Sender: Fishel

New River Gorge Bridge

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Sender: Fishel

New River Gorge Bridge

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Soaring High

Soaring High, originally uploaded by fincher69.

We stopped at a pullout either in or near Glacier National Park to take some pictures of the scenery when I noticed this large bird (I think hawk or eagle) almost playing in the high winds that we were having. I took a couple of shots, but I really liked this way this one turned out with the bird soaring above the landscape of river, trees, and mountains.

This is one that I definitely think looks better large and on black

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Hungry Little Critter

Hungry Little Critter, originally uploaded by fincher69.

A little fawn having a snack in the middle of Waterton, Canada. It was kinda funny to have deer just roaming around the city and I had to post at least one picture of these cute little guys.

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Mountain Whitewater

Mountain Whitewater, originally uploaded by fincher69.

A river flowing out of a small lake in Glacier National Park. It is a little hard to see, but right above the top waterfall is a bridge and just past the bridge is the lake. This is another where I made the clouds and whitewater a little more "dramatic" but toning down the highest highlights.

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Sender: Lauren

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Sender: Lauren

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A Glacial River Runs Through It

A Glacial River Runs Through It, originally uploaded by fincher69.

A picture I took of a river that paralleled the path for a while during one of out hikes in Glacier National Park. The original was a little busy so I gave it a letterbox-type crop and was pretty happy with the result.

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Enjoying Niagara

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Trying to make an appearance

Trying to make an appearance, originally uploaded by fincher69.

This is another one from the Glacier trip. I played with the contrast and lowlights a little because much of the texture of the clouds was lost and I wanted to bring it out a little more. I like the crisp mountain contrasting with all the negative space of the clouds. Hopefully others will agree!

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Old School Wakeboarding Video

Last time I was home, my mom showed me an old wakeboarding video that she had found that I put together.  I have no clue what I edited it with, but it was my first time putting together any kind of video and it definitely cracked me up and I had to share.  Hopefully since I made it unlisted, it will still embed properly but they won't mute the audio due to copyright bullshit like they did with my road trip video.

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Overcast Montana Panorama

Overcast Montana Panorama, originally uploaded by fincher69.

This was taken on a pretty day in/near Glacier National Park. I upped the contrast a little and toned down some of the whitest whites, but still tried to keep it pretty true to the original. Stitched together using DoubleTake

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Home for Zac Brown Band!

Ok, so I've been a little slow in making this update because I am leaving for a conference this weekend and have been preparing a presentation and a poster.  That combined with posting pics, working on my area survey and wedding stuff has left little time to work on regular blog posts, but it seems I've finally found a little window of freedom. :-) This past weekend, I traveled up to Bristol because my mom had acquired tickets to see Zac Brown Band.  They were playing as the big finale concert to Fun Fest in Kingsport and it definitely sounded to be an awesome time.  Maricruz was, unfortunately, unable to go due to some stupid work stuff so my buddy Dustin came up from Birmingham to join in the fun.  Luckily I was able to hit the road early enough on Friday to get there in time for an evening wakeboarding session.  I got a few pics, but I was brain dead apparently and didn't set things on my camera the way they needed to be leaving me with many blurry pics like below.  Some still came out kind of cool, but I definitely need to learn to think about everything going on with the camera a little more if I want to improve my photography Saturday Dad joined us out at the lake for a morning session.  My sister came out this time so we had an official photographer and some better pics :-)

Dustin stylin' a grab

Scarecrow!

Nothing makes a grab more stylish than a great mustache

I love me some roast beef

Dad still tearing it up too!

After riding we ran by the wakeboarding store to get some new bindings for Dad's board, then had a relaxing midday at the house.  My folks often go to Inari Wines for a little local Saturday wine tasting, so we all partook then headed towards Kingsport.  We stopped by Fleet Feet to get me some new running shoes (some snazzy Asic Kayanos) then parked and headed towards the festivities.  After perusing the food tents, we all ended up having some barbecue (and I went the extra fatty mile to get some banana pudding as well) then it was time to join the mob trying to get into the stadium.  The concert was outdoors (read: very hot) in the high school football stadium.  We weren't interested in sitting in the sun for too long, so we didn't get there too crazy early.  It was mostly lawn seating and we were front row, but the view still wasn't too shabby. There were two openers, who were both pretty good (though I don't recall their names) then it was time for ZBB!  They definitely put on a good show, though I must say it was a little more of a mix than I was expecting!  Some songs are pretty country, others bluegrass, a couple pretty slow ones, then one super jam (with psychedelics on the jumbotron) that was semi-Phish/Grateful Dead-ish.  Got to hear some tracks from the upcoming album and it was kinda cool having the moon rise behind the stage as they played. (sorry for the dark, cell-phone-quality pic) Since the concert marked the end of Fun Fest, they even put together a big fireworks show!  It was pretty darn impressive given the venue.  We watched for a while then headed out and we could hear the explosions of it continuing well after we hit the road. After we got back to the house, Dustin and I drove out to the lake and it didn't take us long to crash.  Two wakeboarding sessions already and neither of us have been riding lately. :-) Sunday we had another morning session.  Dustin decided to wakeskate and I did a little boarding then a wakeskate session as well.

