Tag: road trips

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Detour: Fallen Leaf Lake

During my Hot August Nights weekend in South Lake Tahoe some friends and I decided to head up towards Emerald Bay and take a nice drive on a warm Saturday afternoon. On our way back we saw a sign for Fallen Leaf Lake which I had never been to and in true Valerie fashion we (and by we I mean I was driving and took a very fast turn without my passengers knowing what the hell I was up to)  took a little detour not knowing what to expect. This is when I learned 2 lessons.

Lesson 1: Sally (my sentra) is one hellova beast of an off roading vehicle…that is for being a 4 door compact sedan. The potholes and lack of proper pavement on this very twisted road to Fallen Leaf Lake were amazing. I could only go about 15 mph the whole way because I kept having to swerve to avoid potholes, because lucky for us we had no cell service that deep in the woods which means no roadside assistance when I pop a tire.

Lesson 2: know how wide your vehicle is, and learn how to drive long distances backwards. About a third way into our drive in the road went down to a very VERY narrow one lane road. One lane. Sometimes paved, sometimes not, windy, ridden with potholes, one lane road. In the woods. At some points the assholes coming the opposite directions would seriously mob down these windy roads and we had to pull over multiple times into the bushes, into dirt ditches, into dirt hills, or as close to the edge of a small cliff without losing my car to the hill. Other times we had no choice but to back out until we could find a spot to pull over safely so we could both pass, which require driving backwards…near trees and a steep hill. IT WAS REALLY FUN GUYS.  So seriously, know your cars limits if you want to get into Fallen Leaf Lake safely in your little 4door compact sedan.

With all that said, the lake was pretty, very wide open and clear as hell. We ended up parking on someones wooden driveway on a hill and walking down to the lake and checking it out. On our way back though we passed this clearing which looked straight out of some movie, it was beautiful and all I wanted to do was prance around in the field singing the hills are alive with the sound of music…but I held myself back and decided to take a couple shots instead. This ones my favorite. :)

this is totally my desktop right now, if you want a desktop res one let me know and Ill put up a link to a hi-res photo
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oh the places you’ll go

There are many beautiful spots within a day from here that I really want to shoot at, and I feel like I keep forgetting about them until the mood strikes, so for the sake of remembering I think I need to keep a running list of places I’d like visit in the near future (within the year) for photo-ing, so here we go:

  1. Chico, well actually its right before Chico, there’s a cemetery I passed once that I need to revisit, driving by it I knew I needed to stop and shoot but I was on a time crunch and too hungover on my drive back, freakin’ Chico.
  2. Yosemite/Mono/Bodie, I’m still trying to plan a short 3 day camping trip since I’ve never been to either of these places and I am dyiiiiiiing to shoot there. I just keep running into the issue of finding people who can commit to the camp out.

    I heard it through the grapevine
  3. Miur Woods, I need to get some old growth forest in my life and portfolio.
  4. SoCal, there are too many locations I want to do some long exposures scattered all over southern Cali…I’m thinking a late summer, early autumn trip, just for a night. It needs to happen, I have unfinished business there.
  5. North Coast, I’d like to say I’ll get to it this year but I doubt it, the first 3 I’ve been dying to do for the past year or more.