Long Beach, California.

Last November, we traveled to Long Beach, California to board the Norwegian Bliss for our Panama Canal sailing. Being extra cautious, we arrived two days early in Long Beach to avoid missing the cruise due to flight cancellations or other issues. That gave us some extra time to make a special visit.

I grew up in Long Beach. My father passed away there while I was a senior in high school. It had been many years since I left the city, and I hadn’t been back to visit the cemetery where my parents were buried. The extra day meant that I could visit Mom and Dad. We piled in a taxi and got a ride to the cemetery.

On our way back from the gravesite, I spotted a 1948 Chevrolet, its lines gleaming under the California sun. A jolt of recognition shot through me. It was the same year and model of the car Dad had driven when we first arrived in Long Beach in 1956. Of course, I knew it wasn’t his car. Dad’s Chevrolet had been weathered, its paint faded, its engine bearing the scars of the miles on our journey west. This one was pristine, a collector’s item, a ghost from the past brought back to life. Yet, for a fleeting moment, I allowed myself to believe. To imagine that somehow Dad’s car had found its way here and was waiting patiently for his return.

I walked over to the car and took a couple of cell pics. I glanced at the tail lights for a year date stamped in the plastic to confirm it was a 1948 as the 1947 had the same basic body style. Unfortunately, the taillight lenses were aftermarket products, so there was no year molded into the lenses to help me tell for sure.

I called the taxi driver’s cell phone to ask him to pick us up again and we waited in the shade by the main entrance for the taxi. In the meantime, two gentlemen walked up to the car. It was obvious one of them was the owner. He opened the trunk and put something inside. From their dress and the nearby groups of people, I could see they were there for a funeral that had just concluded.

Being the crass individual that I am, I approached the two men and told them of my Dad’s ownership of a similar 1948 and I wanted to confirm the year. It is indeed a 1948. After telling him my story, the man surprised me by asking if I wanted to drive it (for old-time’s sake.) I looked over at the car, remembered the “three-on-the-tree” manual transmission, and realized that it had been many years since I had driven a car with a stick shift. I wasn’t about to demonstrate my lack of skill to the owner of such a fine vehicle. I thanked him profusely for the offer but declined with a request that I be allowed to share the photos and the story on my blog. If you’ve read this far, you know his response.

About the photos: I call the opening photo “Dad’s Smiling from Heaven”. With the sun backlighting the image, a couple of sun rays filtered across the image. Those who know I use Luminar Neo for processing might surmise that they were created with Neo’s sun ray generator. They were not. The light leaks were an artifact of that specific exposure. When I saw the light leak on the screen of my Samsung S23U, I went to the other side of the car for a second image. The two images were captured in the UltraWide mode so that I could be close to the car and get a full side view. That accounts for the slight distortion from front to rear. If I were to use the normal wide-angle mode, I’d have had to stand further back and would have ended up including parts of the cars parked next to the subject, blocking the view of the car’s profile. For a closer look at the images in 2K HD, you can check out my Flickr site here.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s acceptable as well. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, and, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

Santa Cruz County, California.

This week, I thought I would share a tip for finding exactly where you were when you took those vacation photos. My two “real” cameras, the Nikon and the Sony do not have any GPS tracking ability so sometimes when I’ve stopped at a roadside attraction or, as in the photo above, snapped a picture from the side of the road, I don’t always remember exactly where I was. That’s where my cell phone can come in handy. To make this tip work for you, the first thing that needs to be done is to provide permission for your cellphone camera to use the phone’s Location Services. On my Samsung, it’s called “Location Services”, I am not sure what it is called on an iPhone. Once that permission is granted, the coordinates of the camera location are written to the metadata in the image. Note, however, that could impact your privacy. See my comment below about sharing your final images.

As we traveled north on California Highway 1, I snapped some images along the way. I often use my cell phone for these because the phone geotags the images with the latitude and longitude coordinates of the location. When I get to a place where I am using my Nikon, for example, I often capture a single image with my cell phone that matches one of the images captured on the main camera. That image’s geographic information will help me find the exact location on Google Maps.

The coordinates of an image can be copied from Lightroom and pasted into Google Maps as this screenshot shows. Click on the image for a more readable view. Looking at the details on the left, I can see that I captured this image in Davenport, Santa Cruz County, California. Some images are tagged with a specific street address if the map knows that information.

