The Year That Was 2013

Wow, I can't believe that another year has flown by.  It seems like it was just yesterday that I was doing my 2012 in review post.  In terms of number of posts, this was one of my least productive years but I think I made up for that in terms of quality.  I felt like my photography was starting to grow this year and I feel like this blog is pretty well established.

 As has been tradition for this posts, I will start by posting a picture of M-Hat V.  This hat hasn't seen as much travel as some of my other hats because I've spread out the travels amongst my hats.  Still, this hat has seen the Empire Builder and Canada, so that counts for something.

 The pictures are in chronological order but I may talk about somethings out of order.  January brought me back to basketball pretty hot and heavy.  The Eagles gave me quite a bit to be exicted about as they went a little deeper in the MAC tournament than they have in the past.

 I also finally got the ice covered lighthouse pictures I've been looking for.  I'm gonna have to try to get some other ones this week, if the weather decides to cooperate with me.  It's supposed to get back in the 20's this week.  This is the Grand Haven light.

 February pretty much just had me sticking pretty close to Ypsilanti, so I didn't really have much to show for it.  I did like this picture of the Wolverine however.  I also had some pretty good basketball pictures.

 March brought me back to the covered bridges.  I posted this one because this is the bridge that was burned down earlier in the year.  Hopefully, they will be able to replace it.  I guess this shows that stuff is fleeting.

 March also took me up to the Soo Locks and I was able to get a picture of a freigther passing through the ice.  It made a pretty neat sound as it did so.

 April brought me some lighthouse pictures.  I was able to complete the Lake Michigan Lighthouses of the Lower Peninsula.  This particular one is Mission Point.

 April also took me to Canada for the first time in forever.  I thought Niagara was pretty neat but I was more impressed with the Welland Canal.  I will have to find my way back there in the next year.

 May brought me to Belle Isle where I found out about the Cherry Blossoms there.

 May also took me on the Empire Builder to Seattle.  Sadly, the weather wasn't very cooperative, so I didn't get to do quite as much as I had hoped but it was still pretty neat to experience the rails again.

 The Coast Starlight to San Francisco and the California Zephyr.  I could probably say the same thing for San Francisco that I could for Seattle.

 June took me out to Grand Haven where I got to witness a re-enactment.  I really should make it a point to go to more of these.

 The end of June brought me to my second Engineer's Day.  I was sort of waffling on whether I wanted to go there or not but I did end up going.  I'll have to say it was worth just for this view of the Gott.

 I also took the Mackinac Island Ferry over to Mackinac Island.  The ferry I took gave me a view of the Bridge that I'd never seen before.

 July brought me to the Canada Day Fireworks.  I think this was the only year the shot them from this part of Sarnia, so it gave me a pretty good view from the Maritime Center in Port Huron.

 In Bay City, they had the tall ships festival.  This particular vessel is the Niagara.  I would sort of see her re-enact her role in the Battle of Lake Erie later in the year.

 August brought Thunder Over Michigan.  Despite the boneheads in Congress and their sequestor, it was still a pretty cool air show.  It would have been cooler had the Thunderbirds been there though.

We had our company picnic on the Diamond Belle and that gave me the opportunity to get some ship pictures from the water.

 In September, I took a trip up to the Soo Locks and went through the Locks for the first time on the Soo Locks Boat Tour.  I will have to try this again on a day when there is more freighter traffic though.

 October brought me back to the Fallasburg Bridge but I was hoping to get better autumn pictures.

 It also found me on the rails with a day trip over to Chicago.  I took the boat tour there as well.  It was a pretty neat tour where they talked about the architecture of Chicago.

 The fall had me at a few Eastern games.  The Eagles did not look so good in football.  This was a picture from one of the brighter moments of the season, where they beat the Western Michigan Broncos.  The would finish the season at 2-10 and would fire their coach.  From what I've read about the replacement coach, I expect bright things for the Eagles in the future.

And December brought me back to boatwatching.  I was able to welcome an old friend after not seeing her in a while.

I think it was a pretty good year for me.  I got a picture in a book called "Football Nation" that was put out by the Library of Congress.  I also got a picture in the December issue of Esquire and they actually paid me for that one.  Like I said at the beginning, I think that my photography is finally starting to grow.

So what does 2014 hold for me?  Find out when I decide to post that in a couple of days.

Another Fateful November Day

Tomorrow marks the 50th Anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.  There's not really too much that I can add to the conversation other than I don't think it was a conspiracy.

The picture is the cockpit of the first 707 version of Air Force One.  It was commissioned in 1959 but was replaced in 1962, so it carried Kennedy but not on that particular day.  If I remember correctly, that particular Air Force One is at the Air Force Museum.  I also seem to remember that there is a notch that was cut in the plane to accomodate his casket.  The above cockpit was taken at the Seattle Museum of Flight.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was certainly an inspirational figure in history but I think his accomplishments were cut short by the assassination.  There are certainly some memorable speeches from him and he did have the lasting accomplishments of the Peace Corps and the Special Forces.  He had some negative legacies too, namely the Vietnam War.  It's hard to say how that would have gone down had he not been assassinated.  If nothing else, that particular day in November was the spark in a chain of events that have darkened the faith in our country.

I hear some of his speeches and I wish that we had leadership now that could inspire us like that.

To quote Mr. Spock, "He's not dead as long as we remember him."  This picture is from when I visited Arlington a couple of years ago.  I think it is kind of cool that they built an eternal flame for him.

Riding on the Coast Starlight

So the next leg on my journey was the Coast Starlight.  The Coast Starlight is a train that runs daily from Seattle to Los Angeles.  I would only be taking it as far as Emeryville though.

