Tobias Portraiture

Day 16 – from onions to kids on a train!

admin — Mon, 21 May 2012 03:15:10 +0000

As planned I left Boise by 0800 and headed up the interstate to Ontario – in Oregon of Course! And as I was entering town I thought I could smell the distinct odor of onions? Since my sense of smell is really bad I was confused – but alas there it was, a big sign proclaiming Ontario as the Onion Capital of the USA! Once I got outside of the town into the flat countryside for miles and miles all there was growing were fields and fields of onions. They have kind of a neat way of irrigating them which I have no idea how to explain – so you’ll have to google it if you’re curious!!
Out route 26 I go and once past the onion fields there was a whole lot of nothing except more sagebrush and scrub grasslands. But once I turned onto 395 and headed into the foothills and then the mountains the road got fun. More twisties, ups and downs although not as tight as yesterday more like a slalom – lean left then right then left then straight and so on. I think Pam would have even enjoyed these twisties! But all good things must come to and end and into the flatlands I go again. Stopped for lunch at a cafe in the middle of absolutely nowhere – but the burger was good, the service friendly and in good time. On the road again and just five minutes down the road what awaited me but more fun! This time it was like a time trial speed slalom – don’t think I was lower than 3rd gear and zoom zoom – that sporty little mazda on my tail was left behind! The rest of the day was pretty flat and uneventful but some pretty rolling farming country on the way to Walla Walla. As far as I could see was a mosaic of green, beige, yellow, brown and black as the were growing hay, grain, canola and a few fallow fields for the brown and black. Between Walla Walla and Kennewick there is a ridge of foothills just lined with windmills. There must be at least 1000!! Maybe more!! It was an incredible sight for probably 10 miles.when I arrived in Kennewick there was a party goin’ on in the local park and there was a bunch of kids on a mini multi-colored train. They loved how I looked so much they kept waving and blowing the train whistle . . . well, okay – maybe it was Bruiser they loved so much
That’s it for the day I’m now in Kennewick until at least Tuesday as the bike goes in for service tomorrow ( and hopefully a good wash and wax if possible) and I will get a visit in with my colleague and friend Rob.

Day 15 – From potato fields to mountains

admin — Sun, 20 May 2012 05:09:00 +0000

Today was a nice leisurely day once I put Utah behind me. The first three hours were on I-25 as I rode north from SLC to Twin Falls, Idaho. Many of you have driven on US interstate highways with speed limits of 70 or even 75 MPH but did you know there are sections in Utah with 80 MPH? That’s 128 KPH for us Canadians!! It was a cool morning and even into the afternoon but once through the mountains it got into the 70′s.
From Twin Falls I took the scenic route up Idaho 93 then 75 then 21 – and I do mean scenic! The first section is fairly flat as I drove through some of Idaho’s famous potato (and sugar beet) fields. They use a lot of irrigation in this area which consists of pipelines on wheels. Most pivot from a central hub giving a circular growing area (which I have seen many times in my travels) but they also have a unique style of several rows of straight lines on wheels I have not seen before. I also went through an area where the soil is mostly black lava! I’m not sure which volcano would have left it because I think Mt. St. Helen’s is still a fair distance away in Washington. The second section (route 75) goes through the foothills of the small mountain range where there are a lot of sheep and cattle roaming on everything from sagebrush to grasslands. Many of the homes and barns are made from Ponderosa Pine which is very plentiful and has a cedar-like color. Route 21 took me into the mountains and the section from Lowman to Boise was an incredibly twisty road with numerous elevation changes. I was disappointed on Day 4 when the rain prevented me from riding the famous Tail of the Dragon in NC (318 curves in 11 miles) but this was about 68 miles with many many many curves, very few guardrails and about a dozen true hairpins! I’m talking about curves where the road almost comes back on itself (I’m guessing about 210 degrees!!) I turned on my helmet cam so I’m hoping I had the camera angle right – I will process video when I get home. More than a few times I was scraping the floorboards and once I got over so far I scraped the highway peg!!! My wife would NOT have been impressed
I rolled the trip odometer over onto 10,000 km just as I pulled into my motel for the day!! That’s hard to believe and I still have about another 1200 km left in the US until I pick up Pam at SeaTac airport and we head west to Port Angeles to catch the ferry to Victoria, BC.

Day 14 – From Dam heat to darn cool

admin — Sat, 19 May 2012 14:22:34 +0000

Started the day Leaving Las Vegas at 0800 in 78 degree sunshine and rode out to the Hoover Dam. What a marvelous site and a real engineering feat. The dam is huge and the highway bridge going over is quite neat. It is free to walk on both and the nearby casino has helicopter flights for $69 so just had to do it. It is only about a 10 minute flight but seeing the dam from the air was very cool.
Then I headed north towards Salt Lake City and by the time I got to Mesquite, Nv it was 90 degrees again. But somebody in Utah forgot to pay Mother Nature and the sun and temperature soon started to plummet. Going thru the pass they blew in the mountains was gorgeous and still warm but once out the other side it was in the 60′s and when the rain clouds pushed in it dropped even further to 56! Luckily I had already changed into my warmer gear when the rain started and I drove through it in about 15 minutes.
There is very little to see between Mesquite and SLC except a range of small mountains on each side. So it wasn’t as bad as driving thru the desert but it wasn’t very exciting either. But no animals darting out in front and no idiots on the road either so all in all not a terrible ride.

