Sharing a few of my favorite photos from a road trip I took at the beginning of 2022 from Seattle to Death Valley.

Day 1 - Let's go on a road trip!

I am home after a 10-day solo road trip from Seattle to Death Valley and back. Most mornings started between 4:30 and 5:30 am to make sure I would be in the best spots for sunrise but day 1 actually started at 9 pm! Seattle had a couple of snowy days and more snow was forecast to arrive the following morning - I could wait and leave on the 30th as originally planned or I could beat the snow out of town AND see Multnomah Falls with a dusting of snow. It was an easy choice - I threw everything in the van and hit the road that night anddddd it started snowing about 15 minutes south of Seattle and it never let up! This turned a normally easy 3-hour drive into something much less pleasant. I made it to Portland and got a few hours sleep before waking up and heading to the falls. The snow had turned to rain which was a bummer but enough snow stuck around to be pretty and the rain kept everyone away - I had the place to myself, a rare treat!

Day 2- In and Out!

From Multnomah falls I continued south - there was another waterfall I wanted to see in winter. The forecast called for several more inches of snow in the southern Oregon cascades so it was a race against time - could I get in and back out without worrying about getting delayed by snow... on the way in I ran across another worry - landslides! About 45 minutes from the falls I drove by an active landslide - as in mud and trees were slowly moving across the left lane. A dangerous by-product of the forest fires that burned the area a year earlier. Four Oregon DOT workers were standing there watching it... for the next few minutes I wondered if I should continue but the fact that DOT was already on site gave me hope. I continued on to the falls, got my shots, and on the way out I was stopped for about 15 minutes at the landslide as they had closed one lane in an effort to clear the no longer sliding debris from the road.. I often say that astrophotography is my favorite genre of photography but I do love a good waterfall at 1/6 of a second.

Day 3 of the Road Trip -

Leaving the snowy mountains of Oregon behind I continued south into California where I traveled through the land of the Windows XP desktop. I found a pull-off and put the drone up to capture these rolling hills. Later I found out that this wasn't too far from where the actual photo was captured for the Win XP desktop shot. This is where I also realized that the drone crash in Italy may have been a little more serious than thought - I cannot get the drone to track my car - ooops. Might need to send it in for repair :/

The image as captured at this location had very bright clouds that bothered me so I swapped into a more balanced sky I captured last year.

Day 4 of the road trip - New Year's Day

I woke at 5 am and considered photographing the Golden Gate Bridge at dawn - Seemed like a good spot to start the day so I drove the few minutes over to the road up to the overlook and it was closed. Apparently from late December to early January that road doesn't open until 7 am. That's after the best light in my opinion and there were already a few cars in line, waiting, and more pulling up every moment - way too peopley so I hit the road opting instead to watch the sunrise and surfers at Pacifica State Beach while I made breakfast. I continued south along the coast eventually ending up at Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park - my campsite was just a few feet from the Big Sur river

Day 5 - Freshly Showered

I was showered, I'd had a great sleep and I was ready to see ANOTHER WATERFALL! McWay Falls has been on my list to see ever since @wachphotography shared his shot on my weekly live show. While it's best viewed at sunset I only had sunrise - surprisingly though I had this overlook spot all to myself for a full hour before anyone else showed up. Fun fact - This is one of only 3 waterfalls that empty directly into the ocean in the United States - 8 in North America.

Day 6 - Alien Landscapes

Death Valley NP is full of superlatives - largest NP in lower 48, lowest elevation, hottest spot on Earth, driest in North America, steepest average slope.. I could go on. What I love is so much of these superlatives translate into interesting photos. Here in Badwater basin you are 282 feet below sea level - interesting enough but you also have ancient salt and sediment deposits that form these wild geometric shapes .
So looking forward to the two workshop I am leading here in March.

You see the other photographer?

Day 7 - Rough Roads

I drove just under 100 miles on rough gravel roads to visit some quieter corners of the park. So quiet in fact that I don't think I saw more than a dozen people from sunrise to sunset - and most of those people were in cars going the other direction. I spent several hours and hiked for almost 5 miles up and over these more remote dunes - about 1/2 mile from the campsite I thought I should pack it all up and get back and make some dinner- about 5 minutes after I strapped the tripod on my backpack and zipped up the camera I noticed the sky starting to develop. I started to get a little panicky - quick find some interesting foreground I thought - a few more steps brought me in sight of this composition and I feel like it all worked out. There was a glow that developed on the slopes facing sunset that I just loved!

Later that night I had to play Marco polo with my camera but that's a story for when I post that photo :)

Day 8 - Happenstance

5am wake up before heading out of Death Valley - I noticed the sky was pinking up nicely but the view in front of me was scrubby low hills, nothing remarkable, and then as I rounded a corner this view appeared. The Sierra Nevada mountains looked so close in the still morning air. The day only got better and better as I bought a ridiculously good egg burrito from Alabama Hills Bakery and Cafe and spent time hiking around in the Alabama Hills before watching a gorgeous sunset and cooking up a delicious bean burrito :)

Day 9 - G'morning Möbius

The last day of the photography portion of the road trip started early - watching sunrise light up the Sierra Nevada mountains nicely framed through Möbius Arch. I loved the way the warm sidelight helped the arch stand out from the other rocks in the background.

A Möbius strip can be created by taking a strip of paper, giving it an odd number of half-twists, then taping the ends back together to form a loop. If you take a pencil and draw a line along the center of the strip, you'll see that the line apparently runs along both sides of the loop. I think the name for this arch is pretty darn perfect.