Random ADVENTURE Photos!

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Five from the Borderlands of West Texas:

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Milky Way Over Yuccas, Borderlands Texas
- One of my favorite night sky images from my most recent Chihuahuan Desert adventure, this is one where I figured out and manipulated my lighting like few others.

I'd been concentrating on using my adventure rig of van and trailer, or just trailer set up as basecamp, for my foreground subject, camping alone way out in the desert.

This night, though, I was up on a two lane highway near a turnoff to the north and, after a bunch of attempts in the wee hours, figured out the right combination and timing of catching the last five secs of headlight from semi-trailers on the Yucca as they roared up 'round the curve behind me. I'd leave my shutter open for another fifteen to catch the brightness of the Milky Way. These Yuccas are nine-ten feet tall.

I'm proud of this one, and the next one below, as examples of what you can do with patience and perseverance and a willingness to mess with your sleep schedule big-time. Both have garnered questions from other night shooters as to how many images did I stack, and what star-tracker do I use. Fact is, both are single frame images with no tracking.

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Galactic Core, Milky Way, Over Marathon
- After staying along the Rio Grande with Mexico as my backdrop for a couple months, I escaped up to Marathon and higher altitudes (around 4,000 feet) for some cooler nights. Even in early April I was recording temps over 100 in the lowlands (around 1,800 feet) along the river where I was camping. This is over an RV park up on the highway near where I was camped, way back in the corner against a fence to open ranch land and high desert wilderness.

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Dawn, Chisos Mountains
- I'd been up all night alone in the Chihuahuan Desert, trying this place and that and avoiding other photographer's favorite spots for shooting the Milky Way. As Earth started turning towards the Sun and dawn crept over the horizon, I grabbed a couple shots. I like the lone Yucca stalk balanced by the planet over the left end of the Chisos.

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Looking For Bats
- My headlamp would draw flying insects most nights, then bats would come in after the insects and dart and flitter all around me. So I set up my timer and went out to try and get some on camera, but saw I need to have a laser trigger and perhaps remote flash units to do it right. Of course, now I'm looking into just that.

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Moonset Over Santana Mesa
- Knowing the moon was setting soon, I was concentrating on getting ready for Milky Way shooting when the sky would be darker, so was turned more to the south/southeast. When I turned back to the west to grab some gear, and saw the moon setting right over the left peak, I grabbed a couple shots quick. Tried the next night to get more, and went back to the same spot a month later too, but it just wasn't as spontaneous or rewarding.

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Five from the Borderlands of West Texas:

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Milky Way Over Yuccas, Borderlands Texas
- One of my favorite night sky images from my most recent adventure, this is one where I figured out and manipulated my lighting like few others.

I'd been concentrating on using my adventure rig of van and trailer, or just trailer set up as basecamp, for my foreground subject, camping alone way out in the Chihuahuan Desert.

This night, though, I was up on a two lane highway near a turnoff to the north and, after a bunch of attempts in the wee hours, figured out the right combination and timing of catching the last five secs of headlight from semi-trailers on the Yucca as they roared up 'round the curve behind me. I'd leave my shutter open for another fifteen to catch the brightness of the Milky Way. These Yuccas are nine-ten feet tall.

I'm proud of this one, and the next one below, as examples of what you can do with patience and perseverance, and a willingness to mess with your sleep schedule bit-time. Both have garnered questions from other night shooters as to how many images did I stack, and what star-tracker do I use. Fact is, both are single frame images with no tracking.

View attachment 46389
Galactic Core, Milky Way, Over Marathon
- After staying along the Rio Grande with Mexico as my backdrop for a couple months, I escaped up to Marathon and higher altitudes (around 4,000 feet) for some cooler nights. Even in early April I was recording temps over 100 in the lowlands (around 1,800 feet) along the river where I was camping.

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Dawn, Chisos Mountains
- I'd been up all night alone in the Chihuahuan Desert, trying this place and that and avoiding other photographer's favorite spots for shooting the Milky Way. As the earth started turning towards the sun and dawn crept over the horizon, I grabbed a couple shots. I like the lone Yucca stalk balanced by the planet over the left end of the Chisos.

