Hello from Vicksburg, MS. The last three days have zoomed by. I sure packed a lot into Saturday and Sunday in the DFW area. I explored Fort Worth on Saturday before going up to the evening activities at the Gaylord Texan. The highlight of my evening was a ride along in Elvis. Elvis is a 2002 Miata owned by Flyin’ Miata. Elvis is powered by a Corvette engine! Yes you read correctly a Miata with an LS1 engine. It weighs about 200 pounds more than a stock Miata and keeps the basic weight ratio. And it has that Corvette rumble which [View Full Entry]

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Wow Friday was a FUN day!!! I was up before the chickens and on the road early. No traffic problems getting to the track in Cresson, TX. I spent the day with 50 or so Miata buddies turning laps on a 1.7 mile road course. They broke us down into novice, intermediate, and advanced so only people with similar skill levels were on the track at the same time. Since I’ve never driven at speed on a road course I obviously signed up as a novice. We had classroom time interspersed with track time. I had an instructor riding with me [View Full Entry]

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Hello from the Big D - the greater Dallas - Ft. Worth area. I rolled in Wednesday about 1 pm. It was nice to have a short drive in and good to get settled in one location for a few days. Had a good Mexican meal last night. Tonight I had some Texas BBQ! Today was a nice relaxing ‘down’ day. Carley got a bath before we went to Grapevine. I guess I’m officially a car nut washing my car while on a trip! Of course I don’t think that will be too unusual if I continue to attend Miata events [View Full Entry]

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Hello from Texarkana, TX. Not much to report today. It was an uneventful day and I managed to travel further than originally planned. So far this is becoming a KOA trip. I’m in another KOA kampground tonight and will be staying at KOA in Arlington. I’m hoping for a very easy day tomorrow as I have 205 miles to Arlington. So barring any major delays, I should be at the campground and set up well before rush hour in the Dallas area. Carley did fine today with the changes to the tie down straps. I’m looking forward to getting her off [View Full Entry]

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Day one with my car trailer was mostly uneventful. I’m sitting outside the rig, laptop in my lap (wow for once I’m using a laptop as it was designed!) and Chessy lying beside me. We are in Hurricane Mills, TN just a few miles from Loretta Lynn’s home and not too far from Grinder’s Switch (think that’s the right name) where Minnie Pearl called home. When I was having lunch on the east side of Nashville, I had the fleeting thought of driving on to Memphis and spending the night on the Mississippi River at a wonderful campground. But when I [View Full Entry]

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Finally heading out on another journey. This time I have a new ‘toad’ - Carley, my 1997 Miata. Carley found me in February and since then I have joined 2 local Miata clubs and having a BLAST driving around the mountains of NC (and other places) with the top down. I’ve met a lot of really nice people, too. Monday morning, May 18th, Chessy and I are heading to Dallas, TX for Miata World II. As you see from the attached photos, Carley gets to ride in style on my car trailer. When I take Ike (my Jeep) I flat tow. [View Full Entry]

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Well after more than 6 weeks and nearly a mile of miles, Chessy and I are almost home. I’m here in Sevierville, TN where Jeff and Toni met me Friday night. We had a fun day kicking around the outlet malls and will head home Sunday. A quick check of my trip notes told me I’ve driven 5165 miles on this journey and it’s 106 miles to Asheville! Sorry I couldn’t resist a line from the Blues Brothers movie. It’s been a fun week on the road from Bosque to Tennessee. I spent four nights in Grapevine, Texas visiting friends. It [View Full Entry]

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Had another fun day and learned a lot. I shot these images HAND HELD with my 500 mm lens! For most of you that may mean nothing. But the lens alone weighs 8.5 pounds. Add the weight of the camera body and I'm holding somewhere around 10 pounds and a lens sticking out about 2 feet with the lens shade attached. Normally I use a tripod and Wimberley Head for all my telephoto images. But one of the instructors specializes in hand holding long telephoto lenses. So I decided to give it a try. Actually I wound up with fewer frames [View Full Entry]

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My time here at Bosque is flying by - pardon the pun! I’m having a great time here even though it seems like there are fewer birds here than last year. In addition, the Sandhill Cranes seem to be taking off BEFORE sunrise and flying back into the ponds AFTER sunset. As a result much of the time I’m trying to shoot in very low light. As you will see in my images posted with today’s entry, I’ve been trying to get some pan blur images. I’m pretty happy with a few I’ve gotten. Sunday evening when editing images I noticed [View Full Entry]

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What a fun day at Bosque del Apache NWR! I was a little lazy and didn’t get up for the predawn blastoff. I did head out shortly after sunrise for a morning shoot, not expecting to get much. I was pleasantly surprised to discover I had a few keepers when I edited the morning shoot after breakfast. It was COLD here this morning. Only got down to 30, but the wind was BRISK and I was bundled up. After editing the morning shoot, I went to the Owl Bar and Restaurant for the traditional Green Chile Cheeseburger! When I went out [View Full Entry]

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