Yesterday, one of the buds on the saguaro cactus in my front yard bloomed. Today, there were many more blooms. I took this photo from the covered walkway near my front door using a 200mm lens. The blue color of the sky is not enhanced in Photoshop; it’s a direct result of the polarizing filter on the lens.

Saguaro flowers bloom at night and are pollinated by bats. Bees and birds do a bit of pollination during daylight hours. After a day or two in the sun, the flowers wilt. Fruits begin forming shortly thereafter. The fruits are small and hard and, as they ripen, they split open to reveal red pulp. Seeds are tiny — think smaller than poppy seeds on a bagel — and are eaten and passed through by the birds who feast on the fruit.

Keep in mind that this cactus is 15-20 feet tall. The flowers are on top. This is one of the reasons it’s so difficult to get good photos of saguaro flowers — it’s not like you can stand right next to them.

I just ordered a 70-300mm Nikon lens with image stabilization. I think it’ll help me get better shots of things like this. I’m also looking forward to using it on my flight to Washington state this coming weekend.

Related Posts:

• My Cactus is Growing an Arm
• Snake in Cactus (with Photos)

As summer approaches and the little moisture we got during this winter’s rainshowers completely dries up, the native desert plants go about their late spring business. A walk around my yard with my camera yielded these photographs of what’s blooming now.

First up, some prickly pear cactus flowers. This is an Engelmann’s Prickly Pear in our backyard, which displays yellow flowers each spring. These are the same cacti we harvest for young prickly pear pads this time of year. They’re great on the grill.

We also have a purple prickly pear cacti in the side yard. Its flowers are similar, but generally brighter in color — almost neon, in fact.

I’m not sure of the identity of this one. It’s a wildflower that’s growing alongside our driveway and in various other parts of the unlandscaped portion of our property. I believe that it’s a paperflower, but I could be wrong. (If anyone knows for sure, use the Comments link or form for this article to let us know.)

This desert willow took root in our side yard some years ago and grew like a weed. As you can see, it gets very dramatic pink flowers — the entire tree is covered with them right now. It flowers twice a year and makes long seed pods filled with hundreds of seeds. The tree loses all of its leaves in the coldest winter months and is pretty messy, so a lot of people avoid them. Me, I wish my yard was full of them.

Palo verde is also blooming throughout Wickenburg right now. (It bloomed at lower elevations 2 to 4 weeks ago.)

For another look at the palo verde in bloom, check out this photo I took of the high school last week. All the yellow you see in the trees are palo verde flowers. Nice, huh?

As I type this, I’m sitting at Gate A6 at Burbank Airport. I just finished up a five-day business trip in Ventura, CA, where I worked with a new client. It was a very satisfactory week, primarily because the client picked up all of my expenses and they put me up in a very nice room on Ventura Harbor.

Yes, it was a Holiday Inn Express. But it was also one of the nicest hotel rooms I’ve stayed in for a long time. My first floor room may have lacked a patio, but it had vaulted ceilings and floor to ceiling windows that looked out over the harbor. This, in fact, was my view:

That shot’s only slightly zoomed in. The boats were so close that, if my window opened a bit wider, I could have lobbed bars of soap at them.

Let me just say a few more things about this most excellent room. It was quiet — no sound from next door, no sound from the hall, no sound from outside — even with the window open! It included a nice sized fridge, two burner stove, microwave, sink, and various pots, pans, plates, and utensils. In other words, I could have prepared my own meals. The bathroom was huge and included a glass-enclosed shower stall, deep jacuzzi tub, and vanity with stool. The main room had a comfortable king-sized bed, sofa, desk, and round table with two chairs right in the prow window. Not only was it bigger than my first apartment, but it was a heck of a lot better equipped. Although I didn’t spend much time there, it was nice to come “home” to such a nice place after a long day at work.

On Tuesday, after work, I walked to the ocean from my room. I figure it was about a mile each way, walking along the south side of the harbor. I took some photos.

Here’s a flower right outside my hotel. I don’t know what it is, but it was beautiful. And my CoolPix’s macro mode did a nice job of capturing it, even in questionable light.