There are tools on the web where you can upload your image and it will decode the GPS information stored there. Frankly, I tried a couple of them for this article and I wasn’t impressed. The ones I tried are free sources and are therefore peppered with advertising that makes it difficult to understand how the program works. Also, sending my work to some unknown website doesn’t fill me with enthusiasm. If you’ve found a tool to extract Metadata from your photo, feel free to let me know what you’re using in the comments.

Fortunately, Lightroom users can easily extract the information for you if you’d like. That’s what I use. By default, though, GPS information isn’t shown in Lightroom. Here’s how to make it visible…

I’d captured this image on the Fort Bragg to Willits Road but wasn’t exactly sure where it was taken along the highway. You might recognize it from a recent Cellpic Sunday post. I selected the image in Lightroom while in the Library mode. In the toolbar on the right, you can find the GPS data in the Metadata tab. It looks like this screenshot.

Your Lightroom Metadata block may not look exactly like mine as what’s in the block is completely customizable. If you don’t have the GPS data block visible, click the Customize… button and in the window that opens, scroll down to the second section (indicated by a thin separator line) and click the box next to the GPS entry. When you close the Customize window, the GPS field will show up in your image. If the photo has GPS data buried in the metadata, it will be filled in. Click in the box and select the information to copy it, then paste it into Google Maps to see where you were standing when you took the photo.

Many streets and highways are now mapped by those funky Google cars with those rotating cameras on top. As they drive along, they capture images of the highway. Just for fun, I entered “street view” mode at the coordinates for this photo and rotated the street view image to the side of the road. The Google Map view is a wider screen version, but if you note the changing terrain levels and the plants in the foreground, you can see the same image I captured with my cell phone.

I seldom include the GPS coordinates of the final images as I export for publication, but I do find that having the location information available to me makes it much easier for me when it comes time to write the post about the photos shared in that day’s post. I’d love to know if you found this information useful or if you knew about it all along. Please share in the comments below. As always, you can click on any of the images above to view them in greater detail on my Flickr site.

A note about the Cabrillo Coast photo: On a dreary day, I snapped this image of the Cabrillo coast, but wasn’t at all happy with it. I decided to have some fun with Luminar Neo’s sky replacement tool. That’s right, the sky is from a collection of replacement skies available in Neo. The only tweak to the coastline was to use the sky replacement relight function that automatically toned the rest of the image to match the colors in the sky.

John Steiner

Willits, California.

In 1885, the Fort Bragg Railroad was created to haul lumber from the vast redwood forests nearby. Workers used the train to set up logging camps and they and their families were the primary human cargo on the route. Today, the line runs from Fort Bragg to Willits and there are excursions from both cities into the redwood forests along the way.

The excursion we chose brought us into the Redwoods on an hour-long journey. At the turn-around point, we disembarked for a picnic lunch or just a stop to enjoy the views of the redwoods at the former Crowley station. Another hour brought us back to the depot at Willits.

Their website provides a history of the line which eventually became California Western. The unusual name came from the introduction of motor rail cars in 1925. These cars were automobiles on rail wheels, powered by a gasoline engine and in the cooler months, the heat for passengers was provided by crude oil-burning stoves.

When burning crude oil for heat, the pungent odor of those self-propelled rail cars made it so “You could smell them before you could see them.” Those passenger cars are long since gone, so “nose” pollution is much reduced now.

The image above features a small section of a large yard where logs are turned into redwood lumber. I’m not sure which company is depicted above because there are several lumber companies in town and most of them are near the railroad tracks. No real surprise there, I guess.

Today the rail line is operated by the Mendocino Railway Company and the company offers regular runs from both cities as well as special holiday runs. The excursion we chose is called the Wolf Tree Turn. There is no shortage of redwoods to view along the way.

Available at Fort Bragg, in addition to riding the train, you can select a more personal tour on an electric railbike that was custom-built to provide seating for two passengers. Two seven-mile excursions and one 25-mile excursion are available. You can also choose to hike from Fort Bragg along a trail that follows the rail line into old-growth redwood groves.

As is typical for out-and-back rail journeys, at the midpoint of the excursion, the train is stopped, the engine decoupled, and routed to a siding track where it reconnects at the other end of the train for the return to the starting point.

There is a tunnel built in 1893 that runs over 1,000 feet (305 m) over the rail line between Willits and Fort Bragg. In 2013, a portion of that tunnel (Tunnel #1) collapsed shutting down the Skunk Train until it was repaired. In searching the web for information on the train, I found a post by the company that designed and engineered the repairs, then let bids to construction companies for the completion of the repairs. It took only a few months to complete the repairs and for the rail service between the two cities to begin again.

