With the storms that hit California in early January came some big waves. We went down to Dockweiler Beach to look at them. It was a beautiful day, with the air washed clean by the rain, the Sun out and the temperature comfortable. We parked at the parking lot where the Dockweiler Youth Center is located. While this isn’t the most scenic beach, we did get a good look at the waves.
Here is a nice set of waves breaking with the oil tankers serving the Chevron refinery behind them. There was a nice offshore breeze that opened up the front of the waves and blew the spray over the top.
A good looking breaker with oil tankers moored off of the Chevron refinery in El Segundo
The view up the coast was pretty too.
A look up the coast with Malibu in the distance and Santa Monica on the right
It isn’t easy to capture waves with my RX-100. I think it calls for a longer lens to do it right. Nonetheless, I think this shot does capture some of the scale of the waves that day.
A wave breaking with Santa Monica, Malibu, and the Santa Monica Mountains in the background
The outflow from the Hyperion Treatment Plant was right where we parked. The large pipe going out into the ocean created a nice peak and the waves broke nicely around it. There were a couple of surfers who were taking advantage of the peak and we saw some good rides. I didn’t get any of them surfing (I was too lazy) but I did get some video of them heading out through the breakers. You get a good feeling for the size of the waves.
Continuing my series of posts on our road trip to Washington state this summer, we now visit Washington Park in Anacortes, Washington. Washington Park is a large park on the far west side of Anacortes, past the ferry terminal. Mostly forested, it hosts a boat launch, campground, many places for picnics, and is crossed with trails. A road circles the park and that’s where we went for a walk one beautiful afternoon.
Looking down the road around Washington Park
Walking around the park is a popular pastime in Anacortes, and it is reserved for pedestrians from 6am to 10am each day. The park itself is in great condition, with lush forestation in the wooded areas.
Looking at the lush forest in the Park
We came across a deer nibbling on something by the side of the road. She didn’t seem to mind us at all.
A very tame deer nibbling on some food by the road
As you come around to the south side of the park, the forest opens up and gives you a great view across Barrows Pass and onto Rosario Strait. In this picture you can see Lopez and Decatur Islands across the strait. The Olympic Mountains can just barely be seen behind Barrows Island on the left. Click on any picture for a full-sized view.
Looking southwest across the Rosario Strait, Decatur and Lopez Islands on the far side
The view is also nice looking eastward, with a nice view of Barrows Bay with the mass of Fidalgo Island behind it. The large mountain on the right is Mount Erie, 1,273 feet (388 m) tall. You can drive to the top of Mt. Erie and enjoy some spectacular views.
Looking southeast across Burrows Bay with Mt. Erie in the distance
As you walk on from the view, you pass a the Havekost Memorial, marking the gravesite of Anacortes pioneer Tonjes Havekost, who donated land for Washington Park.
The Havekost Monument with Mt. Erie in the background
On our road trip to Anacortes last summer, day three ended in Bellevue, Washington, where we spent a couple of days visiting our older daughter and her fiancé’s family. The day we arrived we went for a walk in the Bellevue Botanical Gardens. The gardens are a beautiful getaway just east of downtown. We arrived at about 7:30pm, 40 minutes before sunset, so the Sun was low in the sky.
A lush, green garden in the sunlight
There were great contrasts between the Sun-illuminated trees and the places in shadow.
On Thursday evening, October 27th, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 with 53 Starlink satellites from Vandenburg Space Force Base. This 6:14pm PDT launch was at just the right time to provide a spectacular view from the ground. It was dark enough to see the rocket in flight and it moved into the sunlight which highlighted the plume in the dark sky.
I got out my handy Sony RX-100 Mark 5 and set it up on a tripod. After a little fumbling around, I got the connection to the smart phone working. Sony has a decent app that you can use to control the camera from a mobile device. No cable releases needed.
This first image shows the Falcon 9 toward the end of the first stage burn.
Just visible above the horizon
The second image was taken after main engine cut off (MECO), stage separation, and second stage start up. The rocket is clearly in the sunlight.
Stage 2 firing after stage separation
The third image is the most dramatic. The exhaust plume is expanding as the second stage gets farther into the vacuum of space. The two dots behind the second stage are the fairing halves and the dot behind them is the first stage. Click on the image to get a full-sized version.
Stage 2 firing with the fairing halves and the first stage behind
This wider-framed image shows the second stage speeding on with the long exhaust plume behind it. Note the crescent Moon toward the bottom of the frame.
The second stage on its way with a crescent Moon just above the horizon
As I wrote last month, we took a road trip from Los Angeles to Anacortes, Washington in July. Taking the inland, US-395 route, our first day took us to Reno, Nevada, and our second to John Day, Oregon.
John Day is a nice small town in eastern Oregon, just over halfway through the state going north on US-395. John Day and the John Day River are named for a hunter from the back woods of Virginia who was attacked by Indians near the mouth of the Mau Mau river 1812. He survived the attack and people started calling the river the “John Day River.” It is interesting to note that he spent no time near where town of John Day is today.
We arrived in late afternoon, checked into the Best Western John Day Inn, and started to think about dinner. We were lucky, the Outpost Pizza Pub & Grill was just a couple of blocks away. I had an interesting chicken dish they call Alice Chicken. It was grilled chicken topped with bacon, mushrooms, cheese, and a sauce. It was pretty good.