Near the end of the harbor was an arcade with a tiny carousel inside. I took a few shots of the ride in motion, but I like this shot, which I took after the kids had climbed off, the best:

After dinner at Andria’s, I walked back the same way I’d come. I caught sight of what I think is a Great Blue Heron just moments after it plucked a fish out of the water. I got this slightly blurred shot of the bird with the fish in its mouth:

Last night, I could see a great sunset from my window. I went out in my slippers for a better angle and got this shot:

I had a surprisingly good time in Ventura. It’s a nice little town with lots of great dining opportunities. I ate as I always do when I’m away from Wickenburg: as if I haven’t eaten a good meal in years. Next week, it’s back to my diet.

Back in the beginning of March, while my mother-in-law was visiting us from New York, I flew the three of us from Wickenburg to Las Vegas by helicopter.

I chose my favorite route for that flight: straight to Lake Havasu City and up the Colorado River all the way to Lake Mead, then west to McCarran Airport. The flight went well, but strong headwinds turned what should have been a 1.8 hour flight into a 2.5 hour flight. (It also made the flight a bit rough in some places.) Mike, sitting in the back, had my old PowerShot camera. Here are a few of the photos he took along the way. I chose the ones where you can see details within the cockpit to put the scenes in perspective. It’s also kind of cool (at least to me) to see the instruments and gauges in the panel.

Here’s Lake Havasu City. That’s London Bridge below us — the real thing, brought over from England in the 1970s. I always start my upriver flights with an overflight of the bridge.

 
Much farther up the river, we reached Hoover Dam and the bypass bridge, which is still under construction. Hoover Dam, in case you don’t know, holds in Lake Mead. The white line right above water level is about 60 feet tall and marks the high water line. (The water level is way down.) We would have gotten some better photos of the dam and bridge if the area weren’t so darn congested. There was a tour helicopter high over the dam and a pair of military helicopters that would be cutting right between us, less than 500 feet over my head. I didn’t waste much time there.

 
After crossing the southwest corner of Lake Mead, I headed west toward the city. Here’s a shot as we were getting ready to cross Lake Las Vegas. If you’ve got sharp eyes (or the full-sized photo) you can see the Las Vegas skyline on the horizon on the right side of the photo.

Air Traffic Control at McCarran instructed me to fly toward the Stratosphere when I was still 15 miles out. I wound up flying just south of it — my altitude was below the glassed-in restaurant/ amusement level of the tower. (At the time, I recall wondering what people looking out at us must have been thinking.) I’m particularly fond of this shot because it’s so damn surreal.

We made our approach to McCarran flying down I-15, then descending between Luxor and Mandalay Bay to land on the ramp. I have video of it from my POV.1, but I don’t think it’s all that good. I’ll have to do it again one of these days with the camera mounted in its new position. (More on that another time.)

I like to keep a camera in my purse. You never know when a photo opportunity might crop up. While some people would be perfectly satisfied using the camera on their phone, I’m a bit picky. So when my 7.1 megapixel Canon PowerShot became unreliable earlier this month, I replaced it with a 10 megapixel Nikon CoolPix.

[A side note here: I cannot believe how advanced and inexpensive digital cameras have become. This was the least expensive of all the digital cameras I've purchased, yet it has more capabilities than all of them except my Nikon D80 digital SLR. And the pictures speak for themselves.]

I took the camera along on my afternoon chores at the horse corral and snapped a few photos of what’s currently in bloom around my yard. It’s been warm out during the day — in the 80s — and although there was some rain to the north of Wickenburg today, it remains dry here. Still, there are more wildflowers this year than I’ve seen in a few years.

A close-up shot of some desert marigolds, including a flower bud. Unfortunately, the guy who takes care of our yard pulls these out as weeds.

Globe mallow. (Remember, I’m still playing with my camera, so I’m experimenting a bit more than usual.)

Brittlebush. These took seed in our yard, grew into bushes, and flower every year.

Back in January, I wrote a blog post called “Over Quartzsite.” In it, I told the story of a photo shoot over Quartzsite, AZ.

The post was remarkable in that it got a comment from someone who had heard about my overflight from one of the folks on the ground that day. It’s always rewarding when I write about one of my experiences and someone who was there from a different point of view comments on it.

Anyway, I didn’t hear anything from the photographer after the flight. Until today. He e-mailed me:

My story about QZ was published last week in France, six pages in a weekly.

I attached few of the aerial shots. Photos 1 & 2 were published.

For your private record you can post it but don’t give them away.

