Bryce Canyon National Park

Bryce Canyon National Park, UT

Canon PowerShot SX40 HS, 1/1250s, f/4, ISO: 200

If you're looking for endless views, Bryce Canyon is the place to go.  Yosemite and the Grand Canyon might have more spectacular scenery, but only slightly more spectacular, and both of those places are basically closed in.  Bryce Canyon is the high point for miles around in a couple of directions.  The views can go on for miles and miles and miles.

Photo selection inspired by Geogypsy's Foto Friday Fun 104, photo #1955.

Into the Mystic

Bryce Canyon National Park, UT
Canon PowerShot SX40 HS, 1/1000s, f/4, ISO: 100

Anyone that knows me knows I'm not a believer in things mystical or religious.   Well, aside from my mother who seems to need to cling to the idea that I'm a man of faith, which I certainly am not.  I don't disbelieve, I just think if there's a greater being or beings out there then he, she or they are bound to be of unfathomable complexity to these hairless apes that roam the Earth.  Anything we to try to make sense of such things can only succeed in obscuring things further.

That doesn't mean I don't think some people can't have experiences with meaning that surpasses our physical constraints, and when I run into a scene like this I can't help but be a little jealous that these folks just might be getting a brief sliver of a glimpse at the unfathomable.  If not, they're certainly experiencing that enriching peaceful quiet that only places like Bryce Canyon can deliver.  I tend to suspect the latter, for what it's worth.

On this particular day I'd experienced that soul-reviving quiet while taking a nap under a tree a couple of hundred yards away from this scene.  I was probably sawing logs, ruining everyone else's peace.  Sorry.

The Bottom of the Continent

Death Valley National Park, CA
Canon PowerShot SX40 HS, 1/1250s, f/5, ISO: 160

Death Valley wasn't always a dry desert.  The valley floor was once a large, deep lake.  At its largest, it was roughly eighty miles long, six miles wide and six hundred feet deep at its deepest point.  It's known as Lake Manly, and it made a brief return in 2004 after a severe storm.  It only averaged a couple of feet in depth, but it covered most of the valley floor and people were actually able to kayak from one side of the valley to the other.  Wouldn't that have been something to experience?

Today there's a large aquifer beneath Death Valley.  That's why there are always pools of water at Badwater Basin and other places in the valley.  I believe the water in this picture springs from the aquifer as well.

California Ground Squirrel

California Ground Squirrel -- Arrowhead Marsh, Oakland, CA
Canon EOS Rebel T5i, EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS II, 1/200s, f/5.6, ISO: 100

A lot of people I know consider ground squirrels to be nothing more than rats with bushy tails.  I think they are kind of cute.  Pongo likes chasing them.  One thing is for sure, they're in no danger of going on the endangered species list anytime soon.  They seem to be everywhere in Northern California.

Pelican on a Piling

Brown Pelican -- Martin Luther King, Jr. Regional Shoreline, Oakland, CA
Canon EOS Rebel T5i, EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS II, 1.1600s, f/5.6, ISO: 200

I saw this pelican on my drive home a few days ago so I stopped for a few pictures.  Watching these big birds fish the estuary never gets dull.  This pelican was hanging out with another pelican who was snoozing on an adjacent piling.  It's got to be tough sleeping on a pole.

Brown Pelican -- Martin Luther King, Jr. Regional Shoreline, Oakland, CA
Canon EOS Rebel T5i, EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS II, 1.1000s, f/5.6, ISO: 100

There's Something You Don't See Every Day

Double-crested Cormorant -- Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area, CA
Canon EOS Rebel T5i, EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS II, 1/2000s, f/5.6, ISO: 160

I'll grant you, this isn't the greatest picture by any stretch of the imagination.  I had to share it for the sheer strangeness of it.  Web-footed birds sitting on a power pole?  I've never seen such a thing.  It would be even more awesome if they were actually on the power line but I suspect that's not a possibility.  Crazy birds.

South to Big Sur

Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, CA

Canon EOS Rebel T5i,  EF 17-40mm f/4L USM, 1/80s, f/9, ISO: 100

Where Big Sur begins and ends is a bit fuzzy, especially the Northern boundary.  I've seen it defined vaguely as "South of Carmel."  I've seen it defined somewhat arbitrarily but specifically as the mouth of the Carmel River.  If you go by the signs along the road, places don't start labeling themselves as "Big Sur This" or "Big Sur That" until you're probably twenty miles South of Carmel.

Personally, I like to think of Point Lobos as the boundary.  I would say that Point Lobos is the union of Big Sur and the Monterey stretch of coastline.  It's easy to imagine that Point Lobos is where the mountains start to fall into the sea, yet the cypress groves tie it to what lies North, not South.  It's a little bit of both, which is part of what makes it unique.