Fall is Here

Fall is here! Along with Spring, it's one of my favorite seasons. But Summer and Winter are pretty good too. I've been keeping busy with the kids and classes, but I've been trying to get out to shoot some fall colors. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of great color up in the mountains (compared to New England or the Rockies). Sure, there's maples, but that's about it. Everything else just turns brown. But in our home town there's lots of trees turning.

I recently went to a photography conference and heard Darrel Gulin speak. His images are probably more famous than he is, but hey, he's successful and had lots great advice. He travels the globe 9 months of the year, to Africa, South America, Antarctica, the Arctic, and around the western US. And which of his images sell the most? The ones he takes in his back yard garden. Granted, it's a nice garden, but hey, he's not a gardener. So next spring we'll see if we can't plant some things (and strategically place a fence or bird house or two) and see what happens.
My class is going well, for me at least. Human Anatomy & Physiology is a tough course for non-biology majors. Very interesting, but still tough. The challenge for me is to keep the material at their level. I try to get them to the point where, if they hear about some disease or aliment, they can say Hey! I know a little about that! I'm not cranking out med students; just students who actually know what a stem cell is, or why broken bones are better to have than torn ligaments.

With the comming of winter, my photography is going to be mostly limited to indoors, which means lots of pictures of my girls. Might not be as exciting as climbing up mountains or wading through streams, but it's still good practice. I'm slowly gearing up to try to make some money at this. I've done ok so far, but I'll need to devote a lot more time to it.

Procrastination

So, it's been well over a month since I last wrote to the two of you reading this ;-) Our summer ended with a fabulous camping trip to Klamath Lake, Lava Beds National Monument, and Hyatt Lake in southern Oregon.

I think the Lava Beds was my favorite site of the year. Since we went after Labor Day, the campsites were vacant. But it was still warm enough for us to sleep out under the stars one night. The girls (both 3 1/2 years old) did great spelunking. We hiked into several caves, sometimes 2000-3000 feet in, and officially rated as "difficult". Difficult for tall adults, but a breeze for my kids.

Hyatt Lake was another gem of a campsite. I understand it's a madhouse during the season, but not when we were there. We had the whole southeast corner of the lake to ourselves, complete with bathroom and showers (full-sized showers with two shower heads opposite each other), sandy beach, with a large play structure for the kids. And no one was around.

After that trip, we had one last family camping trip to Sunset Beach, near Coos Bay, OR. That time we stayed in a yurt, and "Masonandjulie" (as the girls call them) joined us. It was nice out there, but I really wish I had brought our canoe.

After all that, it was back to school for me. But, last weekend I was able to sneak out and get in one by-myself-camping trip in, over to eastern Oregon. Smith Rock, and 2 of the 3 John Day Fossil Beds. It was very nice, but cold and windy. Lows were in the low-mid 20's, and in my tent it got to around 35 degrees. I brought along my pillow (one of those memory foam ones), but it turns out the memory foam does not work when frozen; it was hard as a board.

Summer Vacation at Last!

For me at least, summer vacation has finally arrived! Of course, when I teach summer classes we always have Fridays off. That allowed us to get a lot of weekend getaways in. But still... Class is over now, but that was followed immediately by our first art show. Now, life has slowed down (sort of). I'm filling my weekdays by going to the gym, and taking the girls out on hikes and bike rides. We're also working on tuning up my web page (jeffdfennellphotography.com), updating our portrait and wedding packages.

We've got a big week-long camping trip coming up, to Southern Oregon/Northern California. We have tentative plans, but we'll be playing some of it by ear. The weather has really started to cool off, which I love. Still clear out though. I'm thinking about cashing in one of my "Camping Coupons" from my wife and taking off for a weekend alone in October to try to catch some fall colors.

Recently I got the opportunity to take some pictures of our friends kids. They said that they're hard to get pictures of, but they were pretty cooperative for me. Just get them to say Poop and the smiles come out!