Going for the shuv

And a nice butter slide

Definitely accidental

Almost had the shuv!

After we rode, we packed everything up and Dustin and I hit the road back to our respective homes.  It was a fairly brief trip, but we definitely managed to pack in the fun! :-)

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So many beers, so little time - B&W

So many beers, so little time - B&W, originally uploaded by fincher69.

A sample from the Great Northern Brewing Company in Whitefish, Montana. Can't argue with a great sampler of good beers! I can't decide if I like this one better in color or black and white. Thoughts?

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So many beers, so little time

So many beers, so little time, originally uploaded by fincher69.

A sample from the Great Northern Brewing Company in Whitefish, Montana. Can't argue with a great sampler of good beers! I can't decide if I like this one better in color or black and white. Thoughts?

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Cloudy Mountains of Logan's Pass

Cloudy Mountains of Logan's Pass, originally uploaded by fincher69.

I wanted to capture some of the snow and low level clouds while we were up at Logan's Pass in Glacier National Park. I really liked the contrast and thought the black and white definitely brought it out a little more.

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I voted!

Sam Adams (representatives from the brewery) came out to Fermentation Lounge in Tallahassee with a couple of experimental brews. We got to try a Belgian IPA and an American rye and filled out a voting card to help decide the next beer to be released by Sam Adams!  The last was the Noble Pils, which is awesome. I hope the IPA wins! :-)

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A Leafy Silhouette

A Leafy Silhouette , originally uploaded by fincher69.

I took this at the end of our hike on the Avalanche Lake Trail in Glacier National Park. Nothing too fancy, but lighting like this always intrigues me. In person, I just saw green leaves, but the picture resulted in an almost completely black silhouette. I thought it turned out kinda snazzy.

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The Posing Butterfly

The Posing Butterfly, originally uploaded by fincher69.

I saw this butterfly while I was walking through a parking lot at Glacier National Park. As I approached it, it spread its wings a little more and turned slightly, almost as if it were posing for me. Not only did I end up with a cool shot of the butterfly, but I really liked all the color and texture that made up the surface of the parking lot.

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Great morning view

The only thing I would rather see first thing in the morning is my sweetie.

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Glacier Panorama with Weeping Wall

Glacier Panorama with Weeping Wall, originally uploaded by fincher69.

Another DoubleTake stitched panorama, this time it only involved a few shots so it feels more like a wide angle than some of the previous pans that encompass 180 degree (or more) views. Shot in Glacier National Park and on the right side of the picture is what is called the Weeping Wall. It is a sheer rock face right along the road that has numerous waterfalls.

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Glacial Mountains

Glacial Mountains, originally uploaded by fincher69.

Taken in Glacier National Park. I thought it was just a cool little pairing of the foreground hill with the snow drizzled background peaks.

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Glacier National Park Panorama

Glacier National Park Panorama, originally uploaded by fincher69.

This is one of my favorite panoramas from our trip to Glacier. Some pans still look like they were just taken zoomed out and cropped, but this one really encompasses much more than ever could have fit into frame. It's a pretty large one, too, so a lot of detail is retained.

Since the resolution is 13019 x 2785, it is hard to really view it at an appropriate size. Flickr's Large is still small, but original is just huge.

The photos were stitched together using DoubleTake.

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Badlands Panorama

Badlands Panorama, originally uploaded by fincher69.

Photos taken from a 2001 road trip of the Badlands in South Dakota. Sticthed together using DoubleTake. Geotagged location is an approximation.

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Breckenridge Panorama

Breckenridge Panorama, originally uploaded by fincher69.

From a ski trip in 2007. Taken in Breckenridge, Colorado and stitched together with DoubleTake.

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Maine Panorama

Maine Panorama, originally uploaded by fincher69.

Created (using DoubleTake) with some shots from a road trip I took with my friend Heather in 2003. I can't recall the name of the mountain in Maine of which we were at the top.

