2024 Southwest Trip - Day 14 - Reef and Goblins

Gallery (20 images): 2024 Southwest - Day 14 - Reef and Goblins

After Bryce Canyon, we started heading for Moab but a winter storm warning with calls for up to 10cm of snow prevented us from camping at the entrance of the Burr Trail, where we had intended on taking the back road through Capitol Reef National Park. The dirt roads in the area have a lot of clay and with rain or warm snowfall, they become near impassable. So, we drove north over the 9,700 foot summit (beating the snowfall) and stayed near Torrey, Utah. The next morning, we drove the main paved route through Capitol Reef National Park but it was still quite cloudy and we weren't sure if the sun would come out any time soon. We waited around for about 45 minutes and finally saw a bit of sun hitting the reef and took a bunch of photos, although we never really had more than just hazy sunshine.

Alas, the sun left us again with some thick cloud cover that looked like it wouldn't clear for a long time, so we decided to continue on towards our ultimate destination, an area where back-country camping is allowed in Arches National Park near Moab. On the way we also stopped off at Goblin Valley State Park and there too, the cloud cover was quite significant. We also waited patiently there and eventually the sun broke through. I also often waited for the few people who were hiking around the Valley of the Goblins to tuck in behind formations so I could get the occasional pristine shot with no other people visible.

Read: All the blog postings from my 2024 Southwest Trip

View all galleries: 2024 Southwest Trip

2024 Southwest Trip - Day 13 - Bryce Canyon NP

Gallery (35 images): 2024 Southwest - Day 13 - Bryce Canyon NP

After a few hours of driving from Lee's Ferry, we arrived at Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park. The lioght wasn't great as it was not a good time of day to be taking photos and of course the majority of the dunes are covered in ATV/Quad tracks since most of the area is open of OHVs. The first few times I visited the dunes, probably between 20 and 30 years ago now, there were no off-highway vehicles permitted at all, and it was wonderful to wander the dunes and take photos. especially across to where the sand starts moving up the sparsely pine tree populated rocky hillside. So disappointing now as a photographer.

We only walked onto the part of the dunes where OHVs are not permitted, only to spot some tracks there anyway. At least Emily got to see the uniquely coloured sand! So that was it... and off we drove with Bryce Canyon as our next stop. Just before reaching Bryce though, there is a very colourful spot known as Red Canyon, and we spent an hour or so wandering the trails there and taking photos. Bryce Canyon was wonderfully clear and the distant hills too, with a recent storm having likely cleared the air.

See the following link (opens in a new window) for some Native American Lore.

Read: All the blog postings from my 2024 Southwest Trip

View all galleries: 2024 Southwest Trip

Also, there is a stitched panorama from Bryce Canyon shown in my 2024 Southwest Trip - Highlights blog posting.

2024 Southwest Trip - Day 12 - Horseshoe Bend

Gallery (25 images): 2024 Southwest - Day 12 - Horseshoe Bend

Next up on our agenda was Horseshoe Bend on the Colorado River in northern Arizona. Due to time constraints, we had bypassed the Grand Canyon since Emily had been there with her parents and I had been a few times, most recently with my father during our 2019 road trip. It had been quite a number of years since I had visited the Horseshoe Bend viewpoint and wow, what a change. Before, there was a nearly unmarked dirt road leading off the highway with a small gravel lot, then a short rocky trail leading to the overlook. The last time I was there, there was only one other person. Now... well now there is a huge paved parking lot that accommodates multiple tour busses, they charge an entrance fee (which I actually do not mind), and the trail to the viewpoint is built up to allow for strollers, wheel chairs and such. And the people... so many people everywhere! Before it was a wonderful, quiet spiritual spot to take in a magnificent view but now, you have a hundred or more people dotting the landscape, many taking selfies and somehow just ruining the experience, at least for me.

That said, I understand making beautiful scenery like this more accessible for people, especially those who might not otherwise be able to hike rocky trail, so I suppose I shouldn't really complain. However I am certainly very happy to have been to this spot a few times previously where there weren't masses of people, but this might have been the last time I bother visiting. To get a sense of some of the crowds, see this image in the gallery or open the cropped panorama below...

On the way to driving to Lee's Ferry, we walked out onto the old Navajo bridge and took a few photos, and then lastly some photos of the photogenic crumbling buildings at Lee's Ferry where we also camped for the night.

