David's Mumblings
Road Trip: Days 7, 8, 9, 10 The next two days -- the 23rd and 24th -- were devoted to Yellowstone Park. I think it's probably my second favorite park, just below Glacier. We drove from Idaho Falls to the park, spent the night at Cody, Wyoming, and then made a second pass through the park to spend the night in Billings, Montana. Finally, the 25th was spent driving from Billings, Montana all the way to Fargo, North Dakota -- a 600-mile drive. (Ugh.) Read More → ^ TOP Road Trip: Day 6Last night I realized that I've been making a mistake with my camera. I've been taking panoramic shots: I pan the camera and take several pictures, with the intention of stitching them together later. The problem is that I was only half-releasing the button after every shot to prevent it from refocusing: all of the shots need to be focused the same way or they don't come out right. However, the camera also uses that half-press to do things like white-balance detection. So, a good number of panoramic shots start with one kind of color, and apply that color balance to all shots, resulting in rather poor later shots. Oh well. I guess I should just use manual focus, and let it do its color balancing like it wants do. Today we do nothing but drive straight to Idaho Falls. We wanted to stay closer to Yellowstone, but motels in Jackson went for about $160. Idaho Falls was about $60, so that was pretty easy... ^ TOP Road Trip: Day 4, 5The next morning (yesterday) we headed out toward Page, Arizona. Along the way we drove over the Hoover Dam but didn't really get to see it since there was lots of construction and we could only see it from the back, not the front -- oh well. Next up was the Grand Canyon, which was simply amazing. I took a lot of pictures to stitch together into large panoramic shots and hopefully at least some came out ok. Around 8pm we arrived in Page and had an adventure with the hotel; the door to our room wouldn't open! It would open about an inch and then jam. Apparently the security lock had gotten it or something. They called maintenance to fix it while we had dinner at an "ok" steakhouse. (It was way too expensive for what we got). Today we leave Page and head toward Richfield, Utah. Along the way we'll be seeing Bryce and Zion parks. We were going to drive through Monument Valley but it's very out of the way so we decided to pass on it. From Richfield we should be heading to Yellowstone (nothing but driving on that day). ^ TOP Road Trip: Day 3Death Valley is searingly hot, yet very dry. I was surprised that while I was pretty hot, it wasn't as unbearable as humid-hot (i.e. I could walk around without feeling too bad). Seeing the lowest point of the US was interesting: Badwater Basin is a *huge* salt flat; apparently Death Valley water drains into it and then bakes in the sun, leaving behind various minerals e.g. salt. We got nice pictures of the valley, too. After all that we arrived in Las Vegas. I'm not really sure how much I like it (read: I think I don't like it). We couldn't walk anywhere without being assaulted by people trying to give us ads for, err, "girlie" services. The air was polluted and smoke was everywhere; it was crowded, it smelled bad, and lots of people were wandering around drunk. And as far as we could tell, many restaurants had closed by 10:30 which was very disappointing for us. We ended up eating at Wollensky's Grill, and then we saw Kung Fu Panda. Today we're going to try to get tickets for a show. Tomorrow, we head out for the Grand Canyon and so forth. ^ TOP Road Trip: Day 2Today we leave Bishop and head through Death Valley and end up in Las Vegas for two nights. Tomorrow we'll visit Las Vegas, and the day after we'll probably head to the Grand Canyon area. ^ TOP Road Trip: Day 1My laptop battery is shot: it's been on for only about 10 minutes, and is already at 25%. And my wireless is busted, too: when I have it on, the computer freezes during hibernation... ^ TOP Moving Out |
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