Redwood beats Elephants

On a whim, we decided to go to Redwood National Park on a quick trip. Given it is 300 miles north of here, it involved an overnight stay at a hotel close to the Park. The cousins had recently visited this place on the previous long weekend and given it a two thumbs up. 

We started off on a rocky note, with daddy coming home from work as usual and getting a special dose of looks and silence from mommy because the "sitting in SFO traffic" was blamed on Daddy's arrival time from work. Daddy Narayanan had fun after a long time on a drive, because he was NOT driving! Instead he was using the Waze app as a real life video game with the kids, reporting traffic, confirming cops were indeed still there at certain points, there were objects on the freeway etc. etc. It was fun!

Then a few hours in, the weather got nasty. There was thunder and lightning everywhere. Downright spooky as we were going through a windy freeway with tall trees on either side. So San promptly relinquished the steering wheel. There was no phone service anywhere and that meant no Waze. Driving in those conditions was the better real life video game! 

We made it to the hotel exactly at midnight and started in the monring. On the 4th of July, we had an aggressive plan. Go all the way to the Tolawa dunes state park almost near the Oregon Border, then come back down and see as many things as we can before sunset and get to the hotel. Anything south of that, we see on the way back home the next day. As usual, plans are just plans, when one gets to a National park.

Distraction number 1? Elks on the ocean front! There are these beautiful fresh water lagoons between the ocean and the highway and on the sandbars are a zillion elk, enjoying the sea breeze! So we just took in that sight for like 30 minutes.

Distraction number 2? The kids wanted to go on a Ranger guided tour of Lady Bird Johnson grove. We had to race to get there, and race we did. The tour was nice and informative as none of us in our group knew any of the details the ranger was giving. By the time we finished the tour and started back north, it was 11:30 and we decided to change our plan to "no plan". 

Above HDR composite. Below, no HDR with adjusted highlights and shadows...

The next stop was Fern canyon. This place takes you back in time. No wonder it was used in Jurassic Park scenes. It was a good thing that Grandma backed out of this trail. We had to climb over fallen trees, wade through creeks to keep going. Have never seen the kids happier!

Fern Canyon is a perfect place to practice HDR shots! See this one below..

A view of the lagoons from the trail to Fern canyon. Nature puts out the best teaser trail-ers!

Even San, who was not happy with her Frock and shoes attire for the trip decided to let go once she crossed over the big trees and was all smiles!

We saw the American National Park bird, aka Stellar Jay at trailheads close to parking lots! The Stellar jay is like the zoom lens test before venturing into the trail.. kind of a "pillaiyar suzhi"!

We came back to have some "thachchi mammu" in the car and headed north. Made it all the way to the dunes, but unlike the dunes in death valley, these dunes are right near the coast (or at least the point we got to, on the map). It was so windy and deserted that the rest of the family simply refused to come down to the sand. Sadly, there were no photographs taken at this beautiful place. Still think that we went to the wrong Park entrance and maybe if we had gone a few more miles north we could have come to the dunes from the redwoods. That is left to explore for another trip.

After the dune experience we headed south and hit Crescent city and the beaches around this place. The beaches were reallly good. Shallow crystal clear water for at least few hundred feet. Guessing that if the beach is shallow, the foam from the waves is less and that is why we get clear reflections.  We had fun at the beach. There were few people there and we pretty much had a large section of the beach to ourselves. 

Then we went to the state parks to see the outlook of the coast and the lagoon created by the Klamath river. 

Crossed the Klamath river and saw these nice golden bears on teh bridge. 

while taking a picture of the bear was intrigued by this little sticker on the sign. Went in to take a closer look and saw something that was "Fresh and Strange". Have no clue what that dude in the hat is about! If anyone knows, please do tell!

Continued on to our next stop,  Stone Lagoon. It was so beautiful. 

You see the ocean on one side, the river creating a lagoon on the other side. Breathtaking beauty!

We saw more elk grazing in front of a building which apparently was of historic interest. 