Also, I did again overnight park my camper outside a motel.
On Superbowl Sunday, I drove to Blythe and book a room to watch the game.

Good flights in your lovely state.

Attached to the message were five images that he took that day.

I asked his permission to reproduce low-res versions of the images here. He graciously said yes. If you read French, you can find his article at http://www.vsd.fr/contenu-editorial/photo-story/l-oeil-de-vsd/
58-arizona-les-papys-font-de-la-transhumance. All of the aerial photos were taken from my helicopter.

Here are the three I like best.

This photo shows a super wide angle view of Quartzsite from the south, right around sunset. No, we weren’t high enough to see the curvature of the earth — that’s the effect of the photographer’s wide-angle lens. (Apparently, I’m not the only one who likes fisheye lenses.) In the foreground is the big tent for the RV show. This is the biggest week in Quartzsite. This, by the way, is what he refers to as Photo 2. I think it’s the best of the bunch.

This shot was taken from the east side of town looking west, not long before sunset. The main road you see is I-10; it’s in the other shot, too. All those white specks are RVs — people dry camping out in the desert on BLM land.

I love this shot. It shows a typical area of RV campers. Makes you think of old westerns, doesn’t it? Circle the wagons, boys! We must have spent 20 minutes circling this huge parking lot — I think he took dozens of photos. I think I like this shot because it makes you feel as if the same pattern of circled RVs exists infinitely in this area.

I spent just about all of yesterday in bed, fighting the flu. It didn’t matter much. The weather outside turned nasty at around noon, with low clouds, rain, wind, and hail. Temperatures were in the high 40s for most of that time.

As I suspected, while we were getting rain, the mountains north of us were getting snow. This morning dawned clear and bright with a view of the snow-dusted Weaver Mountains about 15 miles north.

This shot was taken from our upstairs front window with a 55mm lens.

Snow on the Weavers isn’t very unusual. I’d say it happens 5 to 10 times a year. In almost all cases, the snow is gone by midday. Once, earlier this year, it lasted 2 or 3 days.

Today remains cold — it’s only 40°F right now at 8:45 AM. But the sun is out and I expect the snow to be gone soon.

Today was a photography day. Not only did I finally get my POV.1 camera to produce some good and interesting aerial video, but I went out in the desert and photographed wildflowers and other desert things.

Here are three photos of poppies that I took today. I believe they’re California Poppies, although I’ve heard people refer to them as Mexican Gold Poppies. Whatever. They are so plentiful this year that I can actually see them from the air as I fly over the desert: yellow carpet on the south-facing hills around Wickenburg and Phoenix.

All of these shots were taken in the desert just east of Vulture Peak, south of Wickenburg.

I think this is my favorite photo from today’s shoot.
 

The blue flowers mixed in here are lupines. Absolutely gorgeous but there are far fewer of them than poppies.
 

This one just says it all: Welcome to an Arizona spring.

It was cloudy most of yesterday and the clouds kept thickening right through sunset. The lunar eclipse was supposed to start right around then in the Mountain Time zone we live in. It was getting good and dark outside when a thunderstorm with lots of bright lightning began rumbling to the north. Radar showed it moving west to east just north of our home.

But against all odds, the moon broke through the clouds around 7 PM. We saw it from the den, where we were watching the Colbert Report on DVR. I hurried downstairs to fetch my Nikon D80 camera, new Nikon 55-200 mm lens, and tripod and soon had them set up on our upstairs back patio.

This first photo was taken not long after 7 PM. The exposure was tricky. If I exposed for the light part, the dark part would be too dark. If I exposed for the dark part, the light part would be too light and the shutter speed would be so slow that the moon would move while the photo was being taken. (I have lots of blurry photos of the moon, so I know from experience.) I fiddled around with bracketing. This shot was taken at f5.6 with a 1-second exposure.

This second photo was taken at least a half hour later. The moon had disappeared behind the clouds and come out several times. Then it developed this reddish glow that was likely from the shadow of the earth’s atmosphere. (At least that’s how I remember these things working.) This shot was taken at f5.6 with a 1/4 second exposure. There’s pretty good detail on the face of the moon.

I closed up shop (so to speak) after this shot. It was just too darn windy and cold to keep at it. Besides, the clouds kept hiding and revealing the moon. Call me a fair-weather photographer and you wouldn’t be too far from the truth.

