We set off from Yuma, early as normal; sleep is for when you get home!
We drove along the Mexican border and you could see the border fence along the side of the road. My phone was confused as I even got a “Welcome to Mexico” text even though we didn’t cross over!
This is the desert!
It was so nice to have sun after a UK grey winter. It was pleasant 70s in Arizona, a bit cooler in California and down right cold in Texas, I may as well have been back in the UK!
We arrived at Tehachapi to the sound of silence… and a work crew in the distance. Alas, no trains.
I settled for taking some arty-ish photos.
Mike features yet again!
This one’s actually from the car park of the Best Western at Cajon Pass.
As you can guess, after Tehachapi we headed for Cajon Pass, another rail fanning hot spot. Again, not so hot for us! The longshoremen were on strike at LA which meant few trains for us. We caught a couple in the evening when we got there:
It’s a bit blurry, apparently, I need to not be scared of boosting my ISO (although this is 1600!)
I wanted to do some more arty photos – spot who got a new camera! These are longer exposures showing trains as snakes through the countryside.
The red light is the FRED flashing.
The guys were then kind enough to hang around whilst I practiced taking some light trail photos of cars lights. It was a bit hit and miss as I was using my timer to avoid camera blur and sometimes the car would be gone by the time the camera started the photo!
Here’s what they came out like when I stacked a few together. First up was a HDR of the sunset with a small light trail in there:
Here’s the California road in both directions. Really cool and it encouraged me to go on a night time photography course in Birmingham which was great fun.
oooh how I envy you.