Category: travel

UK and Washington DC Trip

December 1, 2005

Looking along the Millenium Brige across the Thames
towards St. Paul’s Cathedral.

I’ve suddenly realized that I hadn’t made anything more than a two small posts mentioning that I had photo galleries of my UK trip up. Well, I’m going to make a bit bigger one here, tagging the photo galleries themselves and some specific images.

I’m not going to mention a ton of different images here, only the more notable ones. If you want to see lots of detail, please take a look at the main album from this trip itself (photo gallery retired).

Anyway, here goes:

UK and Washington DC Area (November 2005) (Album) (photo gallery retired):

London (Album) (photo gallery retired):

· My room at the Albert Hotel (hostel).
· Nifty stencil graffiti found along the Thames.
· The boat I took from the Tate: Britian to the Tate: Modern.
· Rachel Whitread’s ‘Embankment’ in the Tate Modern.
· Tate Modern from the Millenium Bridge.
· The London Eye and the Houses of Parliment as seen at night from the Hungerford Bridge.
· Tralfargar Square at night.
· The Canadian War Memorial.
· Inside of the Natural History Museum.
· A rather graphic example of how dirty the air can be in London.

Scotland (Album) (photo gallery retired):

· The road leading out of Waverley Station in Edinburgh.
· Walking into Edinburgh Castle.
· Sunset in Anstruther.
· Me, standing on a sea wall in Anstruther, along the North Sea.
· Some of the ruins of St. Andrews Cathedral.
· John (the person I stayed with in Scotland) and I pointing at a bust of Mary, Queen of Scots in his parents living room.

Wales (Album) (photo gallery retired):

· Robin and Giles.
· Robin and I.
· Giles and Yak as we played some We Love Katamari.
· The bilingual (Welsh & English) sign at the St. Peters Car Park in Carmarthenshine, Wales.
· Taj, the wonderful curry house in Carmarthen.
· Me standing with Giles and Yak in the really nice pub right near their house.

Washington DC (Album) (photo gallery retired):

Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (Album) (photo gallery retired):

· SpaceShipOne!
· The crappy pizza I got at the McDonalds at the Museum.
· A German V2.
· Messerschmitt 109.
· Chuck Yeager’s Bell X-1.
· An SS-20 and a Pershing-II.

Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center (Album):

· Russian-made SA-2 marked for export.
· The Enola Gay.
· A Concorde.
· Looking out of the Observation Tower.
· MiG-17 Fishbed.
· The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center is huge.
· Another view of a Concorde.
· The SR-71A seen from above, with the Space Shuttle Enterprise in the distance.

· Outside of the National Museum of the American Indian.
· A hymnal written in Cherokee.
· The US Capitol from near the Botanical Gardens.
· Inside of one of the Metro trains.
· The Washington Monument.
· The Atlantic side of the World War II Memorial.
· The Three Service Men statue, part of The Vietnam Veterens Memorial.
· The Abraham Lincoln statue in the Lincoln Memorial is being worked on.
· Part of the Korean War Veterens Memorial.
· Julia Child’s Kitchen!
· Sunset behind the Washington Monument.
· These guys were drumming on the street.
· One of the Metro stations as I waited for my train.

In Transit (Album) (photo gallery retired):

· The A330 I flew to and from London has a nice game / video on demand / info screen in the back of each seat.
· The Gatwick Express is a nice way to get from Gatwick (LWG) to Victoria Station.
· The rather famous power plant, as seen from the Gatwick Express.
· Train Platform 1 in Cardiff, at 4:55am.
· A mushroom and cheddar baguette which I ate when en route from Victoria Station to Gatwick Airport (LGW).
· Just outside the international arrivals area at Gatwick Airport (LGW).
· Most of Gatwick Airport (LWG) looks like a shopping mall.
· I flew in an aircraft like this from Gatwick (LGW) to Edinburgh (EDI).
· The A330 I flew in back to Detroit.
· My tasty vegetarian meal on the LGW to DTW flight.
· The interesting mobile passanger lounges at Dulles Airport (IAD).

Travel Documents (Album) (photo gallery retired):

· My lengthy train ticket from Edinburgh Waverley to Carmarthen.
· Passes for the London Underground and the Gatwick Express.
· Various boarding passes.
· Tags from seat reservations on various trains.

So, yeah. Lots of pictures… Hopefully you’ll find them interesting.

Oh! Also be sure to check out this video of the guys drumming on plastic buckets and a shopping cart along The Mall in Washington DC. It’s really quite nifty. (H.264, so QT7 is required.)

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Watch and Camera

November 2, 2005

Well, that’s the watch I ended up getting. It was only a $28 at Target, so at least it didn’t really cost much. I’m still not quite sure what I think of it — although I do know that the compass band-like thing in the top of the frame needs to be removed — but it is only going to be use for this trip and possibly times when I’m in areas where there is no cell phone reception. It should work for now…

Also, when I swung Camera Mart in Pontiac to get some lens cleaning things today, I found out something interesting. First off, their single-lens Nikon D70s is $1189, which is just below the price Amazon and Adorama and such have it for. Second, on the weekend before Thanksgiving they are having some sort of promotional special where they will cover the sales tax of such a purchase. That means that I could get the camera for a decent price from a local high-end camera shop, tax free, and without paying shipping. Not a bad deal, I don’t think.