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Looking For Bats
- My headlamp would draw flying insects most nights. Then bats would come in after the insects and dart and flitter all around me. So I set up my timer and went out to try and get some on camera, but saw I need to have a laser trigger and perhaps remote flash units to do it right. Of course, now I'm looking into just that.

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Moonset Over Santana Mesa

- Knowing the moon was setting soon, I was concentrating on getting ready for Milky Way shooting when the sky would be darker, so was turned more to the south/southeast. When I turned back to the west to grab some gear, and saw the moon setting right on the left peak, I grabbed a couple shots quick. Tried the next night to get more, and went back to the same spot a month later too, but it just wasn't as spontaneous or rewarding.


beautiful shots
 
I miss night camping with spectacular sky view like that.

It's a spectacular night sky, that's for sure. Darkest in the lower 48, and hard to leave if you don't have to. I stayed in the same hundred miles for seventeen weeks the beginning of last year shooting the night sky, animal tracks, and the record desert bloom.

I suspect I'll be in the area almost as long this year, leading night sky photography workshops and doing some mural work, though will run up into southern New Mexico and Gila, Organ Mtns, White Sands area too.

Camping under skies like this night after night, that you just can't see from other places, you can't help but learn more than you ever thought possible about planets and constellations and how our galaxy works. Really puts things in perspective.

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Along the Border, Chihuahuan Desert
 
On the rare occasions I get to just sit and look up at a sky like that, I find myself in awe of not just the view and vast space, stars, planets, and galaxies that it reveals, but also the fact that it's out there every night, and that I am a prize winning idiot for not spending more nights looking up at it.
 
Haven't visited y'all in a while, but I missed photos like those found in this thread... and Road, your night sky photos are EXCELLENT!!! That is some good work, while the other guys are no slouches either, lol.

Sean Slavin, you may recall my shots of Los Coronados... dunno if I ever posted my Salton Expedition pics at this site or the other, OAUSA.NET. In Salton Expedition II, I went back and sailed the length of the lake aboard a 12' Minifish, since my Laser was long gone.

Quite the adventure, with winds gusting over 20 knots at the outset of my voyage. I wanted to complete that voyage before bailing outta the Socialist Republik of KaliMexifornia, and I did, so no worries.

I don't miss that overcrowded seaside ghetto known as Coronado, the town of my birth... life in Arizona offers so much more personal freedom, and I value that freedom very highly.

Sean Slavin, I read in one of your earlier posts that you went through a rough patch... lemme tell ya how my life went after I left California. I bought a home in the tall pines of Show Low for $53K and fixed it up really nice... lived "The Life of Riley" for two years there, having some great adventures.

Dirt biking on Rim Road 300, sailing the Fish on Show Low Lake, meeting cool people and generally enjoying small town life. Never found steady year-round work though, despite applying everywhere with my Arizona CDL-A. The fake felony charge out of CA had a lot to do with that, I reckon.

So I flipped my beautiful forest home, made money on the deal and went roaring off to the PNW, or Pacific Northwest for those unfamiliar with the term. Strong economy there, plenty of work to be found, received multiple job offers but I never found a suitable fixer home on the coast within my price range.

Glamping in a forest of 300' Sitka Spruce trees in Bruceport on Willapa Bay was AWESOME, I spent about six weeks there before taking a cheap rental flat in South Bend for three months as I continued my search for a fixer home. Rains set in and I grew tired of the climate, so guess what?

I loaded all my stuff aboard yet another rental truck and headed BACK to Arizona, determined to find another fixer in an area which offered more work opportunities. Loaded & unloaded FOUR rental trucks during this whole process, juggling two cats and dealing with the 8' pool table, lol.

Stopped in Kingman for eight days (unloading the truck and storing my stuff again) and checked out fixer homes, but wasn't impressed... too many tweekin' crackerheads, and the place was too close to Vegas & L.A., so I decided to look at listings elsewhere in Arizona while sitting in my motel room.

Found this former tweeker palace in Benson, a real train wreck of a fixer, but high on a hill with a million-dollar view of the Dragoon Mountains and Cochise Stronghold (West Side). A 24' x 60' double-wide on roughly 1/4 acre, on a terraced hill so the lot feels much larger and I have the killer views.

