Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Phoenix Getaway travelog #7
Hilton Resort · Sun, 21 Sep 2025. 3pm

I mentioned in my previous blog that we didn't spend more time at the pools at the Scottsdale Resort because we had other plans. As nice as that hotel was with the upgrade they gave us our plan had only been to stay there one night. Tonight and tomorrow night we're at the Hilton Resort at the Peak, one of our favorite "splashy pools" places in Phoenix.

Before splash down, though, we had a few other things to do. We grabbed some lunch on the drive over and also shopped at two jewelry stores. One in Scottsdale was pricey, but Hawk bargained them down for a few thunderbird pieces by knowing what pieces are worth and offering to pay in cash. The other store, in an industrial complex near the airport, had been Hawk's bonanza in the past but since our last visit they've raised their prices significantly. You win some, you lose some.

Then it was time to hit the Hilton!



Once settled in our room we changed into our swimsuits, packed a day-bag, and made a beeline for the pool area. Well, not exactly a beeline; there was some construction we had to go around. But if there's a type of bee that won't fly over or through fences, we were that type of bee. 🤣

The photo above shows us floating around the lazy river together. Hawk's in a dual tube because it allows her to keep her foot— the one with the broken toe— elevated. I'm in a tube behind her. That's my other hand (the one not taking the picture) holding onto her raft at the bottom of the frame.

BTW, did you know that iPhones are waterproof? The last several generations, at least, are. That's why I boldly took mine with me on loops around the lazy river, not worrying about it getting wet. I discovered that a year ago when my father-in-law accidentally left his iPhone in his swim trunks pocket when he went swimming for 10-15 minutes. He took it out and it worked fine. So I looked up online, "Are iPhones waterproof?" Long story short, they're water resistant at shallow depths for certain periods of time.

Oregon Cascades Travelog #7
Bend, OR - Wed, 2 Jul 2025, 10:30am

We got a bit of a late start leaving our hotel room in Bend today. As a result we put off a hike in the desert-y terrain west of here because we'd want to start early to beat the heat until later in the week. Instead we came here, to the Oregon Cascades where there's shade on most trails, and hoped we weren't starting too late for the popular Tumalo Falls trail. We weren't; we arrived in good time. And it would be the first of at least six (depending on how you count them) waterfalls we'd see today.

Fair warning: In this blog I'm going to talk tech(nique) about photography. If that makes your eyes glaze over, you're more than welcome to employ the Playboy magazine approach of just looking at the pictures and not reading the article. 🤣



If waterfalls were scored on a scale of views divided by distance or effort to get to them, Tumalo Falls would score very highly. The first viewpoint, where I make the photo above, is just steps from the trailhead. There's also an upper viewpoint that you can see above the falls to the left in the pic above. I'll get back to that in a moment.

On this trip I carried two cameras, as I often do— though less now than before. The two cameras are 1) my cell phone's built-in camera, which I virtually always have with me, and 2) my Fujifilm interchangeable lens camera that I opt to carry with me when I think the views are going to be really great... or require one of the things that camera, and the special lenses I own, are really good for. I'm selective about bringing the latter camera because it's comparatively heavy and bulky.

So, what's this heavy, bulky (comparatively) camera really good for? Let's start with the same basic picture:



One thing you can see straight away by comparing these first two photos is that, in good light, the Fuji captures way richer colors than my iPhone. "Oh, but can't you punch up the colors in Photoshop?" you might ask. I already did! The first picture is the result after fiddling a bit with saturation and contrast. The Fuji kicks the iPhone's iAss when there's good light.

BTW, why do I specify "good light"? Take look at the deep shadow to the right of the falls. The iPhone pulls out more detail in the shadow. Again, yes, I can try to fix that in Photoshop, and again, yes I've already done that in the Fuji's picture. The difference is that modern iPhone are actually doing exposure stacking, automatically combining multiple images capture immediate after each other at different exposure values to show more detail in areas of deep shadow. Doing this with a conventional camera involves a technique called HDR— high dynamic range— that requires some manual steps in addition to special software. The iPhone just does it automatically and gives you the result without you even having to think about it.

Okay, so rich colors in good light are nice, but what else can the heavy, bulky camera do? Well, I like to bring it whenever I know I'll be seeing waterfalls, because it can capture motion-blurred water.



Here's a photo from the same vantage point again but with the camera set to make an exposure lasting 0.25 sec. Relative to that speed the water is moving very fast, so it blurs into an appearance like silk sheets, while the trees' leaves move only slightly and the rocks move not at all.

