Stragglers

Just a few more pictures from our Breckenridge trip. These hiking trails were so nice, and were accessible via a short walk from our condo.

Base of Eight

In Breckenridge you can take their gondola from the base up to the base of lift 8, which will get you up to the skiing. In the summer the base of 8 is a small amusement park. There is a roller coaster type thing, climbing wall, giant maze, and a variety of other kids activities to separate you from your money. We went up to have a look around and ended up just hanging out up there all afternoon.

UP (in black and white)

I've been doing some experimenting with my new cameras black and white features, and I really like the results. Continuing my minor obsession with varieties on the views from the last post, only in black and white. There is something about shooting the scene in black and white, rather than converting it in Photoshop that appeals to me; it's more of a film experience because there's no going back. Expect more black and whites to come!

UP (in color)

Looking through my photos from Colorado, it looks like I got a little obsessed with looking up through the trees. Not that there is anything wrong with that; I thought it was a cool view. Not having woods like these in Kansas City, it was novel to me. I thought I'd collect them all here for you to enjoy.

Following

I'm sure many of my photographer friends can relate to this hike. My girlfriend, Marcella, hiking... me, constantly trailing behind. Somehow I never managed to completely lose her, and even managed to catch her in the distance. Eventually I caught her when we turned around; only to lose her again on the hike back down.









BTW.. the third one is my favorite. Probably one of my favorites in a while.

Lake Washington

We made a couple stops on our Birthday tour of Lake Washington. The first was this little beach in Madison Park where we hung out for a while, doing some people watching and catching a few really painful looking belly flops from the diving board on a floating dock. Our second stop was down the road a ways, at a dock near Leschi(?). There were a surprisingly few boats at the dock for a beautiful day in July.

Newspapers

This is something we don't really "do" in Kansas City; at least not that I've found recently. We have some free periodicals in town, but they're usually in stands within restaurants or stores, rather than in cool metal newspaper boxes outside. I find these pretty good little structures to photograph. From Seattle and Oakland, respectively.

Harriet in Seattle

Last July I spent my Birthday weekend in Seattle visiting my best friend Scott. Here are a few shots from around his apartment, including his dog Harriet. I turned it into a nice long weekend trip, thanks to the 4th of July being a holiday. I'm trying to figure out where to go this year, so if you have any suggestions, let me know!

10,000 of these

One of the cooler, low key things we did in Minneapolis was a little excursion to one of Minnesota's 10,000 lakes. This lake (I don't know what lake it is, or where it was exactly) is just sort of in the middle of town, near businesses, offices, etc. People can just come out at lunch and take a really nice stroll around, or in the evenings people can come out for the same. They also had mini golf, and maybe some paddle boats too. Just a nice little getaway in town. Enjoy these pictures, like I enjoyed wandering around.

After the lake I'll finish up my Minneapolis trip with a couple final shots I took while we were waiting for the train to take us to the airport. I can't tell you how nice it is was be able to just take a train to the airport.

More Minneapolis

It's been a while since I've gotten around to editing and posting any photos, so we're still on a timeline way back in June of last year, and my trip to Minneapolis. There is this bar downtown, Brit's Pub and Eating Establishment, where on the roof, they have lawn bowling. One morning after a late brunch at Hell's Kitchen we dropped in to give it a try. It was early in the day, so we were able to get a 'lane' as it were, right away and get to playing pretty quickly. It was a TON of fun. Shoes off, icy cold beverage in hand, we bowled from side to side for maybe an hour. We laid down a few friendly wagers, and I ended up having to buy everyone a Lego Minifig at the Mall of America later (don't ask..).

My takeaway from this trip continues to be that Kansas City needs to learn to be more like Minneapolis.









I have another post in the chamber from Minneapolis. Just need to get another picture or two ready first, so expect it soon!

Minneapolis Bike Ride (Part 2)

After meeting the Royals manager, Sean was pretty excited, and we were both ready for a drink. We rode a little further to this really cool area with lots of patio seating areas, sort of overlooking the river. We hung out there for a while until Tyler was about done with work, and then rode towards downtown to meet him at the Guthrie Theater, where there is this really awesome observation deck. It’s called the Endless Bridge, and I’d been curious about it all morning after having seen it while riding. It was really cool and just open to the public whenever you wanted to drop in. Kansas City needs things like this.

Lunch was at some hipster-Mexican type place. It was really good too; we let Tyler do the ordering.

Minneapolis Bike Ride (Part 1)

Because of the new Flickr setup, I can’t post pictures in the comments anymore, so maybe that’ll force me to blog a little more often. Last summer I took a couple little vacations to visit friends across the country. This one was to Minneapolis, with my friend Sean, to visit our friend Tyler. We’d all three gone up there a few years ago before Tyler moved up there, and based on these two trips, I love that city! I don’t think I could handle the winters, because winters in Kansas City are bad enough, but man, the summer up there would be great.

Our first morning there, Tyler had to work half the day, so Sean and I walked to the farmers market not far from Tyler’s place. After looking around there a little, we checked out a couple bikes from their bike share program and went searching for a way to get on the bike path. After getting lost a few times, and realizing we couldn’t simply get to the bike path from our side of the railroad, we devised a plan and worked our way over. From there we rode up towards the river, and then along the river on their awesome bike/run paths. It was so much fun! We crossed the river on this really cool looking arched bridge, and after stopping to snap a few photos, Sean happened to see the manager for the KC Royals, who were in town for a few baseball games. Sean wished him luck as the guy jogged past, and the he actually stopped to chat about things for a minute! So I met the Royals manager, and he joked about putting us in if they’re not doing well that night.

Sean is this crazy huge Royals fan; I never would have known that guy was the manager for the Royals. To be honest, after Sean introduced me, I still didn’t know he was the manager. I thought maybe a hitting coach or something. When Sean clarified for me later, I was pretty jazzed. Not as jazzed as Sean, but it was pretty cool.

Part 2 of our adventure is coming soon!



















Ugh, so it turns out they're trying to make it harder to share private photos. Flickr, I will quit you if you keep fucking up.