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Grand Canyon Panorama

Grand Canyon Panorama, originally uploaded by fincher69.

I recently acquired DoubleTake, a program to stich together pictures automatically. I started going through some old sets of photos and stitching them together and here is one from a trip to the Grand Canyon in 2002.

I figure, since I just made a blog post about my recent trip to Montana, I would post a couple of these old panoramas first.

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Father/Son trip to Glacier National Park (and surrounding areas)

As an initial warning, this post is huge. I took over 950 photos and 6 videos during this trip and trying to condense it into a blog post is pretty difficult.  Just wanted to give anyone reading a heads up.  You may want to grab a beverage in case you need mid-post hydration :-)

Dad and I have done a Montana trip in the past (to Bozeman), though much of it was actually spent in Wyoming (at Yellowstone National Park).  Afterwards, I mentioned to him that I would really like to make it up to Glacier National Park (spurned by many awesome Ansel Adams prints) at some point in my life.  Well the time came to plan another father/son trip so we figured why not head up to Northwest Montana!

Day 1 - Saturday

I flew out of Tallahassee and met up with Dad at the Atlanta airport.  Surprisingly, we managed to make it through without any significant snags (a miracle for Atlanta) and arrived in Kalispell early in the afternoon.  Grabbed our snazzy Cadillac and we were on our way!

Anyone who knows me will not be surprised that we booked our room at the Kalispell Hampton Inn.  I love Hampton Inns and this one was especially snazzy .  As it was already a little late for lunch, we decided to do something easy and close and ate at the Arby's right next to the hotel.  After that we got settled in the room, then decided we would explore downtown Kalispell.  As many Hampton Inns do, this one had a courtesy shuttle so they dropped us off downtown (which to Kalispellians apparently means "the mall") and we began to mosey.  We discovered that there really isn't a whole lot going on downtown unless you need a salon or massage or spa treatment.  Kalispell has that small mountain town feel and definitely doesn't feel like a resort at all, so it kinda amazed us that so many salons could stay in business.  I guess all the locals have really nice hair.  Anyhoo, we managed to find the KB Sports Bar & Grill (like dad and I would be looking for anything other than a bar) and enjoyed a few Montana based drafts.  Always a good way to start a trip! We ended up eating while we were there then had our shuttle come grab us and take us back to the hotel.  It had been a long day so we had no issues packing it in early.

Day 2 - Sunday

Our first full day in Montana! We got up and out pretty early and hit the road towards Glacier National Park.  We kinda figured the first day would be more of a drive-around-and-explore kind of day so we were ready to log some miles.  Before we even got out of Kalispell we were taken with the beauty of Montana.  I could never get tired of looking at those mountains!  Especially pretty with the sun rising over them.  Don't these guys look ready to scope some scenery?

So we entered Glacier and started our trek down the Going-to-the-sun road. It is pretty much the main path through the park and covers a lot of ground so we thought it would be perfect for the first day and boy were we correct!  Luckily, there are plenty of places to pull off the road because we were stopping to take pictures constantly, and since we got out early on a Sunday, we really didn't have to deal with many crowds at all. Every turn of the road opened up to a new vista of awesome scenery.  One of the first nice views opened as we started to drive the shore of Lake McDonald (and no, as far as I know the name wasn't brought about by corporate sponsorship).

Had lunch at the Park Cafe then we took a small detour up to Many Glacier and ended up going on a nice little ~3 mile hike. Here's dad enjoying one of the awesome views from that first hike in Glacier!

One thing we noticed is that Glacier really likes their warning signage.  We were warned about bears...

then about the precarious landscape and leading cause of death.

While being very careful, we continued our Glacier exploration.  While I personally knew Glacier from photos of mountains, I never realized how many rivers and waterfalls it had.  It was a welcome surprise!

It was amazing how, if you looked around a little, almost every peak had some sort of waterfall runoff.  It was almost like a little game to try to find each one (this one is easy haha).

There was even a Weeping Wall where a lot of these water flows came together by a short section of road.

And yes, in those last couple of pics, that's snow!  It wasn't too chilly where we were, but as we got up into the higher elevations it was less hard to believe that some snow was still sticking around.

While just about every view we had was amazing, I was still hoping to see some wildlife.  While I never saw a wolverine or bear, There were a couple critters who showed up like a butterfly (that almost seemed to spread its wings and turn slightly to post as I approached)

and ground squirrels (by far the most prevalent wildlife in the park)

And while they keep warning you about bears and other wildlife, the thing you really have to worry about is the state bird of Montana: the Mosquito.