We were up early the next morning. After the hotel-provided breakfast, we headed east out of town on US-26. US-395 turned north in Mt. Vernon and we left it behind. Our destination for the day was Bellevue, Washington, but on our route is the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. The national monument has three fairly wide-spread units in central Oregon. Our route would take us by the Sheep Rock Unit.
We turned off of US-26 onto Oregon 19 about five miles east of Dayville. We had a nice 20 minute stop while the highway repair crews ferried us through a very long stretch of one-lane road as they were repaving. Oregon 19 follows the John Day River through a very pretty canyon. After a few miles we came to the Thomas Condon Paleontology Center, one of the major facilities in the national monument.
The Thomas Condon Paleontology Center — sadly it is closed on Mondays
Unfortunately for us, the center is closed on Mondays. We continued our drive north and stopped at the Foree Picnic Area. There are two short and easy trails here, the Flood of Fire trail and the Story in Stone trail. These trails, both less than a half mile (one kilometer) round trip, take you up the hillside into some interesting rock formations. There is a nice parking lot and information about the formations and trails at the trailhead.
The entrance to the Story in Stone trail at Foree Picnic grounds
The hills above the John Day River Valley are impressive. They are capped with a layer of lava that was laid down in a large eruption near Burns, Oregon, seven million years ago. This layer is known as the Rattlesnake Formation. Click on any picture to see a full-sized image.
The steep hillside above Foree Picnic area in John Day Fossil Beds National MonumentContinue reading →
In July, we took a two-week road trip from Los Angeles to Anacortes, Washington and back. We took the inland route, up US-395. Our first day took us up through the San Fernando Valley, on to the Antelope Valley Freeway, past Mojave and Red Rock Canyon and merging onto US-395 just north of Inyokern. The drive up the eastern Sierra is just magnificent. I wrote about our 2011 trip up a similar route and included pictures. We arrived at our hotel in Reno at about 4:00pm.
On our second day, we went north from Reno, past Honey Lake, through Alturas, and then into Oregon. Our target that second day was John Day, Oregon.
We passed through Lakeview, Oregon at about lunch time. We tried to see the Old Perpetual Geyser that is just north of Lakeview, but we couldn’t find it. We stopped for lunch at the Chandler State Wayside 17 miles north of Lakeview. It was good to get out and stretch our legs.
The Chandler State Wayside on US-395 north of Lakeview, Oregon
About five miles north of the wayside, in a place called Valley Falls, Oregon 31 splits off from US-395 heading to La Pine. We went left, staying on US-395. Coming up to the junction you get your first glimpse of Abert Rim. This is a very impressive uplift of basalt almost 2,500 feet (760 meters) high. Click on any image to see a full-sized version.
A panorama of the southern end of the Abert Rim in Southern Oregon
This closer view of Aber Rim shows the basalt cap. According to Wikipedia, Abert Rim was formed over five million years ago when lava flows covered what is now eastern Oregon. Faulting lifted the rim up, creating the dramatic features we see today.
The Abert Rim as seen from near the junction of Oregon 31 and US-395Continue reading →
We took a road trip up to Washington state in July. I took a lot of pictures and I am still going through them. Look for some road trip posts in upcoming months.
A view into the fish ladder on the Washington side of the Bonneville dam.
Having no other ideas for a post this month, I am bringing you a post of cat pictures. After all, this is the internet. As you read this, know that you are being watched.
There is no escape
There is a good story behind how we got Napoleon and his sister Dahlia in our house. We had two cats, Sam and Mandy. Sam was an outdoor cat and the king of the area around our yard. Sadly, he got mouth cancer and had to be put down. With him gone, suddenly there were all kinds of feral cats hanging around. They had probably gotten used to stealing some of Sam’s food.
There was one small, black cat that we noticed. She was very shy, but my older daughter earned her trust. Our younger daughter named her Papaya. One day when we were sitting outside and this now friendly cat was sitting hear us, my wife said, “Oh, my, that cat is pregnant.” Sure enough, a while later on March 12, 2012, Papaya gave birth to five kittens in a box on our back deck. From there we got them to the garage an finally inside the house.
But now we had seven cats. Mandy, Papaya, and the five kittens, Bertie, Rosie, Fermi, Dahlia, and Napoleon. Seven cats is too many cats. A cat lady took Papaya. Bertie and Rosie went to family and we had four cats. Mandy died a couple of years later and Fermi has gone to live with my older daughter, leaving us with the two cats.
Last weekend, after a nice brunch at Meet in Paris (or is it The Paris?) in Culver City, we drove over to UCLA to visit the Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden. I hadn’t been there since I was an undergraduate at UCLA and I believe I only went there once. It is really a treat.
Located at the south east corner of campus, the garden is very well maintained. The plants are plentiful and healthy, the paths are clean, and there is a bit of wildlife in the pools along a little creek. Parking on the weekend is easy either along the street or in parking lot #2.
Along the path
It was a pleasant day, with the high overcast providing a pretty backdrop to the trees overhead.
April 24th of this year featured a nice lineup of the naked-eye visible planets in the morning sky. Four planets, Jupiter, Venus, Mars, and Saturn were all lined up in the eastern sky. I got up early — 5:15am — to get some pictures. There was already some twilight in the sky, illuminating some faint clouds above the mountains. Please click on the picture to see it at full-size.
From left to right, Jupiter, Venus, Mars, Saturn, and the Moon
Here is the same image with the planets annotated.
As labeled, from left to right, Jupiter, Venus, Mars, Saturn, and the Moon
Since I was up early, I watched the sunrise. It was nice to watch the slowly changing light with the Sun finally bursting over the horizon.
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