My Summer (So Far) in Cell Phone Photos, Part I: June 2009

Posted on August 1, 2009 by Maria Langer

A look at what I’ve been snapping.

I need to make one thing clear: I don’t do serious photography with the camera on my BlackBerry. Although the photos are far superior to the ones I made with my Treo, they’re still crap.

Instead, I use my phone’s camera to document the weird or funny or cool or scary things that I see when I’m out and about. The other day, when I finally synced my BlackBerry to my iMac again, nearly two months worth of photos were copied to iPhoto. I realized that they might make an interesting look back at my summer so far. So here they are, with descriptions.

June 18, 2009

Pilot Greg This is Greg, a fellow helicopter pilot. He’s posing ~~with~~ in a kid’s ride at the Wenatchee Valley Mall in East Wenatchee, WA. Greg’s not a small guy. I still can’t believe he crammed his body into that little ride.

Greg is my insurance check pilot. I just switched to a new insurance company and it requires that I take an annual check flight with an approved pilot every year. It doesn’t matter that I take an official Part 135 check ride with an FAA inspector each year. That’s not good enough. The inspector can take away my pilot certificate. Greg can tell my insurance company not to insure me.

So I met Greg and we went flying together. He put me through the drill and didn’t raise any complaints. He signed the paperwork. I bought him lunch.

June 20, 2009

This is one of the windmills at the huge Wild Horse Wind Farm between Ellensburg and Vantage on the Vantage Highway in Washington State. It huge. There’s a visitor’s center up there that I really recommend for family outings. It’s also nice and cool up there.

I wrote extensively about my visit this year and included some videos in this blog post.

On the way back to where I was staying in Quincy, WA, I stopped off in Vantage at Blustery’s for a “Logger Burger.” You’re looking at a hamburger with bacon, cheese, ham, and fried egg. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner on one big bun!

June 23, 2009

Seafod If you’re looking for seafod, you’ve come to the right place: Inna’s in Wenatchee, WA. (Personally, I prefer seafood.)

You’d think they’d proofread this giant menu in their window before putting it on display, but I guess not. Or maybe they did and spelling isn’t one of their strong suits. Whatever.

The food is supposed to be good there, but this menu error showed me that they’ve got no attention to detail. I haven’t eaten there yet.

I did, however, treat myself to a hot fudge sundae at the Owl Soda Fountain across the street. They claim it’s an authentic soda fountain, but I think it looks too new and shiny. It certainly has that feel about it.

Am I the only person who remembers real soda fountains? I mentioned the one I grew up with in this very old blog post. (I still drink egg creams regularly; got the ingredients for one in my fridge right here at the hotel.)

June 29, 2009

Heli Base in Chelan Mike came out for a visit at the end of June and we flew Zero-Mike-Lima (far right) up to Chelan. We parked in the “heli base” between the hangars there, with two other red R44s. The one in the middle belongs to my friend, Jim, who has a helicopter company a lot like mine based in Coeur d’ Alene, ID. The one on the left belongs to the company his roommate was flying for — I think they’re out of Spokane, WA.

Of course, we were all up here for cherry drying season. They got to live in a nice little house in a resort community. I got to live in a trailer on a golf course in the middle of farmland. (Do I sound jealous? What do you think?)

What I like about this shot is that it doesn’t show the Hughes 500 parked behind the helicopter on the far left. So I can pretend it was Robinson Parking Only. Or Red Helicopter Parking Only. Whatever.

I had my good camera with me and took a bunch of much better shots. This is the one I sent to TwitPic, though.

Heli Base I also sent this one to TwitPic. I thought the sign was funny. When I sent it to TwitPic, someone commented on it, thinking my helicopter was the only one there. It was actually one of four, but happened to be the one parked behind the sign.

June 30, 2009

I had my birthday lunch at the Applewood Grill in Wenatchee, WA. It’s in a wonderful old stone building near the railroad tracks. I’m sure it’s got all kinds of historic significance that I failed to look into while there. We sat outside on the patio in the shade. It was a nice day. The food wasn’t bad, either.

Later, we went RV shopping in Wenatchee. We walked into one RV after another, going up in size and luxury with each step. This is the kind of 5th wheel model we’re considering as a trade-in for our sad little camper. This one was 32-feet long, had Corian countertops in the full kitchen, two La-Z-Boy recliners, a sofa bed, a table with four chairs, desk, a flat screen television, and king-sized bed, and a full bathroom. I could live in something like this.