The only good thing about them is that they are so large you can usually feel them land on you and, if you are quick, can swat them before they dig in. :-) After our hike, we took a different path to loop back to the hotel. I'm still looking for some good photo stitching software to combine several of my shots into some snazzy panoramas, but until then I made sure to also take some with Dad's camera (since it has a mode that will just combine them in itself). I think if you click the image you can see it at a little higher resolution.

Since we were rolling in a little later we decided to just check out the large shopping center on the way into town for dinner.  Ended up choosing a Moe's-like place called Bajios that turned out to be a pretty darn good meal! After filling our bellies, logging many miles in the car and a few more on foot, we were very happy to be back in our cosy hotel room.

Day 3 - Monday

Since we had completed the main loop through and around the park the day before, we thought that we would do something a little different this day.  We decided to head to Canada!  Had a bit of a tricky time documenting it, though, because it was so windy that the camera kept blowing over!

There is a city named Waterton that is in Waterton Lakes Park in Alberta, Canada.  This park and Glacier are together the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park (double check this name) so it was kinda like we were just visiting another part of Glacier.  We made our way through winding roads and howling winds and arrived in Waterton safely, where it turned out to be pretty darn windy.

We checked the boat tour schedule, though we were a little wary since we noticed quite a few whitecaps due to the windy conditions.  We decided to mull it over over lunch.  We found a nice little place with a view of a little park and of the lake.  We were surprised to see a deer just hanging out in the park right outside the restaurant!  Not something you see every day (unless of course you live somewhere like Waterton). The building behind them is where we had lunch.

After lunch we decided that we had driven all this way and we may as well go on the boat tour.  So we stopped by the souvenir shop, visited with the deer, then hopped on the boat to head down the lake. The beginning of the trip was the most windy, but it really wasn't that bad in the covered back section where we were sitting.  It got gradually calmer and easier to snap some pics of the awesome views.

Waterton lake actually extends down into the US and Glacier National Park so about halfway through the tour we were technically back in Glacier!  We got a little bit of rain later in the trip and that, combined with the wind, made Dad and I think we might should have worn an extra layer.  Though some chilly conditions, we still had a good tour and made it back to Waterton safely. And continuing with the trend of lots of warning signs, we learned that the deer aren't as docile as one might think.

Hopped in the car (the heated seats and steering wheel came in handy) and made our way back down to America. I believe we decided to take the Going-to-the-sun road in the opposite direction for a more scenic ride back. To add a little bonus, we got to play numerous games of "dodge the cow" on some stretches of road as well (this one was easy, but not all them like to stay off the road)

We also got to see a couple of mountain goats pretty close up (though we weren't in a place where I could stop, so no pics). Once back in Kalispell, we decided to try out Paddy's, a little sports bar that was within walking distance of the hotel.  Turned out to be a pretty snazzy place! We had some good beers, a good meal, then walked back over to the hotel to crash after another long day.

Day 4 - Tuesday

We figured that you can't visit somewhere like Glacier without going on at least ONE decent hike.  We did a little research and found that the Avalanche Lake Trail was a very popular one, about the right distance (~2.2 miles one way), and had spectacular views.  So we set the alarm to get out early and started our hike!  While there is zero cell phone signal in the park, I figured my phone should still be able to log GPS coordinates so I started it up and put it in my chest pocket to try to give it at least a little view of the sky.  Turned out to work pretty well!

On the way out, we probably saw 3 groups of people total and, according to my phone, the end of the trail was actually about 3 miles out.  The books didn't lie and the views were awesome.  It was also nice that the first mile or so of the trail paralleled a river so the soundtrack was as nice as the view!  It was definitely not as smooth a trail as our first one.  We passed some resilient trees...

and some pretty big rocks...

but once we reached the lake and the views opened up, it was definitely worth it.

Even if it DID get a little windy at times.

You can see from the map of our hike that the lake is basically at the bottom of a big glacial bowl, so you can imagine it would provide some awesome panoramic views!

After we soaked in the scene and, of course, took many pictures around the lake, we started hiking back to the car.  It turned out that we definitely planned it well because, while we saw maybe 8 people on the way out, we easily passed 80 on the way back.  Glad we got an early start!  Not that I really mind seeing people, but hiking a couple miles through the woods without seeing anyone definitely feels more like a commune with nature.  So it ended up to be a decently challenging (at least to us non-hiker types) 6 mile trek.  After that we definitely felt like we earned the brews we would enjoy later in the evening!  We at lunch at one of the lodges in the park, then explored down a road that looked a little less traveled.  Turns out it went through the area that had been part of a large forest fire a little while back so it was mostly barren, burned trees.  Not quite as scenic as some of the other views we had enjoyed, but still cool to see another part of the p ark.  After that little exploration, we drove back, hit up our downtown bar for some good draft beer, then walked from the hotel over to our "usual" Paddy's for dinner and beer.  Yet another full, but awesome, day in Montana!