Place only cost $36K, lol, but I've dumped another $10K or so and heaps of elbow grease into it, so it's worth twice as much already. I have an actual wet bar in my home, a huge Pool Room for my table on the north end (with excellent views), and all my stuff from Show Low, including the big screen TVs.

But AGAIN, I ran low on money and switched my focus to finding gainful employment, but the fake felony still held me back, which was frustrating. I actually had folks who WANTED to hire me to haul chemicals to the nearby mines, but couldn't because I can't obtain a 'fingerprint clearance card.'

Remember, I hail from a military family with a long & honorable record of service to this country: CDRs, USN Submarine Service, an Air Force Colonel in the Pentagon, multiple Army personnel, et al, all lifers while I merely served a hitch in the USA INF, go figure.

And I had NO CRIMINAL RECORD for 50 years on this planet before dealing with the corrupt scumbags in Coronado & Dago... yet AGAIN, their phony charges were interfering with my life. I resigned myself to flipping this second home and trying my luck elsewhere. I even listed it and had an offer, but...

At the 11th hour, a job offer came through with the city... local gubmint, how ironic, lol. I had been using free library Wi-Fi to apply at a hundred different places, I think this job listing was on that Indeed site, but no matter, it was an offer.

So I went to the interview and was totally up front about the fake charges... no problem, they didn't care one bit, since they already knew about the rampant corruption in California, lol. A few short hours after my interview, I received the call saying I had the job. Perseverance paid off, lol.

Now, I've made twice as much with certain trucking outfits, but with this job it's all about the BENEFITS: heaps of paid holidays, paid sick days (which I will surely use once I've earned 'em, might as well call 'em "paid dirt biking days" or "paid climbing days"), two weeks of paid vacay per year, etc.

So, after three-plus years filled with adventure but also uncertainty, I find myself in Cochise County, AZ, I own my home free & clear along with all my other possessions, I have a sweet job wrenching on golf carts & mowers & whatnot, and a kick@$$ retirement program is only eight short years away.

I can rip out to the coast to go sailing on paid vacay, or up to the White Mountains if I feel so inclined... Arizona has been good to me, so I have good memories in multiple locations. I DID bash my knee while going insanely fast on a dirt bike on Rim Road 300 while half-lit, but that's another story, lol.

I'm about to purchase a big ol' thumper (also street legal, what we used to call an "enduro" but folks now call a "dual sport bike") to ride out to the Stronghold so I can climb some long moderate routes with heller views clear past Tombstone & Sierra Vista into Old Mexico.

Life is good, the economy is strong but that doesn't matter so much on this gubmint job... it's kind of ironic that I should wind up driving golf carts instead of 40-ton big rigs, given my trucking experience, but the setting is tranquil, the scenery magnificent, my coworkers and bosses super cool, etc.

I still have my completed book on file, during this whole process it was rejected several times because it's not PC enough, and I'm not willing to modify my work to suit some libtard scumbag who kowtows to globalist trash, lol. So I've been shotgunning chapters across the Interwebs to live forever, aye?

Forgive the cheesy two-line format of this message, I couldn't be bothered to break so many details into normal paragraphs... but after reading that one post about your life being derailed, I wanted to share my journey with you, lol. Just to put things into perspective, so to speak.

Cheers, hand!!! If I can successfully pull myself up out of that mess created by corrupt goombah tards in California, I know YOU can do it, lol. It's only a matter of time, 10-4? Hopefully you are already back on track, I recall you worked as a surf photog for awhile... my friends owned a shop for decades.

I'll probably visit 'em soon enough, take 'em sailing aboard a rental boat, 27' to 30' LOA, that's large enough to have a good time and be comfortable with a small group of friends aboard. Maybe patrol the beach in Coronado for old times' sake... probably can't do the islands the way I did before, not in this era.

Alright, enough catching up for now, I'll post a few pics of my new pad (new to me, I mean), just so y'all can see how I'm living after that long ordeal, lol. Not the relocations, the ordeal of being falsely charged three times in Dago, pfffffffft. A ten-year saga, but they can all kiss my @$$ now, AYE??? LOL.

As soon as I post a few pics, I'm gonna go watch some entertainment on my 65" curved screen, I have a sweet home theater set up with soundbar & subwoofer, and an $1100 leather reclining sofa opposite the TV, lol. It doesn't suck, and neither does the slightly smaller flatscreen in the Pool Room.

