Remembering the Rocky Mountains of Utah

A year ago, I was driving through the Rocky Mountains on a whirlwind trip from Dallas, Texas, to Tacoma, Washington. But despite the hurry, I was able to snag a couple of photos along the way. This one depicts the Rocky Mountains of Utah, as captured with my 80-year-old Agfa Billy Record.

Utah's Rocky Mountains :: Agfa Billy Record, Ilford HP5 Plus, 1/100s @ f/11

Other photos from that same trip can be found on the following pages: Day 1 - Birmingham to Washington; Day 2 - Alder Lake and Mount Rainier; Day 3 - Seattle.

Technorati Tags: utah, rocky mountains, agfa billy record.

Seattle :: The Emerald City

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Pike Place Market and the Fisherman's Wharf

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Seattle Skyline on a Rainy Day

Alder Lake and Mount Rainer National Park

Having arrived in Lacey, Washington, my family and I unloaded my sister's belongings from the vehicle we had just driven 2300 miles. Then we set out to visit Mount Rainier (I expressed to my folks that I must be some kind of idiot to voluntarily subject myself to another 5 hours in the car, after being subject to its confines for most of the previous 37 hours; no one disagreed). 

I had previously visited Mount Rainier in Thanksgiving 2008, but managed to ruin most of my film during the developing process. It was one of those times that I was really unimpressed with my ability to do unfathomably unintelligent things.

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ALDER LAKE

Canon Rebel t2i, Tokina 12-24mm f/4 @12mm, ISO 100, 1/200s @ f/5.6

Canon Rebel t2i, Tokina 12-24mm f/4 @15mm, ISO 100, 1/125s @ f/8

Canon Rebel t2i, Tokina 12-24mm f/4 @24mm, ISO 100, 1/100s @ f/7.1

Canon Rebel t2i, EF 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 @24mm, ISO 100, 1/100s @ f/9

This last photo, the panorama, is a composite of about 20 photographs that were stitched together. It amuses me that, since the file was originally saved in TIFF format, that single file was so large that it would not have fit on the hard drive to the first computer my family purchased in 1995 (which I think it had 4MB of RAM, 400MB of hard drive space and ran Windows 3.1).

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MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK

Canon Rebel t2i, Tokina 12-24mm f/4 @ 12mm, ISO 200, 1/125s @ f/5

Canon Rebel t2i, Tokina 12-24mm f/4 @ 12mm, ISO 200, 1/250s @ f/11

Canon Rebel t2i, Tokina 12-24mm f/4 @ 12mm, ISO 200, 1/125s @ f/9

Canon Rebel t2i, Tokina 12-24mm f/4 @ 12mm, ISO 200, 1/160s @ f/9

Canon Rebel t2i, EF 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 @ 40mm, ISO 200, 1/320s @ f/10

from Birmingham to Washington State

In an effort to help my sister and her husband (she has an infant, and he's is deployed to Afghanistan with the Army), I agreed to help my dad drive their stuff up to Washington state from Dallas, where she was living while her husband was away. But I don't want to give the wrong impression and have someone prematurely nominate me for sainthood - my motives weren't entirely selfless. First, a road trip (even a really brief one) was going to provide some great photo opportunities. And second, I needed to add some more states to those that I've visited; it had been a couple years since any new states had been added (I'm now at thirty-three).

I flew out of Birmingham at 5:30pm on Wednesday; upon arriving in Dallas, I disembarked the plane headed straight to my dad's awaiting vehicle, and from there we grabbed a burger from Whataburger and hit the road by 8:15pm. Initially, there had been some discussion of spending the night in Kansas, but we decided to head straight on through the night.

Daybreak found us already in Colorado, where temperatures reached 15 degrees, which was sixty degrees colder than what I had left behind in Birmingham.

some Rest Stop on I-70 in Colorado

My favorite road on this venture (I have to qualify it by saying "so far," because we're currently still in Idaho), has been Hwy 287 in Colorado. Fortunately, from my photography perspective, we hit some road construction on Hwy 287 in a very opportune location.

on Hwy 287 in Colorado

on Hwy 287 in Colorado

We stopped for gas around lunchtime in Rawlins, Wyoming, so I asked the attendant for a suggestion (this after I commented to him that I hoped he had his store anchored down because the 30mph winds were about to push us off the road, to which he replied that it was "just a light breeze"). He recommended Penny's Diner, which was a 1950s style diner located in an aluminum trailer just up the road. It was the best BBQ burger I've had in a long time, maybe ever.

Penny's Diner :: Rawlins, Wyoming

So being filled up, we went onward and forward. More grandeur accompanied us on our route.

west of Rawlins, Wyoming

near Salt Lake City, Utah

near Ogden, Utah

So it's dark now, and we're about to wind it down for the evening in Ontario, Oregon. After more than 24 hours of being largely confined to either the captain or passenger chair of the Tahoe, I'll be able to unfold myself for a bit, before setting about on the final leg of this trip...actually, only the driving portion. I still have the flying back to do, which should be less taxing.

Update: This was taken Friday morning in Oregon, just before crossing over into Washington.