slides seemed good as new, others had degraded and not all in the same ways. But at least working with the original film eliminates a generation. And slides inherently had more gamut to work with.
That pic could've easily been mistaken with many other locations down here, in 'ol México
