A brief look at my camera screen in the early morning, showed that I at least got star photos during the night. I always have some concerns that the program worked as planned, after setting up the camera to shoot well after dark and then retiring to bed. Unfortunately, upon reviewing those images on a big screen it was obvious that the stars were big blurry bright spots. So apparently I either accidentally shifted the focus a little, during the final set up or maybe I forgot to switch off auto focus. I think it was most likely the first, since I vaguely recall having to shift the lens back into auto focus mode for early morning sunrise shots, after realizing the first shot was not in focus. I don’t completely trust my eyesight to get really good focus, when in manual mode.
But I still have two batches of star images to process, which I will have to get to soon.
After shooting a few early morning images, we decided it was time to move on and headed towards the Moab area. Moab has become much more popular than it was during my first few visits here. Now it is very crowded all the time it seems and the rapid growth rate is highly evident. We considered several possibilities for finding a campsite in this high demand camping area, finally selecting a small public land camping area not very far from Dead Horse Point and we were lucky enough to have two or more empty sites from which to select.
After setting up camp, we did a bit of exploring in the local area, stopping by Dead Horse Point to scout it briefly.
This scene reminded me of hiking in Canyonlands NP many years ago.
After this brief visit to Dead Horse Point, we will return later for sunset photography.
Thanks for following,
Ken
How rough was the dirt road your Sportsmobile and that 4Runner traveled? I have a 4Runner but am always a little wary about maneuvering on roads like that, even though I know a 4Runner can do it.
None of the roads we were on were ones that your 4Runner could not handle. There were a couple of 4WD routes we did, that had portions I don’t think you would be comfortable doing. But Buckhorn Wash Road is a wide gravel road. It was washboarded and rock in a few places, but easily drivable. Mexican Mountain Road is mostly good, some narrow portions, some tendancy to wash out and obviouly not a good one to drive when wet, but we had no problems. Your 4Runner would have no problems navigating those roads, just use your judgment about weather and road conditions and don’t go where you don’t feel comfortable going.
We were driving on another side road that went towards the river and other campsites, when I looked back and noted our campsite and I immediately told Sean to stop. He knew why without having to ask. I knew that would make a good photo with the Sportsmobile as scale within that magnificent geology.