June 4 Yellowstone National Park

 Lauren and I woke up to birds singing, and morning light peeking into our tent. I cooked pancakes and bacon over a fire (Really a metal fire disk type thing which is super great!)
Our first destination was Old Faithful. We stopped along the way several times to see interesting sights, and take lots of pictures.  Then we eventually made it to the geyser about 10am.
We waited for it to errupt, which happened about 10:45.  Even when it was quiet, steam was billowing out.  At first just small spurts of water bubbled up, then died back down.
The spurts got larger, then it was spraying water high into the air.  What a truly stunning sight to see water gushing out, spraying high into the air, with mist and steam blowing off to the side.
Next we wanted to go around the entire loop of road, but the southern part was closed.  We still drove quite a bit around it, and saw plenty of sights.
One interesting sight was the many hot springs, and random small geysers we saw.
The hot springs are very sulferous, and smell quite awful, sort of like rotting eggs.
The hot springs are all over, steaming, and bubbling boiling water onto the surface of the ground.  The hot water quickly spreads out, running in rivulets to the nearst stream or river.
Wherever the hot water runs, mineral deposits form, and certain species of bacteria abound.  Some are red-these eat iron.
Others green-these I think are mixed with or part of algae. Some spots are a bright blue-I don't know why.  We walked the insides of a colapsed volcano, seeing the hot water bubble all over the ground.
Some of the places we drove were flat, some very steep. Long, dead, sun-bleached pine stalks lay all over the mountain sides from a fire that apparently happened in the late 80's.
New trees have grown, but they are still small.
We didn't see many types of wildlife, but did a few including many bison, a fox, some deer, and a few birds.
Bison abounded, standing sometimes, curled up in the sun napping other in other places.  Bison are large, and fascinating, but somewhat ugly creatures.
They are a deep brown, and their bottom halves appear smooth, while their tops are ragged and matted.  We also saw a fox, and some deer.
The many rivers and streams are very stunning to view.  Some of the rivers were rough waters, carved into rock, others calm, and clear, flowing through grassy slopes.
I had several chances to take photos of waterfalls, the largest of which dumped water 308 feet straight down.  This particular waterfall was in the middle of a indescribably large canyon.
I looked at it, and took some photos, but I was much to frightened to spend time climbing down steps, and hiking narrow trails on the edge to get a closer view.
It was very breathtaking to be sure, but I do not like heights at all, and this thousands of feet almost straight down into a river at the far away bottom of the canyon was quite to much for me.
Lauren was adventurous, and climbed many paths, and steps up and down to several overlooks.
I took some photos of deer while she did this. I was right next to the car, so when the rain started pouring down I did not get wet.  Lauren had quite a hike back, and got nearly drenched.
The rain stopped soon, and we headed back to our campsite for the night.
Along the way back we saw a mother bison with her young, trotting down the middle of the road, causing much traffic. We stopped to gather some firewood just before we got back.
When we actually got back to our tent, I cooked burgers, and broccoli, and ate a bunch of pickles.  We built a small fire just for fun, and then the sun was setting, and time for bed had arrived!
All this walking, hiking, seeing, and driving wore us out!  What an amazing experience!
**After I wrote this, we decided the night was much to young (and bright!) to be sleeping. We drove back to Old Faithful to watch it errupt once more at 9:25.  Seeing it at dusk was an amazing sight.  We also saw an elk for the first time, and a pair of swans**

June 3

We had quite a bit of driving today; most of it was through the southern part of Montana, though we crossed through a bit of Wyoming, and back into Wyoming at the end.  The weather was glorious, warm yet not hot, sunny with blue skies.  We drove for hours and hours on a lonely, open road seeing lots of scrub brush, miles of fencing, cows, sheep, horses, and once in awhile, a house or ranch.  We stopped at a very small post office in the middle of nowhere to mail our postcards.  We continued to enjoy driving 80 mph (as that was the speed limit quite often).  However, when you travel several hundred miles on the same road it seems to go on forever no matter what speed you go.  We saw some interesting sights along that long Montana road once in while though.  We saw quite a few gazelle, very interesting rock formations, watering holes,  huge cattle scowling at us, weathered old dwellings, and some new houses as well.  The entire day we drove up and down, but mostly up gradual inclines.  Eventually we sighted snow covered mountain peaks in the distance.  (That was an exciting moment amongst a very dull extensive amount of driving!)  We saw some rivers along our journey; the last river we saw when we reached Yellowstone.  It was a wide and beautiful river running along the road for quite a ways. Right now we are camping in the mountains, in a Yellowstone campground.  All around us are high peaks covered in pine trees. Many of the trees seem to have died for some reason.  We set up a tent, and heated fajitas for supper. Soon it will be dark, we shall sleep, and awake tomorrow ready to explore this ginormous national park.

A tiny post office literally in the middle of nowhere!

Best part of the trip so far was seeing the mountains,
high and beautiful, with snow-capped peaks.

I was convinced I needed minerals...
This water tasted delicious though!

