03.31.11
Posted in photo at 11:45 pm by heidihoho7
So after much discussion and debate, Barb and I decided to hit the good state of California for our first attempt at Poppy photography. Barb flew out early to spend time with her son and his family and i joined up with her wednesday night. My flight wasn’t overly exciting despite the fact that the 2 Midwestern gals in the opposite row were partying it up and actually had to be cut off, BUT the sunset that night was absolutely amazing. A good omen for our photo trip…. so after a very long wait to get my rental car, i was finally on my way towards Pasadena to hook up with barb for a quick night of sleep before we headed north.
Our plan for the first full day was to meet up with a local photographer, Brent R. Paull of American West Photography, who we’d convinced to give us a private tour of the area. After a quick meet and greet in Gorman, we were on our way. Since we were a little early and the weather has been a bit crazy the flowers weren’t peaking quite yet and the flowers aren’t always where Brent thought they would be. So no beautiful Gorman hills of pastel color, but maybe another year!
We continued on towards Lancaster and the Antelope Valley hills where we got our first glimpse of color… off in the distance we saw large patches of bright orange. Just beautiful and gave us hope that we’d find good patches of color ourselves to photograph. Shortly after that we started seeing poppies alongside the road and then more and more patches as we drove.
After this taunting and excited peek at why we came all this way, we turned onto a dirt road and started driving a bit off the beaten path and made our first stop. Here Barb and I finally got to get back into what we call photo mode and boy were we in heaven. Poppies and goldfields filled our viewfinders and we played around with macro and ultra wide lenses… attempting to make images that live up to our own expectations ( we do expect to make coffee table books you know, haha).
After some time exploring this first area, we decided to move on… we stopped just a minute later for another lovely collection of poppies in the sage, but this time i found some yellow poppies!
And yet again just a few minutes beyond that location we found a field of poppies with what we think are cream cups that we just fell in love with – the purple, whites and oranges… we shot for some time but decided to feed our rumbling bellies and continue on with our tour.
After a yummy lunch we headed north to find some california oaks and possibly some baby blue eyes… the road past Caliente was quite steep and windy, but super fun to drive while we scoped out our options. We made a few stops to check out the valleys, oaks, and a decent patch of the blue eyes surrounded with popcorn flowers. We found some lupine and had to do a few grab shots along the way as well, Brent was quickly learning our lingo 
Our first bit of true excitement of our trip came when we crossed the railroad tracks, right as the lights were going and the arms were coming down… i started to pause but then gunned it thinking we had plenty of time. We were fine, but did notice that the train was in sight and was a bit scary. Won’t do that again!
PARA HERE – NOTE i wrote more but the blog isn’t liking it- so i’ll update later w/ the full paragraph!.
Our final leg of our tour took us on our way to Arvin, while the fields there have too many tall weeds due to all the rain we didn’t leave completely empty handed… we saw a bobcat!
While not all areas were postcard perfect, this was exactly what we’d hoped for – a great tour of the area with some insight to areas we might further explore in our next few days in the area…
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09.28.10
Posted in photo, travel, vacation at 11:48 am by heidihoho7
Avalanche Ranch
So our last morning we slept in yet again, but then again that would be the case for getting up anytime after 6am! Kay had enjoyed the ranch the day before and suggested we do the same. Although I didn’t explore very far it was a very cute place with lots of fun animals and adorable cabins. We wandered for a while looking at the animals and buildings before deciding we had a long drive ahead of us with a few pit stops to make. We eventually packed up, said our goodbyes to Barb and Chuck, and got back on the road.
Ashcroft Ghost Town
Our first stop was Ashcroft – a little ghost town in the Castle Creek Valley just south of Aspen. It has some interesting history… in 1880 the town started booming due to mining and had up to 2500 residents, but within 20 years it was down to 2! The info boards also stated that many of the homes had been wheeled in, and in turn wheeled back out – most to Aspen further down the valley.
A reflection in the saloon windows.
