Lens Baby

For Christmas Sara received a Lens Baby among other things. The Lens Baby is a small lens for SLR camera's that has a signature adjustable "sweet spot" where the image is clear while it is otherwise blurred around the image edges. This latest Lens Baby model has a ring focus and a locking ring that allows for quick and accurate focusing with adjustable interchangeable apertures. All in all a lot of fun, especially for macro shots! Below are a few samples.

Turkey Run

For Thanksgiving, we traveled down south to Sara's parents house in Indiana. The day after Thanksgiving we thought it would be good to work off some pie and keep with the Thanksgiving theme by going to Turkey Run State Park down by Marshall.

The first part of our adventure included crossing Sugar Creek on a suspension bridge.

This group of 'turkies' posed while Mom took the photo.

We soon found ourselves gazing at massive canopies of sandstone from the Mansfield formation. Apparently these canyons were carved from glacial meltwaters from the Pleistocene Epoch. Yes, I am a nerd.

A seemingly teetering rock outcrop.

We saw canyons galore as we kept travelling along the trails marked 'very rugged.' Obviously whoever rated this trail hasn't been to Arizona.

One of the most fun parts of the trail is walking through a canyon that is just as wide as the small creek that carved it. Moss on the rock added a touch of color.

The next section of trail required climbing down some ladders.

Once through the canyons, we looped back around to Sugar Creek. Jenn & Zac posed for a photo op.

Jenn & Zac decided the 'old' people also had to get thier photo taken.

The three stooges....err...siblings at a lookout over Sugar Creek.

Six of the seven of us being engineers, we had to make sure and get a pic of the suspension bridge as we headed out. Mom just shook her head :-)

Zac doing his duty to keep the park clean just prior to leaving.

Waterfalls

After our trip to Mount Saint Helens, we headed back towards the Portland area for the night. Prior to flying back to Minnesota, we took a trip along the Columbia River Gorge to see some waterfalls with Archie.

Rapids in the creek along the trail.

Pat & Archie infront of Wahkeena Falls.


Another couple views of Wahkeena Falls.

Next it was on to Multnomah Falls.

People on the bridge give scale to the lower falls.

Looking down at the lower falls from the bridge.

The upper falls from the bridge.

The falls viewing area with the Gorge in the background.

Pat & I realized how out of shape we were while trying to keep up with super hiker Archie on the trail to the top of the falls. We finally made it and got a great view of the Gorge from the top.

We tried to convince Archie that this is the spot to cliff jump, but he didn't seem to think that was true for some reason.

A smaller set of falls upstream from the top of Multnomah Falls.

Mount St. Helen's

While on the West Coast we visited our good friend Archie who lives in Seattle. He was gracious enough to meet us in Portland where we did a little sight seeing.


Sara and Archie along the road to Mt. St. Helen's.


Sara and Pat

Mount St. Helen's covered in clouds.

Remnants of the eruption.

A moment of sun along an interpretive path.

A bit windy.

This shot and the few following were taken on the way out. We were lucky enough to see a pretty spectacular sunset.

A popular tourist stop. This A-frame was buried up to the second floor in Ash after the eruption.