ALRIGHT, HERE WE GO WITH SOME PICS:

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And that's just a random sampling from thousands of photos, lol... some probably aren't quite as clear as yours, but that's okay, they still get the point across, yeah? I keep the 8' pool table covered with a blanket & carpet remnant when it's not in use, otherwise the house tigers (and one house panther) will tear up my expensive felt, lol. Hey, that table with all accessories cost four grand, twice as much as my '02 Camry, because a man has to have his priorities straight. Ain't a cr@ppy bar table in town that can touch it, and I don't need a fancy car to impress wimmin, they can love me for my sweet disposition, BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Damn, sometimes I slay myself... okay, that'll do for now, got some killer Tombstone shots for y'all, provided I don't get banned first, lol. I'm off to watch some action on the 65" curved screen... Super Bowl manana, WAHOO!!! Ya know how much of a truck driver I still am? I'll keep a gallon p!$$ jug by the sofa as I pound beers, that way I won't miss any ridiculously-expensive halftime commercials, lol. CHEERS!!! :cool:
 
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Time to post some shots of Tombstone, especially for those who've never visited this historic town in the high desert of southeastern Arizona... y'all have probably seen the movie with Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday, and there's plenty of Western shtick & tourist bull$h!t to be found in this burg, but there's also bad@$$ Western lore & history, no doubt about it. Roaring saloons, nearby mining operations, stagecoach lines bringing passengers from the railroad 25 miles to the north, freight outfits hauling supplies, Cochise & his Chiricahua Apaches within striking distance at the Stronghold in the Dragoon Mountains, Union troops at several forts in the area, gunfights including the shootout at the O.K. Corral, early press coverage by the Tombstone Epitaph, settlers trying their luck at farming or ranching, the whole nine yards. It's quite a large slice of Western History, to be honest with you, and I love the fact that all of these places are easily accessible from my current home, mere minutes away with no traffic to consider, lol. :cowboy

Except this: :train



But I digress, let me get back on topic... Big-Nose Kate's Saloon is my favorite in Tombstone, and you'll see why in a moment, but the other saloons and establishments are equally historic. For instance, when I decided to have a cold beer in the Crystal Palace Saloon (now more of a restaurant, though the bar is pretty cool), the bartender told me all about the 19 bullet holes in the original ceiling... LOL. Gunfights? Rowdy drunken customers merely celebrating by discharging firearms in a negligent manner? Who knows? And who cares? It's still my kind of place, but Big-Nose Kate's is more like the "Hall of History" with its Western edifice cred, killer stained glass, awesome and variegated decor, signed pictures & posters, etc. Truth be told, I really enjoy cutting the trail dust by having a cold beer or two in Big-Nose Kate's, I've already met ranchers, cowboys, gunsmiths, pilots, bikers et al in this fine establishment, and they were all having a good time, same way I was, LOL. Meh, enough said, let's get to the photos, AYE??? :cpo



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I actually have some cool boardwalk shots to add, but I have to find them in my computer, they were filed at a later date... I will tack 'em on in awhile. These will do for those site members who've never visited Tombstone, it's a fun place to visit and cruise around, and a cold beer in Big-Nose Kate's or the Crystal Palace is good for cutting the trail dust. Enjoy the photos, I'll be back at an unspecified time and/or date to post more pics, right now I gotta take a phat p!$$ and hit up the beer shelf in my fridge, lol... CHEERS!!! :cool:

P.S. Hey, does that maroon convertible qualify as an overland rig? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! And how about the machine work on those keg urinals in Big-Nose Kate's, ain't that something? Sheeeeeeeee-it, I'd like one of those in my home, maybe right in my Pool Room, but NOT too close to the primo 8' table, LOL. Those three shots which appear directly after the Tombstone Epitaph printing press pics show the Crystal Palace, it's a cool place but Big-Nose Kate's Saloon is the bomb, a must-see for all visitors, 10-4? o_O
 
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Man, you guys are regular photographic hee-roes, Ansel Adams had NOTHIN' on ya, LOL... o_O

I'm up late drinking beer, but no worries, I don't hafta get up early to go to work tomorrow... er, I mean later this morning. :rolleyes:

CHEERS!!! :)
 
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