Next time I’m going to try to do one of those multiple exposure shots where you see the earth’s shadow creeping over the moon a bit more in each shot. For that, however, I’ll need a good, clear shot of the sky, reasonable weather, and a quicker lens.

I’ve been camping since I was a kid. My family camped with an elaborate setup of tents and equipments on family vacations until I was about 11 years old. That’s when my dad caught a nasty cold and decided on comfort. My parents bought a 22-foot Prowler pull trailer that could sleep seven [little] people. That gave us all the comforts of home.

My family always camped in campgrounds that had at least partial hookups, even when we tent-camped. Mike and I, however, have always favored “dry camping” on public land and parks. We’re not the kind of people who like to be compartmentalized in a parking spot surrounded by other campers. Once, when we were camping at a park in Hawaii, everyone else set up their tents in a big field. We passed all that up and set up our tent on a cliff overlooking the ocean. At night, we could see the lights of the big island in the distance, we listened to the sound of the restless sea’s waves on the rocky shore below us — not our fellow campers.

Anyway, about a year and half ago, in preparation for a summer-long helicopter gig that didn’t happen [yet], I bought a 21-foot pull trailer. We’ve used it a number of times for helicopter gigs: at the Mohave County Fair, Big Sandy Shoot, COPPERSTATE Fly In, etc.

The camper is rigged for dry camping. It has a solar panel on the roof that keeps its batteries charged, so we have plenty of power for the lights and stereo and water pump. It holds 40 gallons of fresh water and has gray water and black water tanks to hold what goes down the drain or down the toilet. The fridge and water heater run on gas. Water is our big limiter; if we take very short showers every other day and use paper plates for all meals, we could probably last a week. But if we’re out for longer than three days, we bring extra water in up to four 7-gallon containers.

Most recently, we used the camper for a weekend-long stay in the Parker area, where I’d been hired to do an aerial photography gig of the Parker 425 Off-road race. Since we’d planned to bring Jack the Dog and Alex the Bird with us and since our camper isn’t very easy to keep warm on cold desert nights, I decided to reserve a spot in a campground. We wound up in Buckskin Mountain State Park (highly recommended if you don’t mind camping in a pleasant parking lot), right on the Colorado River. And for the first time ever, we had a full hookup: water, electricity, and sewer.

The main benefit of this is that we could use a very quiet electric heater to keep the camper warm at night. The gas heater that’s part of the camper has a very loud fan and goes on and off all night long. With the electric heater — which our batteries could not run — we got a very comfortable good night’s sleep.

Which is kind of important when you plan to spend the next day chasing off-road racers with a helicopter.

Anyway, after the race gig, Mike and I came back to the campground. We took Jack the Dog for a walk up to an overlook right above the campground. And that’s where I shot this photo. It reminds me of all those Go RVing commercials they have on television. It also shows what Arizona is like in the winter time, when the snowbirds come around in their $300,000 motorhomes and set up in transient RV neighborhoods like this campground.

 
In case you’re wondering, our camper is the small one just to the right of the big spread of green indoor/outdoor carpeting. That’s where our next door neighbors had set up an enclosure for their tiny dog, which spent all of its time on the dashboard of their motorhome, yapping at whoever went by.

And because you know I can never leave an interesting scene without trying that fisheye lens, here’s another shot from the same spot. That’s the Colorado River bending around the campground. The 10.5mm lens exaggerates the bend a bit, but it really does bend quite sharply here, making an interesting spot along the river.

 
And, for the record, neither of these shots have been cropped.

This afternoon, I stumbled upon a blog devoted to sharing photos. The description on the Round Robin Photo Challenges page states:

Welcome to the official information and update journal for the Round Robin Photo Challenges. This is where you will find all the details for each photo challenge, such as the subject, the link to blog or journal where each challenge is being hosted, and all updates to the players participation lists.

The current challenge can be found at “Round Robin Challenge: Landmarks:”

Again, let’s take an opportunity to show off our hometowns. I live in the Bay Area, so I have no real shortage of recognizable landmarks, so what I would do is try to show those landmarks in an interesting lighting circumstance, such as a sunset, or under special lighting conditions. But I want to see other places, and the landmarks that make those places so special. A beautifully designed building, an incredible bridge, or a monument of some sort, or maybe even an unusual road sign. It’s all good!