On the way back towards the Howard Johnsons in Arcata, there was a vista point. I really wanted to stay for sunset photos. The minute I mention the word "Sunset", the car erupts in a noisy discussion of why "sunset is a sunset" and "what is with taking photos of the same sun in different places?" etc. etc.

The real issue my dear readers is the fact that sunset photo taking time usually clashes with kids dinner time. So these days, the experienced travelers that we are, the custom is to drop the women and kids at the hotel and come back for sunset photos. BB would have had a "porai eri" event that evening as I missed him for a few moments.  

Then lo and behold, we meet some of our bay area friends at the Hotel who had just arrived there. The guys went back to the vista point, for sunset photos while the kids and women folks caught up.  

The kids were all happy that they could run from room to room and play with friends even if it was for a very short time. We parted ways the next morning as they went north and we started on our way back home towards the south. 

The return trip was awesome! We came through the "Avenue of the Giants". This is a long stretch of road through redwood forests, but with the worst map ever. Think the map was drawn by a toddler. It was not to scale and very confusing. We did not just want to go through the main road but take some detours to see some very special trees. Tall tree, Flat iron tree, Founders tree, Fallen tree, Big Tree.. guess the names say it all. 

There are 300 photos of the redwood forests which need to be HDR composited. Will have to work on it when time permits! The pictures above put things in perspective.. Most of these fallen trees are more than 300 feet long!

We were pretty much lost and were on a road that went to a Prison inside that park (why anyone would maintain a prison in the middle of a state park is beyond me) when we met an older couple who were both school teachers. We jointly navigated and figured out how to get to Bull Creek and to the Giant tree. The trails to get to these trees were amazing. It is just lush green with redwoods and ferns and light streaming through the top. 

After this, it was a straight drive back home. With more thachi mammu in stock we pretty much took turns driving and eating and made it back. All said the trip was a few minutes shy of 48 hours. Very hectic, lot of driving, but a ton of fun!

A few things I learned from this trip.

1. Let San drive as much as possible. Have missed on too much fun taking in the sights, by focusing on the road. This way there are no complaints about my driving speed and I get to actually enjoy the scenary and the air. The only exceptions are windy roads, bad weather, late night driving. Even with these exceptions, she can drive a lot. 

2. Always have personalized ziploc bags full of thachi mammu (rice with plain yogurt) and some fried "mor milagais" (more on that in another post) in the car. We can drive and eat and keep going! No food stops. 

3. Take the time to convince everyone in the car that the extra 30 minutes to go to some point is worth it. Even if you are not so sure yourself and there are only one or two pictures on Google maps that show promise. You will be surprised. 

4. You win some, you lose some. The dunes were too windy and the whole family was mad at me for driving them there, but we would not have had as much fun in Del Norte and Crescent city beaches but for that drive!

5. Always make sure you pack at least an hour before the trip. I had 15 minutes to pack and forgot my T-shirts of all things! Had to shop for shirts in Arcata. 

6. Always let San pick hotels. This Howard Johnson was awesome. Nice rooms, heated indoor swimming pool to entertain kids, walking distance from all food sources, a nice grocery store with lots of Thachchi in it, not to mention T-shirts, swimware etc. 

Like in Tamil movies, we have to come to the title at some point. Here is what Elephants have to do with Redwoods! There is a saying in Tamil "Yaanai irundhaalum aayiram pon, irandhaalum aayiram pon" (யானை  இருந்தாலும் ஆயிரம் பொன், இறந்தாலும் ஆயிரம் பொன்) which translates to "Elephant when alive is worth a thousand gold coins, when dead also is worth a thousand gold coins". 

This was probably the big sales pitch for elephant salesman in south India a few thousand years ago. This was before the time when anyone wrote the book on Elephantonomics for fear of upsetting the salesmen. Once people figured out that, for the same amount of food you could hire a few hundred poor folks to pull stuff, it was prety much downhill for the elephants from there... 

