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Massey Monday: Chasing Meadowlarks

Taking Massey for a hike follows nearly the same pattern every time. We hop in the car and she knows every turn to get to the trailhead. She excitedly whines just a little as we approach each intersection enroute; a little reminder just in case I forgot how to get there. We get out and she dashes about 20 steps up the trail...and promptly drops a lovely present in the trail. Fortunately this happens every time, so we know to be prepared with a poop bag. Then it's full on hunting time. First, she walks slowly, ears perked, surveying, stalking.

Suddenly she erupts. The chase is on. The early chases are usually a bunny or a big bird (see the hawk?!) that she really has no chance of catching. The bunnies dive into a thicket or the hawks just float on the thermal winds high above the ground, well out of reach.

After a few all-out quarter-mile sprints (while I hold my breath and hope she doesn't lodge a foxtail in her ear), she chills a bit and waits. She knows she'll find some quail or some smaller birds to chase if she's patient.

This week it was the meadowlarks. They constantly sang as we walked. Their distinctively familiar song reminded me of being back home in Iowa. As the sun heated the golden hillsides, the wind began to stir the grasses and the little birds took flight, swirling and swooping over the tall grass. Our little dog took chase. If you look closely at the photo below, you can see a meadowlark just above the hill in the background.

She was one happy and tired dog by the end of the hike.

 

Thirsty Thursday: Riding Smiles

Rambler: Beth Drink at Hand: 2009 Lockwood Vineyards Malbec

Hey Welliver Photography fans, its Thirsty Thursday once again...time to pour something yummy and plan something awesome to do this weekend. This week's installment is a bit unique--the story happened today, but the photos are from the same location, just a few weeks back.

As I prepare for the Leadville Trail 100 mountain bike race, my cycling coach is giving me me all kinds of fun/crazy/tough workouts to get me ready. Today's mountain bike workout was short in length (only an hour and a half to 2 hours) but pretty intense with some max effort hill repeats mixed in the middle. Luckily I have about 30ish minutes of fun trails and fire roads to get to my hill, and it was a great morning to ride. I was having a blast. Then the hard part...a few minutes all out up a 6% grade, still fewer minutes to recover back down the hill, rinse and repeat 3 times. I was stomping on the pedals, drooling, snot streaming, panting, grunting...let's be honest, I assume I sounded like and looked like a rabid dog in heat. After the 2nd effort I had no idea how I was going to survive the 3rd effort. I could barely even figure out how to get my bike turned around on the reasonably wide double track fire road. Back down I went, and then started the final effort. The sun came out. Bonnie Tyler belted out "We Need A Hero" in my right ear. Bunnies scampered along the trail beside me. I clawed my way up the hill the final time. Done. Exhausted. Gasping. But done. Now just a ride back to the car.

I rounded the corner by Laguna Seca. One more small climb and then the route is mostly downhill to the trailhead. As I topped that last little pitch a smile slowly and unexpectedly crept across my face. I was invigorated. I'd finished that last effort just a few minutes before yet I felt fresh.

I bombed down the gravelly fire road. Then a decision. The quickest way home is straight. I turned left. One of my favorite single tracks was to the left. Turning left added an extra 20 minutes to my ride. I didn't care. The smile grew bigger.

I flew down a trail winding through tall grasses dappled with dots of wildflower color. The transition from green spring to golden summer is fast here. The poison oak stays green for a long time though. Its the only thing that slows me down as I try to navigate to the side of the narrow trail away from the toxic oils. Soon I'm on a new trail. Bermed corners. Railing. Pushing the limits of my tires to grip the loose fresh soil. The unseasonable weekend rains created a little tackiness in the dirt. A rear tire slide here and there, but I stay up as I edge closer to out-of-control. The wheels stick. I stay up. I keep cruising.

Across a fire road and onto the Goat Trail. I fly down the upper part of the trail. Its wide open, hard packed, fast. The wind gently whistles through the helmet straps against my cheek. A quick digger of a hill up to my favorite tree in all of Ft Ord. It looks beautiful this morning in the fresh sunlight, green leaves against the golden grass. But I didn't stop. I couldn't stop. The riding is too much fun. The smile isn't fading.