Unfortunately, there’s no landmark in my current home town that I want to show off. As the Mayor and Council continue to make decisions that destroy what was special about Wickenburg — cutting down tall trees bordering a park, allowing new housing developments where there were once horse trails, approving road construction that will destroy the downtown riverfront — I prefer to look away, to the places that remain unspoiled.

I get around a lot — probably a lot more than most folks. And I visit a lot of landmark locations in the Southwest. And I usually have a camera with me. So there were a lot of “stock” photos in my iPhoto library to choose from. Many of them represent places I wish I could spend even more time.

I chose The Mittens — or the Mitten Buttes — in Monument Valley. Although the Tribal Park overlook where I took this photo is in Arizona, the buttes themselves are in Utah. This isn’t a terribly special photo — it was taken from the ground at a viewpoint every tourist stops at. But I like the lighting of this shot. It was an October morning, with light coming from the southeast. I like the way it illuminates the rock in the foreground, giving it texture and color far more interesting than the famous monuments that stand beyond it.

So, for what it’s worth, this is my entry. I hope to be a regular participant.

Note to feed subscribers: You may not see the photos in this article in your RSS reader. That’s because of the way they’re embedded. If you like photography, I do hope you’ll take a moment to visit the site and see the photos. If you don’t, just skip it. I understand.

I was in San Francisco last week for Macworld Expo. In the old days, I used to spend every day at the show. Nowadays, I’m more interested in seeing things outside the exhibit hall. With a half day to spend on my own, I took the cable car from Market and Powell to Fisherman’s Wharf. Here are some of the photos I took that morning.

I started my day just after sunrise at the corner of Powell and Market, five or six blocks from Moscone Hall, where Macworld Expo is held each year. This is the terminus for two of San Francisco’s three cable car lines. The photo here shows one of the cable car drivers turning the car around for the trip back to Fisherman’s Wharf. Although the photo is distorted (because of that darn fisheye lens I like so much), the ground here is relatively level. They manually push the car onto the turntable and turn it, then push it back onto the main track. After paying off a homeless person for telling me that I could buy my ticket on the cable car — it was either that or buy a newspaper I didn’t want to carry — and assuring another homeless person that I didn’t need him to take a photo of me and the cable car with my camera, I climbed on board.

The cable car took off up Powell a while later with a surprising number of people on board. The corner of Market and Powell isn’t far from the BART station and apparently the cable car is a valid mode of transportation for commuters. There certainly weren’t many tourists on board at 7:30 AM. We climbed up Powell, dropping off passengers here and there. I took this photo when the car was nearly empty. Again, there’s some distortion from the fisheye lens, but I think it’s a cool shot of the cable car and its driver.

The car deposited me at Bay Street about two blocks from Fisherman’s Wharf. From there, I wandered around, taking photos of the area. The sun was too low to get the shots I wanted, so went in search of breakfast. Boudin’s Bakery was there and I stepped inside. I love freshly baked bread, but I was on a diet and trying hard to avoid excess carbs. But I did get a good photo op when I saw this “Bread Line” sign. It was just too ironic for me to pass up.

Back outside at the Wharf with the sun still too low for shadow-free photos, I asked one of the fish guys where I could get a good breakfast in a place the tourists didn’t go. He pointed up the street to a “hole in the wall” called Darren’s Cafe. While waiting for my meal, I snapped this weird self-portrait with that fisheye lense. I don’t look happy here, probably because I knew the camera was shooting a picture up my nose.

After breakfast, I strolled north along the wharf area, stopping a few times to take photos of the fishing boats. Unlike most tourists, I didn’t stick to the well-trodden places. I poked around on all the piers, taking my time and seeing as many different things from as many different angles as I could. It was a beautiful day with clear blue skies and light wind. Not very cold, either. Here are a few of my more interesting shots in that area.

After a while, I found myself in Aquatic Park, which is part of the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. There are a number of old, art deco buildings there and the light was just right to get creative with some shapes and shadows on a round building that used to house a public restroom. A flight of stairs curved up the side of the building to an observation deck on top. But the views from up there didn’t interest me as much as the stairs, shown here.

From the park, there were sweeping views of San Francisco Bay. But the best views were obviously from the curving arm of the Municipal Pier. So I took off on foot along the long, crumbling concrete and steel pier. The only people on the pier were a handful of Asian fisherman, although when I reached the remains of the building at the far end, another tourist pedaled up on a bicycle. We had a short chat before I walked back. Here are the photos I took along the way. They show, in order, the rust of steel embedded in the concrete, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Alcatraz.