Day 13 – I now know now how hot hell is gonna be!

admin — Fri, 18 May 2012 04:53:01 +0000

To say that today was a LARGE day would be an understatement. Left Flagstaff this morning and it was 52 degrees – not bad considering how cool it was last night. But I was only on the road about an hour and it was already too hot for the jacket. I headed out old Route 66 towards Seligman, Az where I started to get the flavor of the this route. From Seligman it was west to Kingman, Az where along the way I encountered my first ever Dust Storm! Now it was just a mini one of about five minutes but that was too much for me, especially considering the temperature was already over 90! But the wind had gotten its gumption up and wasn’t about to quit so between the heat, the dust and the wind it was dry and my body fluids were dropping quickly! So dry in fact that when I got bugs in my teeth I just chewed ‘em up to generate spit so I could quench my thirst I was stopping every hour to drink a bottle of water and lather on the sunscreen or else I would have been great for a salad – you know, the sun dried tomato type!
From Kingman I continued on Route 66 to Needles, California via the Mohave Desert where it was drier, hotter and windier ( temp in Golden Shores was 107 degrees!!). Folks if you ever get the chance to drive/ride Route 66 from Kingman, Az. to Needles, Ca. DON’T !!!! That’s a whole lot a nuthin’. Except the “town” of Oakman, Az is interesting – see the photo below to see the rush hour traffic:)
The closer I got to Vegas the windier it got and I honestly had trouble holding on to the bike even with a death grip! It was a little disconcerting at times – Like when a high-sided 5 ton truck went by me doing about 80 MPH leaning over in my direction Vegas drivers remind me of Montreal drivers and I avoid going thru Montreal at all costs.
Decided to walk The Strip and take some nighttime images and do some people watching. There sure are some interesting folks! But as much as I wanted to I decided it was better if I didn’t take images of the people – plus I didn’t really have the right camera for that. I was a little late getting out there as I prefer dusk over night but I did manage to grab one shot with the iPad as the sun was setting. But then it got black in a hurry.
After I go out to the Hoover Dam in the morning I am going north to Salt Lake City. A slight change in “apparent morals” maybe? From Sin City to Mormon City – should be an interesting contrast any how.

Day 12 – flying high!

admin — Thu, 17 May 2012 05:51:56 +0000

I started my day a little late because I needed the sleep so I did not leave until about 0800. But the rest did me good and prepared me for the day. Besides getting to see that little thing called the Grand Canyon, it was “it’s my highway and I’ll play on it if I want to” day for the animal population. Started off with two coyotes chasing breakfast across the road in front of me, then it was a good sized snake that turned out to be little more than a “thump-thump” speed bump under my tires, next was a succession of elk (7 to be exact from morning to dusk ) that knew they could stop traffic with their good looks, not to be outdone Ms Mule Deer showed me a little leg and a smile as I was leaving the Canyon and finally, to end the day with a hoot, an owl swooped down in front of me in the dark ( and scared me more than all the rest combined)!
The GC is everything I thought and more. Incredible is probably the best word and I’ll leave it at that. The helicopter ride over the GC was just WOW!WOW!WOW!WOW! Well worth the money and I paid extra to get the front seat so I could have as little as possible in my way for both the camera, the video (mounted to my head!) and my eyes. I can’t find the cable for the video camera but I will add some images for you. I was going to go back tomorrow but all the walking today bothered my hip too much to do it again and short of going down into the canyon I got to see all I wanted.

Day 11 – most enjoyable day yet!

admin — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:59:53 +0000

What a huge day yesterday was. ! Started out with 36 degree F temperatures and got up to about 90 depending on which sign was right. The morning ride through the “baby Rockies” in NM was beautiful with lots of twisties and elevation changes. Saw more Pronghorns (18 plus a herd of 30-50!) along the first section of road. One of them ran along beside me while trying to find a hole in the fence but eventually gave up and cut across the road in front of me – but I was only in 2nd gear and was anticipating this.
Once I got into Arizona the land flattened out again for a bit and then changed as I got into “canyon country”. Went up in elevation many times only to drop down into another canyon. I believe 6000 was the highest yesterday. It was awesome seeing the way the glaciers must have carved and deposited the various types and colors of earth and stone. Did have one “close-ish” encounter with a herd of sheep as they came out of the tall sagebrush and darted across the road. I got stopped with plenty of room to spare but the car following me pulled out to go around me and came within inches of providing mutton for supper!
If someone could come up with a use for all that “sagebrush” a lot of people would become rich. There must be thousands if not millions of acres of that stuff – sometimes it was all I could see from horizon to horizon for 360 degrees! As the sun set it was neat to see all,of the shadows on the rocks and walls of the small canyons I was in but there sure was a lot of haze around all day from Raton, NM to Flagstaff, Az.
I am headed to the Grand Canyon this morning and have a helicopter flight booked at 1500. I am very excited and will leave here in soon and go do some of the other stuff.