You can tell i liked this house with the yellow curtains- they matched the yellow aspens!
Just 4 days earlier that mountainside was all yellow, what a difference a few days can make!
On the road back to Aspen we stopped again to enjoy the beautiful fall color.
After hitting aspen for a quick lunch and tripod return, we were headed up to Independance Pass. After our week of beautiful mountain passes I thought it was pretty, but in a different way… many more evergreens and above tree line for much of it – in addition to the crazy skinny roads that you had to share. It was a fun ride, but i think i’d take Keblar any day! After a few hours we were back in Frisco.
My final images of the trip – more aspens! This pretty tree called to me while i was filling some time waiting for my shuttle. We stopped at a cute little park where some teens were slack lining (fitting i thought!) and just enjoyed the views for a minute before i headed back to Denver.
A wonderful trip, and a highly recommended location for anyone who loves fall color, aspens, or just getting into the mountains and being awed around just about every bend in the road!
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09.24.10
Posted in photo, travel, vacation at 10:34 pm by heidihoho7
The Photo Gals Reunite
So after two long years my photo gals and i have finally been able to plan a photo trip. After a big of deliberation we decided that a Fall Colors trip to Aspen and the Redstone area would suit us perfectly. I’d gotten a taste of CO fall color last year in SW CO and Kay had helped out at a Cystic Fibrosis Fly Fisherman event similarly around the same time last year. I noticed that the timing would be right around peak fall color for the Aspen and other colorado areas so we jumped on it and decided to help out this year as well and then wander a bit to enjoy the aspens and vistas.
Barb and Chuck started their trip a day before as they were driving out to begin a long road trip of their own (continuing on to Vegas, Sand Diego, LA and then back to IL).
My trip began with a flight into Denver, followed by a shuttle into Dillon where Kay would pick me up. Everything worked out pretty well and after landing at about 5:30 and catching a 6:30 shuttle I got to watch the sun set beyond the mountains west of Denver. The shuttle in went pretty quickly as i was enjoying the views until it got too dark, smiling almost the whole way.
Kay and the whole fam pulled into the parking lot literally seconds after I got dropped off (where kay almost snagged a box of wine from another passenger thinking it was mine) and we headed up to Lake Dillon where they live. On the way, we see a cute little fox running along the road with a vole or mouse in it's mouth... i got a bit excited! They were like oh it's just a fox.. apparently they get them in their backyard and it seems everyone in colorado has the same response.. "oh it's just a fox". But it didn't matter - i was still excited as it boded well for the rest of the trip
Friday morning we took off towards Frisco to start working our way towards Aspen. I required a few “grabshots” where i yell, STOP! and Kay is like what do you see? “oh more aspens” haha. We made a few stops near the house but then got on I-70 and booked it until Glenwood Springs.
We stopped in Carbondale and Basalt to scout our locations for our fishing day. We watched Tim of Taylor Creek Fly Fishing feed the fish and enjoyed taking a few pics. AFter a quick lunch we finally arrived in Aspen. (A fish and a flyfisherman practicing)
Barb and Chuck were waiting for us and we soon were back in the minivan for a exploration afternoon – many of our top spots are morning locations so we decided to see what Snowmass Creek and Capitol Creek had to offer.
As it turns out, not a lot of what we wanted – awesome hay bales and grand vistas… but we did find another cute fox (”oh it’s just a fox”) who posed for us by the road and eventually decided to take a nap right there. We found the back route into Snowmass Village (a not quite 4WD road but interesting none the less) but many of the aspens were past peak or not even close so not a lot of ops there.
We make a sweep back up to Capitol Creek Rd and found a few aspens but mostly some cute cows and a possibly picturesque barn but not quite enough to tempt us to camp out for a long time.
We ended up giving up for the day and coming back to Aspen for some yummy food at Little Annie’s (great trout!). So far i’ve only taken 400 pictures (i know gasp) and we haven’t even hit what we deem our best locations yet
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