Read: All the blog postings from my 2024 Southwest Trip

View all galleries: 2024 Southwest Trip

2024 Southwest Trip - Day 11 - Petrified Forest NP

Gallery (45 images): 2024 Southwest - Day 11 - Petrified Forest NP

The first few images in the gallery are from when we drove through Rice, California, a modern ghost town with a handful of ruins, including what I believe are the remnants of a gas station that have been turned into a "shoe tree", a bush that appears to be growing COVID masks, and an old who-knows-what-it-was remains of a building that are near 100% covered in layers of colourful, artistic graffiti.

From there, we continued on to Petrified Forest National Park. At the south end of the park, there are fields of fractured petrified tree logs, just lying on the surface of the ground, some seeming as though they have been cut into sections with a chainsaw. These logs have been agatized, in other words, the wood has been replaced with very colourful agate while it was buried over the millennia. Arizona petrified wood is known to be some of the most colourful in the world and seeing these beautiful logs of agate lying everywhere is truly incredible. The rest of the park has some amazing scenery too, sculpted purplish badlands and to the north, an area known as the Painted Desert, an vast plain of red/orange badlands and mesas contrasting beautifully with the blue skies and fluffy white clouds.

Read: All the blog postings from my 2024 Southwest Trip

View all galleries: 2024 Southwest Trip

Also, there is a stitched panorama from the badlands shown in my 2024 Southwest Trip - Highlights blog posting.

2024 Southwest Trip - Day 9 - Joshua Tree

Gallery (45 images): 2024 Southwest - Day 9 - Joshua Tree

While in Death Valley, we were surprised to hear that Emily's aunt and uncle, who live just south of Los Angeles, insisted we come for a visit while in southern California. So, rather than heading over to Joshua Tree National Park immediately, we cancelled one night of stay at the campground there and made the detour to drive to the coast again and stayed overnight with them. They generously made us feel right at home, gave us food to take, let us do laundry... and showering after hiking around in Death Valley was most certainly welcome as well!

The next day, after taking a few photos of their wonderful cactus garden, we drove off to Joshua Tree National Park to camp at the aptly named Jumbo Rocks Campground. We hiked around for a few hours that evening and took photos, but since we had pre-booked all of our campsites for the trip already, we couldn't linger at all. The following day was a five hour drive to our next campground east of Phoenix, Arizona, and I wanted to leave some time for the potential to sightsee along the way too.

Read: All the blog postings from my 2024 Southwest Trip

View all galleries: 2024 Southwest Trip

2024 Southwest Trip - Day 7 - Death Valley

Gallery (35 images): 2024 Southwest - Day 7 - Death Valley

After camping in Echo Canyon at a designated back-country campsite, we made our way to the Inyo Mine Ruins in the morning to photograph all the crumbling buildings. One in particular has suffered over the years that I've been visiting the ruins, and now seems in danger of imminent collapse. See photos 9, 10 & 13 in the gallery.

We drove out of Echo Canyon and made our way to the quite high Aguereberry Point, with a wonderful long view down into Death Valley. That evening we camped at the Stovepipe Wells campground and took some more night photos, with one of the Orion Nebula included at the end of the gallery.

Read: All the blog postings from my 2024 Southwest Trip

View all galleries: 2024 Southwest Trip

2026 Ottawa - Two City Walks

Gallery (40 images): 2026 Ottawa - Two City Walks

This gallery contains photos taken on two different days, one a walk in the evening to meet Emily after an event, and the other a walk along the newly reopened Ottawa River Pathway, part of the Trans-Canada Trail. It is the first time we've seen the newly revamped Cliff Energy Centre with some interesting architecture and two huge, nearly flat, mirror finished exhaust stacks that look like something out of a sci-fi movie. There was also the interesting Thunderhead memorial, part of the 2SLGBTQI+ National Monument, which is a large white tower that looks like it was attacked with an enormous ice-cream scoop, having unevenly shaped openings and an interior finished in small glass tiles. The evening light and shadows made it even more interesting.

2026: Ottawa Fireworks Finale

 Gallery (40 images): 2026 Ottawa Fireworks Finale

On August 15th, Emily and I went to see the Les Grands Feux du Casino Lac-Leamy fireworks festival finale at Kiweki Point Park in Ottawa. We only managed to get there about an hour before the fireworks started, so there were no more spots with an unobstructed view. Any spots with a direct view of the Ottawa River and the fireworks barge were taken, so after scoping out a few early teaser bursts (which Emily also helped me with since she knew the area better), I decided on a spot with some foreground trees and no crowds of people right in front of the camera. The vast majority of the fireworks were plenty high enough to see from that vantage point, and it made for a different framing than my usual. As the show progressed, the fireworks got progressively higher, so I adjusted the camera up a bit, shooting with my widest lens that I had with me. Due to the height and spread, I also decided to crop all the fireworks shots to a 5:4 aspect ratio, instead of the native 3:2 of my camera.