Afterwards, we did a little Web surfing and I found the best designed and most informative Web site I’ve ever visited: KeystoneRV.com. Seriously: you should check this out. It answers all the questions you might have about these RVs except for the most important one: how much will it cost?

Mona Vie, anyone? I shot this one in a Wal-Mart parking lot mostly for the amusement of my skeptic friends. You either get it or you don’t. I’m not explaining the joke.

To be continued….

Know Thy Menu

Posted on July 19, 2009 by Maria Langer

Is it too much to ask for accurate answers to menu questions?

The sign out in front of Blustery’s, with the Columbia beyond it. (Pardon the quality; this is a cell phone photo.

Last night, I had dinner at Blustery’s Drive In in Vantage, WA. It’s a burger joint right off the interstate (I-90), just west of the bridge over the Columbia River (Wanapum Lake). I like the place. It has personality. And it has great burgers. I go there for the “Logger” burger, which is a burger topped with bacon, ham, cheese, and a fried egg.

As I ordered at the counter, I considered a side order with my burger. I asked about the onion rings. I like them batter dipped, not breaded. When I asked which they were, I was told they were breaded. I had sweet potato fries instead (which were excellent).

After dinner, I wanted ice cream. (Can you understand why I will never lose weight?) The girl at the counter offered hot fudge. Last time, I’d asked for it but was told they didn’t have any. I love hot fudge, so I went with it.

“Whipped cream and nuts?” she asked.

“Is the whipped cream real cream?”

“Yes,” she assured me.

“Okay, I’ll take some. But no nuts.”

I paid and waited for her to prepare the sundae I didn’t need. As I waited, an order of onion rings came out of the kitchen. Batter-dipped onion rings.

Now it’s pretty easy to tell the difference between breaded and batter dipped onion rings. These were definitely not breaded. They were batter-dipped. And they looked pretty good — not even very greasy.

Okay, so she’d made a mistake. No biggie.

I glanced at the girl making my sundae. She’d taken something out of a microwave and was pouring it into the bottom of a sundae dish. It was very runny. Hot fudge doesn’t usually get that consistency.

She added soft-serve ice cream and topped it off with more runny brown stuff. Then she disappeared into the back. When she returned, there was creamy white stuff and a maraschino cherry on top. She handed it over.

I dug into the cream. Or perhaps I should say “creme.” It wasn’t a dairy product. It tasted suspiciously like Cool Whip. Ick. I scooped it all off into a napkin.

I worked the spoon again. This time, I came up with some ice cream and chocolate syrup. The ice cream was melted; the syrup was cold. It was definitely not hot fudge. It was microwave-warmed chocolate syrup which had cooled back down after melting a good bit of the ice cream.

Don’t get me wrong — I ate it. Chocolate syrup is the next best thing to hot fudge in my book.

But is it too much to expect the people who work there to know what they’re serving me? Could the waitress possibly mistake Cool Whip and chocolate syrup for whipped cream and hot fudge?

Reminds me of the breakfast we had in a small town on the road one day. Mike asked the waitress if the blueberry pancakes are good.

“They’re great,” she assured us. “The blueberries are fresh. They just opened the can this morning.”

Quincy Tales: The Campground Lawns

Posted on July 16, 2009 by Maria Langer

Just blogging so I don’t forget.

For those of you who don’t know, I’m living in an RV park at Quincy, WA’s Colockum Ridge Golf Course. I’ve been here since June 8 and will likely be here until at least August 8.

Once again, I’m the only camper at the RV Park. That’s okay with me.

The RV park is small and not very fancy. It has five full-hookup parking spots along a gravel parking lot and at least another dozen of so with just water and power. The spots are short and you have to back into them — no pull-throughs here. There are no amenities like a pool or showers. Of course, there is an 18-hole golf course, but that’s not really of much interest if you don’t play golf. I don’t play golf.

The campground — as I like to call it — does have one feature that I seldom see in campgrounds: thick, luxurious grass between the campsites. For me, this is a real treat. We don’t have a lawn in Arizona — it’s really stupid to have a lawn in the desert where water is scarce. Our “yard” is a mixture of sand and fine gravel that we spread when we did our limited landscaping and natural desert that we simply don’t mess with.

