East side of Timpanogos, by the Heber Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau:
Timpanogos from the east – replacement for photo that originally nested here. Utah.com image
Mt. Timpanogos, east side. Heber Valley CVB photo. Click image for larger view.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Susan Reeve Lewis.
Leave a Comment » | 
Geography - Physical, geology, photography, Travel, Utah | Tagged: geography, geology, Mt. Timpanogos, photography, Travel, Utah | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Photo Tweeted from the National Park Service:
Horsetail Fall flows over the eastern edge of El Capitan in Yosemite Valley. It’s a small waterfall that many people don’t notice, but it has gained popularity as more and more people have noticed it can glow orange during sunset in mid to late February. The most popular place to see Horsetail Fall seemingly afire is El Capitan picnic area, west of Yosemite Lodge and east of El Capitan (see map below). The “firefall” effect generally happens during the second half of February. A clear sky is necessary for the waterfall to glow orange. Photo: Bethany Gediman, NPS
People living close to National Parks are lucky to do so; people who work in them luckier still, in the lifetime sweepstakes for seeing breathtaking sites. NPS employee (Ranger?) Bethany Gediman caught this image of Horsetail Fall in Yosemite National Park.
Be sure to see the video of Yosemite Nature Notes No. 14, posted here earlier. It shows Horsetail at sunset in full glory. Great photography.
How to get there:
Map of Yosemite National Park, showing Horsetail Falls and hiking trail to get to viewpoint in the photograph.
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5 Comments | History, National Parks, Natural history, Nature, photography, Travel, Yosemite | Tagged: Bethany Gediman, National Parks, Natural history, Outdoor Recreation, photography, Travel, Yosemite National Park | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
A picture is worth a thousand words? For some pictures, no adequate words exist.
Photo by Ammar Awad, Reuters; caption from L’Express: De l’audace! – 17/03/2010 Afin de se rendre à l’école, une enfant traverse les lieux des affrontements entre les troupes israéliennes et les Palestiniens, dans le camp de réfugiés de Shuafat, près de Jérusalem.
L’Express caption in English:
The audacity! – 17/03/2010
To go to school, a child crosses the scene of clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinians in the refugee camp Shuafat, near Jerusalem.
Rather puts into a different perspective the whines of students about “having to go to school,” not bringing pencils or paper, and not making it to class on time, doesn’t it? What value does this girl and her family place on education?
To those who think the U.S. should in no case offer aid to Palestinians to build or operate schools, I ask: Who do you want to pay for this child’s schooling, and direct the curriculum?
Teachers, is this photo useful for studying human rights? Education? Middle Eastern human geography (AP), geography, or other issues? Contrast this girl’s path to school with that of Linda Brown in Topeka, Kansas, in 1951 (Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education).
Is education a civil right? Is education a basic human right?
Tip of the old scrub brush to James Kessler, who posted a slightly profanely-captioned version of this on Facebook.
Update: Amusing Planet has this photo (with a nice shout out) and several others, showing kids risking their lives to get to school in China, Vietnam, and Indonesia — it’s awe-inspiring, scary and encouraging at the same time.
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8 Comments | Civil Rights, Education, History, Human Rights, Israel | Tagged: Civil Rights, Education, History, Human Rights, Human Spirit, Palestine, photography, War | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
A great photo from Pete Souza, the current White House photographer. I’m hoping to track down I’ve tracked down even more details on this, because not all sources like to post all the credit information or other stuff a newspaper or blog should have . . .
Photo of a lunch in an anteroom of the President’s office, with President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Consolidated News published the photo for its clients with this information:
United States President Barack Obama has lunch with members of the Congressional Leadership in the Oval Office Private Dining Room, May 16, 2012. The President served hoagies from Taylor Gourmet, which he purchased after a small business roundtable earlier in the day. Seated, clockwise from the President, are: U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Democrat of Nevada), U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Republican of Kentucky), U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Democrat of California), and U.S. House Speaker John Boehner (Republican of Ohio)..Mandatory Credit: Pete Souza – White House via CNP
At least we know where to get sandwiches like that, now. (Here’s the photo in the White House Flickr set.)
Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield; oil on canvas by Aaron Shikler, 1978; photo of painting from Wikipedia
Way back in the Early Holocene, when I first interned with the U.S. Senate, Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, D-Montana, held a close friendship with Sen. George Aiken, R-Vermont. Many mornings they breakfasted together in the staff carry-out in the basement of the Capitol; their wives were friends, too. One morning we got a question on some hot political issue at the Democratic Policy Committee (where I shared the best office I ever had in the third floor of the Capitol); I was dispatched to find Mansfield at breakfast and get an answer. I found him dining with Aiken.
I forget the issue, but it was highly politically charged, something about policy on Vietnam. Republicans and Democrats were much at war on the issue. Mansfield read the note, and showed it to Aiken. They discussed the issue while Mansfield penned an answer and handed it to me. No big deal — two senators dealing with an important issue, talking it over.
When I joined Senate staff in a permanent position, life was much different among the senators. The easy camradery between Mansfield and Aiken couldn’t be found anywhere. That was in the late 1970s. Partisanship was much sharper and nastier than I had seen earlier. Vietnam was over, and that was probably a good thing. The divisiveness I found would not have lent itself to any resolution of Vietnam.
At the RARE II conference at the University of Montana, in 1978, I heard a presentation from a staffer to Montana’s Sen. Paul Hatfield, if I recall correctly, a guy who had staffed for Sen. Lee Metcalf before. He described the difficulties in getting serious legislation done on public lands issues. As he described it, especially before the installation of air conditioning in the Capitol, the Senate would recess for the insufferable summer heat. Senators, who had developed working relationships, if not friendships, would visit each other in their home states, for hunting and sight-seeing, among other things. A Montana senator might show his colleague from Vermont how different the Rocky Mountains are from the Appalachians. A Louisana senator might show his colleagues from western states how different is flood control on the Mississippi than on the Colorado or Sacramento, or Columbia. By the time the Senate got back to business in the fall, legislation had been worked out, key alliances formed to get things done for various states, and though opposition was expressed to many projects, it was genuine difference of opinion expressed to friends.
That’s gone. In 2013, it’s rare a Member of Congress can develop those kinds of relationships with other Members, especially with the fund-raising requirements for re-election. Members travel back to their states and districts as many weekends as they can; they get to know their staff on each end, but they don’t know the other senators, or members of Congress.
President Warren G. Harding doesn’t have a reputation as a great president; but his poker parties were famous. Lyndon Johnson didn’t play poker a lot (though I understand he did on occasion), but his presidency’s record in photographs show that he invited Members of Congress individually for afternoon meetings, often punctuated with a drink, always slathered in business and the potential for favors or arm-twisting. Those sessions are legendary for the legislation they greased into law.
When I saw that photo at the top, I was put in mind of another famous image.
Norman Rockwell’s painting, “Freedom from Want,” part of a quartet based on the Four Freedoms State of the Union Speech of Franklin Roosevelt, in January 1941.
Did Souza have that Rockwell painting in mind when he framed that shot?
Rockwell’s work was more than just iconic, really. In the simple history, from Wikipedia:
The Four Freedoms or Four Essential Human Freedoms is a series of oil paintings produced in 1943 by the American artist Norman Rockwell. The paintings are approximately equal in dimension with measurements of 45.75 inches (116.2 cm) × 35.5 inches (90 cm).[1] The series, now in the Norman Rockwell Museum, was made for reproduction in The Saturday Evening Post over the course of four consecutive weeks in 1943 alongside essays by prominent thinkers of the day. Later they were the highlight of a touring exhibition sponsored by the Saturday Evening Post and the United States Department of the Treasury. The touring exhibition and accompanying sales drives raised over US$132 million in the sale of war bonds.[2]
The Four Freedoms theme was derived from the 1941 State of the Union Address by United States President Franklin Roosevelt delivered to the 77th United States Congress on January 6, 1941.[3] During the speech he identified four essential human rights (Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom From Want and Freedom From Fear) that should be universally protected and should serve as a reminder of the American motivation for fighting in World War II.[4]
The theme was incorporated into the Atlantic Charter,[5] and it became part of the charter of the United Nations.[6] Roosevelt’s message was as follows: “In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.”[3][7]
Torpedo sandwiches from Taylor’s don’t exactly make a Thanksgiving dinner, but that’s not the point. Rockwell portrayed an American family — at Thanksgiving, perhaps — sitting down to enjoy dinner together, breaking bread together as a Christian preacher might put it in a sermon. President Johnson famously invited, “Come, let us reason together.” Around Obama’s smaller-than-Rockwell’s table, the smiles are not so evident. But I still see hope.
