The Munchkin's Notebook

Two weeks ago, I participated in the DC Cosplay Photo Shoots Group meet up at Pierce Mill Park in DC.  The theme for this cosplay meet up was horror; however, the meet up was in the middle of the day on a bright sunshiny day.  Even though the sky was not conducive to getting those dark, creepy shots; however, the cosplayers were great and I made the location work for me to get the shots. For this shoot, I was using a Cannon 70D with an 18-200 mm lens, and a 430EX II speedlight mounted on a painters poll triggered with a Young Nu radio trigger.  (Thank you to my husband who acted as my voice activated light stand) I did not use an umbrella, because I wanted hard, harsh light to get that creepy horror look.  Because it was such a bright day,  was using ISO 100,  and stopped down my aperture to F10, used varied my shutter speed based on the amount of light, and had my flash in high-speed sync mode.  I did vary my flash power, but was mostly ran it a...

View of the Golden Gate Bridge from parking area (Cell Phone) Today was our last day in California, we fly home tomorrow.  We left Visalia around 7:30 AM and got to our hotel outside the San Francisco Airport around 11:00 AM, where our room was ready for us to check into.  After we checked into the hotel we drove down the road to In-N-Out Burger for lunch, then headed into San Francisco for stops at Pier 39 and the Golden Gate Bridge.   We stopped at Pier 39 first, so I could see the seals and Jim could get a view of Alcatraz.  Pier 39 has turned very touristy compared to the last time I was there, which was about 10 years ago. We thought about taking a tour of Alcatraz, however, all the National Park Tours were booked. Yes, Alcatraz is now part of the National Park System.  After seeing the seals, we went to the aquarium, where I got a 50-percent discount on admission for being a National Zoo member. Which was a good thing since the aquarium is rath...

Today we got up around 6:30AM and were on the road to Sequoia NP by 8:00 AM.  The plan was to drive through Tunnel Log, see Moro Rock, and hike in Giant Forest along the Congress Trail, then drive up Generals Highway to Kings Canyon and do some hiking there.  It was a good plan till the weather, made other plans for us.   (See Map) Jim In Front of the Colonel Young Tree (Cell Phone) The drive into Sequoia NP from the Ash Mountain/Foothills entrance was good, we made decent time to the turn off for Tunnel Log and Moro Rock.  We stopped at the Auto Log, which is a fallen tree with a cut out that cars used to park on, to give people an ideal of how massive the trees are. They no longer allow people to park or drive on the log.  We also took a short walk from the Auto Log parking area to see the Colonel Young Tree.  I really want to know why some trees get names and others don’t, what merits a name?  After our short detour to the Auto Log we contin...

We intended to go into Yosemite Valley this morning to catch the early morning light; however there was dense  cloud cover and it started raining on our way to the park.  We were not that far to the park so we decided to turn around and go back to the hotel, catch another hour or so of sleep, then check out so we could make the drive down to Sequoia National Park. Yep, I was being spontaneous, not sure if I really like deviating from the original plan, but I did it.    We checked out of the hotel around 6:30 AM from the hotel, but not until after a pair of wild turkeys strutted through the parking lot.  We noticed the turkeys because they were making loud gobble noises as they strutted, waking several people up.  We declined breakfast at the hotel and instead ate at Happy Burger for breakfast, they open at 6:00 AM. After breakfast we made the two hour drive down to Visalia,  which is about 30 minutes outside of Sequoia National Park.  We got t...

Part of Tenaya Lake, notice the snow (Cell Phone) Today we woke up a bit later than yesterday, we slept in till 6:30 AM.  We had breakfast at the hotel, which was well below the average hotel breakfast buffet and not very appetizing.  After breakfast we drove to the park, and got there around 8:30 AM, and were informed Tioga Road was open, so we made the 2 hour drive up to Tuolumne Meadows.  We made the drive quickly because we were racing weather. A storm was supposed to come in later in the afternoon, which could force them to reclose the road and we did not want to get stuck on the wrong side.  The meadow itself was not very interesting, which I should have expected at this time of year since there was still a fair bit of snow on the ground in some places heading up to the meadows, and the meadows itself was still brown.  It also didn’t help that most areas along that road are only open in the summer, and this is one of the few times this May th...

Today started at 4:30 AM so we could beat the crowds into the park and ensure we had a parking space. We passed through the gate around 6:30 AM (it is an hour drive from the hotel), and took the road into Yosemite Valley.  We stopped a few times along the road to take a few pictures of El Capitan and Bridalveil Falls in the early morning light, but our goal was the parking lot.  We arrived early enough we had our choice of spots, since the lot was empty, so got one close to the exit and main paths.   We started our walking adventure by following signs for the visitor center and Yosemite Falls.  The visitor center did not open till, 9 AM so we continued on to the falls. We brought MRE (Meals Ready to Eat) with us for breakfast, good thing because several of the restaurants didn’t open till 7:00 AM.  The walk to the falls was fairly short, and the lower viewing area had very few people at it, which was good for pictures.  From there were continued around t...

Today was a driving day.  We packed up the Jeep and were on the road by 8:00 AM, for the three hour drive to Mariposa where the hotel is located.  Along the way to Mariposa we stopped at Casa de Fruta , a roadside attraction that sells fruits, nuts, jellies, and pomegranate wine.  The also had very squawky  peacocks walking around. We picked up some pomegranate juice and wine.   We also made a quick stop in Los Banos at a McDonald's/Gas Station/Convenience store to pick up some Gatorade and use the bathroom.  We made it into Mariposa around 11:30 AM so we stopped for lunch at a little dinner then went to up to hotel to see if we could check in.   Sadly there were no rooms ready yet, so we got back into the Jeep and dove another hour to Yosemite NP.   Along the Drive (Cell Phone Camera) The road to Yosemite has several curves and downhills with 7% grades. We ran into one ‘detour’ which routed us across the river briefly due to a ...