At home, the very idea of walking around barefoot outdoors is silly. But here — holy cow! Brings me back to my childhood, when I rarely wore shoes in the summertime.

The grass adds a few quirky things to my stay here. The first has to do with the sprinklers. When I first arrived, the sprinklers in the campground started up every day at 4 AM. I know this because I could hear them. My camper’s bed extends out over the back of my camper, right over the grass. The sprinklers come on and one of them sprays the side of the tent-like covering over my bed. There’s a lot of quiet noise: the hissing of the sprinklers as they start up, the stead stream of water, the rain-like sound of the drops on the side of my bed tent. It wore me up every morning. At 4 AM.

This went on for a few days. Finally, I stopped by the golf course office and left a message for the manager. I requested a 5 AM start. After all, I’m usually up by 5 AM, which was about the time the sun rises here in the summer.

The next morning, the sprinkler didn’t go on at 4 AM. It didn’t go on at 5 AM either. Instead, it went on at 9:35 PM. And it stayed on until about 10 PM.

Well, at least it wouldn’t interfere with my sleep. But it also ensured that I wouldn’t be enjoying my lawn in the late evening, not long after sundown.

It also made for some entertainment when new neighbors arrived and attempted to enjoy their lawns in the late evening. I’d hear their squeals of alarm when the sprinkler cut short their outdoor activities.

Of course, I have to put away my canvas chair and zip up the screen on my bed tent every night.

In this shot, you can see my bed tent, my “garden,” and the sunflowers growing around the electrical box. The planter is from last year; I replanted it with tomatoes, basil, rosemary, and some flowers when I arrived this year.

The lawn also adds responsibility regarding the grass. My site includes a flat-bottomed round table. The bottom of the table suffocates the grass. So every two days, I move it to a new spot to give the grass beneath it a chance to recover. I also use 7-gallon water jugs as tie-downs for my awning. I have to move those every two days or so, too.

Throughout the week, I pull out the dandelion flowers so they don’t have a chance to go to seed. Once in a while, I weed around the electrical box for the site next door, where I’ve planted sunflowers. This is mostly so the weed-wacking guy doesn’t cut my sunflowers down, like he did last year.

Lawn mowing day is a big deal for me. I untie and move the water jugs and move the table and any other furniture out of the way. The guys come through with a weed-wacker and a lawn mower. They usually put the table back for me — it’s heavy! If it’s not windy, I give the grass a rest from the water jugs.

A video tour of my campsite and its luxurious grass.

Anyway, I made this little video this morning so you can have a better idea of what I’m talking about here. The campground may not be fancy, but it’s relatively pleasant, safe, and cheap. This is my second year here and everyone knows me. I have a [barely] passable WiFi Internet connection, mail delivery, and access to a restaurant and its ice machine. My helicopter is across the street and down the block, about 1/2 mile away. (Blocks tend to be one mile square around here.) Can’t get much more convenient than that.

Found Photos: Wheat Harvest

Posted on June 22, 2009 by Maria Langer

Comment

A new meme.

This afternoon, while looking through some photos to send to an editor, I stumbled upon one I’d forgotten all about. This isn’t a great photo, but it’s a cool photo. The kind of photo I want to share with others. It doesn’t show off my photography skills, but it tells a story all by itself.

I realized that I had a lot of photos like this. Photos that weren’t good enough to make it into my Photo Gallery but were certainly worth sharing. So I figured I’d create a new meme for them in my blog: Found Photos. I’m hoping to fill it with the kind of fun photos we all have but hesitate to share because they’re not quite “perfect.”

The first photo in the series, Wheat Harvest, is a good example:

Wheat Harvest

I must have geotagged the photos I shot that day; iPhoto provided this location information.

I shot this image through the plexiglas window on my friend Jim’s helicopter. We were flying from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho to Chelan, Washington. It was late afternoon. Jim was at the controls and I was shooting photos. When we came upon these combines, our flight turned into an impromptu photo shoot, with Jim swooping around to put my into position to get the shots. One of the shots, “Combine in Action,” ended up in my Photo Gallery. But this one seemed too goofy to include. After all, it includes the helicopter shadow and everyone knows that you don’t want your shadow in your photos.

