Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Yesterday I wrote about how the fact that digital photography is cheaper than film was often overlooked in the early days of the transition from film to digital. Cost efficiency was maybe only my #3 objective when I prepared to take the jump to digital in 2000-2001 but I absolutely considered it. In no small part that's because the $800-900 I spent on my first camera and memory cards to go with it was a significant investment for me, even if one I overthought. Anyway, while talking about cameras from back then I figured I should share a picture from back then.



This is literally among the first pictures I took with my first digital camera. Of course I went to Yosemite!

A former colleague and I took a midweek photography trip to Yosemite National Park, about 4 hours by car away from where we live, after we were laid off from the big company we worked at. Yes, that also means I took that big plunge on the cost right after being laid off. At that point I was still optimistic about being able to find another job quickly. (Historical note: I wasn't aware of how badly the tech industry would contract in the dot-com implosion, nor did I know that 9/11 would happen in another few months sending the entire country into a tailspin.)

A few technical notes about the picture:

• I captured it with a Sony DSC-S75 camera, with a 3.3 MP imaging chip and a 35-110mm zoom lens.


• Yes, I still have that camera I purchased in 2001! It's been in the closet since I replaced it in 2004, though.


• The camera's resolution is 2048x1536 pixels.


• I cropped the photo to 1000x1400 for the composition in the image shown here, then reduced it in size to 500x700 for sharing online.


• In Photoshop I made some adjustments for contrast, saturation, and brightness. I also sharpened the image gently after down-sampling it.

Two thoughts about things I said at the top of this article:

"Overthought" means I probably should have just bought an earlier generation camera in 2000 and started having fun with it instead of waiting 'til 2001. I had my reasons, though. Mostly, I was waiting for a particular level of resolution (3 Megapixel) to become available at a certain price point with a good lens. But in retrospect the camera wasn't that major of a purchase (I spent/wasted more money on other things) and I wish I'd been aware of what I've since understood is a classic saying about the best camera: The best camera is the one in your hand when you want to make a picture. In other words, don't wait for "perfect" when "good" or even "usable" is available.

I mentioned that cost savings from not paying for film and developing was only my #3 goal. What were the top two? #1 was instant access to pictures so I could learn and improve faster. That's the benefit of immediate feedback I discussed yesterday. #2 was having that instant access be in the form of a digital image file— which I knew was the future of how images would be stored, improved, and shared.

Saturday the 6th we wrapped up our day in Mt. Rainier National Park with two short stops: one at Reflection Lake and one at the visitors center. Yes, we visited the visitors center, the place where generally one starts a visit to get information, last. But before that was Reflection Lake.



Reflection Lake was up at the top of the pass after the well-disguised trailhead to visit Martha Falls. It was right alongside the road, with ample parking— thought very busy in the late afternoon hour— so we didn't have to hike. That was a boon to our aching muscles.

Throughout my blogs on this day's adventures I've written several times about how this river or that river is fed by a glacier on Mt. Rainier. You might wonder, "How many glaciers are there?" The answer is 12. There are 12 glaciers on Mt. Rainier.

I was surprised by that number because it's a lot. Although evidence of glacial activity is everywhere in the mountains of the western US, there aren't many glaciers left. For the most part they did their thing during and coming out of the Ice Age. In most places they're gone altogether. Yosemite? Majestic Yosemite Valley is carved by a glacier, but you won't find one there anymore.

Even where glaciers do remain they are receding due to climate change. That change is partly a natural process as the climate has warmed gradually since the last Ice Age, but it's mostly a human-caused process where the climate has warmed extremely rapidly in the last 100 years. in eponymously named Glacier National Park, it's getting hard to see glaciers that were easily visible in the 1950s. Today they're just remnants of what they were within the space of an average human lifespan. Soon they may be gone altogether.

Let's enjoy the beauty that remains but also take steps to stem its demise.

In beauty we walk.

This evening we left town on a long weekend vacation. Hawk has Monday off for Juneteenth, and I took a day of PTO so we could make a three-day weekend trip in the warm summer weather (cough, cough, surprisingly cold today).