Day 5 - Wednesday

By now, we had pretty much done a lot of what we had planned to do on the trip.  It is our typical style to kinda go "all out" the first few days, then that leaves us a day or two at the end to just completely take it easy, relax, and see whatever we feel like seeing.  Up until now, I had been the driver of the trip (Dad + driving != him relaxing), but today he took over so I could try to snap some pictures from the places where there weren't any turnouts.  While we had been on the going-to-the-sun road a few times already, it was amazing how different weather conditions could completely change the feel of the views we enjoyed. It was a super overcast day, so it really challenged me as a photographer (read: I had no clue what I was doing).  I ended up taking multiple pics of everything in the hopes that at least one would turn out correctly (like I didn't have enough photos to go through already).

It was nice to be the passenger, though, as there were quite a few precarious driving situations that didn't really lend themselves to looking around and enjoying the scenery.

They even have to divert many of the waterfalls to run under the road!

And speaking of weather, it was awesome to have some weather NOT in the 90s like it has been in Tallahassee.  As we got to Logan Pass, it was windy at 41 degrees outside!

They had even gotten a little fresh snow up in the mountains the day before.

Definitely a noticeable (and welcome) break from Florida weather :-) Since we were really doing the mosey thing, we were keeping an eye out for any side paths that we hadn't checked out previously.  Dad suggested we check out Sun Point, which we thought would just be a little walk out to a point, snap a picture and walk back.  It turned out to be a beautiful little lakeside trail...

that lead to a cool waterfall and along a small gorge that a river flowed through.

I even had a little critter try to sneak home with me!

I would guess we ended up hiking at least 2 miles total, which was a nice surprise to get a little more exercise. After the hike, we ate at a little restaurant in the park, then we started to head home.  We thought we would to a little extra exploring since it was our last day, so we detoured over to Whitefish, a town not far from Kalispell, to check things out.  turns out Whitefish definitely had a little more of a touristy feel and felt a little livelier than Kalispell.  After driving around just a little, it is likely we will look to stay in Whitefish if we venture back to this area of the country.  They even had a lake that people were actually getting in, so perhaps I could find a wakeboarding pull! :-) As I often do, I turned to the snazzy Yelp! app on my phone to see if we could find a watering hole (i.e. bar) to enjoy before heading back to Kalispell.  Turns out the brewery where Black Star Double Hopped (the beer I often had on draft at the Kalispell Bar) i s made was located in Whitefish!  So dad and I enjoyed a sampler of the 10 beers they made and had on tap,

then each enjoyed a pint of our favorite...

while enjoying a nice view overlooking Whitefish.

Then we took it back to the hotel to pack it in early since we were gonna have a pretty early morning the next day.  Again, we walked over to Paddy's and had a great farewell-to-Montana dinner.

Day 6 - Thursday

Woke up at 4 am to discover that it really DOES get dark in Kalispell, then packed up everything and headed to the airport and bid Montana farewell.  To know what I'm talking about with regard to the darkness, here's a pic out our hotel window at 9:45 PM.

And here is the same view at 6 AM.

That doesn't leave a whole lot of time for darkness! Anyhoo, overall, we covered a lot of miles, both in car and on foot, and really saw a great deal of Montana.  As usual all the views were amazing and I was, as I mentioned earlier, really surprised by the number of waterfalls!  I guess all that snow runoff had to go somewhere, but I knew Glacier for the mountains not the water!  It was nice to have many beautiful rivers, lakes, and waterfalls at every other turn.  It was yet another in a long line of awesome father/son trips and I'm thankful that Dad could put it together.  Good times!

Side note #1: Because I wanted to go ahead and get this post done and posted soon after the trip, all the above pictures are raw and unedited.  I took so many pictures that the next few weeks will probably be filled with some of my favorite shots after I get a chance to post-process them, but with as many as I took, I'm sure it may take even longer to pour through them.

Side note #2: If you noticed, much of the water is a kind of teal-ish blue.  This is because glaciers ground down the rock into such a fine powder (glacier flour they call it) that it doesn't sink.  Since it stays suspended in the water, it changes the color to this shade of blue.  Here's an example (including the Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton) Pretty cool huh!?

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