2026 Ottawa Summer Walks

 Gallery (20 images): 2026 Ottawa Summer Walks

The linked gallery contains photos of a few excursions Emily and I went on in late July and early August. These include a hike to Meech Lake in Gatineau Park, two photos from the patio overlooking some falls on the Mississippi river (not related to the river in the US) at a fantastic Italian restaurant in the small town of Almonte, then a bunch more while hiking around the historic Mackenzie King Estate in Gatineau Park, which include some faux abbey ruins (seen in the headline image above) that Mackenzie King had constructed as a relaxing place to meditate. The components of the ruins were taken from a variety of places, including the former Parliament building that were destroyed by fire in 1916, Mackenzie King’s grandfather’s printing shop, and even pieces of buildings of the British Parliament.

2024 Southwest Trip - Days 5 & 6 - Death Valley

Gallery (25 images): 2024 Southwest Trip - Days 5 & 6 - Death Valley

This gallery covers a few days in and around Death Valley. Driving through the Panamint Valley, we were struck by the immense carpet of yellow wildflowers in the valley. We then visited a variety of locations, including Badwater, the lowest point in the US at -282 feet below sea-level, Zabriskie Point and the Artists Palette, which takes one along large multi-coloured sandstone sections of the hills that one drives by. Sadly, the sky was a bit hazy to the west and only got worse as the evening progressed, so we did not stay for late evening/sunset light there. Lastly, we camped near the Inyo Mine ruins, and we spent some time at the ruins after dark with lovely clear skies, doing some night sky photography and light painting.

Read: All the blog postings from my 2024 Southwest Trip

View all galleries: 2024 Southwest Trip

2024 Southwest Trip - Day 3 - Alcatraz

Gallery (60 images): 2024 Southwest Trip - Day 3 - Alcatraz

This gallery is still from day three, after our walk through the city and Chinatown, but during an evening tour of Alcatraz Island (managed by the US National Park Service), and inside the well kept ruins of the infamous maximum security federal prison known as "The Rock."

I absolutely love photographing old decaying buildings, and the old prison gave many wonderful opportunities for photos with colours, textures, dramatic light & shadow as well as impactful subject matter. I shot everything handheld and the in-body image-stabilization (IBIS) of the Fujifilm X-T5 I was using was indispensable in getting sharp photos with my wide-angle prime lenses without taking the ISO up to crazy high levels. The success of these photos was instrumental in finally giving me the nudge to upgrade my X-Pro2, which did not have IBIS, and buy the X-E5 which came out in 2025 and more or less has the same image quality, IBIS and performance of the X-T5, but in a far more compact rangefinder style body. I would not have been able to get photos with the dynamic range and needed depth-of-field had I been using the X-Pro2 handheld; I definitely would have needed a tripod, and tripods are not allowed on tours there...

Read: All the blog postings from my 2024 Southwest Trip

View all galleries: 2024 Southwest Trip

Hawaii 2023 - Botanical Gardens

Gallery (50 images): Hawaii 2023 - Botanical Gardens

Somehow, I had thought that I'd already posted all of my 2023 Hawaii galleries, however I realized I had one more day to do, so...

On the second-to-last day of our Hawaii trip and honeymoon, we decided to visit the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens just north of Hilo. The variety of plant life in the lush jungle was amazing! We wandered around for several hours, marvelling at all the exotic plants and took lots of photos.

Finally, on the last day of our honeymoon, we went to an acclaimed and recommended tattoo artist in Hilo and Emily and I both got a matching Polynesian/Hawaiian sea turtle tattoo on opposite shoulders. Emily had numerous tattoos already, but it was my first. Why? Well on the first morning of our honeymoon in Kona, Emily and I went out to the rocky beach right in front of our room and saw a large sea turtle feeding in the water, close enough to touch. We watched it for maybe 10 minutes. It didn’t seem bothered by our proximity at all and we both were touched by the experience. In Hawaiian mythology, the sea turtle stands for good health, longevity, peace and tranquility, amongst other positive attributes, so we thought it a fitting symbol and a wonderful reminder of our wedding and Hawaiian honeymoon! We both felt that the tattoo artist did a wonderful job and it was interesting hearing him describe the various components of his design and their meaning...

