around the lake day 1

This was the first full day, from the morning. We stopped at the big overlook again, and took more photos from there. Again, I’m a little sad to not have the film from that session, since I seem to remember shooting a lot on it. From there, we went to a spot where you could hike out to the shore, and then along it as well. That proved fairly difficult.

The shore of the lake is a very gradual affair, very flat in places, and with little natural vegetation, so it’s mostly one big mudhole. If you’re careful, you can go pretty far, between hillocks and rocks. I hiked that way for about an hour, making it all the way out to where I took the last two pictures without leaving a footprint. Then, on the way back, just as I was thinking I was back to solid ground, I managed to step into about 6 inches of mud, only one foot, and make a mess of my jeans. The sulphur smell was enough that I left my shoes and jeans outside the hotel room that night.

bridgeport in the morning

These are the rest of the pictures from that early morning in Bridgeport; I should have probably spent the first half hour driving out to the lake, but I figured I might as well spend some time in the town, and it ended up being worthwhile. There were no people when I first out at first light, but by the time the sun actually came over the mountains, there were a fair number, and a bakery right on main street had opened, and sold me a ham and cheese pastry.

One last view of the mountains and cows. There’s a feeling of spaciousness in the west, room to spread out. That includes just leaving stuff outside, in the alley. When there’s no limit to the space you have, organization looks different. Sunrise next to the bakery, where I sat and drank my coffee. This bird was awfully friendly; from his roundness, I think he was probably feeding off tourists’ leavings. He didn’t get any of mine, at least. Didn’t notice this place open while we were in town; I don’t think they cater to the 6:30am crowd. The general store where we got champagne and beer and snacks. Full disclosure: this picture has been cropped and perspective-adjusted.

mono lake part one

We came into Bridgeport through the pass north of 120, I disremember which road it was. Stopped at an overlook, maybe half way down, that had a good view of the valley we’d been coming down, out of the sierras. Switchbacks the whole way, and I was driving, so didn’t take too many photos (since I’ve nearly killed myself doing that, I only take the risk when I’m alone).

Got into Bridgeport, checked in to the motel there, and then went to see what we could see of the lake. It wasn’t quite golden hour, but the closeness of the mountains meant that the whole lake was in shadow a couple hours before the official sunset. I took a couple pictures with the film camera from a nice overlook, which are still undeveloped, four months later. We proceeded to the visitors’ center for the national monument, which was closed, so I ran around taking photos anyway. Then we lost the light so we went on to dinner and then back to the motel.

The next morning, I woke up early and went for a walk. There’s not much left of Bridgeport. A couple bars, a couple hotels, and cattle ranches all around. And great big beautiful mountains.

There’s a saying, ‘The perfect is the enemy of the done,’ that I’ve been contemplating lately. I have a hard time letting go of stuff that isn’t perfect. Not only that. It’s very hard for me to start something that I can’t see the through line to completion. A friend on facebook brought it up in the context of cleaning, but it applies to blogging all the pictures, too. These are four months old, for crying out loud. They’re pretty good. I think the third image is going to look great printed very large (40x60, for those that care). Anyway, this is me, not trying to get it perfect, but just getting the thing done.

olivia and roger's pizza oven

This was just a delightful way to spend an August afternoon. Roger and Olivia had me, Sophia, and some friends of theirs from out of town over just after their tomato harvest for pizzas. Everything except the cheese was fresh made that day, all top notch. Naturally, I ate way too much and got sleepy. Nothing else to be done.

Yeah, I know it’s November, and I’m now something like three months behind. My setup has been fighting me on getting stuff done around here. I’ve been working on several non-photo projects, but really I’m kinda tired of all of that. I’ll probably build another watch, though.