More flying. I look for spots to catch air off little lips in the trail. I lean my bike under me through the turns. I bounce smoothly over the washboarded corners. I've never gone this fast down this section of the trail. A blur of trees and grass scream through the peripheral vision, but I only see the single track in front of me. Low scrub oaks and prickly thistles scratch at my shins. I'm surprised by how quickly I reach the bottom of the trail. Surprised and disappointed. I wanted more.

At this point I am supposed to take the long fire road route back to the trailhead. Terry doesn't like me riding down the poison oak-infested, yet shorter and incredibly more fun trail back to the trailhead. He sorta forbids me from riding that trail. Today, I don't care. I want that trail. Its another of my favorites in Ft Ord. And today was one of those magical days...no dog walkers, no hikers, no runners, not even another mountain biker on the last fun trail down to the parking lot. And the BLM guys had trimmed the poison oak away from the trail's edge. More flying. The smile, now huge, squeaked out a few giggles. I completely forgot about how miserable the intervals had been. As I popped up onto the pavement from the last bit of dirt fun for the day I smiled a little more...that was a hell fun of a ride.

I'm looking forward to another fun mountain bike ride this weekend. This time with some of my favorite riding friends at my favorite place to ride. Its going to be great.

Thanks for reading...And get out there and do something that makes you smile this weekend!

Thirsty Thursday: Mystery Rolls

Rambler: Beth Drink at Hand: Naked Grape Pinot Noir (yeah, I bought it because of the name...don't judge me!)

Something a little different this Thursday...not so much about a cool place to go shoot, but rather about an attempt at shooting some film! About a month ago I walked into the local camera shop with 3 rolls of exposed Kodak Tri-X 400 black and white film in my hands. I bought this film when we lived in Japan...yep, that's right, purchased 2006 most likely. It was well past the expiration date! I found one roll already exposed when I was organizing some camera stuff when we moved into the new house. The other two rolls I took recently. Actually, that's not even true...I found my film camera with a 1/2 exposed roll in it. So I had a roll and a half of mystery images (I had no idea what that old stuff might be) and a roll and a half that I had shot within the last few weeks. I waited the requisite week to get the processed film back from the lab and then had to wait a few more days for Terry to scan the film with our Nikon CoolScan film scanner before I actually got to see what I had.

It turns out that the old "mystery roll" was pretty old...from 2008! That also means it was exposed, tossed in a box, moved Lousyana, endured the heat of that place, moved back here to California, and finally shown some chemical bath love. Back in '08 a friend was considering buying a digital camera, so I loaned him my digital camera when he went out to shoot with us at Point Pinos one evening, and I shot film with an old Nikon full manual camera. Here are a few from that evening.

I played around with the blur tool in Aperture and made this one look a little bit like a tilt shift. Best I can do since Terry won't let me get an actual tilt-shift lens.

A few months later we went to Yosemite. I guess I took the camera with me to finish that roll from the summer evening at the beach. I don't even remember having it with me. But of course I took a Tunnel View photo in black and white--because no one has ever done that before!

Fast forward to 2011...I decided to try a roll in my Canon Elan 7E on our way north along the coast to Pescadero. I used the Photodiox adapter with the Nikon 50mm manual lens. It was pouring down rain, but I couldn't let this bike go without a quick photo. Terry kept making fun of me because I kept looking at the back of the camera after snapping the shutter--but there's no instant feedback in the form of a LCD screen on the back of a film camera.

To finish off that roll I took the camera along on a quick hike with the dog in Ft Ord and shot a few here at home.

With all the bike riding / racing I'm doing these days, its not easy to get away to shoot for a whole day, much less an entire weekend. But changing up the routine in familiar locations proved fun. I got something different than my normal images and that makes me happy.

Get out and try something new or different this weekend. You might be surprised by the results!

 

Watching a Mountain Bike Race

Seasoned Welliver Photography readers would assume that Terry is the author of this post given the title. But this time its me, Beth, writing about watching a bike race. Yes, I was supposed to be racing, but a few weeks back I was recovering from something horribly nasty that decided to live in my throat, nose, head, and anywhere else something gross can live (dare I say thrive?) for the better part of 2 weeks. Icky! So instead of racing the season opener, I went to cheer on my new Bike Station Aptos teammates at the local CCCX mountain bike race at Ft Ord. I had 3 teammates in the race. They did 5 laps. Total race time was about 2 hours. That means I stood along the trail to cheer and snap a few photos 15 times over the course of 2 hours. In other words, I had a lot of free time while waiting for them to come streaking by each time. The experience made me deeply appreciate Terry's dedication and patience while I race my bikes! Below are a few of the images I captured during my "down time".

