Wallpaper Wednesday - Mt. Bachelor and Smith Rock

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This week's free wallpaper is a two-fer-one. The first is a stark black and white of Oregon's Mt. Bachelor set behind a cabin and socked in by clouds.

The second is a stunning panorama of Oregon's Smith Rock state park; Oregon's premier climbing destination. Both are available only in the 16x9 (widescreen) format.

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Friends, inspiration and bonding times - Part 4 of 4

Our last stop before heading home was another stop on my bucket list. Smith Rock, near Terrabonne, Oregon is another one of those places where photos cannot do justice to the scale of the scene. From the trial next to the river to the various peaks,  can range from 40 feet to 400 feet.

In addition to the natural beauty that Smith Rock's volcanic pumice scenery provides it is also one of the premier rock climbing destinations in the United States with a climbing routes rated a 5.9, one of the most difficult climbs available. It has also been host to numerous film crews including John Wayne's Rooster Cogburn,  Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, the box office bomb The Postman and Swordfish with John Travolta, Hugh Jackman and Holly Berry.

The shear rugged terrain is instantly eye grabbing. It is hard to know where to start photographing. I of course wanted to get the classic shot of Smith Rock, above, but then I moved into some different perspectives like the photograph on the left and below.

This location is also ripe with opportunities to photograph textures galore. Shoot one rock face, move your lens a few inches and you have an altogether new texture to photograph. If you do go to Smith Rock, do yourself a favor and visit the Crooked River Bridge which is the 464 feet long and is 295 feet above the crooked river. Don't do it if you have a deep respect for (a.k.a. fear of) heights. It isn't for the faint of heart.

I will be returning to Smith Rock again in the future. There is so much to see and photograph. You come back here tomorrow for a free desktop wallpaper from Smith Rock. Until then enjoy this one last photograph.

Wallpaper Wednesday - Black and White Water Drop

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This week's wallpaper is a gorgeous abstract macro of a water drop at the center of the leaves of a plant. This is only available in the 16x9 (wide-screen) format.

Friends, inspiration and bonding times - Part 3 of 4

New Life in the Midst of Death

Baron Land

As day three of our road trip began, we woke at a normal hour, we left Crescent Lake and headed north on the Cascade Highway. The scenic views of charred land remaining after a 30,000 acre forest fire, lava flows that are thirty feet tall and mountain scenes that are stark, stunning and humbling are just some of the things that can found.

Traveling with friends talking about the sights and sharing the beauty is truly a unique bonding experience. The drive took us about 3 hours with the number of stops we made, but it was worth every minute on the road.

Enjoy more images below and make sure to come back tomorrow for a free wallpaper.

Lone Growth

50' ponderosa pines provide scale to the lava flow

Something Different

A different beauty

Mount Bachelor

Wallpaper Wednesday - Sunrise at Crater Lake National Park

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This week's wallpaper is a stunning shot of Crater Lake National Park at Sunrise. This is only available in the 16x9 (wide-screen) format.

Friends, inspiration and bonding times - Part 2 of 4

Odell Butte and Diamond Peak at Crescent Lake 

The Sun breaching the crater rim

How does one drive seventy miles to catch Crater Lake at sunrise on the longest day of the year? You have to get up at 3:00 AM and hit the road at 3:30 AM and arrive by 5:00 AM. Is this painfully early? Yes it is.

Is it totally worth it?  Yes it is.

As early as it was, Crater Lake proved to simply stunning. I have lived in Oregon most of my life, save four years I was in the military. I was born here, grew up here and returned here after I left the military. Yet given my growing number of years in Oregon, exceeding four decades, I have seen very little of Oregon. In the last decade I have created a bucket list of sorts. My bucket list includes seeing sites in my own home state that I have not seen yet. Crater Lake was at the top of that list. Well now I get to scratch that off my list.

I was awe struck by the shear size of the caldera, at over 5 miles wide. Photographs absolutely no justice to the shear size of the crater. It is estimated that Mt. Mazama, now Crater Lake, was at a height of 11,000 to over 14,000 feet (larger than Mt. Shasta). If you add in the fact that Crater Lake, the deepest lake in North America and the 9th deepest in the world, is 1949 feet deep, nearly one vertical mile of mountain collapsed into the caldera, ejecting up to 14 cubic miles of magma into the air in the most violent eruption ever in the Cascade Mountains.

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14 cubic miles may initially sound mild, but think of it like this, 14 miles high by 14 miles wide by 14 miles deep. In comparison to the 1980 eruption of Mount Saint Helens; Saint Helens' eruption had a Volcanic Explosive Index (VEI), which is used to measure the explosive power of a volcano, of 5, but just barely and had very little magma ejection. Krakatoa in 1883, one of the most powerful explosions in modern recorded history measured a 6 on the VEI scale. Mazama's collapse and subsequent magma eruption measured a 7 on the VEI scale. The only larger would be Yellow Stone, 640,000 years B.C. The source of this information can be found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_Explosivity_Index

Ash from the eruption, known as Mazama ash for its unique silica composition, covered nearly all of Oregon and reached as far as Washington, northern California, Idaho, western Montana, and parts of Utah, Nevada, Wyoming, Alberta, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan.