We often begin these trips with Friday Night Halfway, a technique of driving for a few hours Friday evening and another few Saturday morning to make the travel more comfortable, but tonight we've gone All The Way. We're bedding down in Lee Vining, California, at the eastern foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, 230 miles from home. It's 1:30am Saturday already.

Here are a few notes about the trip this evening:

6:25pm, Leaving home: Woohoo, the trip is afoot! ...Actually it's not a foot, it's a car trip. 🤣 Though the point of it is to get some time on foot in the Eastern Sierra the next three days. We wanted to leave a smidge earlier but we had to pack after work, having not had the time/energy to do it last night. We've both had a lot of long workdays this week.

7:50pm, Tracy: Tracy is a shitty little town/ex-urb on the edge of the Central Valley. 1980s pop stars who failed to manage their riches well live here. We're not here to hit up M.C. Hammer for an autograph, though; we're stopping for dinner.

8:50pm, Manteca: We've stopped for gas at this small town in the middle of the Central Valley. Yes, the name means lard in Spanish. Guess what they do here. It costs $110 to fill the tank on our SUV. ...And that's with the cheapest gas in the area, at Costco, $5.899/gal.

9:30pm, Oakdale: Another small town in the Central Valley. We think of it fondly as we've made many Friday Night Halfway stops here on the way to Yosemite. Tonight, though, we're going all the way... and this isn't even the halfway point. We stop in Oakdale for ice cream at Coldstone.

East of Oakdale is a decision point. We can turn one way to cross the mountains via the Tioga Pass; or another to cross the Sonora Pass. All afternoon and evening both Google Maps and Apple Maps have been routing us over the Sonora Pass instead of the Tioga Pass. It's a longer route.

While waiting in line for ice cream we check our maps again.We try forcing them to give us a driving time via Tioga; they won't. We figure they've got to be marking some kind of closure or obstacle in Yosemite. Indeed, as we zoom in, we see they're marking a closure in Tuolumne Meadow. There's a bridge out, apparently. Except we don't believe it. Yosemite's web page says nothing about a road closure. The state highway status page shows no closure. We even call Yosemite's recorded-info hotline; no closure. Electronic road signs on Highway 120 displaying traveler information about Yosemite say nothing about a road closure. Basically everyone but Google and Apple says Highway 120 is clear. We decide to take our chances.

11pm, Yosemite: Yes, Yosemite National Park. We're driving through Yosemite National Park. At night.

11:12pm, Crane Flat: Not long after entering the park we reach Crane Flat, elev. 6,192'. This is the highest I've been on land in 9 months. And there's still over 3,000 more to go!

11:50pm, Olmstead Point: During the daytime this is the place where amazing views open up on the Tioga Pass road driving east. To the west you can see the famous Half Dome in the distance and Cloud's Rest at nearly 10,000'. To the east is beautiful Tenaya Lake. We pull over in the empty parking lot and hop out to see what we can see. We can't see anything. Well, we can see the stars in the sky; that's it. The moon's not up over the Sierra Crest to light the landscape below. And it's cold out here.

Midnight, Tenaya Lake: "PAVEMENT ENDS" a sign states. LOLWUT? Apparently the park and/or the state have decided this summer is a great time to grind up 8 miles of HIghway 120 in Yosemite's high country. The road is compacted dirt and gravel for the next several miles. It'll take more than that to slow our roll, though. We're in a capable 4x4. As we climb the next hill toward Tioga Pass I see a gray wolf dart across the dirt road.

12:20am, Tioga Pass: We top out the Tioga Pass at 9,945'. This is the highest I've been on land in nearly 4 years. From here it's all downhill. Literally downhill. We're at nearly 10,000', and from here it's an epic drive down the steep Eastern face of the Sierra Sevada mountains. But we won't see it this trip since it's night.

12:40am, Lee Vining: Wow, the drive down from the Tioga Pass was faster than we expected. I guess that's the benefit of doing it in the dark; there's no temptation to go slow or stop to see things, because you can't see things. 🤣 We check into a hotel for the night. "Check in" is a rather grand term, though, as all we did was reach in the mailbox and grab the envelope with our name on it and keys inside. The family that runs this small hotel went to bed hours ago. For us, though, we'll be up for at least another hour.