Katch-up

Far too long since posting. So what’s new in the land de Tom?

Well, my sister Tiffany has moved back from Virginia with the family. We are all pretty excited to have them close by, and we had the opportunity to go see them for my niece Chloe’s 10th birthday. The day started out at the zoo, checking out all the animals:

 

I shot photos of animals. On both sides of the glass:

 

Then it was time for the party. Pizza, cake, and presents – everything a girl could hope for.

 

It was a great time, and I’m super glad to have them.

 

The next big thing was going to the Grand Canyon over spring break. Courtney, myself, my sis Nikki, her beau Michael, and our friend Tony headed down to Phantom Ranch for a few days of vacation. As always, it was amazing. We hiked to Ribbon Falls, which was a real treat, as well as up the Clear Creek Overlook.

 

Pics:

  

 

 

Other than all that, it is spring time in Prescott. I’m still waiting tables, I’m now the trainer for any new servers we get, and I’m training to be a bartender. Lots of time out in the woods with the hound, lots of quiet hours at home with Courtney. Life is, as usual, pretty amazing and awesome.

And then… everything changes. (And oh, I found some photo-mojo!)

My co-workers throw me a going away party. I don’t remember much of it, so I’m sure we had a great time. Everybody having a headache the next day confirms this fact. Our boss lets us go home early, and so I give quick good-byes to all the folks I’ve come to know and admire over the last five months.

 

I go home and I pack all my stuff into the 4Runner, there isn’t much more than when I was on the road. I’m done half an hour later. Sister and I go out for our last dinner together, and after a nice breakfast and coffee the next morning I’m driving a familiar track to Prescott. As soon as I arrive I dump all my stuff in the living room, and immediately begin re-packing for a four day vacation in the north of the state. When I’m done, before I can even realize that I no longer live in Jerome, we throw everything into Courtney’s car and hit the road.

 

We quickly head to Lake Powell, to a camping area called Lone Rock, and setup camp with friends from Prescott and from Massachusetts. We are all headed different directions tomorrow, but tonight we congregate on the sandy shore of the lake:

 

 

The near-full moon provides a nice light by which to admire lone rock:

 

After cooking breakfast and packing it all in, we all get a late start out of the area. Our friends from Prescott are off for a few days of kayaking around the lake, while the friends from Mass decide to join Courtney and I on our next stop – slot canyons. Along the way we stop to check out the ‘Toadstool’ hoodoo formations along the southern section of Escalante:

 

And from there it was just a hop, skip and a jump over to the Wire Pass/Buckskin Gulch slot canyons. It was my first time into a slot canyon and I was super excited to try photographing it. We had a blast:

 

Once we got to Buckskin we trekked upstream along a muddy track that was thankfully created by people earlier that day. It was slick and a fall into the mud was always close at hand, thankfully nobody fell in.

Once the trail came to a watery end we turned around and headed back to the car, me snapping pictures all the way:

 

Once we were out, we parted ways with our Mass friends, as they headed up to Salt Lake City and we headed to a nearby campground for the night where, unfortunately, the restroom vents were blowing our way and made for a bit of a stinky night.

 

The next day, we didn’t know where to go. I wanted to go up into the Escalante monument, but road reports were grim. A big storm had closed one major road, and they didn’t know about the other. In Courtney’s little Toyota corolla we didn’t want to risk it. So we drove out to nearby Kanab, Utah, and grabbed some coffee at the local coffee shop / outdoor outfitter. We asked the great folks there for recommendations, and were pointed in the direction of Kanab Creek Wilderness. We looked up the area in a resource book and decided on the Snake Gulch trail, reported to have lots of petro glyphs and pictograms. Off we went, through the beautiful Kaibab Plateau, and down the cockscomb to the trailhead. The trail was level, and made for a gorgeous afternoon hike:

 

And soon we found little spur trails leading to rock walls. On these walls were some pretty awesome things:

 

 

We hiked about five miles in before the threat of darkness turned us around and we headed back to the car. By the time we got to the trailhead it was sunset, and since we were all alone, we opted to camp right there. Not a bad spot at all, and best of all – no stinky bathroom!