Achieving this blur effect requires a few pieces of equipment and a degree of control over the camera. The key piece of equipment is a neutral density (ND) filter, a lens attachment that blocks out most of the light. This allows the camera to be set with a very slow shutter speed and not capture an image that's all washed-out white from so much light hitting the sensor. Remember, photography is the art and science of captured light. Capture too little, the picture's all black. Capture too much, the picture's all white. I'm using an ND filter that blocks 98.5% of the light. (Why 98.5%? That's an approximation. It's actually passing through 1/64, or 1/2⁶, of the light. This is called a 6 stop ND filter. Every "stop" is a factor of 1/2.)

While this extra gear is fun to use effectively it's also a minor nuisance to use. Or, more specifically, switching in and out of the gear is a nuisance. The filters screw on and off the front of my lenses, and I have a little pouch to keep them in when they're not screwed on a lens. Going back and forth between "filter is screwed on" and "filter is off, and stowed" is time consuming. And on the trail it's also a bit dangerous. What if I drop a filter? The big ones aren't cheap. And when they get dirty I have to clean them— which while hiking is also a nuisance.

Thus I decided after doing the screw-it-on/screw-it-off thing at the viewpoint near the trailhead I would just leave the ND filters on the lenses on my Fujifilm camera. I'd use my iPhone for standard snaps and my Fuji for the specialized blur shots. BTW, that's how pro photographers roll. When you see them juggling multiple cameras at an event, it's because the camera are set up to do different things really well, and it's easier to swap cameras between shots than to reconfigure the gear. So, for the rest of the hike I rolled like a pro. 😅

It's long been a moment of truth in tech: You bought a product a few months ago. Today a new product comes out from the same maker or a close rival. Do you regret what you bought? Do you wish you'd held out a few months longer to buy the shiny, new thing?

That moment of truth happened for me in the past 24 hours, when Apple announced the new iPhone 16e. It's a new, low-cost model in the iPhone 16 range that fills the slot formerly occupied by the iPhone SE series. That hits home for me because prior to buying an iPhone 16 Pro four months ago I happily owned an SE 3 for a few years. If an "SE 4", as many people thought the 16e might be called, were available 4 months ago, would I have bought it? Do I wish I'd waited 4 months?

The answers are "Maybe yes" and "Definitely no". But let me elaborate on that.



The two phones, the 16 Pro and 16e, are similar in many respects. They've got the same A18 processor chipset, though the 16e has a total of 10 processor cores compared to the 16 Pro's 12 cores. They've got the same storage options. They've got almost the same screen size; the 16e is just a fraction of an inch smaller.

Just two things are really different. The obvious one is the price. The 16e is $400 cheaper. The other difference is the camera. The 16 Pro has a 3-lens setup; the 16e has just one.

If I'd looked at these cameras side by side 4 months ago I would've asked myself— rightly so— "Is it worth $400 for a fancy camera?" My answer probably would've been No. So I'm glad I didn't get to frame the question that way!

Four months ago I would've said "No", probably, because I've already got a fancy camera. I own an interchangeable lens camera with a few nice lenses. It's several years old but still takes great pictures. But it's big. It's bulky*. It's one more thing to lug around.

Still, could the tiny lens(es) on an iPhone camera replace it? Four months ago I would've said No. But there was a steal of a deal on the 16 Pro— basically it was free!— so I bought it. And in the 4 months since then I've found that the little cameras and lenses are way better than I expected.

First I tried learving home my big* camera on short hikes in the area, like the walk at Byxbee Park where we spotted a red-tail hawk. I was impressed with what the 16 Pro could do. Then I left my big camera home this past weekend for hiking in red rocks areas in Nevada. Yeah, the big camera would've shot many of the pictures a bit more nicely... but the iPhone punched well above its weight. I'm glad I took the plunge on the fancy, improved iPhone cameras.

_____
[*] "Big" and "bulky" are relative terms. My Fujifilm X-T3 mirrorless ILC is downright svelte compared to even the modestly sized 35mm film SLR I used years ago. But it's way bigger and heavier than the iPhone that's always in my pocket wherever I go.

As I mentioned already this past weekend was a mostly stay-at-home weekend. I hate just being a homebody, though, so we mixed it up with having a friend over on Sunday— and going on an easy hike together. "Easy" was the speed because Hawk is still recovering from foot surgery a few weeks ago.

