AI, not real, and I have a much better camera cover
If you follow the Weather Channel, or live in California, you probably noticed that we have had what seems like a winter storm in spring. It’s been raining (more like pouring) for a couple of days, and snowing in the Sierra. We normally do not get thunder and lightning storms here but there have been some booming storms rolling through at night. I would not care usually, other than worrying if my pool will overflow into the house. That has never happened, but I always need something to worry about (it’s in my genes). The last time I checked the rain gauge in the backyard, it was up to 4.5 inches.
That’s a lot of rain.
Unfortunately, some activities that I like to do are dependent on relatively dry weather. I was scheduled for a birds of prey photo shoot this weekend, where we had setup shots of hawks and owls at a local falconry organization. That would have been a lot of fun, but they do not fly their birds when it’s raining. Makes sense. I would not want to be standing out in the rain with my camera gear anyway, and the shoot has been rescheduled in May. They have a Shriek Owl, and I really wanted to get some shots of the little guy. We have them in the woods behind the house, and can hear them calling at night. We used to sit out on the patio to listen to them. Sigh.
My main concern with this weather pattern is my upcoming trip to Moab Utah which is for a course in astrophotography. It’s going to be really hard photographing the Milky Way if there is a lot of cloud cover. Depending on which weather service you look at, most of the nights for my stay in Moab will have some cloud cover, and on some nights, rain. Expletive removed. I have been exceptionally lucky with my travels the past year + – the only significant rain I’ve had on a trip so far, was the first day on the Road Scholars trip, in Snow Canyon Utah. It was kind of fun hiking in the rain that day. But the rest of that trip was perfect, and you can get some interesting shots with rain and clouds in Red Rock country. As long as you have a rain cover for the camera. Which I do have for all my cameras and lenses.
Real photo
We did get some rain going through the Panama Canal this past month, but we were on the ship by then, and it sort of added to the overall experience as we went through the canal locks. Besides, everyone other than myself was drinking heavily, so it was a really nice party.
I’ve never been to Arches before, and have not been to Moab since 1970. I imagine it has changed in 56 years. Hopefully for the better. If this is the same hotel I stayed at with my undergraduate geology field camp, I hope they do not remember my name. Another long story involving a large group of long-haired, muddy, tired geology students and a lot of beer. Some other time.
At any rate, I have a free day when I get there before the course starts, and plan to do some day hiking – the weather should be OK then. Once the course starts, we have three straight nights of Milky Way photography in the park, between midnight and dawn. Thursday and Friday look grim on the forecast, but Saturday night may be OK. All of that could change by the time I get there so who knows. I have no clue as to what the trip lead will do if it rains. The course ends on Monday, but I’m staying an extra two days, and the weather is clearing both days. So, I may have more opportunities on my own. I’m not going to stress out about it – I’ll make the best of the situation.Just roll with it.
I must be due for something good happening…ongoing medical issues, having to bail out on the Baja Gray Whale trip, still living the life of Eleanor Rigby at home and being forced to give up wine (and martinis!!). And now a potential wash out of a trip I have really been looking forward to. Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket. Something’s gotta give (a great Jack Nicolson movie).
I wish my arms looked like that. Maybe I can trade.
March 29th, 2026 (thru April 2nd)
Well, I’m finally home, and thought I’d start my trip summary – I’ll have a lot of photos and videos to add to this but it will take a few days to sort and curate the collection of images. So this will probably be posted in early April. For now, I’m just adding in a bunch of those random thoughts about the trip and life in general, that have been bouncing around in my head the past few days, and jotted them down in my journal. Most were written on the trip, sitting in the airport on the way home, or in between naps when I made it home. They are in no particular order. Here goes.
I’m really looking forward to getting home – I love traveling, but the getting to/from the starting point for international trips is getting to be a real drag. This one should have been relatively easy, but the TSA walkout turned this into a stressful and expensive trip. I really did not want to stay in a hotel last night but had no choice. And this morning, I had to get up a Oh-Dark-Thirty to avoid the four hour delays getting through security – even then, at 7AM, there was a sea of humanity in Terminal E, but a well organized one. It only took a little over an hour to get through it all. I did like the signs TSA posted in the maze, which gave the estimated time from that point. Sort of helpful.
I try to keep politics out of this blog (it sneaks in once in a while), but I have to ask – What the heck are all the armed ICE agents doing at the airports? There were clusters of them, all wearing body armor, all carrying sidearms, and all doing absolutely nothing other than chatting and drinking coffee. They cannot replace the TSA agents since they are not trained, and the airport staff organizes the lines. I did see one ICE agent helping to direct people. That was it. He’ll probably be fired.
And while I’m into politics, here’s two more thoughts: Do any of the leaders in Congress really think that it is a good idea to make the TSA agents suffer through this, just to make a political point? At some point, they will become tired of being political pawns and never come back to a job where they can be forced to work without pay, based on the whims of a few leaders in the government.
And (the last complaint), somehow money was magically found in the bloated DHS budget to pay the TSA agent salaries, and now the huge lines have disappeared in airports like Houston. Why was this not done right at the git-go, and avoid the inevitable chaos at the airports? Just saying, End of political rant.