It was a beautiful day for a race...

I was a little surprised to find a few early season wildflowers (amongst the annual bumper crop of Ft Ord Poison Oak).

And of course weather nerd couldn't help admire some pretty clouds now and again...

This is proof that I really was at a bike race. Go Courtney!

The race was at Ft Ord's old Fam Camp...complete with old playground relics sprinkled here and there.

Actual race photos of people actually racing their bikes can be found here. Note: taking race photos is super hard. I also gained a greater appreciation for Terry as well as all those other phenomenal race photographers we have floating around NorCal. Y'all have serious talent as photographers.

Next weekend I get to go race my mountain bike on those trails. Yeehaw!

Old Ord

A couple weeks ago my cyclocross-racer-weatherman-photographer friend invited me out to shoot a few places in Ft Ord when I hadn't been before. He's been going out there for several years and has documented the changing landscape there. I'm always happy to go shoot some desserted and decaying buildings. First we went to the old stockade. I'd never been in a jail. Very interesting. Slightly depressing.

A mystery of the abandoned Ft Ord is all the chairs. Lone chairs were left all over the place.

From the stockade we headed over to the old Engineering building. We decided it would be a great place for a dance club. Plenty of space for a stage for live music, a space upstairs for a VIP room, sweet industrial feel...just need to replace a few windows. I found the graffiti fascinating (there are some talented artists out there, in spite of their choice of canvas).

I have a thing for electrical boxes I guess...

Broken view...

Creekside

Free time. Its a double-edged sword. When I quit the job I'd been doing for 8 years back in September, I was overjoyed at the prospect of days upon days of free time. I made a mental list of adventures and fun projects and little tasks I wanted to spend all my awesome free time doing. It was going to be great. Then things get in the way because there's time to let them get in the way...looking for a house, buying a house, moving into a house, getting all that stuff done to make that new house a home, looking for a job, interviewing for jobs, taking the dog for a run, tracking down all of our stuff that the military seems to have misplaced somewhere between here and Lousyana, going to the laundromat because our washer and dryer are with all of that misplaced stuff, waiting for a handyman who shows up 3 hours late to install something, wine tasting, dinner with friends, etc. (I'm not complaining about the last 2, by the way, nor the dog running).

Despite all of that, the one thing I can count on nearly every day is an hour or two of solitude in Ft Ord. Our new house is a mere 3 miles from the Creekside Terrace trailhead. While the trails aren't the primo singletrack that you'll see gracing the pages some glossy mountain bike magazine, there is nearly an endless supply of dirt and open space. Some days I trail run with the dog, some days I run with Terry and the dog, other days we hike, and every now and then I get to take the mountain bike out for a good chunk of therapeutic me time. And sometimes the camera comes along.

In January I'll start a new job. My days of freedom are coming to an end. I need finish that to-do list in the next month. And I hope that my daily romps in Ft Ord don't get lost in the busy shuffle.

Rest Week

This week is a training rest week. I tend to stretch the definition of "rest" week and sometimes get a little lazy. But that also keeps me from taking myself to seriously...and often it takes a whole week of not being serious to have an impact. So this morning I dropped Terry off at school and then headed to Ft Ord for an early morning ride. It was supposed to be a sprint workout--my favorite--but it didn't happen.

See, before I left the car I grabbed my little point and shoot camera and dropped it in the jersey pocket. And since I had it with me, I just had to use it. First I went to the fishing hole...

But I don't think there's been any fishies there for awhile. Then I cruised over to the old shooting range. No one has been shooting there for awhile either, but some pretty things grow there now...

Then I saw some art someone decided to add to the side of the building. Or at least someone thought it was art. Others likely have a different opinion...

And then there was an open door on the other side of the building. Why is it that you always look in an open door when passing by? Inside, light was streaming through a long-gone window...

All that to say I didn't really do my workout today. And I didn't mind at all.

Note: You can click on the photos to see them a bit bigger, and while you're looking at them nice and big, moving your mouse over the left or right hand side of the image will bring up an arrow so you can scroll through all the images in this post. A couple of these photos were edited with some photo-editing software called Color Efex Pro 3.0 by Nik Software. We are doing the 15-day free trial of it to see if it will be our Christmas present to ourselves.