We picked Byxbee Park in Palo Alto for an easy hike. Byxbee is local spot we've visited at least a few times a year recently. The views it offers across the southern end of the San Francisco Bay aren't super awesome, particularly as the park is built atop covered landfill, though they are still bay views. And it's interesting how wilderness-y feeling it gets here on the edge of high tech-y Palo Alto. Plus, the park has a network of trails that make it easy to stitch together a shorter or longer trek. We chose a meandering route over the top of the hill and back around the sloughs that added up to almost 3 miles. Along the way we saw a few white pelicans and a red-tail hawk.



Here's a slough view with a white pelican in the foreground. Yes, the pelican is the big bird. You can see how it towers over the ducks in the water. White pelicans have a 9' wingspan. Yes, they're huge. And I was fascinated to see not just one but 3 or 4 on our walk as I don't think I've seen white pelicans before in this area. Brown pelicans, yes, but not white. From a distance I thought the first one I saw was a great heron. Then I saw the pelican's scoop-like beak.

Another interesting bird appeared as we rounded the last corner to the home stretch of our hike. We spotted a red-tail hawk perching atop a wood post.



As we approached the bird from behind we weren't sure what type of hawk it was. Once even partway around the bend we could see its features and colors, and it was obvious it's a red-tail hawk. Some other hikers who'd stopped to look were wondering if maybe it's a Cooper's hawk or a sharp-shin falcon.

I explained that size alone could rule out either of those species. The hawk was perched only about 10' above the ground, so we could make out its size fairly well. The brown and white checkered pattern across the bird's underside is typical of a red-tail, as are the darker brown color across its back and on its head. It's probably a juvenile as it doesn't yet have the characteristic red tail; the tail feathers come in red at about age 2 years. The shape and color of the beak (gray) also indicate for this being a red-tail.

It was cool that the bird was patient with a bunch of us hairless apes gawking at it from 25' away. Wild animals all have a threat radius at which they'll flee potential danger. Predators like hawks may have a smaller threat radius. Plus, this hawk is a flyer and was already perched 10' off the ground, so it was probably less afraid for that reason, too.

BTW, I made this close-up picture with my new iPhone. The iPhone 16 Pro has a 3 lens/camera system. One of them is a 5x telephoto (120mm equivalent) with a 12MP imager. That's what I used for this photo.

I'm pleased with how this photo turned out. It's vastly better than I was able to capture with the single lens on my iPhone SE 3rd gen. It's the kind of result I was looking for as I reconsider how often to carry around my dedicated interchangeable lens camera. Would I have gotten a better picture with my dedicated camera and my "bird shooter" telephoto lens? Yes. Was the iPhone in my pocket way easier to carry than that dedicate camera with my "bird shooter" telephone lens? Also Yes.

Yesterday I posted about how Hawk and I bought new iPhones (the new 16 Pro) Thursday night. The deal was practically a steal. Verizon and Apple (I assume they're subsidizing it on the back end) offered a whopping $1,000 credit, each, for trading in our old phones. Normally the trade-in value for our older, mid-range phones would be $100 or less.

"Where's the catch?" you might wonder. With an eye-popping deal such as this, there's always a catch. Would it be higher monthly fees? Expensive contracts with long lock-in? Often something that's free up front costs more in the long run. That's how they get you.

We went into this deal very much aware of the ways we might have to pay more for "free" iPhones. To our pleasant surprise, there's really no funny business with Verizon's deal. Yes, we did have to agree to a new service plan with Verizon, and yes it is more expensive than our old plan— but only by a little bit, and we also get more for the money.

Pay More, Get More

The salesman's initial quote for our new monthly bill was a lot higher, almost 50% higher than we're already paying. Aha! That's how they get you. But the salesguy shared an itemized breakdown the moment I asked and answered all my questions without dodging. One big cost increase was coming from paying for a phone insurance plan he stuck in there. I challenged him on that. He defended it, pointing out to us the value of the insurance plan. When we said firmly we don't want it, he took it off the quote with no further discussion.

Paring off the insurance we don't want, the base price of the new plan increases by $15/month. As our old plan was already over $200/mo (for 2 phones plus wireless home internet) this is an increase of less than 10%. And the new plan is better than the old plan. Not by a huge amount, but by a bit. A key difference is that we'll pay no international roaming charges. If we take just one overseas trip a year we'll come out roughly even. (In case you're wondering, "Are you really going to travel that much?" I'll point out that we've taken three foreign trips in the past 10 months.)