I’m wondering if this would be the time for me to get a DSLR finally. While I will be out of town that weekend, the person I spoke with said I could order by phone and get the same price, so maybe I could ask them to just hold it for me until I got back.

Hmm… It’d be really swell… Well, at least I’ve got the watch / alarm taken care of.

UPDATE: Or hell, maybe it’d be more worthwhile to just get the body and this 18mm – 200mm lens? That’s a 35mm equiv. of 27mm – 300mm (11x) which would be an ideal all-around lens. Couple that with a nice macro lens, and I’d probably be all set.

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Petroglyphs and Ann Arbor

July 8, 2005

Click for huuuge…

As promised earlier, here’s a shot of the petroglyphs. Check out all of the photos here. Or, for the overview, here’s some of the other notable photos from yesterday’s wanderings:

· The modest sign at the entrance to the Petroglyph parking lot.
· The main sign at the entrance to the park.
· A beautifully fern-covered area one has to walk through to get to the petroglyphs.
· The petroglyphs are in a roofed, caged area to stave off rain and help prevent vandalism.
· The dome of rock which holds the petroglyphs.
· Goose, wind arrows…
· Some interesting graffiti.
· A peace pipe.
· The thunder storm which caused the guides and myself to hastily leave the area. It also made driving hard.
· A tasty ice cream cone I purchased from Moore Ice Cream in Marlette, MI.
· Some menacing clouds as I drove along US-23.
· Frank taking a picture from the top of a parking garage in Ann Arbor.
· Another impressively large cloud along US-23.

Oh, I must strongly recommend visiting this site… It’s rather interesting, seems to have a nice trail near it, and is staffed by friendly folks. One of the people there is a student at CCS and the other person lives somewhere near Flint.

So, yeah. Now I’m going to go eat my porridge with blueberries.

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The Henry Ford Museum

January 18, 2005

Click for more photos…

On Sunday, January 16th I woke up around 8:45am. Suddenly the idea of visiting The Henry Ford Museum, a place I haven’t been to in almost 10 years, popped into my head. I’ve been wanting to head back there for a while, so I decided to go. Well, less than two hours later I was pulling into the parking lot.

For those who don’t know what this museum is, it is a technology-focused historical museum which tends to concentrate on transportation and items from the after the 1700s. It’s a top-notch place to visit, including such exhibits as the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile, the chair in which President Abraham Lincoln was sitting when he was shot, the limousine in which President Kennedy was riding when he was shot, the Rosa Parks bus, and many, many more amazing items. There is all sorts of transportation exhibits, too, from the 1950s tourist / travel culture to locomotives, from stage coaches to bicycles. This museum is well worth visiting.

Per usual I took a number of photos of the trip. These can be found here, and include some of the following highlights:

· Lincoln’s Chair
· Kennedy’s Limo
· The Rosa Parks Bus
· Internet In A Box
· The Dymaxion House
· Brushes and windings of a Generator

In addition to visiting the museum, I took in a showing of a newer IMAX film about Mt. Everest titled appropriately, Everest. This was pretty good, and was prefixed by a very enjoyable IMAX film showing many of the beautiful scenes around Detroit. It was really nice to finally see Detroit shown in such a beautiful light.

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Frankenmuth, MI

November 27, 2004

Click for more…

Well, in a fit of boredom, I decided to head to Frankenmuth by myself today. In case you don’t know, Frankenmuth is a rather interesting German-settled town in central Michigan. It has a really kitschy/campy feel to it, and it’s always decorated for Christmas. Almost as if it’s a storybook Christmas town. I ended up wandering around the town for a bit, poking my head in a few places, and getting a few bits of candy and bread.

While I didn’t make a stop at Bronner’s (which is literally the world’s largest christmas store), I did see a good bit of stuff, including an arcade full of all sorts of old games, which happens to be closing for good tomorrow.

So, if you want to check out the pictures, I’ve got them all uploaded and captioned here. Enjoy. :)

Now I think I’m going to head to Luna… Well, maybe in a few minutes.

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Picture Update

November 23, 2004

Click for more…

I spent a bit of time last night scanning in still more negatives. The photo above is from the collection of photos taken when I went to England in 1995 with the L’Anse Creuse High School North Wind Ensamble. We toured around bits of southern England, London, Portsmouth, and a number of other places. These photos are fairly randomly taken bits of that trip. If you are flipping through them from start to finish, be aware that the photos towards the end of the collection are more interesting.

While I’m still being frustrated by discoloration caused by rolling at the ends of strips of negatives in all the photos, I also went ahead and scanned in a number of photos which were taken on my last day of high school. This was my carrying a camera around, snapping photos randomly, showing various people doing various things.

So, that’s it for now. Hopefully tonight I’ll get even more scanned in, maybe a Washington DC trip in 1994 with Civil Air Patrol, some of friends from 1996/1997, Undernet’s #industrial people, etc.