It was nearly 10 AM by the time I got off the pier. I had to check out of my hotel by 1:30 PM, but I had a few errands to take care of on the way back. So I walked up to the cable car terminus at Hyde, which is just a few blocks away. By this time, the tourists were coming out and there was about a dozen people waiting. I snapped a series of photos of the cable car being turned. If I look at them quickly in sequence, they look like a movie. Here are five of the six shots in miniature:

On the way back to the Union Square area, I had a nice conversation with a woman who lives in San Francisco and uses the cable car to commute back and forth to work across the city. I couldn’t help but be envious. How wonderful it would be to ride in an open seat through such a beautiful city every day.

I don’t usually put a lot of large photos on this site, but I thought I’d give it a try today. Yesterday, Mike, Jack the Dog, and I went for a combination Jeep ride/hike out in the desert northeast of Wickenburg. All of these photos were taken within 15 miles of my home, so it gives you an idea of the landscape I live in.

Winter is a great time for enjoying Arizona’s Sonoran desert. Oddly enough, however, our party of seven (including Jack the Dog) didn’t run into anyone else along the way.

We started at the Rodeo Grounds on Constellation Road in Wickenburg, then headed out on Constellation Road. We made the left hand turn just before Monte Cristo Mine, followed that road for a short while and took a right where it forked off. We drove through one drag gate, closing it behind us to keep the cattle on their appropriate sides of the fence, and continued down the road. Eventually, it merged with Slim Jim Creek. We followed the dry creek bed as far as we could, maneuvering around and over two nasty places where the last flood had scattered boulders in the wash. When we reached a point where we could follow the creek no further, we pulled onto the side and parked our pickup and two Jeeps. The road continued, but there were two narrow places just beyond where we parked. Besides, it climbed away from the creek, which was our intended trail.

We geared up with drinking water, lunch bags, and cameras and headed down the creekbed on foot. I figure we walked about 1-1/2 to 2 miles. The creek wound through some of the most beautiful Sonoran Desert scenery before ending abruptly at the Hassayampa River. Although there isn’t a drop of water flowing under the bridge in town, there was quite a bit at the mouth of Slim Jim Creek.

Here are my favorite photos of the day, along with some captions.

The south-facing hills were absolutely covered with saguaro cacti.

I played with my fisheye lens here. This rock face was actually quite flat, but the lens makes it look like it curves out into the river. Not very realistic, but it looks cool.

Here’s Jack the Dog with that fisheye lens again. He found some quicksand near this spot and almost got stuck in it.

The river flowed a lot higher earlier in the week. This sand shows the pattern from the receded water. It was still quite wet.

Believe it or not, this is the skeletal remains of a type of prickly pear cactus. (We also found the decomposing body of a javelina, but I didn’t photograph it, primarily because it was really gross.)

This is the windmill near the remains of Sayer’s Station, which we passed on our way on Constellation Road. The road climbs past the windmill and I took this shot from the road, just about level with the top of the windmill. I like taking photos of windmills.

Comments? You know where to put them.

A little while ago, I took off from Las Vegas’s McCarran International Airport on my way home to Wickenburg. Before I left, however, I rigged up the junky tripod I keep under the front passenger seat with my camera, fisheye lens, and cable release. I strapped it all in with a seatbelt for safety.

The idea was to snap a few photos while I flew. This would be an experiment and I didn’t really expect to get any good images.

The interesting scenes started right after I left. I departed on the taxiway parallel to runway 19R, following the departure route the local helicopter tour pilots use. It requires a steep climb to 3,000 feet while making a turn to the right. The hotel casinos closest to the airport are right out my window.

Here are a few of the best shots. Remember: the camera is sitting on a short tripod on the front passenger seat wearing a 10.5mm lens.

This is one of the first shots I snapped after takeoff. I was a few hundred feet off the ground. And yes, on the right side of the photo is a 30-story black pyramid with a giant vodka ad pasted to it.

This is a look right down the Strip. The wide angle lens makes everything look pretty far away. It wasn’t. At the direction of the tower, I flew right over the top of Mandalay Bay. I couldn’t have been much more than 100 feet off the roof.