I note base price above because we did also choose to buy a few of the add-ons that Verizon offered. Aha! That's how they get you. Except we picked things that were bargains. For $10 per bundle we chose a Disney-Hulu subscription and a Netflix-Max subscription. We already have Disney-Hulu and it costs more than $10/month, so that's a savings right there. And we've been wanting to get Netflix and or Max, but their price at well more than $10/month has made us hold off. So this is another respect in which yes, we are paying more, but we're also getting more.

The X-Factor: A Better Camera

As I wait for my new iPhone to arrive— they have to ship it to me; expected late next week— one thing I'm eager to explore is how well the camera system works. The iPhone 16 Pro has a trick, 3 lens camera. In addition to the standard sorta-wide angle lens there is also a super-wide lens and a moderate telephoto lens. I'll be keen to see what kind of picture quality these produce. I mean, on an absolute scale it won't be as good as I get from my dedicated stills camera, a Fujifilm X-T3, with nice lenses I've invested in. But on a relative scale I expect it'll be close. Close enough that maybe I won't carry a bulky dedicated camera so often when I go hiking? That's what I'm keen to see.

Blue Ridge Trip '24 #22
Jonas Ridge, NC - Thu, 5 Sep 2024. 4:30pm

Upper Creek Falls turned out to be more than we expected— both in terms of the size of the main falls and the length/strenuousness of the trail. At the bottom of the big falls we weren't thinking about the latter, though. Yet.



Yes, this is the same falls I finished with in part 1 of this hike. Here I'm photographing it with my ultra-wide zoom lens. This is at 10mm with my camera's APS-C sized imager; it's a 15mm equivalent on a traditional 35mm camera. I slowed the shutter speed down to 1/5 second with a neutral density lens. And, yes, the camera is hand-held because I didn't lug a tripod down here and didn't even have my hiking pole monopod to use.

As you can see in this photo versus those in my previous blog entry the sun was in and out of clouds, but mostly behind the clouds, this afternoon. Changing light makes photography challenging... but also more fun, as it exposes different views of the same scene.



Soon enough it was time to head further downstream. There are more falls down there and a pretty clear path, marked with reflector blazes on trees, to get there.

On the way to these falls (photo above) we saw the couple who were previously enjoying the big falls 50' away from us coming back up the trail. Why come back up the same way? The trail loops around back to the parking lot. We said as much in chatting with them, wondering if maybe the creek crossing was too dangerous to ford.

"Oh, the trail crosses the creek?" they responded. "We didn't even think of that!"

"Yeah, it shows it right here on my GPS-enabled trails app," I said, pointing to AllTrails running on my iPhone.

"Oh, I'm using AT, too," one of the hikers said, showing me his phone with the same app open.

How can you use the same app and not see the trail marked in bright green?! I wondered to myself. This dude is literally holding the map in his hand and can't figure it out. Sheesh, it's like holding in your hand a device with access to the sum total of human knowledge does not make everyone smarter, it just makes the average person more confident of their dumb ideas.

Anyway, back to the falls. 🤣



At the crossing there were more falls both above and below. I explored down the creek a bit further, but not too far as I was starting to get a sense of how much climbing out there'd be. And, more importantly, Hawk was already aching pretty badly from a long-term issue flaring up. I wasn't going to leave her in the middle of the wilderness to go hiking on my own.



We enjoyed the falls at the crossing a bit more before beginning the arduous climb up out of the canyon. And yes, it was arduous. It was 8-10 long switchbacks up the canyon's sloping side.

Back at the car, now, we're discussing what's next. Earlier in the day we were thinking to do a bit more driving to another remote falls but at this point, with the clouds overhead, it looks like it might get dark too early to want to do a lot of driving before a hike. There's just enough signal here at the trailhead to search for other trails on AllTrails, so I'm checking out Linville Gorge and Linville Falls. That's a big falls, and it's really not that far from here; maybe just 15 minutes of driving.

Stay tuned; the adventure continues!

For the past year or so I've been using AllTrails.com and its smartphone app for hiking. It's useful for choosing hikes, planning my trip, and checking a map in real-time as I hike.

I remember looking at AllTrails a few years ago and finding it not that useful. What changed since that early attempt were two things. First, the site & app got way more trails listed. It's like the network effect kicked in to provide ample content. Second, I found that the live mapping works even without 4G/5G signal. You can't search trails or load a new map, but if you had a trail & map already cued up, the app knows where you are and marks it on the map. This may be as much a change in the capabilities of the smartphone (i.e., location data without cell signal) as the app itself. The upshot is, once I figured out this trick the app is now a useful companion on hikes.

