Day–3–Across the Snowy Mountains

Today the plan was to drive I-80 from Rock Springs, WY to Ogallala, NE and find something to do there. Since we had lots of time we stopped at Fort Fred Steele Historic site which is just off I-80 so wouldn’t take too much time.

Reconstructed Schoolhouse behind ruins on Officer’s Row.

On our way out we stopped and talked to the Ranger who suggested we drive WY Rt 130 through the Snowy Mountains and rejoin I-80 at Laramie so we did.

Lake Marie near the summit of the Snowy Mountains. The highway summit is 10,800 ft. Dropping down out of the Snowys we followed the North Fork of the Little Laramie River.

Day 2

Today was a shortish driving day, about 440 miles and a bit over 6 hours. That gave us some free time this afternoon so we took a short side trip through a wind farm.

Then we stopped at Fort Bridger. We rather expected that this being July 4th weekend there would be some sort of re-enactment going on. This was not to be the case but the docent in the general store was in costume.

The little stream which runs through the site was at full flood and many of the paths and fields were flooded. I did get this photo of the officers quarters.

On the road again

So we’re on our way to Springfield IL to the Sasha festival.

Along the way we’ll stop by and see Carol’s aunt who lives near Cleveland. Today was our first driving day and a reasonably longish one. This is a route we’ve driven often before so we didn’t try for any deliberate photo stops. This one was taken from the Idaho visitor center and is of the Snake River. Across the river is Oregon.

Meet Megan

Many of you know that Carol is a doll collector and that we have several Sasha dolls along with some Betsy McCall, Madeline, Raggedy Ann and others. I’ve taken a lot of photos of the Sashas and while I really like their personality and variability, they are not the most poseable dolls around. For several weeks I looked around at the variety of ball jointed dolls and even borrowed a pair of Angel of Dream dolls from one of our doll collector friends. Eventually I decided on one of the Obitsu 50 cm girl dolls. I’ve had her for a bit over a week now.

This is Megan in her traveling outfit that she wore on her trip from her prior home in Japan.

Megan has brown hair and hazel eyes.
She is a dancer and like many dancers is a bit of a tomboy.
She loves being outdoors.

Here Megan gets acquainted with Anika.

She couldn’t wait to get out of her girly clothes and into her shorts and top so she could get out and try a couple of dance poses.

Here she is in her element…

Carol and I are leaving next Friday for an extended driving trip which will include the Sasha Festival in Springfield, IL. More from Meg when we get home.

Tom

Annika and the Strangers

 

Carol’s Sashas hang out in our living room and rarely venture into the dining room unless they have a new outfit and I’m photographing them in it. For the past few weeks I’ve had a pair of Angel of Dream or AoD ball jointed dolls that I’ve been working with, Fei and Min. The Sashas have largely been quite unaware of that. Friday evening that all changed when I took Annika to photograph her new summer outfit.

Min came over to see what was going on and rather surprised poor Annika who had never experienced anyone quite like the elegant and somewhat enigmatic Min.

Annika wasn’t quite sure whether to run away or fall in love.

Fei saw that Annika was being overwhelmed so she came over to give some feminine assistance to the younger girl.

Fei is a total charmer!

After Annika went back to tell all the other Sashas that there are strangers in the house Fei talked to Min about barging into other photo shoots.

At least that’s what I thought at the time….

On the road Jan 2011 day 1

We're off on a driving trip to Arizona and eventually to Savannah, GA.

As usual when we're headed South we drove from home to Sacramento.
It's a good day's drive, about 575 miles and 8 1/2 hours. Today we got
away from home about 6:15 AM and checked into our motel here in
Sacramento before 4:30 PM.

Weather was changeable. :) Lots of rain, some snow, plenty of wind.
No problems over the summit at the state line but when we got down
around Mt Shasta there was lots of snows. The plows were even out.

We have a new GPS this trip and we're still getting used to it. It does
have one feature I like a lot. When you're more than 3 mph over the
speed limit it puts a red background behind the speed/speed limit
display. Pretty handy if you miss seeing a speed limit reduction sign.

No photos today but it was a long driving day...

Tom

Feeding the Elk

There is a major Elk Refuge at Jewel, OR in the coast range mountains about 60 miles from Portland. Through the Winter months they allow advance sign up to ride the Elk feeding wagon on the daily feeding run. They run these from December through February and they fill up all the available bookings in the first few days of sign up. If you show up early and there is extra room on the wagon and the people who have signed up for the day agree then they will take an extra passenger or two. This morning Ron Eggers and I decided to try our luck getting a seat on the feeding wagon.

On the drive out we stopped to take some photos of this equipment shed.

We arrived at the refuge a full half hour before the feeding wagon was to set out so we took a few photos of the elk herd in the meadow beside the visitor center. This young buck posed for me with the does and calves in the background.

The wagon rides are reserved by small groups, families, friends or co-workers. This morning the group was 8 people and the wagon will hold 15. It is the choice of the group whether they will accept outsiders. This group was happy to have Ron and I ride along with them.

Through the winter months the bucks hang out together and the does and calves stay together in a different herd.

The Beastie Boys

I hadn't realized how close to the elk we'd be so had a longer lens on than would have been optimal. At least I did get a few portraits.

Up close and personal

Here an older buck warns a younger rival to stay away from his hay.

Mine

Here one of the bucks looks up from his hay to check out the people on the wagon. As long as you stay on the wagon the Elk pretty much ignore you but we were told that if anyone stepped off they'd all scatter. These are wild animals.

Here another one poses for me. It was great fun.


On our way home we stopped to have lunch at a historic farmstead which has been made over into a restaurant. This is one of the old farm outbuildings.