ARIZONA,OR GO WEST NOT SO YOUNG MAN

i can put up some more. i am home and sitting in front of my computer, processing the trip from the beginning, i have a hot cup of coffee, there is an ice storm going on, all the horses, cats and dogs are fed and in for the night, so i will post more, in fact i will go hog wild on the thread, but instead of editing previous posts, i will just add more in chronological order if it pleases everyone. so back to saturday, 2/4/17, this was my ride, i rented from alamo, because expedia had a real good deal on flight and car combined, i rented a compact, i get to the alamo pickup area with my paperwork, and the attendant asks if i want to spin the chance wheel for a free upgrade, i see the wheel has a lot of different things on it, i spin and i land on sports car, it's free. so i think why not, he says go down that row and pick out any of the hardtops, the row is all black or red hardtop camaros, so i pick this, bad choice, i spend the next 7 days banging my head on the door frame about every 3rd attempt to get into this ridiculously low car. i have a stiff neck from trying to look at scenery because you cannot see much besides the road without sort of bending over, and forget arizona side roads in this thing, way too low to the ground. although the open interstate with a 75 speed limit did have it's moments

 

i am putting up both of these, taken trackside at maine control point, about 14 miles west of flagstaff, literally maybe 1000 feet off the parks road exit, #178, from I-40, unfortunately my gps data logger decided to scramble its programming, unknown to me until i get out here, and while there were numerous garmin dealers in the areas of flagstaff and kingman, nobody had a handheld e-10 or 20 in stock. this is a really good illustration of why sun angles trackside are so important, i like the composition of the second shot so much better, except because it's a late afternoon westbound, the sun was on the nose, and it washed out the bnsf orange too much. no it's not really a clean engine, you only get those when they are new, as BNSF rarely washes them, and UP not at all. but sometimes it's the only time you can be somewhere, so you have to accept it. i had seen this shot on flickr, and was able to find parks/maine on the road map, pulled off the exit, knew the tracks were south, pulled to the crossing, and there it is.

and the westbound, just left and over the lead engine, mount humphries, highest peak in arizona, 12.600 or so, only about 30 miles away at this point by road, north of flagstaff up route 180, home of the arizona snowbowl. i wasn't able to get trackside until about 3:30 and the next 2 days were planned pretty tightly, so i never did get back here for less harsh lighting on the westbounds. next trip maybe, it's probably a very sweet late morning shot.

 

so up and out pretty early on sunday morning, to get some first light on flagstaff station, one of the only unchanged original atchison, topeka and santa fe stations, built in 1926, tudor revival style, altitude 6902 feet above sea level. i cannot remember what architect, i do recall reading about it while doing background research for this trip, that original aspect was what put it onto the shot list, the due west shot from the end is nicer, but there was a taxi sitting there the whole time i was waiting to 7:30 for martre anne's to open, which turned out to be closed for breakfast to allow renovations to go on during the day, but they were doing breakfast a few blocks away in a sister restaurant, and the breakfast burrito was everything the internet said it would be. in case anyone hasn't noticed by now, i do research, a lot of research before i ever pack a suitcase for these trips, someone once told me but isn't spontaneous fun, i said yes it is, but missing something out of ignorance is not fun. this is as good a place as any to mention that most of the shots on this trip were taken only with one lens, i rented a sony/zeiss 24-70 f2.8 gm lens, it gets nothing but huge raves on the internet, and because it's expensive, large and heavier than all my other lenses for my mirrorless, i wanted to see how it felt. i love my 24-70 f4, but it really wasn't the best at pixel mania, particularly for parades. this thing is sharp. really fast focusing, and at the end of the day not too bad on my body, especially on the shoulder area, so i may be pulling the trigger on this for pixelmania.

 

so breakfast is over, let's move on east on I-40, about 12 miles to already mentioned walnut canyon national monument, where i got to purchase a senior pass, only $10 and it's lifetime. something good from getting to official senior status. this is one place e where i made sure i photographed every one of the interpretive signs, i won't post them all, but maybe a few, as they did tell a good story of this place
















and they were not kidding, this was a serious set of steps

 

Speaking of senior passes, if you are eligible, make sure to pick up your National Parks lifetime pass. The price is set to go up significantly but they haven't announced the date yet.

 

that's the one i got, it's the senior lifetime one

 

it's a girl my lord in a flat bed ford. well here she is immortalized

and they have even gone out and gotten the ford


and they have a roadside attraction information board, and a donation box, and i did drop a couple dollars into it


and pretty much the full corner



more to come, it's time to get ready to return to the work world tomorrow

 

Love it! I too like the second one of those diesel engines.

 

so we are done with winslow, let's put that camaro to the test, and motor on back to flagstaff, go north on route 89 about 13 miles and take the 36 mile loop road around sunset crater national monument and on to wukoki pueblo
informational board at sunset

and the top of the cone with the obvious blow out look

lava flow field

some of the cinder cone, you really cannot get into the cone itself

 

more volcano stuff





and the road goes ever on

 

so, near to the end of the loop road are several pueblo ruin sites, the most famous is probably wupatki, which is where the visitors center is, however i had read up on this in laurent martre's book "photographing the southwest, arizona" this is a series of books i highly recommend for anyone making a trip to the west/southwest area looking to do some photography. i have 2 of his books, and used both extensively, i used the colorado/new mexico book last year, and the arizona volume this year, and the good news is they are available on kindle, so they can be field guides at little weight. he recommended wukoki as better for photography and as more intact t. it sits 2.5 miles down a well paved side road, well marked, and i had it to myself most of the time there.







and it seems those sign boards are well placed, i'm thinking someone gives some thought to making sure they can be read in full sunlight, because i encountered very little glare anywhere i took photos of them.