I see some hope for friendship, for the relationships that might move legislation, for the legislation that might move the nation. God and Norman Rockwell know we could use it.
We can hope, can’t we?
More, perhaps related:
5 Comments | Art, History, Leadership, photography, Politics, U.S. Senate | Tagged: Art, Barack Obama, Harry Reid, History, John Boehner, Leadership, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, Pete Souza, photography, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Stunning photograph posted by National Park Service people in Mount Ranier National Park:
Photographer Dave Morrow photograph of Mount Ranier and the Milky Way, from October 2012
Information from the Mount Ranier NPS site at Instagram:
Some images are just plain extraordinary — and often, the photographer has invested a great deal of time and effort to make that image happen. Photographer Dave Morrow describes the process of among this image from Mount Rainier National Park in October 2012. “I went up to Sunrise Point at Mt. Rainier last weekend with my buddy Keith. After a lame sunset, we waited for the Milky Way to come out. The placement was just perfect and the sky was pitch black! Time to jack up the ISO and shoot some stars . . . this was one of many from the night.”
See more of Mr. Morrow’s work, here: DaveMorrowPhotography.com
Difficult to know whether the streaks are airplanes or meteoroids. No doubt it was a long exposure.
(Links added here.)
[Update, June 2015: Morrow has protected his photo from linking in most places; go see this photo, and many others, at his site: http://www.davemorrowphotography.smugmug.com/]
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3 Comments | Astronomy, National Parks, Travel | Tagged: Astronomy, dave morrow, MilkyWay, Mount Rainier National Park, National Park Service, Outdoor Recreation, photography, Travel | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Caption from the NPS crew at Canyonlands National Park: View from the Maze: Millard Canyon’s winter mood. We are looking north. Note how the heat from the east to southeast facing cliffs has melted the snow below – even in this ultra-frigid time. Taking a break under a southeast facing cliff is a good way to warm up while on a Canyonlands hike. (GC) (via Facebook)
In a state where they once named the proposed state capital “Fillmore,” and the county in which that town sat, “Millard,” to try to curry favor with President Millard Fillmore for the state’s petition to gain statehood, one might logically think that a spectacular desert canyon not far away called Millard Canyon might also be named in honor of our 13th president.
Location map, Canyonlands National Park, image from Wikipedia
Not so, in this case. According to John W. van Cott’s Utah Place Names (University of Utah Press, 1990):
MILLARD CANYON (Garfield County) originates at French Springs southeast of Hans Flat. The canyon drains north northeast into the Green River at Queen Anne Bottom. According to Baker, “They learned later that they had misunderstood this name; instead of honoring a president, it was named for an undistinguished `Miller’ who did nothing more than leave this small, mistaken mark on the map” (Baker, Pearl. Robbers Roost Recollections. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 1976, p. 33). The name was even misspelled Millard.
Millard Fillmore is off the hook on this one.
Garfield County, Utah, was named after President James Garfield.
So, who was this “Miller” guy?
(Post inspired by image from the Canyonlands NP Facebook site; temperature at the time of the photo was near 0°F.)
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1 Comment | Geography - Physical, geology, Millard Fillmore, National Parks, Travel, Utah | Tagged: Canyonlands National Park, geography, geology, Millard Fillmore, photography, Travel, Utah | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Take a look at this sunset shot:
Sunset on BLM land near the Little Snake River, in northwest Colorado. Photo by Shannon Diszmang, via Royal Gorge National Recreation Area.
Note from America’s Great Outdoors blog:
Earlier this year, the Royal Gorge Recreation Area staff had a photo contest on their Facebook page and here is one of the great photos that was submitted. Here’s what photographer, Shannon Diszmang, had to say about it.
“This is BLM land in Northwest Colorado (Little Snake River district). I fell in love with this place. The red haze in this photo is the smoke coming from the wildfires on the west coast at the time. This is one of the lowest light pollution spots in our state which makes star gazing the absolute best.”
So, if you’re nearby, and you want a good place to look at the Geminid meteor shower tonight, odds are high there will be little light pollution here. If there aren’t many clouds, you’re in luck.
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P.S.: The stunningly beautiful photo above is NOT the winner of the photo contest(!). BLM wrote in a November press release:
CAÑON CITY, Colo. – Today the BLM Royal Gorge Field Office announced the winners of its BLM-sponsored photo contest. The two winners were decided by the public via the RGFO’s Facebook page: one winner is based on the most “likes” and the other is based on the most “shares.” Only those “likes” and “shares” that originated from the Royal Gorge Facebook page were tallied towards a winner.