This was the first trip where I’ve signed up for one of the pre or post extensions, and I’m glad I did it. I had read through the extension itinerary, and it sounded like it might be interesting, but still had no idea on what to expect. It more than exceeded my hazy expectations – it was nice to be with a small group of people and establish a few relationships before getting on the ship. That helped to avoid the bane of my existence on these trips – the first night of looking for people to sit with at lunch and dinner. Plus, it really helps to settle into trip mode before getting on the ship. I’ve already signed up for a post-extension on the Patagonia trip (plus I’m getting there early) and the same for the Sea of Cortez trip. I’m also getting in early for Kodiak and Iceland. It’s just nice to be able to recover from the long trip before the daily activities begin.
This trip was something of a learning experience for me, on how to handle my latest body failures. I was extremely concerned about how i would handle my cardiac issues (high blood pressure, rapid heart beat/ arrhythmia) – stress is likely the main trigger for these “attacks”, and just worrying about having an attack can be a trigger. I found myself looking down at my watch all the time to check my pulse rate, and then stressed out if it was high. When my worrying finally led to a tachycardia (look it up) incident, the ship doctor basically talked me into relaxing, and that helped for the rest of the trip. I stopped checking and just focused on the activities. I even made it through the somewhat stressful trip home without any problems.
I had another epiphany during the trip, one I’ve realized before but keep trying to ignore. News Break: I’m not 25 years old. I’m not even 65 years old. I’m in my mid-70’s, with heart disease, a bum knee and distal neuropathy. I need to be careful on what activities I sign up for. Fortunately, I’ve already begun to favor outings that are focused more on photography than on meeting some aerobic goal for the day. Although I did manage to make it up two observation towers, and two hikes which involved a few steep sections. I also have to consider my stability now and remember to use the hiking sticks that I bring along – I might have avoided a very embarrassing and potentially dangerous trip/fall I had on the last day. But I am giving some thought now, to selecting trips that are mostly cruise based – no more land trips with lots of hiking, and multiple hotels. I have three of those scheduled in the next year (2 to Iceland, 1 to Madagascar. Kodiak is sort of in-between). I intend to stick to longer trips with Nat Geo/Lindblad or possibly Natural Habitats that are entirely cruise based going past 2027.
I’m definitely getting the hang of solo traveling after 6 major trips (5 with Nat Geo/Lindblad, 1 with Road Scholars) and a countless number of shorter domestic trips, but I still miss my wife all the time. It’s hard experiencing some of the most amazing places without her. And it’s difficult being alone in the midst of so many couples and families – no matter how welcome people on these trips make you feel, you still feel awkward not having a partner to share the moment with. It’s just something I have to try and deal with.
Here’s a few observations I’ve made after 5 Nat Geo/Lindblad trips:
1 – I’ve been on four different ships so far, and the experience has been excellent on each. The shipboard hotel services are consistently superb – all the staff, food, cabin comfort, lounges, bars are all top notch.
2 – The National Geographic trip leads and naturalists are fantastic – most are local to the countries the trip is centered on, and are literal fountains of knowledge on the culture, history, fauna and flora. Plus, they are lots of fun to be with. I learned a lot on the trips, which is the point of these expeditions.
3 – One of the best features of these expeditions is that the itinerary can change daily and sometimes hourly depending on the weather, ocean conditions, and sometimes on where animals have been seen. Keeps you on your toes.
And for the fun of it, here are the highlights of this trip for me:
Best Activity – so many choices. This was a unique trip. I’ll pick two: the VIP tour of the Miraflores lock on the Panama Canal, and the Zodiac cruise around the Monkey Islands, in the Gatun Lake. Great videos of the canal, and great photos of three species of monkeys.
Funniest Moment – that one is easy. The cemetery/prison tour when we were attempting to get to the docks in Colon.
Best “But I got the Photo” Moment – getting some great shots of the Tamarin Monkeys after my finger was smashed between the boat and some trees. I’m a very dedicated photographer.
Most Stressful Moment – trying to get past customs at the Panama City airport. I was close to pleading for mercy when they decided I must be a National Geographic photographer. Smashing my finger beween the boat and a tree was a close second.
Biggest Surprise – how much I enjoyed the “Pre” trip, which had nothing to do with animals, and all about learning some very interesting things about Panama history, and the Panama Canal.
Best Evening – going through the canal locks at night. It was like a party on the bow, in the rain. Passing through the narrow Culebra Cut channel would be a close second.
OK, enough random thoughts. Many of the photos below were already included on my trip posts, but I’ve had more time to curate them on Adobe Lightroom, using the RAW formats instead of JPEG. As I continue to organize and review the files (using Lightroom Classic), I’ve found a few gems as well. As I’ve mentioned before in the blog, you can expand each photo to full size by simply clicking on them.
OK, I’m tired of this post but still have more photos to share, mostly from the Panama Canal. I’ll do another post – no long stories, just photos and videos.
The Traveling Widower 