donger need food.

Best Laid Plans Of Mice And Men...

...Often Go Astray

So I ended up leaving at 8:30 instead of 5:30. Ended up missing all of the good morning light, and got stuck with the crap ass 11AM to 3pm blazing-direct-overhead-no-contrast-having-sunlight. And stupid me blew the first 3 shots because I forgot to remove the damned dark plate! Grrrr. Well, at least it was a great drive down. Damned hot, but there was some decent cloud cover for a while on the 25 to cool things off. I hope the pics turned out OK. I think I should stop bracketing under, and bracket over. I'm pretty sure the average meter is taking into account the bright-ass sky and compensating down, which will eventually wash out the black of the car. I guess the right thing to do would be to grab a ND filter and shut down the sky a bit. And I'm really disappointed I didn't grab a blue/yellow polarizer. The sky was a horrid pale white instead of a deep blue. I need to go another photo odyssey when the skies are darker and filled with clouds threatening of rain.

I think I really like Hwy 58. It's quite a great exercise, starting out with tight blind corners out of Santa Margarita, then switching to long wide open sweepers, and then opening to a majestic & gorgeous valley with asphault that stretches, literally, straight ahead for miles. And there's no one, I mean absolutely no one on the road. I was able to pull over on one long stretch and briefly imagine myself as Cary Grant in North By Northwest (that bus stop scene in the middle of nowhere -- one of my most favorite sequences of all time), standing there, on a hot summer day, with no one for miles.

Next time I do this, I have to make sure to get the AE prism. Using my old 35mm as a meter is just damned annoying.

Oh and lesson learned: either scout potential picture locations or enjoy driving fast. DO NOT do both. There was one corner on 58 that was a blind right hander. I was at a fairly brisk pace, but got distracted by the stunning view of a road that was headed uphill and off to the right, opening into a lovely valley. Stupid me panicked a bit, squeezing the brakes a bit late -- while turning, mind you -- bad! bad! bad! and ended up getting a bit squirrely. So after I was able to get my heart out of my throat, I made sure to play it right. Take it slow and pick out the photo spots, or enjoy a brisk drive by keeping keen focus, and looking way ahead around corners, gauging approach speeds, decreasing radius corners, and pebble/sand strewn blind corners. Man, there was a great stretch of 58 way out east by the 5 coming down from the high plateau, with nice tight 2nd gear corners. That was a freakin' blast. You could just point that double-wishbone'd Honda any way you want it to and it'll just turn. Gawd, I'm going to miss this car when I finally sell it. :(

So I was able to get to Torrance by about 6, greeted by a nice, friendly L.A. welcome: one hour to travel 10 miles. (mental note: never take the 405 ever again north of LAX -- that 10/405 interchange with the corresponding 4 to 3 lane reduction is just downright painful). It was good seeing the cousins again -- but downright crazy to see how old the other kids have become, kids that I haven't seen in years are now teenagers. Eek. Next thing you know, they'll be married with kids and I'll still be roaming the earth, alone.

Not sure if I could make it out to Utah this time. I'll do the mileage calcs tomorrow, but I think I'm pushing my luck to be in southeast Utah by 5PM. And I really don't want to rush. It was nice being able to take my time and relax -- I spent eight hours getting to L.A., a trip that usually takes me 4 and a half!

Oh... one thing that I do miss about the southland: Warm summer nights...I was able to motor top-down all the way from Torrance to San Diego in a relatively cool (but not frigid) 72 degrees.

posted by VirtualErn @ 1:21 AM

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