At the Crowley stop, we saw the rail vehicle and trailer that follows the train with fire suppression gear. If a stray spark ignites a fire in the forest, the equipment is immediately available to extinguish any fire before it gets out of control.

There are interesting sights all along the railway. The wide variety of options allows you to select different pricing options. For example, the Wolf Tree Turn excursion travels through Tunnel #2, over the summit of the line, and down into the Noyo River Canyon. Prices for adults start at $64.95 per seat and a VIP ticket with extra perks including that picnic lunch is $99.95 USD. These prices are quoted from their website in early March 2022. You can check out their excursions and other activities on their website here.

According to an article from Reuters, the line serves about 50,000 passengers a year and generates about $20 million US Dollars in Mendocino County. Tourists aren’t the only people who ride the Skunk Train, however. Residents who live along the remote route still ride the train to and from their homes. To view these images in 2K HD and to see a few additional images not included in this post, check out my Flickr album here.

John Steiner

Willits, California.

In 2021, on our journey along the west coast, out of San Francisco, we headed up California Highway 1 through Mendocino County toward Fort Bragg. Our goal was to see those mighty redwood forests. A right turn on California Highway 20 just south of Fort Bragg was our next goal. This east-west highway ends at Willits where we picked up U.S. Highway 101 and headed north to see more of those northern California redwood forests.

Highway 20 winds through the Jackson Demonstration State Forest for views of redwoods aplenty. Also along the way, you’ll cross the South Fork of the Noyo River and at the eastern regions of the state forest, there are plenty of campgrounds to choose from if you’d like to sleep under those giant redwood canopies. After a beautiful drive of about 60 minutes, we stopped at Willits where we noticed signs referencing the Skunk Train. We stopped at the depot to check it out. Of course, we rode the Skunk Train (featured in my upcoming Travel Tuesday post on April 11).

About the photo: On our September travels, my usual place in the vehicle is behind the driver in the slightly elevated back seat. It’s a great place to capture photos while moving, but you must set the shutter speed high enough to keep the foreground from blurring. With my Samsung S20U, that means shifting to Pro mode so I can adjust the shutter speed and the other manual photo controls. I set the shutter to 1/1500 and let the camera determine and adjust the f/stop to 1.8 and ISO 320. Luminar Neo’s Noiseless extension cleaned up the image noise nicely. From there, I applied my usual small collection of tweaks and sent it back to Lightroom for final adjustments.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s acceptable as well. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, and, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

Orick, California.

The state of California and the National Park Service manage several state and national parks in northern California. There, you can see the most extensive stands of the coastal redwood species of giant sequoia trees. There are several differences between this variety of trees and those found in Sequoia National Park in central California.

As we traveled U.S. 101 up the California coast, nearing the park entrance, we traveled through the town of Orick, a population of about 350 residents and an unknown quantity of Elk, many of whom were sitting on lawns enjoying the day.

As we drove through the redwood forest, the clouds and high canopy of trees provided a cool, damp environment on this autumn day. The parks and campgrounds are managed by either the National Park Service or California State Parks, depending upon which section of the forest you are visiting.

The lower deciduous trees were just starting to turn, and along the highway, some of the leaves had already fallen by the roadside. The misty, humid weather coated the road with moisture. In the image above, the sign at the right indicates that the road leading right is Cal-Barrel Road. It’s a 3.5-mile road, mostly gravel, that provides access to some lesser-used trails in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. According to the National Park Service website, the old logging road climbs about 700 feet (213 m), and it has some tight corners. Cal Barrel Road is not frequently used, and it can be covered by redwood needles.

The vast redwood forests are only about 5 percent of what they once were. There is a project underway to help redevelop the natural habitat. Redwoods Rising is a collaborative restoration initiative. The group is tasked with the missions of protecting old-growth stands, restoring redwood forest ecosystems, and ensuring the long-term health of these mighty trees. Working with redwood enthusiasts, park visitors, local communities, and tribes, the restoration effort will involve forest and vegetation management, removal of abandoned logging roads, cultural site protection, and watershed management. You can find out more about their goals at this NPS site.

This trip was our first trip to these beautiful redwood forests. The giant trees were really a challenge to photograph. You can view these images and additional photos in 2K HD in my Flickr album here.