A redwood seems to be different. There are at least three trees that we saw, where cars could drive through the trees for a fee! They all have different names like Drive Thru tree, Tour Thru tree, etc. etc. The folks who own these trees on their properties simply put a ticket booth outside their house, route you through the tree and collect 5 or 6 bucks for the 2 minute experience. There were long lines to go through the trees. It is a "cash only" business! These trees were probably making a cool 8-10 grand a day! No amount of rides an elephant can give to excited kids will make that up!

It is a fun experience though, to drive through a tree! Kind of puts the whole redwood size in perspective. These trees are still alive after that hole has been carved through them and they still take in 300 gallons of water a day! 

Strongly recommend this set of National and state parks. It is not a two day thing. Given time, one can spend a few more days at a leisurely pace and let the kids be kids and not hurry them from things just when they open up! They never wanted to leave Fern canyon, or the beaches or the trails aound Tall tree. 

This place will be visited again.. in a few years!

Alaska animal sightings..

On our recent trip to Alaska we saw many animals on the Denali Bus tour, on our way to and from Denali, at the wildlife conservatory in Turnagain Arm.. 

You could watch animals cross the desolate roads.. closest we saw this was at Yellowstone. The area of the preserve has to be really huge for this to happen is our guess!

Here are some of the pictures .. 

That was Dall sheep on the steep cliff faces, elk, grizzlies, moose, musk oxen, an owl, Ptarmigan which happens to be the state bird in Alaska, wood bison which is endangered and caribou! 

We are definitely going to plan another Alaska visit for a longer time in a couple of years.. Apparenlty you need to have 20 photographs published to be able to apply for a permit to go inside the park to photograph wild life and it is a lottery system of sorts. Will get there in time!

Flying by Denali

We are an equal opportunity family, at least when blog photos are concerned.

The last post saw the little one all happy to be airborne. This one has Jr. aka style missy on the plane.

We spent a wonderful two days at the Grande Denali Lodge which was an architectural marvel in itself. It is on a hill and the windy gravel road that leads up to it is apparently the third highest road in Alaska (or close to it)!

The views from the hotel were spectacular and the service was great. The kids loved the place. There were pick up services for the air taxi and to other places there from the hotel door which was great! 

If the views from the lobby and rooms were great, the views on the Fly Denali plane were mind blowing!

Here are the last few shots taken as we flew back from seeing Denali mountain up close towards Haley.

If you are going with small kids on this 8 seater plane.. remember this! There is NO restroom on an 8 seater plane. You get a bucket. The sight of the bucket is enough to deter any kid from thinking about going.. The bucket officially beats "think of daisies" as the pee pee restrainer!

That one looks hazy but the large size image shows up much better than this compressed jpg on this website.. 

On our way back the sun did his magic by giving us some special effects. We were going through clouds and that helped!

Have not gotten around to editing the images from the ground trip through the National park by bus.. 

On this trip we travelled by plane, boat, bus, car... bike, horse and dog-sled were other options, but the Homestead tour where we get to see the sled dogs being trained was vetoed against the better wishes of Jr. and the little one.. we know how it goes. . . first it is a request to see huskie puppies and before you know it the puppy lobby in the house has a major advantage and we are back to discussing why we will not have dogs in the house!

Next, bus tour pictures..

Denali by Air

We got a chance to fly on a Talkeetna Aeroservices (Fly Denali) plane all around Denali National Preserve to get a "birds eye view" of the Big one aka Mt. McKinley aka Denali! 

It was unbelievable. This mountain is 20000+ feet high and we got some majestic views when the clouds moved out. It was a great day to be on that little 8 seater plane.. The pilot, four of us and a Chinese family from Shanghai .. 

The little one had a bad cold and we decided not to go on the Glacier Landing tour. The fly by tour was amazing in itself. The pilot was patient and answered all of 200 or so questions the little one asked on the intercom type system..

think she was so excited by the intercom that she asked questions non-stop! They were all decent questions except for the one about the Ocean and the Pilot went "there is no ocean here!" .. think she mistook the blue yonder for "ocean" having done too many coastal trips..

A few photographs from the fly by trip..

That was the big one! The one in the photograph below is a peak that is framed in the back by the big one!

