I'M BACK!

I'm back, from a really nice trip to San Jose California to see my dad and step mom. I shot over 9GB of pictures on the trip, including a rare opportunity to be in the back of the train with the crew, capturing the tunnels up in the hills as we went through them. And getting un-restricted access to take pictures through the cleanest glass on the train as well as open windows in some cases. I've never seen such incredible snow. That is only one of the incredible things I got to find on this trip.


Common name-zig-zag spider, garden spider, Banded spider and The Banded
Argiope (above) Argiope trifasciata

It will take me a while But many more pictures are coming--I shot thousands. Here is a taste of a few things I'd like to show you. I want to show is the shots I got here in The Dalles and then in San Jose of the weather--the train trip was most incredible. I took Amtrack from Portland to San Jose and back. The return trip was well worth it for the pictures many times over.



It was sunny the entire time there, making a fantastic lighting setup. I used
both 35mm film and digital on this trip. This was one of the most productive and exiting photographic trips I have had. The chance to shoot scenic shots of places that many people never see--as you will see--and finding a diverse number of spiders living in San Jose--really gave me a lot of reasons to shoot nearly 10GB of digital pictures alone!

This is Big Basin. In the Redwoods, only a couple hours outside San Jose.

From the sun on the way down and on the trip to the snow storm that started when I got home--this was an incredible trip, personally and photographically. It's hard to believe these pictures were shot just a few days and even less apart.

I got a lot of work to do--so give me some time to get all this on my site…coming up as I get the pictures processed for my site. I did not chose the above as my "best" shots. The database is two huge. But keep checking if you want to see more---I have enough to keep me busy all winter with more coming over the holidays when I go to Portland again.