John Steiner

Those mighty redwood trees in northern California and southern Oregon represent one of the great wonders of this beautiful country. In the early parts of the 20th century when touring by car became a popular way for the middle class to travel the country, some people got the idea that tourists would pay to see and even drive through a tunnel carved at the base of one of those giant redwoods. They weren’t wrong.

Eventually, there were several giant redwood and sequoia trees available for tourists to explore this novelty. I must admit that when we happened by a sign offering the opportunity for us to do the same, we did stop to check it out. As I looked at what was done to this beautiful tree, I was filled with conflicting feelings about whether to feature our stop here.

The good news is that the process is now forbidden and there are no new holes being cut into the giant trees. As it turned out for us, our mode of transport for this trip was a Chevy Suburban, a vehicle that is too large to fit in the opening. Instead, we opted to capture the image of one of the several vehicles we saw pass through the tree on this day.

This tree, at over 300 feet (90 m) in height was able to survive the six by seven-foot wound at its base. Our traveling companion, Gary stands some 6-foot tall as you can see from the photo above, so there isn’t room for high-profile vehicles or trucks with large side mirror extensions.

The prayer on the sign we saw is a testimony that these trees should be respected and honored. By the way, in my research, I discovered the difference between sequoia and redwood species. The sequoia has an immense trunk with slight taper while the redwood is the tallest species and has a more slender trunk. The complete comparison of these mighty giants can be found on a National Park website here.

John Steiner

Pescadero, California.

As we drove north on Highway 1, the Cabrillo Highway, along the Pacific Coast on our way to San Fransisco, I spotted a lighthouse visible high on a bluff along the coast. Of course, our immediate destination changed and we headed down Pigeon Point Road to find a state historic park at the end of the drive.

As we got closer, I could see the lighthouse looked to be in need of at least a fresh coat of paint. We would soon learn that it needs much more than that to make it safe for visitors. The 115-foot (35 m) tall lighthouse is currently closed for its sorely needed renovation. Closed since 2001 due to a section of the iron ring falling away, a project is underway to raise the funding to restore the lighthouse to its former beauty.

In 1909 the fog signal building went online. The giant horns can be heard 5 miles (8 km) at sea. Today, the building is the visitor center for the park. As we approached the building, I saw an interesting glow coming through the partially open door. Of course, I had to check it out.

Inside the visitor center, the original Fresnel lens with over 1,000 elements is displayed after its disassembly and removal from the lighthouse. Once on the ground, the lens was carefully reassembled and is now on display in the visitor center. The lighthouse is still in use, this 1008-element lens was originally powered by a 5-wick lard oil lamp and went online on November 15, 1872. Today the U.S. Coast Guard is in charge of the automated LED beacon that now replaces the giant lens assembly.

If you look at Google Maps, you’ll see why this light station was placed here. This point juts out from the mainland and the hazard to boats and ships following the coastline is easily discerned. This view shows some of the buildings at the light station. A typical light station includes the lighthouse tower, the station keeper’s residence, the fog signal building, and other ancillary buildings as necessary.

There were a couple of people fishing from the rocks below the cliff at Pigeon Point and visitors might be lucky enough to see seals and even whales as they navigate by the point. In November 2022, the park staff celebrated the 150th Anniversary of the park. There are 30-minute guided tours available, staff permitting. Details can be found on the park’s website here. You can even take a virtual tour of the light station on that page. You can also virtually climb to the top of the lighthouse interior and check out the coastline with a 360-degree view. The link to the tour is here.

The light station came to be after the loss of a clipper ship, the Carrier Pigeon that ran aground on this point in 1853. The ship, constructed only one year earlier, left Bath Maine for San Fransisco on her maiden voyage. Heavy fog at the point was to be the end for the brand new ship that had completely sailed around Cape Horn without incident. From that day, plans were made to build the light station, but it took 20 years for the station to be finished. On clear nights, the powerful LED light array can be seen for 22 miles (35 km).

There is a hostel on-site for people wishing to stay overnight. A small public beach is available for visitors and a few picnic tables are available for that picnic lunch on a sunny summer day.

Visitors can easily spend a couple of hours here at the point. There are several placards placed around the site to describe the features of the light station. I’ve included some extra images on my Flickr site in 2K HD. You can view the entire gallery of images here.

John Steiner

Yosemite National Park, California.

“Not just a great valley, but a shrine to human foresight, the strength of granite, the power of glaciers, the persistence of life, and the tranquility of the High Sierra.” The opening quote on the Yosemite National Park website tells you all you need to know about why you should visit.