In addition to merely showing me my location on a topographic map, the app is able to create a breadcrumb trail of where I've hiked. I've enabled this tracking a few times, usually out of concern that if I don't the app will lose the map and I won't be able to see anything. One reason I don't do it more often is this....



This is a screenshot of the app's breadcrumb trail partway through my hike at Angel Falls yesterday. As is typical with these— see also, my hike at Rainbow Falls last September— AllTrails' breadcrumb trail makes it look like I'm drunk and lost, stumbling around. I mean, look at that crazy, back-and-forth path I walked in the screenshot above. It's like I'm Billy from The Family Circus.

Remember The Family Circus from newspaper comics years ago? It was one of the regular comics when I was a kid. And one of the tropes author Bil Keane would often draw was the wandering, dotted-line path young Billy would follow in going from Point A to Point B.



This example (above) is from 2016. Gosh, that's recent! I remember reading this comic in the Sunday paper back in the 1970s and 80s. I couldn't find an older one, but this newer one sums up the trope pretty well. A straight line is the shortest distance between two points, but it's the least interesting, too!

Keep reading: Up the mountain to Fresno Dome

Well, well, well, my iPhone news reader app is once again watching what I'm reading and trying to give me just more of the same. After I clicked on, I dunno, maybe two articles about Costco in the past week, now it's showing me "Costco" as a news topic:



There are seven articles, all about Costco— and all indeed with similar file photos atop the stories— under this news heading, with the option (via tapping "...") to fetch more.

And no, Costco doesn't replace Pizza. My newsreader still shows me "Pizza" as a news topic from that time 4 years ago when I read a few articles on pizza in the same week. 🙄

A month ago I bought myself an iPad. It was on a good sale and was within my toys budget so I bought it even though I've reasoned for many years that a tablet is a digital third wheel. I figured I might as well give it a try. (Plus, okay, there was a bit of retail therapy in there during a week when I felt blue for no particular reason.)

So, now it's a month later. What's the truth of it— is the iPad a trusty tool I use every day, or is it like an awkward "third wheel" on a date?

Sadly, my iPad so far is that unhelpful third wheel. Most of the time it sits by my desk gathering dust. The one situation where I've really used it & enjoyed it was flying to/from Australia. Using my iPad to watch inflight movies and play games was way better than doing the same on my iPhone. The bigger screen absolutely rocked. But the rest of the time in my day-to-day life I'm fine with the smaller screen and pocketability of my iPhone.

When I bought myself an iPad as a birthday gift earlier this week it was a decision that was a long time in the works. ...No, not the question of whether to spend a few hundred on something nice for myself (I have way underspent my discretionary budget for years) but whether I actually want an iPad.

When the first iPad launched in early 2010, almost fourteen years ago now, it make a big splash in my circles of friends and colleagues. I remember back in 2010 discussing it with a number of people. Being (mostly) practical sorts our conversation was, "This looks amazing... but what use case does it address?" A few went out and bought one regardless. For them, the effective use case was, "It's a lifestyle badge to always have the latest thing right away."

— "It's like an iPhone, but bigger, which will be nice for when I'm sitting in my armchair after dinner reading news," one friend said.

— "The touch screen makes it more engaging for my kids as an education tool, and there's no hinge (like on a laptop) for them to break," said a few others.

— "It's a bigger screen for watching movies on airplanes," reasoned a few.

— "Maybe it can replace carrying my laptop on business trips," several wondered.

None of these reasons to buy resonated with me. I've always been comfortable reading on my laptop at home. I'd be buying the device for me, not my kids (I don't have kids). And while a bigger screen would be nice while flying on an airplane, it would be yet-another device to have to carry around. Looking at the three form factors for mobile devices— laptop, tablet, phone— I decided I have need for only two. And since tablets aren't powerful or flexible enough to replace what I need a laptop for, and aren't small and portable enough to replace a mobile phone, I don't need a tablet.

But now I've bought one. 🤷‍♂️

I figured after almost 14 years without I could give it a try. Besides, the price was low enough to buy it on impulse as a special treat.

I'll see over the coming days and weeks whether I really do have use for a third mobile device. I've got to say, from the first few days the answer is Not really. Much as I sized things up 13 years ago, the iPad is still not powerful or flexible enough to replace a laptop for the things I do daily on it. And it's obviously way too big to fit in my pocket like my iPhone does for always-there portability. But maybe it's nice for having a bigger screen on airplane flights? I'll gauge that tonight when I board a 13.5 hour flight to Australia!