Day 10 Already! A big day and a big state (or 3)

admin — Tue, 15 May 2012 04:03:02 +0000

I knew I had a big day ahead of me this morning so I left the motel at 0645 – and it was a cool 58 degrees. Got to Oklahoma City about thirty minutes later thankfully because the traffic was busy but moving quick and smoothly but by the time I got to the other side incoming traffic was bumper to bumper. That is one very big city!
I headed southwest via secondary highways and looped into the “back door” of Amarillo. Turns out that by taking the two hour slower scenic route I missed a hail storm and a rain storm – ” chance favors the prepared” . However, i did get to play “highway chicken” with a Texas turkey – I WON! My first meal in Texas was “chicken fried steak” at a little diner in Shamrock – won’ be in a hurry to order that again. After a tour through Amarillo I went northern Texas which is not much but flat scrubland, sagebrush and all. After I ran out of Texas it was west to New Mexico. Now let me tell you there were a couple of hours there that were like running on a treadmill – I expended energy but it didn’t look like I moved the scenery was so similar! And STRAIGHT! There was one whole hour where I did not see another vehicle or turn the bike!!! But I did see Pronghorn Antelope and lots of ‘em – 49 to be exact – in groups from 1 – 12. That would be a dangerous road for me in the dark when they were not so visible. Oh! And saw one dead snake about 5 ft long. The last goal for the day was to cross into Colorado for about 10 miles before I turned around to head back towards Arizona in the morning. It’s not hard to tell where the Colorado / New Mexico border is because the mountains start right at it!!
So all and all it was a great day as I stayed dry, saw lots of different scenery and checked off three more states that I had never biked in before. Now I’ll finish my supper and get some sleep.

Day 9- from the “hollers n’ hills” to the flatlands!

admin — Mon, 14 May 2012 03:13:38 +0000

The sunrise woke me this morning as it came in through the window, it shone on my face all day and it dropped out of sight about an hour ago. The terrain today changed drastically from morning to night. The roads in the Ozark mountains in NW Arkansas where I stayed the last two days were steep and twisty with everything from rolling curves to 180 degree switchbacks Then I rolled through the corner of Missouri where the roads were relatively flat but with some nice curves. Then I drove the very southern part of Kansas where the roads are flatter and the only curves seemed to be on the cars that whizzed by! But there are trees unlike what lies ahead – me thinks. In that part of Kansas when you say you’re just going to the neighbors you pack a snack Then I headed back down southward through Oklahoma to Tulsa and on here to Chandler which once again provided some rolling hills and nice sweeping curves. For anyone who is wondering – the price of regular gas here is $3.35/US gal which is $88.16 cents/ litre!!!!!
Tomorrow I head due west to “Amarillo by Morning” for all you G.S. fans out there:) And then on to New Mexico. I’m hoping for more photo ops as so far much of it I have already seen or it can’t truly be captured with a camera.

Day 8 – a zero mile day!

admin — Sun, 13 May 2012 05:17:25 +0000

Just a quick update as the bike never moved today. Some rain moved in and Misti wanted me to stay To help with some portrait sessions and show her some of my lighting and style techniques. One was with an engaged couple and her daughter who were so great to work with. We were out in the rain with a 150′ extension cord across a road to get the lighting I wanted and Misti’s battery flash wasn’t firing. I also ended upon the middle of the road to get the angle and perspective I wanted. Got some great stuff especially at the end when we did our own version of the ” Abbey Road” cover shot.
Talked more tonight about marketing, advertising and sales to meet our clients needs and wants and I have a head full of ideas. Thats all for now. Hitting the road to Kansas in the morning.

Day 7 – short riding day

admin — Sat, 12 May 2012 05:26:58 +0000

Real short riding day as it was only about 3 1/2 hours from Pine Bluff to Prim. My friend Darren and his wife Misty and the kids were ready for my arrival. What an awesome family! We spent the day talkin shop and giving me the tour. Misty is the photographer while Darren is a chicken (broilers) farmer and is the sales guy. Darren is also a licensed pilot with his own plane and he took me up for an aerial view of the area. Lots of hills and one very large lake that looks like 50 lakes from the air.
I was honored to photograph their youngest child, Catryn (spelling?) with her fiddle as Misty wanted to see my style of lighting and lens selection, working distance, etc. She was a great model and we had a perfect day and location for her portrait. I learned about some incredible new products that will work especially well for babies and children and a few other ideas to boot.

Tomorrow I was planning on heading to Kansas but forecast is for rain and Misty wants me to work with her on a few sessions tomorrow at their second studio in Conway. So looks like I’ll be staying here until Sunday morning. I love expanding on friendships and both my work and my pastime provide me with the opportunity to do that across North America. Time to get some sleep – I will add some photos tomorrow sometime.