We’ll see how it goes. :)

Links Again:
· England with LCN Wind Ensamble (May 1995)
· Last Day of High School

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Ketchikan, Alaska in 1996

November 22, 2004

Click for more…

I know I posted a bit about this before. However, something I’ve wanted complete for eight years is finally done. I’ve just completed uploading all of the photos that I know to have from the times in 1996 when I visited Ketchikan, Alaska. This was a rather interesting trip made under a number of circumstances (which I won’t get into here). Suffice to say, it was a very memorable and life-changing time for me.

That said, all the photos I know to have are now available, complete with captions. The 158 photos are available for viewing here: http://www.nuxx.net/gallery/alaska_1996

These were batch scanned on an Epson Perfection 3170, then run through a simple Auto Level / Auto Color / Auto Contrast routine in Photoshop. While they aren’t ideal, they do look pretty good, much better than the original prints. I’d imagine that individual images could be cleaned up further if need be.

Please, feel free to look through them, and if you can make corrections to any of the captions, let me know. As these photos were all taken over eight years ago, my memory is a bit fuzzy as to names. However, events and other details are fairly crisp.

If everything goes as planned, I’m hoping to add more photos to the gallery this week, including a trip I took to Washington DC with Civil Air Patrol in (I believe) 1994, England in 1995, many photos I took of people from (I)ndustry BBS, photos from when I was in high school, and a few of some people from Undernet’s #industry.

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Clifty Falls State Park

November 11, 2004

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In my driving around on Tuesday, I came across a place called Clifty Falls State Park. Per the state’s site it appears that I didn’t see all of the park that I could have. Alas, I did still have fun wandering around. Click the picture above to see the photos I took there. Also, it seems that the Indiana DNR has some videos of the park here. I missed the tunnel. :(

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Mammoth Cave National Park

November 8, 2004

Click for more…

Well, I sure was the cheap tourist today. I managed to visit three National Park Service sites, even though one of them was closed. Whoops!

So… What did happen today. (A word of warning about the photos… Something is odd with the automatic exposure on my camera. I think that it was set to ‘center spot weighted’ from when I was doing some eBay photos, so the exposure is quite a bit…. Off… In some of the shots. I’m sorta frustrated at that. At least it can be cleaned up if need be.)

Well, first I woke up at right about 8am, got dressed, then headed southbound on I-65 towards Mammoth Cave National Park. I stopped at Burger King for some breakfast (two egg/cheese crossants, hash browns, and a coffee) as it’s the only really veggie-friendly breakfast-serving fast food place that I know of. The trip down there didn’t really take too long, and while heading southbound I somehow hit a timezone border. WTF? I was headed practically straight south… Regardless, that all put me at the park at about 9:40am CST, which was just in time for the 9:45am Frozen Niagara tour. It turns out that this particular tour is the longest one offered on weekdays during the winter season. I wouldn’t have minded something longer, but with that being the only option, I took it.

Clicky if you really want to read this…

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…

June 20, 2004

So, exactly 900 miles of driving later, and with lots of walking, I have acquired this.

and I are back from the great Upper Peninsula…

· Lots of mosquitos. Lots. And lots. 100% DEET bug spray in a non-aerosol can is the best.
· Inadvertently started sinking in some quicksand. Have since learned that one will quickly sink into a sandbar when it is located partially across the mouth of a stream, next to a lake.
· Walking through the woods in the dark, with or without flashlights, even if one is on a wooden path, is scary.
· Taquamenon Falls are really nifty, especially in the dark, despite the path being very frightening. (See previous comment)
· Climbing to the top of a lighthouse is worth it.
· National forests are nifty. Lots of nice rural campsites, beaches to walk along, fish hatcheries to visit, lighthouses, empty roads, random trails, etc.
· Saw a fireworks store located on an Indian reservation. Should have stopped. :\
· Indian reservations also contain lots and lots of casinos.
· A GPS receiver that does moving maps, even if it doesn’t do driving directions, is great for traveling through random areas. Maps might have been enough, but not as convenient.
· 1970s tents suck. As do people at the next campsite who’s kids slam the door all morning.
· Not eating meat while up north is hard to do. Also, the waitresses seem offended if you decline all the soups because they are beef / chicken / pork based.
· THERE IS NO MAN KILLING CLAM AT SEA SHELL CITY. At least none that we could find… Lots of tchotchkies, though. Lots. (Is that spelled right?) The billboards lie.
· The showers / bathrooms at the state park are rather nice. They didn’t feel dirty or dingy at all, and the water was nice and hot. Very good for when you don’t have quite enough blankets.

I’m sure there’s more, but I’m just not remembering right now. It was a really good, very worthwhile weekend, though. So, that’s enough for now.

[UPDATE]

Also, I forgot to add…

· Chipmunks. Lots of them. Feeding them is fun.
· Abandoned military sites are pretty nifty. One in particular that we found had been converted into civilian housing, but it was still neat.
· Racoons are adept at climbing in and out of flapping-door style garbage cans.
· Again, lots of pasta and grilled cheese does not make for a healthy diet.
· It’s that time of year to see large groups of bikers (and I mean real bikers, not pricks on ‘choppers’) taking vacations en masse. I bet that’s fun.

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