After the trip to Crater Lake was complete we came home, took naps, had lunch and proceeded to photograph around the lake again, well into the night. If you haven't made it to Crater Lake, do yourself a favor and get there soon. It is stunning, beautiful and well worth the trip. Come back tomorrow for a free wallpaper you can download and enjoy on your computer. Until then, enjoy a couple more of the photos I took from the day below. I took many more photos of Crater Lake, but those will be in future blog posts.

Diamond Peak

Odell Butte at night

Wallpaper Wednesday - Odell Butte

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This week's wallpaper is a stark black and white of Odell Butte set behind Crescent Lake. This is only available in the 16x9 format. Enjoy!

Friends, inspiration and bonding times - Part 1 of 4

My friends Rick Clark (standing right) and Chris Kilpatrick (crouching left)

I don't usually travel much outside my sphere of residence. A lot of my limited travel has to do with anxiety. So I have not seen much of the state I was was born in. I was born in Oregon, raised in Oregon and outside of four years in the military I have lived in Oregon my entire life.

Given that I have 40+ years of living in a state that contains such natural beauty, I have never seen such basic must see sights like Crater Lake, Smith Rocks, Painted Hills or many other natural beauties. That was until a few weeks ago.

Salt Creek Waterfall

When I turned 30 I started my bucket list of things to see during my time on this earth. That list has turned into a list of things to Photograph. It contains a list of things right here in my home state that I have never seen.

I was blessed with an opportunity to stay in a cabin by a lake in the beautiful Cascade Mountains on the central Oregon side. Chris and her husband Steve invited me, my wife, Rick and his wife Shawn to come spend a weekend at their cabin by the lake for a weekend filled to the brim with photographic opportunities.

In this three part post, I will share with you the wonderful scenes and times I got to spend with these wonderful people and the two major items I got to cross off my bucket list.

On day one, we drove to down to the cabin. On the way we stopped at Salt Creek Fall. This amazing waterfall is nestled into the Cascade Mountains 21 miles east of Oakridge, Oregon on Highway 58, just after the tunnel. Not being a fan of heights, I got my shot and left the scene immediately.

We arrived at the cabin a little after 4:00 PM and I went to work with my camera photographing the various scenic landscapes around the lake.

I cannot thank Chris and Steve or Rick and Shawn enough for the generosity. I can only say thank you from the bottom of my heart. Kim and I had the time of our lives that weekend and it was all thanks to you.

Here are a select few images from that amazing evening on the lake. Come back next week to learn what item I first crossed off my bucket list. And make sure to check out tomorrow's free wallpaper.

Crescent Lake, Oregon

Diamond Peak

Odell Butte

Wallpaper Wednesday - Independence Day Special Edition

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This week free wallpaper is a beautiful photo of  the American Flag. You can download the 4x3 format for standard monitors or the 16x9 for widescreen monitors.

Drafted by Thomas Jefferson between June 11 and June 28, 1776, the Declaration of Independence is at once the nation's most cherished symbol of liberty and Jefferson's most enduring 

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monument. Here, in exalted and unforgettable phrases, Jefferson expressed the convictions in the minds and hearts of the American people. The political philosophy of the Declaration was not new; its ideals of individual liberty had already been expressed by John Locke and the Continental philosophers. What Jefferson did was to summarize this philosophy in "self-evident truths" and set forth a list of grievances against the King in order to justify before the world the breaking of ties between the colonies and the mother country. I invite you to read a transcription of the complete text of the Declaration.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. 
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. 
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: 
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. 
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. 
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1
Georgia:
   Button Gwinnett
   Lyman Hall
   George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
   William Hooper
   Joseph Hewes
   John Penn
South Carolina:
   Edward Rutledge
   Thomas Heyward, Jr.
   Thomas Lynch, Jr.
   Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
   Robert Morris
   Benjamin Rush
   Benjamin Franklin
   John Morton
   George Clymer
   James Smith
   George Taylor
   James Wilson
   George Ross
Delaware:
   Caesar Rodney
   George Read
   Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
   William Floyd
   Philip Livingston
   Francis Lewis
   Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
   Richard Stockton
   John Witherspoon
   Francis Hopkinson
   John Hart
   Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
   Josiah Bartlett
   William Whipple
Massachusetts:
   Samuel Adams
   John Adams
   Robert Treat Paine
   Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
   Stephen Hopkins
   William Ellery
Connecticut:
   Roger Sherman
   Samuel Huntington
   William Williams
   Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:

   Matthew Thornton

Sourced from: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html

Freedom Post

I thought that I would take a moment to simply wish you a wonderful 4th, which is in a few days. Be safe and have fun. Take advantage of the freedom that was given to you by the actions of men long ago. Take a moment and let your kids know what your freedom means to you. Pass on your appreciation of freedom and the sacrifices that were made to ensure you still have it. Do this so our next generation understands that the 4th of July is about so much more than fireworks and BBQs. Tomorrow's wallpaper post will include the complete text of our country's Declaration of Independence so come back tomorrow and take a moment to read it and download a beautiful wallpaper of our nation's flag.