June 2

Today we woke up very near to Mt. Rushmore. After getting ready, eating breakfast, and packing the car again, we quickly stopped for Starbucks, then drove right to the Mt. Rushmore Memorial.
This was in small mountains (I think larger than foothills, but not terrible large at all.)  It is quite exciting to drive in the mountains. I love the ups and downs, ups and downs, again and again.  We saw so many beautiful sights hard to describe.
First we saw the large rocks (such as the ones the presidents are carved into.)  Each one looked a little different.  (To me they mostly looked like sleeping rock monsters.)  Some are very large, and others very small.  Pine trees abound. Some regular trees are around also.  Mt. Rushmore was different than I expected in the fact it had a parking garage, and lot, and it was very...built.  There was a long brick walkway with many brick arches along it leading to an amitheatre.  The presidents over looked this ampitheatre and walkway.
Seeing the carvings was so amazing. They are extremely detailed, and of course, ginormous!
We took lots of photos, and also sat and looked for awhile.  The faces are at the top of a huge rock formation; directly under them is quite a bit of loose rocks and gravel with just a few trees, under that was lots of trees along a steep hillside.
After we finished seeing Mt. Rushmore we  went a little further.  We stopped and looked at different places several times.  Eventually we stopped for the night in an old mining town (or perhaps I should say a set of old mining towns, as there are several very close together.)  Mountain towns are just so different than what we are used to seeing. This one is old, has just a few streets, some high, some low, some steep.  The roads are narrow in some spots, the houses all have retaining walls to keep their yards intact.  There are lots of brick buildings, but the houses are mostly very colorful.

June 1

The sun was barely glowing orange through the curtains; everyone was asleep. 5 am and our alarms went off. Time to get up and leave!
We quickly got ready, ate breakfast, and packed the few last minute items. We were off! It was chilly and wet, but a beautiful morning. Lauren drove; I napped for a few hours. Up north through the pine forests, over the Missisippi we drove. Then west all the way through Minnesota. We stopped for gas a few times, and also in Blue Earth to see the 60 foot Green Giant. We then drove further west into South Dakota, where the speed limit is 80! That was great! Later we saw the world' s only Corn Palace in Mitchell. Culver's provided us a delicious dinner, and then we were back on the road.
Eventually the road started having slight inclines, and there were rolling hills all around us. There were cows, horses, occasional houses, a few dirt roads (we were on the interstate), and towns that were small, and few. [At this point I called and booked a hotel about 2 hours down the road.] We continuted on through the badlands til the hills were getting larger and steeper. We could see a thunderstorm in the distance, and smell the rain coming. We heard flash flood warnings on the radio, but couldn't stop. We made it to our hotel just as it started to pour!
Over 15 hours we drove more than 800 miles on I-90, saw quite a lot of interesting sights, spent a LONG time in the car, and are ready for tomorrow's adventures!

This was the most traffic we saw all day

The corn pictures were pretty neat.

Be Thou my Vision...

Procrastination method 501...make some wall art instead of doing schoolwork!
I had the idea almost two months ago. I have a small piece of paper on the wall by my bed that contains the words to the old hymn, Be Thou My Vision.  Its just a plain small white piece of paper smashed in with all my colorful photos.  I still like it there, plain or not.  But, I had an idea, why not create a beautiful photo and overlay it with the words?  I could print it large (as an engineer's print most likely) or perhaps smaller and frame it, then put it up on the blank wall across the room.  I had a print there, but tired of it, and took it down. Because looking at a bare wall is more exciting...
So to create this, I needed related photos.  Photo #1.  A photo of the ocean. Now, besides the fact we use our eyes to see the ocean...not really related to the hymn. However, photo #1 gets to be my base image because I pretty much just always want a photo of the ocean on my wall. I miss the ocean. (To bad I live smack dab in the middle of the USA with no oceans close by me.)
Photo #2 needed to be related to the song a little more.  I thought maybe looking down onto an open bible would work well.  Could. Not. Find. An. Image. So, okay no.  Plan B was something related to vision, since Christ is our Vision.  Tried an eye. Tried the lighthouse. The eye just didn't quite work...
The lighthouse scene, however, I feel fits very well.  It well relates to the first photo (I believe this is always important for double exposures.  The stories the two photos tell must relate somehow for the end result to be emotionally connect, and be one beautiful photo.) I really don't know much about double exposures...and that is probably the most un technical thing I've ever decided about photography!
Anyway, to me, these two photos seem to fit together well, and the third element, the words from the first verse of  Be Thou My Vision, also fit well enough.
So, here's my new wall art for awhile. Until I get bored of that, and take it down for a bare wall...

Does anything I do make sense?

Apple cobbler adventures

Last Thursday I went to apple picking with all of my siblings, my best friend, and two little girls my sister nannies.  It was fun! We came home with some apples, of course.  I was so sad that I couldn't take any orchard photos! (My poor camera has been sent away to be cleaned, and fixed.)
A new dream of mine is to do a photoshoot in an orchard! (Also, to pick cherries. I found out that one of the local orchards ALSO has cherry picking in July!)
Today I decided to make an apple cobbler type dish. Just to eat. Just for fun.  I made up the recipe as I went along; it turned out delicious.  I really wanted to do a food photoshoot with some apples as props.  Emily was kind enough to let me borrow her camera.
I great enjoyed setting up this shoot outside on the tabletop of my mom's grill. It gave me some beautiful lighting! I was in the shade of the house, but the late afternoon sun was shining on the greenery behind me.

Today I learned how to do a 'double exposure' with editing.  Its not a true double exposure I guess, since its not on camera..but since we don't use film, is that even a double exposure?  Who knows...
But in any case, this was great fun! I use GIMP, so I just googled how to do it on gimp, and tried it out!  Fiddled with settings till I got what I want.
The hardest part was choosing two photos that went well together.  That took me a number of tries. Do the two photos relate in any way?
Do the pieces fit without blocking important things from each other? Does the combination look to busy or hard on the eyes?  Hmmm, what is a perfect pair?!

I chose the ocean scene for a few reasons: I love the ocean and sky, the ocean and sky are close to the same color, it is a fairly 'blank' photo, and it is beautiful.  As I was looking through random photos I saw Lauren's hands on the piano, and knew that would be a good match. I turned the hands photo black and white so the colors would only be that of the ocean scene. Think of the sounds of piano combined with the rushing ocean waves.  Think of the beauty of music, and the beauty of the ocean and sky.

What would I name this photo?
I have no idea...