2024 Southwest Trip - Day 3

Gallery (30 images): 2024 Southwest Trip - Day 3

This gallery has images from our walk through San Francisco's Chinatown and down to the Powell Street Cable Car Station just east of the Tenderloin district. We rode one of the famous, historic San Francisco cable cars (wikipedia link) all the way back to near Fisherman's Wharf, Hyde Street Station, so the Powell-Hyde route.

The cable cars are rotated by hand on a large turntable by two or three burly people, to change direction at the ends of their route. I have some videos of our trip on the cable car, which I will upload and link to in the future. Sadly it started raining during the cable car ride, with dimmed daylight and wet droplet covered windows, so I did not bother to take any photos. I only shot video during the ride.

Read: All the blog postings from my 2024 Southwest Trip

View all galleries: 2024 Southwest Trip

2026 - Dow's Lake Tulip Festival

 Gallery (20 images): 2026 - Dow's Lake Tulip Festival

On a sunny and warm spring weekend, Emily and I visited Dow's Lake in Ottawa for the annual Tulip Festival. It was very busy, but somehow I expected even more crowds than there were. It really didn't take long to get close to each flower bed and take photos of the tulips. There were many vendors set up as well and there was a Dutch pop-up store that sold lovely painted wooden tulips too, seen in the last photo in the gallery.

2026 - Montréal in April

Gallery (40 images): 2026 - Montréal in April

In late April, Emily and I were off to Montréal for her to attend a conference. That gave me the opportunity to wander around the city during a warm spring afternoon taking some photos in and around Old Montréal. I visited the Notre-Dame Basilica but sadly, parts of it were covered in tarps and scaffolding. It was also closed to visitors except on a guided tour. I went to the Port of Montréal docks on the St. Lawrence River and photographed the sights there, including an interesting glass viewing tower (not yet open for the season) as well as catching some views of Habitat 67 (see photo 27), a housing complex seemingly made up of random stacked cubes, built during Montréal's Expo 67 world's fair. I will have to make a point of checking it out in the future, since I suspect it will look far more interesting up close.

2024 Southwest Trip - Days 1 & 2

Gallery (55 images): 2024 Southwest Trip - Days 1 & 2

This gallery has images from the first two days of photography during my first Southwestern US trip with my wife Emily in April of 2024. There are some days where I took no photos due to lots of driving, so in this case day 2 is not the next day, but the day after next. I published a "trip highlights" blog post in May of 2024 which details the route we took, and that can be seen here...

http://www.mikemander.com/2024/05/2024-southwest-trip-highlights.html

On this trip, Fujifilm Canada was kind enough to lend me a demo X-T5 body, so my X-Pro2 acted as a backup on the trip. It was fantastic having a camera with in-body image-stabilization (IBIS) especially for our tour of Alcatraz (next blog post!), and also having a 40 megapixel sensor for landscape detail was great as well. As of August of 2025, I now have my own 40MP, IBIS equipped Fujifilm camera, the very compact X-E5, which is a fantastic camera too. So after two years, I am now finally starting to post some daily trip galleries (like this one) with more detail about all the places we visited. Since Emily and I no longer live in BC (we moved to Ottawa, Ontario as I'm sure you've noticed, based on my recent blog posts), we are unfortunately no longer able to do any easy Southwest road trips. Working on images from previous trips will then be my way of experiencing and reliving the wonderful deserts of California, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, as well as the high deserts of Oregon, all of which I greatly miss already!

On this 2024 road trip, Emily and I drove through Washington and Oregon, basically non-stop, and the first place we took some time to explore was Stout Grove in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, situated in northern California. We didn't have as much time as we had hoped, which was my fault: I accidentally forgot to pack Emily's sun hat and we decided to detour to an REI for some shopping in southern Oregon. The detour and time spent at the REI was longer that we had anticipated, and since we had booked a hotel in San Francisco with the plan of staying there for three days, we only had limited time on the drive south. The second part of the gallery has shots from San Francisco...

On our first day there, we walked from our hotel near Chinatown to the very scenic Fisherman's Wharf area, and spent the day sightseeing, visiting a few places of interest. Photos 18 to 20 show the large number of sea lions that frequent the harbour, sunning themselves on the docks. We went up on a huge Ferris wheel with enclosed cabins (thankfully since there was a very cold wind that day) and photos 29 to 32 were from up high, although the city views are a touch blurry due to being shot through less than clean glass. Photo 28 shows the ferris wheel in the distance. Next was a weird and wonderful museum of antique mechanical "arcade" machines, The Musée Mécanique, shown in photos 35 through 43 in the gallery. We also walked to the famous Ghirardelli chocolate factory, photos 47 to 51, which was founded way back in 1852.