Chris Nelson’s photo was the most “liked” and is a scenic shot taken from Chaffee County Road 175 between Cañon City and Salida. Nelson’s photo received 64 “likes.”
The most “shared” photo was submitted by David Madone and portrayed several deer in an alfalfa field near Cañon City. Madone’s photo received 20 shares.
Both photos will be featured on the RGFO’s Facebook page throughout November and may be featured in future BLM Colorado publications and social media sites.
The photo contest began Oct. 2 and ended Nov. 4 with more than 60 photos submitted. All the photos that were entered into the contest may be viewed via the “Photo Contest” album on the RGFO’s Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/BLMRoyalGorge
Yeah, were I you, I’d go see what the winners looked like.
4 Comments | Astronomy, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Geography - Physical, Outdoor Recreation, photography, Public Lands, Travel | Tagged: Astronomy, BLM, Bureau of Land Management, Colorado, geography, Outdoor Recreation, photography, Travel | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
What’s for rent?
Republican Victory Center, for rent. Location and photographer unidentified so far — can you help identify them? Photo taken after November 6, 2012
Not quite so good as Norman Rockwell’s famous painting, but real. “Republican Victory Center” probably isn’t the name it will be remembered by.
Can you help identify the location, and the photographer? Notice the photographer is portrayed in the reflection in the window.
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8 Comments | Elections, Humor, Politics, Republican Party | Tagged: Elections 2012, Humor, photography, Politics, Republican Party | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Historian Michael Beschloss Tweeted out a wonderful photo:
October 31, 1974: President Gerald Ford, right, met with former-California Gov. Ronald Reagan, at the Century Plaza Hotel, Los Angeles. Photo courtesy Micheal Beschloss.
Who took the photo? What was the event? Beschloss asks on Twitter, why two drinks on Ford’s side of the table, and none on Reagan’s?
Looks like it’s a photo by David Hume Kennerly, the White House photographer in the Ford administration. The photograph was taken with film, probably in black and white to save money and because it was the best way to get images for print media at the time. Few newspapers ran color photos as a regular feature. Electronic still photography at the time occurred in laboratories as tests. As a pragmatic matter, media to store such photographs electronically were impractical — a large mainframe computer might have 256 kilobytes of memory for such storage, or enough for photo of poor resolution.
Kennerly’s site said this meeting came around a black-tie Republican fund-raiser in Los Angeles, at the then-swanky Century Plaza Hotel.
Vanity Fair’s David Friend called it “L.A. Noir” in a 2007 article on a book of photos by Kennerly:
Today, the image conveys a touch of Rat Pack swagger, an architectural elegance, and a hint of the California glamour that Reagan would eventually import to Washington. At the time, however, Kennerly, who had won a Pulitzer for his work in Vietnam, considered the picture too dark and brooding; he almost overlooked the frame on his contact sheet. But that darkness captured something of the spirit of the time: less than three months before, Watergate had forced Richard Nixon from office; inflation, unemployment, and gas prices were on the rise; and the U.S. was facing defeat in Vietnam.
The picture also caught the sometimes frosty relationship between the two leaders. Both Reagan and Ford, after all, would nix the 1980 “dream ticket” idea, floated by some Republican mandarins, to draft Ford as Reagan’s vice president. And Ford, during his unsuccessful 1976 campaign against Jimmy Carter, resented Reagan’s political infighting. “Truthfully,” Ford confessed to Kennerly years later, “I was upset when he challenged me [for the ’76 Republican nomination]. I thought it was unwise for a Republican to challenge a sitting Republican president. We had a pretty bitter contest. It was a head-to-head, knock-down, drag-out affair.”
“I study this picture now,” says Kennerly, “and it looks like a scene from The Godfather”—which had won the best-picture Oscar the year before.
Were I to guess, with a bit of education, I’d say both glasses belonged to Ford, one a cocktail, one water. Reagan tended to avoid alcohol.
A great photograph, a tribute to the artistry and craftsmanship of Kennerly, especially with film; it also poses as a time capsule, freezing convention in GOP big-money fundraising, dress for men of influence and means, architecture, and so much more.
