Renaissance Faire

I went to the Renaissance Faire in Felicita Park, Escondido, California with a few friends. The day was beautiful fortunately as the park had a bit of rain in the days before. It was still muddy, but for the most part easy to move around the mud. Many of the same characters are at this faire each year and it is always good to see them. The food area is a popular place and the most popular and best tasting is the crepe vendor.

Plenty of happy people abound!

Performing Artists

The cast and crew take their reenactments seriously

The whimsy makes this faire fun!

Here is a link to the gallery of images I took this day: Ren Faire

And the slide show link: Ren Faire Slide Show

Anza Borrego

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is the largest state park in California. Five hundred miles of dirt roads, 12 wilderness areas and many miles of hiking trails. I've loved the desert since my first visit but my appreciation of it has increased dramatically with the help of my sister and JC along with my friend Frank. Last year Frank gave me a tour of Sandstone canyon (before the earthquake and subsequent road blockage), that showed me things I'd never seen in the desert before. This year JC took me 4 wheeling to Font's Point. I was blown away by what we saw there. The road out is pretty typical flat desert land through a wash. At the end it opens up to a drop into some amazing badlands. It is quite a surprise and treat! I'll start this blog entry with an image from our drive to the desert.
Lake Wolford Area

It was very windy most of the time during our visit. The wildflower bloom that is usually just about over at this time of year was only at level 4 out of 10! It was amazingly green for the desert at this time of year.Wildflower macros were not in the cards because of the winds, but this view at the visitor's center caught my eye.

One of my photographic missions was to take a long exposure showing the movement of the stars in the night sky. This next image shows not only the movement of the stars in a 5 minute exposure but you can see the different colors too.

The night sky is not the only fun thing to experiment with photographically in the desert night if you have a campfire burning.

I got up before sunrise and at times before dawn and was rewarded for my early rising with the beautiful colors of the sun rising in the desert.

It rained most the time in the local mountains while we were in the desert. We only got spit on a little bit, but the clouds were a real treat to set off desert scenery.

I have a very large gallery of photos from our trip. You can view them here: Anza Borrego 2011

My favorite way to view is the slideshow you can use this link for the slideshow: Slideshow