Everyone got sunglasses to protect their eyes from the light reflecting off all the snow. I did not wear it because of the logistics of taking pictures. Big mistake! After we landed, my eyes were sore for some time..

While we flew by this section which was a valley with an ice river running through it aka Glacier, thought of getting a HDR shot.. 

Was not expecting it to come out as the plane was moving fast.. but the idea worked. Went for a fast shutter speed, f/22 and high enough ISO to support the fast shutter speed. Got three images and merged them together (shown below).. You do get the detail in the shadow and the highlights on the HDR. In spite of the image having pretty much a black and white feel to it, the HDR worked! Cropped off 20% of my border, thanks to the movement but still happy with the end result!

On our way back..

Another HDR image of same location as we flew away from the Glacier..

The 17-40mm lens came in very handy for this trip. Was able to capture wide panoramas from an airplane window! 

More later..

Kenai Fjords National Park

Our first National park visit in Alaska was the Kenai Fjords. We drove for more than 2 hours along AK1 which reminded us a lot of the drive through crescent lake in Olympic National park in Washington..

There is a slough here as the rivers get into the bay and deposit the silt, which happens to be paradise for birds and fishermen as they work on getting as many fish as they possibly can!

The water was freezing cold (you can see the ice on the surface at places) and we have guys with boots in thigh deep water with nets trying to compete with the birds. Truly amazing sight to watch!

Once we reached the park, we went on a cruise to see the Glaciers. Enroute to the Glaciers (the boat ride was 6 hours!) we saw everythign from Bald eagles, golden eagles, seals of different types, whales of different types, bears clawing on the icy slopes trying to get higher, birds by the hundreds of thousands creating a cacophony of unprecedented proportions, and the list goes on and on! 

It was very cold outside and after the first thirty minutes, could not feel my fingers on the shutter release. So was glad to get any pictures given I could not dial in the other knobs like I usually do! Don't think gloves would have made it any better. So my appreciation for those guys who shoot documentaries on snow leopards in the himalays went up 10000%!

Here are some of the Fauna shots...

 

That was no fluke.. Had clicked away trying to track them with the 200mm plus 2x extender all the way at 400x on a moving boat. The rest of the crowd on the boat was busy waiting for a humpback whale to breach on the other side as the whale made circles of bubbles trying to trap food into a bubble net while I was alone on the other side watching the eagles! I did get to see the whale come out and feed as with many other whales..

 

They are very smart the way they hunt in groups for their food. It is a treat to watch them run circles around the fish and finally close in when the circle is small enough. The birds are smarter. They dive into the water and take a big cut just before the whales close in. The bonus for us? We know where the whales are going to surface by watching the birds..

We have gone whale watching in many places but never have we seen so many whales in action so close by like this park! 

Did I mention the seals and birds that were creating quite a ruckus? Well, the rules prohibit the boats from going too close to the them. Also the rock faces underneath the boat (you can see images the captain shows on a monitor) are jagged and projecting out and it is not safe to go too close to the rocks!

The big 9+ scale earthquake that pretty much wiped out the area apparently was epicentered at Prince William Sound, the place where we saw the zillion birds and seals. This place was amazing and pristine in its beauty that it took our breath away! The sub zero winds helped with that task as well..

 

We also saw this black bear which had just come out of hibernating and was clawing away at a rock face trying to get up there on ice and wet rock. Just imagine.. you have just been sleeping for six plus months and are hungry, you come out of your den and realize you are disoriented, chose a rock face for a long sleep and have to make it out to find food and you have a bunch of tourists cliking away at you. . . no wonder they have rules for minimum distance..

When we came back from the glacier it was heart warming to watch the big guy who had made it past the ice field and into more steep rocks where he seemed more comfortable..

The scenery pictures are yet to be worked on. When I go back and look at those pictures, somehow there is a longing to just stop everything and go back there.. someday, someday... we will get to spend an entire summer in Alaska.. Just San, me, some hot Chai and no schedules to meet, no planes to catch anywhere.. 

It could happen...anything can happen!