Five

I feel like I've not been on this planet for a couple of weeks now. This summer has already been way too busy for my taste and it doesn't look like it's letting up any time soon, but I'm doing my best to stay caught up and still have fun. These five images are from my June trip to Oregon with my dad and nephew and Josh (my nephew's friend). I flew into Portland and spent the day with Elizabeth downtown, and out at Fort Stevens State Park before joining my family for the rest of the week. I had a wonderful time and am just so happy that my dad has this thing for the Oregon Coast because it means we can go together. Thanks for a great trip, Dad!

Taking cues from the lovely Alison Garnett, here are five good things:
1. my husband's new laptop and watching a movie on it in bed last night
2. the crock pot
3. awesome neighbors
4. zucchini bread
5. backyard movies

Mo(u)rning

First off, thank you to all of my friends for the kind condolences. My grandma was a wonderful person and the best grandma in the world and she will be sorely missed. It still doesn't seem real, and I still feel like I've got a dark rain cloud over my head, but I know my grandma is at peace and is with my grandpa after 17 years apart, and also with her parents and sisters, and they're all having a good ol' time together. I will always remember all the fun we had together and I know I'll meet up with her and my grandpa again someday...

A few weeks ago, we planned a trip to Flaming Gorge in northeastern Utah so I could do some Forest Service photography work, and with the tough week we had last week, we thought about canceling the trip and just staying home, but my granny wouldn't have wanted us sitting around moping, and we thought it would offer a nice distraction, so we hit the road Friday morning. It was a very busy weekend and we were running all over the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area the whole time. We put 800 miles on the car in three days, but saw some beautiful country and met some nice people. Here are just a few photos from Red Canyon, where we camped Friday night. As my husband snored away in the tent, I got up and watched the sunrise at 6 o'clock. More photos to come, including several Polaroids and a couple rolls through my Banner.





#15 on my list can officially be crossed off, but I'm sure we'll go on several more camping trips. I shot this last photo Saturday morning, which was morning #5 in a tent.

Granny

My grandma passed away on Friday. It was for the best, but I sure will miss her. I love you, Granny! Rest in peace.

Ace!

I got to spend some quality time in the Ace Hotel photobooth last Sunday with Elizabeth. She's got the other strips posted on her blog. Warning: they're pretty geeky. Why is it so cool to take pictures of cameras?

I flew to Portland Sunday morning and had the flight almost to myself. It was so nice to have an entire row to myself. Beth picked me up and we headed to Hawthorne for some shopping. I picked up a used copy of the Sunset Western Garden book for $12, a sun print kit, and a cute little green wallet covered in owls, and a styrofoam cooler and some ice from the Fred Meyer. Huh? Yeah. We went to Kenny & Zukes for lunch, and since I was meeting my dad in Cannon Beach later that day, and since he was raised in Queens, NY on good Jewish deli food, I had to take him some pastrami, potato salad, onion bagels and scallion cream cheese. After lunch, we hit the photobooth, and the Whole Foods for desserts (which I'm praying our Whole Foods carries), and cruised out to Fort Stevens. We checked out the wreck of the Peter Iredale, and Battery Russell and got freaked out by birds and boys playing laser tag in the battery. Beth dropped me off in Cannon Beach so I could spend the week with my dad and nephew and his pal Josh. I was sad to see her go, but we get to spend some time together again tomorrow while she passes through Utah on her way down south. Yay!

I had a wonderful time with my dad and took about 50 more Polaroids and five rolls of film. I shot color and black & white in my new Banner (see post below), and a couple color rolls in my Duaflex, and I'll be dropping them off soon this morning. I haven't scanned anything other than this photobooth strip, but I'll work on everything Monday.

The Kenny & Zukes fare was a huge hit with my dad. He loved it all! Thanks for a great trip, Dad!

PS: Why does Southwest Airlines' orange juice always taste like bacon-infused OJ? Yuck.

Swoon

A very kind friend sent me a beautiful little Banner Diana clone and these are from my first roll. My husband will give me angry eyes for posting a photo of him, but he looks pretty cool playing disc golf, and I think he'd be impressed with the definition in his calf muscle. :) This Banner is amazing. I've never had a Diana blur this much, and I'm not sure I'll ever use my other Dianas again. I can't wait to run some color film through it this weekend. The rest of the roll will be posted on my Flickr photostream throughout the day.

The Office

Last Saturday morning we hit the road for the day so I could chalk up a few hours for my summer job. We drove almost 400 miles round trip to the mountains east of Fairview, Utah and back, and saw a lot of beautiful scenery that we didn't realize existed. These two images are digital (boo) and originally color, but I converted them in PS to something I like better. The color versions were nice, but I felt like some black and white this morning. The first one is off Miller Flat Road in the morning, the second one in Huntington Canyon after a really bad lunch of the dryest turkey sandwiches on earth.

We stopped in Huntington to grab lunch, thinking the grocery store deli would be our best bet, since the only other eating establishment was a Subway. We figured we'd grab some rolls, some fresh-sliced deli turkey, some provolone, and some dijon mustard, but we were amused to find that the only meats the deli had were pepperoni, roast beef, and pastrami. We asked for some free mustard packets and made our way to the refrigerator section, where we grabbed some relatively appetizing-looking prepackaged mesquite turkey, some string cheese instead of provolone because there was none to be had, a small loaf of fresh French bread, and some chips. I made the sandwiches from the passenger seat as we were driving up the canyon. They provided us with full bellies, but they were gross sandwiches. We made up for it at dinner with chile verde burritos at Porcupine Pub in Salt Lake.

#12

I shot a lot of pack film in Southern Utah and these four are my favorites. I think I am well on my way to crossing #12 off my list.