Before Amtrak's line, there was no one passenger train that ran the length of the west coast.  The closest would have been the Southern Pacific's West Coast line that ran from Los Angeles to Portland.  You could continue on a Great Northern train to Seattle.  There was also the Coast Daylight that ran between Los Angeles and San Francisco and if you wanted to continue on, you could hop on the Cascades but again that would only take you as far as Portland.

The Coast Starlight had a number of issues with lateness.  At one time, it had an ontime rating of 2% which earned it the nickname of Coast Starlate.  There were a number of issues that led to this but the biggest was the Union Pacific giving priority to freight trains (much like everywhere else).  Eventually, things were worked out and the Coast Starlight now has a pretty good ontime rating.

So a final view of Seattle before heading into the station.

 I really like the old school train stations.  I know that I say it all the time, but I wish Ann Arbor used the Gandy Dancer instead of the station they have.

 This is the way a train station should look, if you ask me.

 Okay, we'll give you one more view of Seattle.

 The tower on the train station.  It was based on tower in Italy.

 And it was raining as I was heading out but that makes for a cool picture I think.

 Looking up at the tower.

 Getting ready to board.  I will have to say that I've been pretty impressed with the Amtrak staff that I've run into.  For the most part, they are very friendly and helpful.  In all honesty, I prefer dealing with Amtrak's staff over the Airline staffs.

 A shot of my home for the next day.  Fortunately this leg was only an overnight one but the seats are pretty comfortable and it was doubly so because I had both of them to myself.

 As we were getting ready to head out, a BNSF train decided to pass.

 This is one of Boeing's final assembly plants.  They build the 737 and P-8 here.  I think they may also build an AWAC version of the 737 but I have no idea what its designation is.  I guess taking a picture of a plane from a train would be part of my trifecta.  Just need a ship in there somewhere.

 This used to be a warehouse for the storage of supplies that were heading out to the Pacific Portion of World War II.  Part of it is used by the GSA.

 This was a power station that used hydropower from one of the nearby rivers.  I think it is now idle.

 A pair of Union Pacific engines.  I was most impressed by the grafitti covered engine because you don't typically see an engine covered in grafitti.

 A pair of Navy pre-positioning ships that are docked in Tacoma.  These are operated by civillian crews though.

 This is a memorial to the Asian descent residents of Tacoma.  At one time, they were kicked out of the city and that became a model for kicking them out of other cities.  And there was really no reason to do so other than they were different.  Shame we have to have so many black marks in our history.

 The Tacoma Narrows Bridge.  The bridge that is inbound would be the bridge that replaced the one that was destroyed by high winds.  It was constructed in 1950 and used many of the lessons learned from the other bridge.  There are still parts of the old bridge in the water.

 The bridge on the left was completed in 2007.   The bridge on the right is used for westbound traffic and the other is used for eastbound traffic.

 I like this picture for the most part.  They are pretty cool looking bridges.

 A lone tug pulling a barge through the Tacoma Narrows.

 One of several ferries that ply the area.

 I loved the fact that the water was smoothe enough for a nice reflection.

 Another island.

 A shot of the Olympia-Lacey station.  As you can see, it was still raining.  The rain would plague me for most of the day.

 A grain elevator.

 I kind of wish I would have noted some of the rivers that I passed because there were some really nice looking ones.  One of the nice things about taking the train is that you get to pass through areas that aren't otherwise travelled, so you get a nice pristine view of the country.

 The Kelso station.

 As we were chugging along, I got the treat of seeing an Apache in action.

 And what's better than seeing one Apache?  Seeing two of them.

 Another shot of the sightseeing cars.  I love the views that you get from them but I kind of wish they had some sort of anti-reflective coating on the glass.

 A shot of the dining car.  I would have to say that one of the pleasant suprises about food on the train is that it is quite good.  The prices aren't too bad considering that they have a captive audience.  Another fun aspect is that they use community seating, so you get to meet some new and sometimes interesting people.

 A tugboat from Foss Maritime.  The company was founded in 1889 by Thea Foss in Tacoma, Washington.  She started out by buying a tugboat and painting it green.  She would take fishermen out.  Eventually they branched out into other vessels and became the largest tug operation on the west coast.  Thea was the basis for the movie "Tugboat Annie".

 One of the shipped docked in Portland.

 I'm not sure of the bridge in this picture but I do like the looks of it.

 Probably one of my favorite stations and if you haven't, you should heed the advice and go somewhere by train.

 One of the engines used by the Amtrak Cascades line.

 I'm pretty sure this is the Empire Builder.

 A more overall shot of the station.

 Another view of the Cascades engine.

 A better overall view of the station.

 Another bridge in Portland.

 A rain soaked view of the Portland skyline.

 I just liked the looks of this building.

 A typical scene from Oregon and Washington, a farm with mountains in the background.

 As I was eating dinner, I missed what probably would have been the shot of the whole trip.  We pass along a river for quite a while and there was rainbow at one point.  I guess a cloud covered mountain scene will work.

 I think this is the river we passed for a long time.

 A lone Union Pacific engine.

 One of the last pictures I took during the day.  I tried to get a picture of Crater Lake but it was way too dark.

 An early morning shot of the Sacramento skyline.

 We stayed at the Sacramento station for quite a while, so I got to get some pictures as the sun was rising.

 A shot of the engines as they are being fueled.  I thought the engine in the front was kind of unusual for Amtrak.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get a better picture of it.

 The Sacramento River.

 A fairly typical scene along the way from Sacramento to Emeryville.

 I guess this one is even more typical.

 Another cool spot along the way on the Coast Starlight and California Zephyr is the Navy's mothball fleet.

 Most of the ships here are waiting for the eventual demise as scrap but sometimes they are pulled back into service.

 A pair of bridges.

I'm pretty sure this is a barge.

Unfortunately, I didn't get too many other pictures after this one.  I hope you enjoyed this part.