The last photo in the gallery shows the famous steep stretch of Lombard Street from below, said to be one of the crookedest streets in America with eight tight hairpin turns in only one block! You can see all the cars backed up and descending down the hill.

Read: All the blog postings from my 2024 Southwest Trip

View all galleries: 2024 Southwest Trip

2026 - Ottawa Winterlude & Chinatown

Gallery (40 images): 2026 - Ottawa Winterlude & Chinatown

In early February, Emily and I walked over to Confederation Park one evening to view the "Winterlude" festival ice sculpture displays. Many were lit with bright, coloured LED spotlights, however a few were dark, so Emily shone one of my flashlights at those to light up the ice while I took photos, like the Artemis 2 sculpture for example. These photos were all handheld, no tripod, and once again made me very glad I am now shooting a Fujifilm X-E5 with its effective in-body image-stabilization (IBIS), since that helped me keep my ISO down to 400 or less, despite it being fully dark out.

Then, in late February, Emily and I decided to go for a chilly 10km round-trip walk to Ottawa's Chinatown where we found a very nice cupcake bakery called Thimble Bakery, where I had a fantastic Black Forest cupcake! During our walk, we actually came across a real live working phone booth, photo 35 in the gallery. We also went as far as the outskirts of Ottawa's "Little Italy" district, which seems to border on Chinatown. Later that evening we went for some excellent Chinese food in a local restaurant and then walked back home. 

2025 Ottawa - Fall Colours

Gallery (65 images): 2025 Ottawa - Fall Colours

In late October, I had the opportunity to take some photos of early fall colours in and around Ottawa during two different excursions. The first was a weekend day trip to a pair of quaint little towns to the southwest of Ottawa, one Carleton Place and the other Almonte. The other time was on a walk to the Canadian Museum of History where Emily was attending a conference. While she was at the conference, even though it was somewhat overcast, I took the opportunity to wander about and take many shots of the fall colours in the area, and walked quite a ways along the north side of the Ottawa River from the museum.

Later in the day, it cleared up for a time, and I captured some nice shots from the Alexandra Bridge, including numerous stitched panoramic images as well, which I have included below.

2025 - Canadian Museum of History

Gallery (55 images): 2025 - Canadian Museum of History

On a beautiful early fall day, Emily, her friend Emma, and I walked across the Alexandra Bridge over the Ottawa River, to spend a day visiting the wonderful Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec. It was the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and there were some special exhibits and movies being shown in honour of Indigenous peoples, in remembrance of the suffering many underwent during the horrifying time of residential schools in Canada, surely one of the worst blights on Canadian history.

The Canadian Museum of History is an absolutely beautiful building, with stacked floors exhibiting swooping organic curves and an interior that is just as fascinating with a huge variety of beautifully done exhibits. It was designed by an Indigenous architect, Douglas Cardinal, and overlooks the Ottawa River, opposite Parliament Hill.

2025 - Ottawa Arrival

Gallery (30 images): 2025 - Ottawa Arrival

At the end of summer, I arrived in Ottawa to finally join my wife Emily there, after a long 4,500km, six day drive across Canada with my 94 year old dad. Emily had started work at the National Gallery of Canada in the conservation department earlier in the year. After a brief visit, my dad flew back home to the West Coast.

While my dad was here (yes, I can say that now!), we took the opportunity to visit the Canadian Heritage Garden on the grounds of Rideau Hall, where the Governor General of Canada resides. Our first visit was just a casual walk around the grounds and above you can see my dad and Emily taking a break. The next day we figured out where the rose garden was and went there so my dad could finally see where his own hybridized rose, Canadian White Star, was planted. There is a plaque mentioning his rose, and that can be seen up close in photo 6 in the gallery.

He was moved at finally seeing his rosed named on the plaque there, although unfortunately last winter was a rough one and many roses in the garden had died. Also, most roses were already bloomed out and the map showing the exact location of the roses was a bit vague too, so we couldn't tell for sure where his roses were actually planted. Hopefully early next summer when the roses are in bloom, I'll go there and be able to positively identify where his roses are.

Canadian White Star was also featured on a Canadian postage stamp included on a souvenir sheet of Canadian bred roses back in 2001, and the official first day cover can be seen on the homepage of my dad's website (hosted on my own) and on his site, there is also an article with the story of the origins of the stamp.

The last two shots in the gallery were much more recent, a filler to make a 30 image gallery. The last shot shows some nice fall colours in the distance and my next gallery, due to be up in the next week or so, will have many more recent photos with many colourful trees!