This photo is the last one I snapped on the flight. I was flying east on Tropicana at 3000 feet MSL. Then the Alt (short for alternator) light on my panel illuminated and didn’t go out. That meant there was a pretty good chance I had an alternator failure. And if there’s one thing any pilot will tell you, it’s not a good idea to start a 2-hour flight across empty desert without an alternator.

I was still within McCarran’s airspace so I called the tower and told the controller I wanted to come back because I had an alternator light. The tower cleared me to turn around and reverse my course. Because two or three helicopters had taken off right behind me on the same route, I dropped down to 2500 feet. They flew over me. The tower asked if I needed assistance. I think he was prepared to scramble the foam trucks. I assured him that I’d be okay. An airliner landed on Runway 19R and I came in behind it to the ramp. Even though there hadn’t been any real danger, I was happy to be on the ground.

After shutting down the helicopter, I crawled underneath to take a look. I no longer had an alternator belt. I suspect that pieces of it are scattered over Tropicana Boulevard.

As I write this, I’m sitting in a recliner with my feet up and my PowerBook on my lap. The comedy channel is on a high-def television in front of me. Other pilots are lounging around with laptops. I’m thinking of ordering a pizza.

A mechanic from Silver State in North Las Vegas may make it out here this afternoon. But there’s no way he’ll get the fan scroll off and the belt replaced early enough for me to get out of here before sunset.

So it looks like I’m not leaving Las Vegas today.

As for my photo experiment, I think I’ll try the 18 mm lens for the next flight.

Last week, I went to New York with my husband, Mike. We spent a few days in Manhattan, visiting our old stomping grounds, then headed to New Jersey to spend a few days at my brother’s house in Colonia (near Rahway). Along the way, we made a quick stop in Queens for an unremarkable Thanksgiving dinner at an Italian restaurant.

I brought two cameras with me: my Canon Powershot 500 and my relatively new Nikon D80. It was a good thing I brought 2 cameras. My recently repaired Canon crapped out on me again. So most of the photos were taken with the Nikon.

I just put the photos on my iMac and looked at them. I thought I’d share a few with readers. They may not be the best photos of New York and the vicinity, but I’d like to think they’re at least a little bit interesting.

The Flight

When you have 4+ hours to kill in coach on a Phoenix to Newark flight, you do run out of things to do. I killed some time playing with my new 10.5mm lens. Here’s a look out the window. I think we were over Kansas or maybe eastern Colorado at the time. See the checkerboards of the terrain?

If you’ve never flown across the country during the day, do it and make sure you get a window seat. If the weather is clear, you’ll get an education about the geography of the United States that no textbook can offer. I always sit by the window when I fly and I spend much of the flight time with my face right up against the Plexiglas.

Into Manhattan

After landing at the airport and getting a much-needed shoeshine in the terminal, we made our way to the rental car area and picked up our Avis rental car. Mike then drove us right into the city, by way of the Lincoln Tunnel. This photo was taken as we made our way across town toward Times Square. Okay, so it’s not the best image. But what do you expect? The camera was sitting on the dashboard and we were stopped at a light. You can see the shadowy figure of a pedestrian crossing the street — this was a long exposure.

The View from Our Room

Our tiny but comfortable room at the Sheraton Hotel and Towers on 52nd and 7th was on the 37th floor. From the big windows, we got a glimpse down into Times Square. I set up my tripod on the desk along the windowsill and captured this image as we settled down for our first night.

Did you know that the Sheraton we stayed at is the flagship Sheraton hotel? That’s what it said in the hotel services guide in the room. I do know that it was the nicest Sheraton I’d ever stayed at. Sheratons, in general, aren’t so good. I prefer Marriotts. I used to like Hiltons, until my multiple-week stay at the Mount Laurel Hilton in New Jersey. But that’s another story.

Wondering what that view looked like in daylight? Wonder no more. Here it is. Not quite as colorful or glamorous on a gray New York day. The buildings in the foreground are all office buildings. There was a very large conference room right across the street from our room; they had a big meeting in there the day we left.

Rockefeller Center

On Tuesday we did a lot of walking. That’s the best way to get around in New York. My only wish was that I’d brought thinner socks — my heavy cotton socks aggravated my 25-year-old corns. But that’s probably more information than you need, so I’ll stop there.