Dusk and Dawn

I think these two Polaroids might be my favorite two Polaroids I've made so far. I think I give that title to a lot of my Polaroids. The one on top is in Torrey, Utah, after dinner and before the massive rainbow (two posts below). The light was incredible this whole evening! The Polaroid on the bottom is in Fruita in Capitol Reef the next morning. A lovely apple orchard. At least I think that's what this one was. Fruita is filled with orchards of cherries, apples, apricots, and peaches, and in the fall, you can walk through and harvest what you want for a small fee. I would love to pick some fresh apples, walk back to my campsite, and make a dutch oven apple crisp over the fire. Yum!

I'm almost done posting my Southern Utah photos. It's been a long haul, but we're in the final stretch. Only a handful of SLR 680/600 Polaroids left, then two 690s from my 104, and 11 ID-UV images from the 104. I loved the ID-UV this trip!

Back outside to plant some red salvia in my front yard. I wish I had a personal gardener some days.

Goodbye Local Color!

I'm both happy and sad to announce that I'm retiring my Local Color series at the end of the month, but it's going out with a bang. Several years ago, determined to get outside and beat the winter blues, I loaded my Holga with Fuji NPH 400 and drove downtown and shot my very first image of what turned into a nice little series for me. I've had the opportunity to show it in four exhibits since 2007, and its last public appearance will be right across the street from where I shot that very first image and fell in love with the idea of shooting these types of facades in my hometown. I've been so happy with this project, and I had a great time shooting it over the years, and I'm happy that its last show will be at home in Ogden. The opening is tomorrow night at the Gallery at the Station at the Ogden Union Station on 25th and Wall Avenue from 6-8, and the show runs through June 30. Please feel free to stop by to say hello to me and goodbye to Local Color. (You can click on the postcard to make it bigger.)

Better in the Oven

It's Friday and I've been home since Monday night, but I've just barely had time to go through my digital files from our long Memorial weekend trip to Southern Utah. I haven't even scanned my Polaroids yet, nor have I dropped my film off for developing. I've been so busy this week with work, it's been almost maddening. I am hoping to get my Polaroids scanned tonight. I just need an hour!

So, the trip, because that's much more interesting than how busy I've been... We drove to Panguitch last Thursday night and Travis spent Friday hiking 15+ straight-down/straight-up miles in Bryce Canyon National Park while I did a lot of summer job work. Friday night we stayed at the world's finest KOA in Cannonville. We absolutely loved it there. The owners were awesome, the location/scenery were stellar, the pancake breakfast cheap and delicious. We can't wait to go back. Saturday we visited Kodachrome Basin State Park for the first time and although it rained most of the time, we loved it. It was beautiful and no one was there. I bet we saw probably 30 people in the six hours we were there, and most of them were in the parking lot where we ate lunch. We stayed at the awesome KOA again that night and drove to Torrey and Capitol Reef Sunday. We'd never been to Capitol Reef and fell in love. (Clearly, we loved the whole trip!) We got a Zion feel but with lots of history and a much smaller crowd.

Just one of 40+ Polaroids I have to scan, Cedar Breaks National Monument.

Bryce Canyon at Rainbow Point in post-rainshower/almost-sunset glory.

We were treated to an amazing rainbow outside Capitol Reef Sunday.

Fruita schoolhouse built in 1896 in Capitol Reef.

You know how all vacations end up having catchphrases? My last trip to Moab with the girls resulted in "Awesome!" and "Take a picture, it'll last longer." A trip to Mission Beach when I was 12 had us kids saying (in terrible English accents), "Rollerblades are like rancid beasts with wheels." We were dumb kids. I can't explain it. On another trip to DC when I was 18, my sister and I heard someone at the Vietnam Memorial say, "Too many folks in my way!" and we alternated between that and "Three little kittens went to the beach." Can't really explain that one either. Anyway, are you with me? So this trip, we came away with two good statements. The first from a couple who backed their RV into the campsite next to us at the Cannonville KOA. They spoke not a word to each other except when the husband was backing in and his wife stood behind the motor home guiding him in. She motioned to him to stop, annoying said "Stop." and he put the beast into park and then it rolled another six inches back, like most large vehicles do, and she annoyingly yelled "STOP!" That's all we heard from them the whole night.

The second phrase was from another woman who was traveling with her husband, small child, and her husband's parents. The father-in-law and husband were playing horseshoes for quite some time when the wife, who you could tell was annoyed with her travel situation (being stuck with her mother-in-law and her attached-at-the-hip neurotic Italian Greyhound), walked to within about 20 feet of the horseshoe pit and started yelling to her husband to come light the oven in the RV. We were sitting not five feet away from her loud mouth, playing cards on the front porch of the KOA's office, and busted up laughing. This is the yelled conversation:

Wife: Hey! ...... HEY!
Husband: WHAT?
W: WE NEED YOU TO COME LIGHT THE OVEN!
H: OK!
W: IT'S GOING TO TAKE AN HOUR TO COOK THE PASTA IN THE OVEN, SO WE NEED YOU TO LIGHT THE OVEN!
H: OK! ...... I THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO COOK IT IN THE MICROWAVE!
W: WE DECIDED NOT TO!
H: WHY AREN'T YOU COOKING IN THE MICROWAVE?
W: BECAUSE WE THOUGHT IT WOULD BE BETTER IN THE OVEN!
H: OH!

And then she walked away in a huff, and he kept on playing horseshoes for another 20 minutes. We were laughing the whole time, and she was not happy. We have been yelling their conversation back and forth since. I hope the wife's vacation got better and that her pasta got cooked, but I'm guessing that our vacation was much better than hers.