Pulitzer Prize-winning war photographer, and White House photographer, David Hume Kennerly; TEDxBend image
Not before the deluge, not after it, but during the storm. Nixon was three-months gone from the White House. Vietnam’s peace agreement was a year-old, but it was seven months to the final invasion of South Vietnam by the communist North that would force the U.S. retreat, and “reunify” Vietnam under communist rule. The Cold War still raged. Iran was considered a U.S. puppet. Mao Zedong still ruled in China. Elvis Presley still ruled in Memphis. AIDS was unknown. Computers were accounting machines taking floors of entire buildings. Portable telephones were expensive devices that hogged power and generally required at least an automobile to be attached to power the thing.
Barack Obama was 13.
It was a different time.
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4 Comments | Gerald Ford, History, History images, photography, Ronald Reagan | Tagged: David Hume Kennerly, Gerald Ford, History, photography, Politics, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
One of my favorite images of Mark Twain I found several years ago. It’s a photograph of Twain, with a genuine smile of some contentment, seated in a deck chair on a ship, feet on the rail, gazing out to sea.
Correspondent J. A. Higginbotham tracked down the origin of the photograph through the Gutenberg Project, and found a nice etching from the photograph at twainquotes.com, with sleuthing by Barbara Schmidt, the curator of that site.
Here’s the photo, from the Gutenberg Project’s version of the 1898 American Publishing Company edition of Following the Equator:
Mark Twain, aboard ship in 1896. Photo by Walter G. Chase, of Boston. This photo provided the frontispiece for the 1898 American Publishing Company edition of Following the Equator.
Who was Walter Chase? So far as I have found, he was a Boston-based photographer.
Samuel L. Clemens, the man behind Mark Twain, undertook a world-wide speaking tour, to restore his fortune after bankruptcy, and to take his mind off the death of his daughter Susy, in August 1896. At the same time, there was demand for newspaper columns and books on travel. The resulting book, Following the Equator in the U.S., ended the series of travelogues Twain wrote. Columns and the book covered his and his family’s adventures in 1896 and 1897; this photo must have originated in late 1896, in the early part of the tour. We know from Chapter 1 that the land part of the trip, by train, “westward out of New York,” took 40 days. Twain wrote that it took seven days to get to Hawaii. We might be safe in saying the photograph shows him gazing at the Pacific.
Without knowing more, we might be tantalized by the prospect that Chase accompanied Twain on much of this tour, and took other photographs. Twain wrote about games played among the travelers aboard ship, with notes indicating a key player was someone named “Chase.” We have a photo of Twain posing for a sculptor in Vienna, from this trip. Somewhere, there may be a trunk of photographs . . .
According to Barbara Schmidt’s sleuthing, William Henry Warren Bicknell created the etching from the photograph, for the 1899 uniform edition of Following the Equator. Bicknell was one of several illustrators used, including Boy Scout founder Daniel Beard.
W. H. W. Bicknell’s etching from the 1896 Walter G. Chase photograph of Mark Twain, aboard a ship in the Pacific Ocean.
Schmidt uses a colored version of the etching on her website’s own frontispiece. No doubt she describes it in more detail, but I have not found that description.
A color version of an etching of Mark Twain, based on Chase’s 1896 photograph. Image via twainquotes.com, Barbara Schmidt’s site.
A fitting way to end a day of commemorating Mark Twain’s birthday, to discover the origins of one of my favorite images of the man.
New question: With the exception of the color image, each version includes Twain’s autograph, “Be good & you will be lonesome,” with his signature. Was this an autograph done solely for the book, or was it an autograph to the publisher, editor, or photographer?
Tip of the old scrub brush to correspondent J. A. Higginbotham.
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Mark Twain (Photo credit: Wikipedia) – Another, earlier image of Twain, origins to sleuth down!
2 Comments | Books, History, Literature, Mark Twain, photography, Travel | Tagged: Barbara Schmidt, Books, Following the Equator, Gutenberg Project, History, Literature, Mark Twain, photography, Travel, Twainquotes.com | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Not Bigfoot:
Bear on the Misty Falls Trail, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks – photo by Spencer Darrell, rights reserved
Assume that thing in the brush is a bear if it looks vaguely like a bear; if you’re filming, do so as you back up, and only through a very long telephoto lens (bears can sprint up to 30 mph; you want a 300-yard head start). A bear can do more damage to you than Big Foot; don’t mess up the bear’s thing with tourists looking for cryptofauna.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Spencer Darrell, one of Our Men in California.