Probably the most iconic feature in the park is Half Dome. Millions of people visit each year to capture a view of this unusual granite dome. Thousands apply for permits to hike the cable line. It’s a 10- to 12-hour hike and it’s not for the unfit. Needless to say, we let other people take on this approximately 15-mile (24 km) hike that requires a Half Dome permit different from the park’s entry permit. Caution should tell you to start at or before sunrise, and if, by 3:30 PM, you haven’t reached the top, you need to head back anyway.

I’m told (again, this is beyond my ability,) that the last 400 feet (122 m) to the summit is achieved without climbing gear with the help of cables placed by the park service in the summer months. If you are up to this challenge, you can find out all the details on the Yosemite NP website here.

If you are not up to the challenge of the Half Dome Hike but like to climb, there are plenty of options available. At one photo stop, we spotted these climbers on a relatively shallow section of a granite rockface.

You don’t have to be a climber to enjoy hiking in the park. Hikers should look for the 15-page trail description and distance guide that you can download from their website here.

There are lots of places along the highways in Yosemite to capture views of the park. Check out the Tioga Road from Crane Flat to Tioga Pass. This 46-mile (62 km) drive is one of the more popular.

We entered the park at the eastern entrance near Tuolumne Meadows and eventually exited the park at Mariposa Grove. From there we had hoped to visit Sequoia and Kings Canyon, but both were closed due to wildfires in the area.

Regular readers may recall seeing this cell phone photo published in a Cellpic Sunday post in July 2022. The park road, which you can see running along the ridge in the distance provides views of Yosemite Valley from both sides of the Merced River many miles below.

There is so much to see that we could have spent more than a single day there. We stayed on the main roadways, though there are plenty of roads that are open for exploration. We will have to save those explorations for another trip. Yosemite is a busy park in the summer and reservations are required in advance. I’m posting this in Autumn 2022 so you can start planning and reserving campsites or lodging in the area in plenty of time for next summer’s tourist season.

There are plenty of waterfalls in the park, but many are created by mountain runoff. To capture waterfalls, it is best to visit while snow runoff fills the falls.

For complete details on the park and to find out details on how to schedule an entry reservation, check out the National Park’s Yosemite website here. You can pixel peep at these images in 2K HD on my Flickr site by just clicking on an image. If you click here to visit the album, you’ll be able to view the entire gallery that contains a few extra images not posted here.

John Steiner

Fort Bragg, California.

A few weeks ago, I featured a view of the Noyo Headlands Park on Scenic Highway 1 which winds north and south along the Pacific Coast. Only a few miles north of that park near Fort Bragg is Seaside Creek. The beach there is much larger than this segment that I chose for this week’s Cellpic Sunday. When I saw the house on the bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, I wondered what a beautiful view those residents have of the scenery in this beautiful area. For those who don’t live on that bluff, there are some nearby campgrounds that will at least be close to the beach.

About the photo: Captured with my Samsung S20U, I trimmed the image to crop out some extraneous stuff on the left in Adobe Lightroom. I made the rest of my usual adjustments for curves and in the Develop module. I then sent it off to Luminar Neo for final tweaks. Click on the image above to view it in 2K HD on my Flickr site.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s acceptable as well. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment.

John Steiner

Yosemite National Park, California.

In September 2021, on our western trip, we planned to see Yosemite, Kings Canyon, and Sequoia National Parks. Wildfires closed the two southern parks, but we did have the opportunity to make our first visit ever to Yosemite.

The lake, named after Chief Tenaya of the Yosemite Indians, is the largest lake in the park. Surrounded by the Sierra Nevada Mountains, it is a popular lake according to the National Park Service website. On our day visit, however, we were the only ones there. We drove through the park in the morning, and the photo was captured at about 10:30 AM. The sun was above the peak to the east.

On busy weekends, Tenaya Lake is a popular place for picnicking, swimming, and canoeing. The road to the lake, Tioga Road, is only open from late May to November, the actual dates dependent upon the first significant snow in the fall and the final clearing of snow from the road in the spring.

About the photo: Despite the strong backlight from the shot straight into the sun, the bright reflections on the water enticed me to take the shot. I was hoping the flare from the sun would be less than it turned out to be, but processing via Adobe Lightroom and Luminar Neo still allowed me to bring out the details in the heavily shadowed mountain in the background. The original image is a JPEG. I probably would have had even better success had I used my Samsung S20U’s RAW image.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s acceptable as well. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment.

John Steiner