We went to Rockefeller Center first. This photo was taken inside the GE building (formerly the RCA Building), an Art Deco masterpiece on 6th Avenue. This particular photo was taken right after security told me I couldn’t set up my tripod. I was very disappointed. (I’m being polite here.) The color of the light is the actual color inside the building — very yellow.

We didn’t stick around for any more indoor shots. Instead, we went outside. I got a photo of the Promenade, but rather than show it here, I’ll show you the one I took that night. Keep reading.

Grand Central

It’s Grand Central Terminal, not Grand Central Station. Many people get that wrong. It doesn’t matter. It’s Grand Central and it’s a magnificent piece of architecture on 42nd Street at Park Avenue.

This photo shows the Concourse, taken with my 10.5mm lens from the steps up to one of the restaurants. No tripods here either, I’m afraid. Not without a permit. (Can you believe this crap?) So I set the camera down on the railing and used the self-timer to snap the picture. What I like about it — other than the outrageous curves — is the motion of the people down below.

The ceiling of Grand Central’s main concourse shows the constellations — cream colored stars with drawings of the constellation figures. Incredible. And the windows you can see at the far end are actually huge — about 8 stories tall. The horizontal lines across them are walkways where people in the office spaces above walk from one side of the building to the other.

Back in the mid 1980s, when I worked for the City of New York, I had a job on Madison at about 45th Street. Each day, I’d take the subway up to Grand Central and walk across this concourse from the lower-left of this photo to the middle right. There were underground corridors you could follow for blocks, keeping you out of the elements. One of the corridors was carpeted with multi-colored carpets at the time. They were doing a test. In those days, they used to judge how durable carpets were by putting them down in Grand Central and letting commuters walk all over them all day long.

The New York City Public Library

The New York City Public Library is a monument on Fifth Avenue at about 40th Street. People know it for the matched statues of reclining lions out front. But few tourists ever step inside to see how incredibly beautiful it is.

This photo is of the main entrance hall, taken from the north stairway. This is mid-day on a Tuesday. Not terribly busy. We’d walked through a Jack Kerouak exhibit downstairs before climbing up and wandering around the exhibits. Highly recommended. You can’t get more culture for less money anywhere in New York — it’s free.

And yes, I did get a few lion photos outside. But you don’t need to see them.

Out back, in Bryant Park, they’d set up a skating rink. This shot, taken with that funky 10.5mm lens again, shows the rink, the back of the library, and a few of New York’s skyscrapers, including the Empire State Building. There were craft vendors set up all around the rink for the holidays.

Back when I worked for the City, I had a job on 41st between 7th and 8th. Yep — right by Times Square. Once in a while, we used to walk up to Bryant Park with our lunch. It was summer and it was hot. The park was filled with druggies back in those days, but they didn’t bother us. The Stand Bookstore had a row of kiosks along 6th Avenue, filled with used books, and I’d occasionally pick up something to read. They tell me Bryant Park has been cleaned up. It certainly looked friendly that day.

Times Square

I’m convinced that the best way to take photos in a place as busy as Times Square is with a wide angle lens. Can’t get much wider than this. I know it looks funky, but it really does show a lot. And if your mind can take out weird curves — since Photoshop can’t seem to do it — you can get a real feel for what’s there.

Times Square used to be a real sleaze pit. Now it’s just a very dirty, very brightly lighted place where a lot of tourists come for reasons I can’t quite understand. They must be like moths attracted to the lights. The place is full of tourist junk shops, electronics places selling gray market goods, and big name retail establishments like the Virgin Megastore and the Hard Rock Cafe. They tell me Disney even has a place there, although I didn’t see it. The place is full — and I do mean full — of advertisements. Not the kind of place to come if you suffer from seizures brought on by flashing lights.

The above photo looks downtown. This one looks uptown. I’m standing at the divider between 7th Avenue and Broadway, between 44th and 45th Streets. I snapped quite a few shots while I was standing here. I like this one the best. The exposure isn’t very good, but that’s mostly because the light sucked on such a cloudy afternoon.

And yes, this is the wide angle lens again.

More to Come

That’s all for now. I’ll share the rest of the interesting shots another day. I’ve got a few night shots to show off and a bit of New Jersey wildlife. So do check in again.

And if you want to read more words about my trip, do check out “Impressions of New York: An Assault on the Senses.”