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Leave a Comment » | Hiking, National Parks, photography, Wildlife | Tagged: Bear, Bigfoot, California, Misty Falls Trail, photography, Provo Canyon, Sequoia & Kings Canyon NPs, Wildlife | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Here’s a good demonstration of why you don’t need PhotoShop, but a decent camera and a steady hand instead.
Utah’s Mt. Timpanogos in snow, by Craig Clyde, 2012 (rights probably reserved). Click for larger version.
Craig Clyde took this photo of Utah Valley‘s Mt. Timpanogos, probably from Saratoga Springs, on the west side of Utah Lake, after one of the first snows of 2012. (This area had a few farm fields when I grew up there.) It’s a great photo for several reasons.
It’s a formerly unusual view, there being so few people on the west side of the lake until recent development. It pictures all of Timpanogos, with American Fork Canyon on the left, Mahogany Mountain, Big Baldy, and Provo Canyon on the right. It’s an afternoon shot, you can tell from the angle of the sun (the mountain runs on a north-south axis), and the darkness on the lower mountains may be caused by the Sun’s setting behind the mountain range on the west side of the lake. Timpanogos in white, in the afternoon sunshine, is one of the greatest images of a mountain you’ll ever see.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Craig Clyde. Mr. Clyde and I attended high school together — haven’t seen him in more than 30 years; not sure, but I don’t think he’s the same Craig Clyde in the movie business.
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1 Comment | Geography - Physical, geology, Nature, photography, Travel, Utah | Tagged: American Fork Canyon, Craig Clyde, geography, geology, Mount Timpanogos, Mt. Timpanogos, Nature, photography, Provo Canyon, Travel, Utah Valley | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Long-time Scout friend Hal Rosen said he caught some good photos here, too — but none at this precise moment:
Temple of the Sun, Capitol Reef NP, photo by Mike Saemisch, October 29, 2012
First you must get to Capitol Reef National Park, in Utah — one of Utah’s unfairly large number of five National Parks. Then you take your “high-clearance vehicle” (not necessarily 4-wheel drive) out on the dirt roads in Cathedral Valley, and you hope for a crystal blue sky like this one. Then you happen to get there just as the sun is right at the peak of the formation . . .
You had to be there. Mike Saemisch was there just over a week ago, on October 29, 2012, and fortunately caught this photograph with the Sun as part of a sparkling spire on a sandstone formation known as the Temple of the Sun.
Digital photography changes the way one tours these places. Fortunately. Take the kids, and make sure they find it on a map so they can use your trip as fodder for their 9th grade geography class.
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Leave a Comment » | Geography - Physical, geology, National Parks, Natural history, Outdoor Recreation, photography, Travel, Utah | Tagged: Capitol Reef National Park, geography, geology, Kodachrome Basin State Park, Outdoor Recreation, photography, Travel, Utah | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
You got the Tweet?
Miter Basin, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, California; photo by Kristin Glover, NPS (public domain)
Photo from NPS employee Kristin Glover, at Miter Basin.
We should go see for ourselves, no?
If you go today, vote before you go. This is one of the areas to be opened to energy exploration — oil and gas drilling or other mining — under Mitt Romney’s “energy plan” and the GOP National Platform.
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Leave a Comment » | Geography - Physical, geology, National Parks, Natural history, Nature, photography, Travel | Tagged: environment, geography, National Parks, Natural history, Nature, Outdoor Recreation, photography, Sequoia & Kings Canyon NPs, Travel | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Must be rare to get such a reflection of the sky in a calm Tidal Basin pool; from the Department of Interior‘s Instagram:
From Interior’s Instagram: Last night we posted an aerial photo of the #Washington #Monument, which everyone seems to really enjoy. So we are keeping it going today with a #photo of the #Jefferson #Memorial. #NationalMall #DC
One commenter noted the photo almost makes it appear that the Jefferson Memorial is floating in the clouds.
There are more than 300 units in the National Parks System. In the past two days we’ve had two spectacular photos from almost the same place, two memorials about a half-mile apart. How many thousands of great photos are possible from all of these properties? NPS’s job, caring for all of that stuff, is monumental.
12 Comments | Architecture, History, photography, Travel | Tagged: Architecture, Department of Interior, History, Jefferson Memorial, photography, Travel, Washington D.C. | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 