Some Odds and The End of Gulfapalooza 2011

 All good things must come to an end, and here's the last of our Gulfapalooza 2011 lighthouse-hunting trip.  The odds and ends and um, The End.  Above, a mushroom cloud (oh, if ONLY) rises above Houston and a southbound intermodal train.

 I don't know.  Palms and sky.  Pretty.

 Swampy grass near Lake Pontchartrain.  Sawgrass?  Sugar cane?  Whatever - it's neat!

 Tourist trap!  Tourist trap at Port Isabel!  Hide your wallet!

 This is what Texas looks like.  Okay, that's not fair.  This is what Texas looks like when it's about to rain.

The Orion nebula is the birthplace of stars and worlds.  This part of Texas gives birth to oil rigs.

 Train!  Well, a semi-restored museum piece, but still.  A nice example of an old SW1 switcher.

 ...and an even better caboose.

 Pensacola Light Station's only pelican.  He's very disciplined, though - stood still until completely painted!

We finished shooting lighthouses with a couple of days to spare, but we were nowhere near ready to go home, so we made haste to Kill Devil Hills, and our favorite beach-side balcony.  Best.  Trip.  Ever.

Thanks for visiting.  With any luck, we'll have more pictures to post soon.

Always In Training

All this writing about hoboes has me missing my trains. Or, missing the photographing of the trains, at least. Here's a sampling of shots from 2008 and 2009. Above, a westbound and empty coal train comes off the Old Main Line at Point of Rocks, MD in May, 2009.

Eastbound mixed freight splits the new signals at Barnesville, MD in May of 2008.

I miss the old B&O target signals. Change is bad, mmkay?

Another eastbound at Barnesville, later that same day.

Westbound Q400 rounds the big curve at Thomas Viaduct in Relay, near Baltimore. The tracks branching off to the left are the Old Main Line. This train will pass them again at their other end, in Point of Rocks.

Coal rumbles through Washington Grove, MD in the Spring of 2008.

Steam rises from the wet ties as the temperature quickly moves from the 50s to the 70s. Washington Grove, 2008.

I hate snow, but this morning at Washington Grove in January, 2009 was fun. Here comes the empty trash train, returning to the transfer station a mile or so away, to load up with more rubbish.

One spring morning in 2009, this old engine - the last un-rebuilt GP40 on the CSX - puttered by with a short work train. Just visible on the right, beyond the bridge, is a privately-owed old caboose, languishing in the sun.

At the west portal of the old Point of Rocks tunnel, empty auto-racks rattle westward, en route to Detroit to be reloaded with new cars.

Thanks for stopping by. More to come, as my hobo lifestyle permits...

Dragged Kicking And Screaming Into The Digital Age

I'm back! Here's sampling of my work with the digital format. In late 2006, I took my hard-earned little bonus from my excellent boss and picked up a shiny new 10-megapixel Nikon D-80 digital SLR. I had resisted as long as I could, but after seeing the results I got with the Kodak digital "starter" camera I'd received as a gift a couple of years prior (2.0 megapixels - responsible for the 2004 shot of Portland Head Lighthouse, above), I knew it was time. I'm *STILL* learning, by the way...

First train photographed with the D-80 - MARC's mid-afternoon westbound at Metropolitan Grove Road in Gaithersburg, MD.

En route from Maryland to Ohio for Thanksgiving 2006, we took a quick spin around the Cumberland area. I took one photo. This is a westbound empty coal train waiting for the signal at Mexico tower, and a single unit that thinks it can sneak out of the yard if it keeps its headlight off and goes really, really slowly.

In general, zoos kind of bum me out, but these prairie dogs at Washington's National Zoo in June 2007 seemed pretty contented.

The red panda would probably have preferred a nice, thick forest in which to hide and sleep, but no. This enclosure with a half-dozen good sleeping trees will have to suffice. I try to keep in mind that many of these animals in US zoos are not just here for show; they're here in an attempt to make more of their respective species.

The site of the fake moon landing, shot with my new zoom at 450mm in September 2007.

Moth! Washington Grove, MD - September 2007. I was pushing it with the zoom, not quite far enough from my subject. Note to Santa - I need a Macro lens!

In October 2007, we took the first real photo excursion for which digital was our primary format - North Carolina's Outer, Middle and Lower Banks. This is a perfect replica of the Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse, Roanoke Island.

It was a bit of a challenge to find which little boat service was operating on which day, but we persevered and made two trips to Point Lookout to shoot its spectacular tower. This one's from the sunny day.

Always dramatically curving off into the sun, is the future.

Come with me...

Random Raily Stuff From PoR and Gaithersburg - 2009ish

Train break! Eastbound Q401, with elephant-style power on the lead.

A rare unit train of sulfur tankers, westbound passing Metropolitan Grove Road.

Old Main Line to Baltimore on the left, Metropolitan Branch to Washington on the Right and E. Francis Baldwin's gorgeous Point of Rocks station in-between.

It's a SIGN!

A tiny new tree grows among the bones of an unlucky deer near Point of Rocks.

Point of Rocks Tunnel - west portal. Boo!

Ghost trains and weird noises and shiny rails.

Then this little guy fluttered by.

Sometimes, I love my mistakes.

Rocks was the place to be on this Summer day, as storms and their awesome thunderheads were all over Frederick county all afternoon.

More later. A bit more fun with the baby panda, some funky time exposures in the dark . . . and Carolina Lighthouses. Eventually.

Oh, The Places You've Been

Time to get silly for a minute. For a change - har har. One of those last few posts from the 2004 Maine Lighthouse Excursion and Symposium For Two featured a shot of my car chasing a bunch of lobster traps, and it reminded me that I have other shots of that car's adventures (and those of her predecessor). Photographically -- well, what can I say? They're pictures of cars. Mostly. Above, [Maris] shoots a Norfolk Southern grain train in the yard at Lexington, Kentucky in 1998. We put 30,000 miles on that blue Chevy in one year.

Skip to 2000. Here's the Baby Car watching the westbound Capitol Limited at Boyds, MD.

Skip a ahead - a lot - to December 2009. Our cars, shivering and muttering great streams of frigid profanity under the first of eleventy major snowstorms. Boo.

Skip back. To 1998. Oh, just do it, please. Now we're in Kentucky, near the Cumberland Gap. We had pulled over to photograph wild turkeys, but those turkeys can move, as it turns out.

Skip ahead again. Please? An encore presentation. It's more about the bridge (Barronvale, in Somerset County, PA - 2001) than the car, but I like how the car looks as though she's been told "stay," and she's being a very good car indeed.

See that "road" that goes into the woods to the left of the frame? Pictures can't do justice to that passage, somewhere in western PA in 2001. A seriously jacked-up Jeep with those big fat off-road tires would have been a more appropriate conveyance for that, but the Baby Car is nothing if not intrepid.

Scoot back just a year. I know, I know. I'm sorry*. This is the substitute baby car that the insurance people provided for our 2000 Florida Keys honeymoon - following the smooshing of the real Baby Car in Florida City (barf), just a couple of miles from the start of the Overseas Highway. This was truly an infant vehicle, too - like 25 miles on it when we picked it up.

In the Lower Keys the following year, here's the real Baby Car, almost as good as new and thoroughly enjoying the Sunshine State. Splash, splash!

Flash-forward to 2007. Happy Valentine's Day, Baby Car. Have some icicles. Boo.

That's better. Riding the ferry from Okracoke Island to Cedar Island, North Carolina in 2007. Wait 'til you see the lighthouse pics from that trip. You probably won't have to wait long.

Until next time - stay warm, friends.
-J

* I'm not really sorry. :)