Or do you? This is kind of fun, isn’t it? Seeing the helicopter’s shadow on the ground with the two combines? All going the same way?

The picture has problems. Focus is off and the horizon, which I probably should have excluded, is not level. I think it also shows the curvature introduced by the camera’s 28mm wide-angle lens. I could have done better if the door was off and I was trying a little harder. But we were just having fun and I think this picture shows that.

I’m back in Washington and so is Jim. Last year, we promised to take turns flying and shooting photos. Before the end of July, I’ll remind him of our promise and get some new photos from the front passenger seat in his helicopter.

A Trip to the Wild Horse Wind Farm

Posted on June 21, 2009 by Maria Langer

Huge windmills on a ridge.

The weather pattern here these days has been mostly sunny in the morning with increasing chance of showers in the afternoon. Because I have to fly after it rains (see “The Life of a Cherry Drying Pilot” for details), I need to be near the helicopter when it’s most likely to rain. That means the only time free for running errands and exploring my surroundings is when it’s least likely to rain. Lately, that means in the morning.

So yesterday morning I set out on a trip to the Wild Horse Wind Farm on a series of ridges northeast of Ellensburg. I can see the windmills from my camper down in Quincy and I visited them once before last year. This year, I bought along my Sony HD Handycam video camera and my new Flip Video. I wanted to capture the movement of the windmills, as well as the incredible “wooshing” sound the blades make as they cut through the air.

The Visitor’s Center at the Wild Horse Wind Farm.

I stopped for quite a while at the Visitor Center — mostly because it was cold outside. Wild Horse Ridge is quite a bit higher than it is in Quincy and, as you can imagine, it’s usually windy there. I threw a long-sleeved shirt on over my t-shirt but was still chilled. So I started out in the Visitor’s Center. Last time I’d been there, it had been crowded with kids, so I’d cut my visit short. This time I was able to look at the exhibits and video clips they had playing. One of the video monitors was playing a Nova episode about the Missoula Floods; I added it to my Netflix queue this morning. I especially liked the status monitor display which showed a video screen with a map of all 127 windmills, indication of which ones weren’t operating (two of them), and total power output of the operating generators.

I do recommend stopping at the Visitor’s Center if you ever go up there. There are plenty of easy-to-understand exhibits about the wind farm and energy, including some hands-on exhibits for kids. It’s also a great destination for school groups. The last time I was there, a busload of kids was on hand. They offer free tours of the facility that visit the controls in the base of one of the nearby windmill towers. I took the tour last time, so I skipped it this time.

One of the windmills near the visitor center. This view faces out toward where I’m staying in Quincy.

When I was ready to go out and brave the wind, I took a short walk with my still camera before heading back to the truck for my Handycam and tripod. Even though the camera is tiny, I always put it on a tripod to shoot. I simply can’t hold it still enough to create good video on my own. I walked along various pathways and framed up what I think might be good shots. Then I took a series of 30-second clips, using my body and top shirt to shield the camera’s microphone from the wind. My goal was to capture the sound. I haven’t seen the clips yet, so I don’t know if I succeeded.

Afterwards, I stowed the camera back in the truck and brought out my Flip Video camera to do a few clips for use on my blog. I bought the Flip the other day as a birthday present to myself. I find that if I don’t get a new toy at least once every 6 months, I go nuts. I’ve been fiddling around a lot with video lately. My Sony takes amazing quality shots, but getting it Web-ready is a time-consuming, grueling process. I wanted an easier way to create Web-ready video at a better quality than my Blackberry Storm offers. When I saw the Flip while wandering around a mall the other day, I sprung for it. It certainly can’t be any easier to use. The video quality is so-so, but certainly good enough for the Web.

I shot the following three narrated sequences; I’ll let them speak for themselves. The second one, which shows off a blade on display, can give you an idea of the real size of these things — they’re huge.

Want some information about the Wild Horse Wind Farm? Here are three good links:

Or find other links by entering “Wild Horse Wind Facility” or “Wild Horse Wind Farm” in Google.

An Eclectic Mind

Web site and blog for Maria Langer, writer, video producer, jewelry artist, boat captain, and helicopter pilot. Blogging since 2003.

Category Archives: Travels with Maria