 

so i moved on up the highway, about 60 miles to the easternmost entrance to the grand canyon national park, parked at desert view watchtower and waited for what i hoped would be a spectacular sunset, no such luck, the day which had been sunny and cloud free for oh so long, clouded up about 4:30, and so while i have no stunner sunset shot from the canyon, it is still impressive, one of the 7 natural wonders of the world.






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best i could do for sunset, oh well, ya pays ya money and ya takes yer chances. so says popeye. that mesa in the distance is where the air crash happened in 1956, much of the wreckage fell at its base, many of the victims were unidentifiable and are buried in a mass grave in flagstaff.

 

so it's tuesday, day one of a lerro productions photo charter, steam powered both days, double headed steam on wednesday. so out on the line, i posted an earlier morning shot, with the oil flame from the bottom, this will be all engine #29 in these next couple of posts. i know we have a lot of train enthusiasts on here. so i aim to give you what you want, steam in the west,




so i tried out the dehaze slider, i really wanted to try to salvage these overcast misty day morning shots, and what do you know, it worked a bit, i was able to keep quite a few shots i would have probably thrown away, here is one of them of the alco units passing by us with the daily tourist train, while we are in the siding, stabbed in the hole in railroad talk

and another saved from the scrap heap of pixels

up in coconino canyon, not too far from the grand canyon, maybe 10-15 miles i'd guess

and we stopped at what they call the new train station, it's now the back country office, but when built was supposed to become the shuttle train office when the parks service was attempting to ban all private cars from the park in high season, and run shuttle trains back and forth from tusayan, the community immediately outside the main visitors entrance. so the walking route to the rim and bright angel lodge led right past the mule stables, one way to go down into the canyon

we actually were starting to see clearing skies at this point, so shots of the canyon were not too bad

some of bright angel lodge from studio lookout, a little art shop you can walk through and on out onto a nice viewing terrace

a pretty decent view of bright angel trail, it switchbacks down the rim to that mesa below, to indian garden, a natural spring in that grove of trees, where many hikers rest and camp to break up either the ascent or descent, then the trail goes off to the right into that crevasse you see, and continues to switchback it's way down to the colorado river on the canyon floor, you can cross on a suspension bridge, and climb out to phantom ranch. i believe it's 7 miles to the ranch.

last of the rim shots for today, and the last of todays post. if there are no objections this thread will continue for a few more days as i post more, i will continue tomorrow with afternoon/golden hour shots from our return to williams

 

so let's pick up after lunch break at the grand canyon, the train was why'ed there with us on it, a nice interlude to eat the box lunch burrito i picked up from maswik lodge, and start southbound back to williams, we did a couple of runways in coconino, but then had to get on down the line towards the late afternoon shots and keep moving to get to where the golden hour shots were planned. pete lerro, the charter organizer is a professional photographer, and he is very aware of light angles and where we need to be on the line at what times of day.


back down out of the canyon, onto that high chaparral desert, and yes it is that wide open for anyone who has never seen the high plains, you can see for miles literally.


oh the light is getting so sweet now


and these were worthy runbys, pete had the train crew go far enough past the photo line to give going away shots, and so the video crowd feels they got something

getting late in the day now


i feel this might be my best shot of the trip

and a couple of sunset runbys


and that's all for today folks, i have to leave in 4 minutes for a training workshop called man vs machine, designed and taught by an fdny rescue 4 captain. how to go about freeing someone caught in machinery
more tomorrow, when we start the day behind # 4690 and double up engines mid day

 

I love the storm light on the 3rd shot of this post.

 

thanks, that was some mighty tasty light for about an hour, and yet it it never developed into any storm that came over us or williams.

 

day 2 of the grand canyon railroad photo charter, another early start, but it was not a spectacular sunrise, so i am not putting anything from early in the day up here, but towards midmorning it started to get nice

we started the day behind engine # 4960, their other steam engine

i wonder what these dry washes all look like during monsoon season, probably pretty strong runoff, as i noticed all these little bridges are built pretty sturdy, and the piers are all designed to deflect runoff

and for something different, ruins of either an old homestead or section house, no one present really knew

we went into the siding to meet the daily passenger train, and to take on water, the frequent starting and stopping of photo runbys uses a lot of water, i'm pretty sure it's been a thing on every steam charter i've been on


after the meet and water fill we backed up into coconino canyon to do some runbys and to prepare to double up

and we stopped at their other siding, where there are the remains of an old section house, this was also the interchange site of a logging railroad, long since taken out that went off into the forest to the right side of this scene

a couple of runbys from # 29

and some side by side posing


backing the cars on down

and we are all coupled up and ready to begin doubleheader runbys

 

doubleheader pulling hard

and the crew photo, there is always one of these offered

and let's see some of that high plains double



and i went a little artsy here, who says you always have to have all of both engines in the frame??

sunset backlit

and a night shot, i do not think this is the same one i posted earlier. that concludes our train portion of the trip, however as billy mays would say, but wait, there's more. i will put up a few more grand canyon and sedona shots