Education Vacation

     My day job requires me to complete 20 hours of professional continuing education each year. Since I have to go anyway, I try to pick seminars in locations that are fun to visit. We are just back from a combination of education and vacation on the East Coast. The convention center was very nice. So nice, in fact, that I felt a little out of place there. This place was so rich that there was a vending machine in the lobby with $350 Bose Headphones for sale. Where I come from, vending machines are for crackers.
    Here is a view across the hotel atrium and out to the yacht club on the river. The atrium was set up like a little town with shops and restaurants in little buildings like the one you see on the lower right.

    This rocky stream courses through the atrium.

Outdoors, a wild Mallard Duck stops briefly at the hotel's  landscaped waterfall before flying on downriver.

    In front of the hotel, the limo drivers prepare for a busy day.

                           

     One morning we discovered a dirt road near our hotel that curved around a bend in the river. We were quite close to the convention center, restaurants, and shopping, and still we saw Mallard ducks with their babies, diving ducks, Canada Geese, and a Red-winged Blackbird. On the ground we saw deer tracks. Honey Bunny walked out there with me the following night so that I could get this shot, otherwise I would not have felt comfortable there alone. The convention center is on the far right. The purple lights are from the sixteenth floor night club.

                             

    Here are two more photos of the river. The bridge you see in the distance is a drawbridge. I always get the creeps driving over those. It is  1 and 1/4 miles long and carries twelve lanes of traffic. There is a concrete barrier to protect pedestrians who have their own lane. We saw people jogging there, but were told that noise from the traffic is deafening.

                        

                            

    This is part of a 70 foot sculpture that depicts a giant trying to free himself from the sand.

    That's okay. I don't want to get on your dumb old boat anyway!

                    

    The seminar we attended offered full time learning. Night classes, lunch-and-learns, and wet labs were all a part of the package. One morning I took advantage of the free continental breakfast in the exhibit hall, only to be bombarded by big screen TVs with advertisements from some of the vendors. None of this surprised me until I saw these signs paired together. I then had to wonder if the "full time learning" thing was getting a bit out of hand.

              

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Ghost Town

    

    During my trip to Montana I was able to visit Nevada City, the site of a gold rush town from the 1860s. This was not the corny tourist attraction I feared. Rather it was a serious attempt by the Montana Heritage Commission to preserve buildings and history from that era.
    The town lent itself well to high dynamic range photography. HDR, in a nutshell, allows us to use software to bring out tones that we can't capture with "normal" photography. If the HDR software is used more aggressively it produces surreal photos like the top one.
    Photos that are "color-ie" or "textur-ie" work well in HDR, according to Ben Long. He teaches (on Lynda.com) that with HDR we make photos "crunchy." I can't think of any better way to describe it, so I am not going to argue with Mr. Long about his choice of words.
    These train cars are about as color-ie and textur-ie as it gets. I feel as if I could get a nice reddish-orange splinter just from looking at the photos.

    This house was built in 1873 by a rancher, gold miner and legislator named Stedman. Like many buildings in the town, it was moved to Nevada City from its original location by the state of Montana as part of the historical preservation effort.
    The trees are Cottonwood and have the most beautiful bark.

    One interesting story from Nevada City's history comes from a newspaper called the Montana Post. In 1864 the Post reported that three sisters with the last name of Canary were begging in the streets while their father gambled in the dance hall. The oldest sister was probably Martha Canary who grew up to be Calamity Jane.
    Calamity Jane was a fascinating person according to an article in Montana Outlaw by Hunter Rothwell. She could easily have an entire blog devoted to her story. Jane could ride, shoot, and drink whiskey by the age of thirteen. Three years after the newspaper reported her father's gambling escapades she was an orphan. With no one to care for her she tried her hand at a variety of jobs including stints as a dance-hall girl, ox team driver, army scout, and as a Pony Express rider.
    She also had many run-ins with the law. Drunk and disorderly conduct, shoplifting, and running through the streets naked while drunk were a few of her offenses.
    To be fair, Calamity Jane was also known for her kind heart. She helped many people and even volunteered to nurse small pox victims.
    Calamity Jane was so unique, even her boyfriend had a unique name, Arkansas Tom.

    Most of you probably already know this, but if you are viewing my blog on-line you can click on any of these photos to see them at full size.

Reflections

    Visiting Montana is like visiting another country. I say that as a compliment.
    The population density of my my home state is 196 inhabitants per square mile, which places us at 15th in the nation. In Montana the population density is 6.8 inhabitants per square mile, 48th in the nation. Or, to put it another way, there are 28 times as many people in a square mile here as compared to there.
    When you pick up my hometown paper and read the crime report you will see murders, rapes, and armed robberies. In the town of West Yellowstone, Montana you will read that "A camper reported that a bear was near them," and "Someone found a calico cat."
    Folks in West Yellowstone love to get out and enjoy their beautiful mountains. They especially enjoy camping. They enjoy it so much that they have a campground at their airport. One of our guides is so crazy about camping that as soon as he could shake himself loose from camping with us he was going to spend one week camping with his family in an area so remote it takes two days to get there.
    Speaking of the airport, it is so small there is only one airstrip for landing or taking off. While waiting for my flight out I counted my fellow passengers. They numbered 20 people and a dog.
    The TSA agents walk freely among the passengers in the airport's only waiting room. They make announcements in a friendly fashion unusual for members of their profession. "We'll start screening at ten past. Huckleberry jam and syrup are considered liquids and gels and must be transported as checked baggage, not as carry on." Upon this several passengers jumped up to return to the only check-in desk with their bags.
    The airport is only open from June through September. The rest of the year they are closed due to snow. This schedule is "approximate" according to their official web site. During the winter the airport is rented out to a company who tests snow and cold conditions on tires and other equipment.
    It snows a LOT in Montana. The beautiful meadow pictured above was covered in snow just two weeks before I arrived.........in July! Just over the state line at Sawtelle Peak, Idaho I saw a snow pole. These look  like a cross between a telephone pole and a large ruler. They are marked in feet so that one can tell how much snow is on the ground. The highest measurement on the pole? Eleven feet!
    I put together a little slide show with photos from my trip. You can see it on You Tube by clicking here.