The moon was bright, and I tried shooting a few photos, but it quickly got cold and so we retreated to the sleeping bags.

 

The next morning we decide to call it the end of our trip, and turn southward once more. We stop in the Navajo reservation to snap a few pictures of a graffiti artist’s work:

 

And Courtney plays model for me:

 

From there we stopped into Flagstaff to have dinner with another friend, before finally heading home.  My new home, with the gal I love. Time to move into the next chapter of my life.

 

For all the photos from the trip, check out this link.

Prescott slackliner

There is a growing theory in my life. This theory states that if you spend enough time at a park, you will invariably run into awesomeness. Sure enough, as I was sitting around eating lunch at Granite Creek Park in Prescott a few weeks ago, I see a guy setting up a slackline. And so I did the only sensible thing I could think of… I asked if I could take pictures of him.

 

His name is Brenden. He is a gymnast who happened to run into some slackliners a few years ago, and he took to it like a fish to water.

 

But he doesn’t just walk on the line like a lot of folks. He does crazy acrobatic jumps, flips, and dives:

 

He also knows the slackliners I met in Austin, which I thought was pretty neat. And so he did tricks as I shutterbugged away:

 

Until we both had to leave.

The joys of parks.

A night of shooting with Mike

A friend from Phoenix flew into Austin. He’s going to be moving here in a few weeks to train as a chef, but tonight there was no cooking. Tonight was for shooting photos around Austin, colorful colorful Austin.

 

We started with dinner at an Irish pub, where we grilled the waitress for location tips. She said to check out the long convention center. So after a few biers and some food we mosied over, cleared ourselves with the security guard at the parking garage, and drove to the top level. Out come the tripods, letting the lights of the city soak in to get this:

 

After putzing around at the garage for twenty minutes we scope out a park, but the angle is wrong, so we drive up the river to try to capture the reflections of the skyline, sans construction crane:

 

A few steps downstream was a statue. Mike said it was Stevie Ray Vauhn, who apparently is from Austin. I didn’t have a clue, to me it was just some dude with a guitar:

 

And another random shot taken while Mike was lighting up Stevie for his shots:

 

From there we drove up to the capitol building, which was lit up like it was the Macy’s parade. So bright, in fact, that I didn’t like most of the pictures I ended up getting from there. This is the only one of the building that I kept:

 

However, there were some bronze statues around the building which I could let the light soak in on. Much more my cup f tea:

 

By the time we finished up it was 12:30am, and it was time to get Mike back to the airport so he could catch some Zzzs before his six AM flight out. Overall it was a blast to go shooting with Mike, a totally different feel than other photowalks, and I certainly look forward to seeing what he came up with.

 

Mike as he departed my company:

 

Good times and I look forward to seeing Mike again once he moves here.

Photowalkin’

I get a tax refund check. I immediately go out and spend a large chunk of it on a new camera lens. It is a silly purchase, I could live for a month on what it costs. But my other lens has a busted mount, and I’m tired of having to work around it. And honestly, it is kind of nice to splurge for myself. I’m sure I’ll regret it when funds get low again.

 

But for now, I enjoy my new toy:

 

I meet up with a large group of other photographers north of Austin to shoot photos at the Bagdad Cemetery:

 

 

 

 

I meet up with a couple of gals who have been in Austin for a few months to walk around the South 1st street area. We have fun seeing all the little quirky things:

 

My accomplices on this walk:

 

Tonight will be more photography around town with a friend from AZ who’s flying in for a few hours. Thursday I’ll be posing for a local photographer.

 

Other than photography – the days have been warm and mostly sunny, good for getting a little color to my skin. I’ve managed to get a sinus infection (my guess? dog hair up the old shnoz), which is making me more irritable than usual.

 

And for right now – it’s off to the dog park yet again (we go three or four times a day) to let the boy run around and sniff butts while I read. Hope all is well in everybody else’s neck of the woods.