Dan's North American Journey

[DHC6twinotter]

Just for you Shane :

[img width=800 height=600]http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm233/DHC6twinotter/Road%20Trip%20Favorites/IMG_3809.jpg[/img]

[Seanz0rz]

you're killing us Dan! we need updates!

hope you are well!

[DHC6twinotter]

Post 3: Illinois to Wisconsin

The clutch was slipping, and the smoke was evidence of that. I really wish I would have been able to get the clutch replaced before I left. I tried to take it easy the rest of the way, but I could smell the clutch burning on a few of the long climbs. As much as I love mountain driving, I was pretty happy to finally make it though Maryland and West Virginia.


Wind Turbines in IL

Between Indianapolis and Chicago, I passed seemingly hundreds, if not thousands, of wind turbines. They were dotting the landscape as far as I could see in either direction. They weren't some rinky-dink turbine either...these were huge! I was pretty blown away.


In Wheeling, IL, I attended the Brickworld LEGO convention. There were some pretty impressive displays:


LEGO Village and Castle


LEGO Cathedral



Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader two sided Mosiac--Anakin Skywalker when viewed from the left and Darth Vader when viewed from the right.


Two LEGO Technic models build by yours truly.

[DHC6twinotter]

Post 4: Union, IL

From the LEGO convention, I drove over to Union, IL to visit the Illinois Railway Museum. Supposedly, this is the largest train museum in the United States, and maybe the world.






The above picture is GE turbine locomotive. Only two remain. Built in 1960, this locomotive has a 850hp diesel engine and cab in the forward unit, the turbine and generators in the 2nd unit, and fuel oil for the turbine in the 3rd unit. The diesel engine is used for low speed movement and starting the turbine.

[DHC6twinotter]

Post 5: Wisconsin

From Union, Illinois, I drove up to Oshkosh, Wisconsin. I had a couple weeks to spare, so I decided to go Oshkosh and do a bit of volunteer prep work for the AirVenture Fly-In. This turned out really nice, and I was given a place to stay in an old farm house, and free food on weekends.

The farm house had a couple other volunteers staying there. When I stepped through the back door and into the kitchen, Bud was the first person I met. He is a large guy with a long white beard. Reminded me of Santa Clause. He was drinking a gallon of chocolate milk, and using two fingers, he was eating some kind of bacon flavored dip straight from the jar.

While there, I painted this:


Paint Project

What did I get myself into?! The building was a pain to paint. All the vertical groves in the siding had to be painted with a brush. Took forever! After 2.5 days of painting, I was really happy to finally be done painting....or so I thought.

Then they asked me to paint the interior. I figured it was probably sheetrock and couldn't be that bad. I was wrong. The interior had the same vertical siding as the outside, only this time, they wanted a three tone paint job. Brown on the bottom half, white on the top, and a beige chair railing. Yay! I'm far too meticulous of a painter to ever be efficient at it. After 8 days, I was glad to finally be done. Oh, on my last day of working in 90+ degree heat, they told me the AC worked, despite all the electrical work and bare wires hanging out everywhere.

During the paint job, I was treated with the occasional sound of a Bassler Turbine DC-3, the jet engine on a Saber, and the sound of radial engines.


Many hacked up VW Bugs are used for various purposes during the airshows, but mostly for flight-line operations. They've become an icon at the airshow.


Scooters donated by Honda

On my last day, I managed to visit the EAA Museum. This is a surprisingly great museum with many rare aircraft, and I especially liked the radial engine "shop" they had.


Space Ship 1


Buggati Racer. This plane was powered by two Buggati V12 engines mounted behind each other in the rear. Power was transferred to the counter-rotating prop via two drive shafts that ran along either side of the cockpit.


Whitman Airport Control Tower. During the week of AirVenture, this control tower is the busiest in the world. To handle the amount of flights coming in for the show, 3 airplanes land simultaneously on the same runway. There are various colored dots on the runway for pilots to "aim" for. There are a total of 2 paved runways, 2 grass strips, plus a seaplane base a few miles away. It's crazy!

All my hard work was rewarded with a flight in a 1927 Travel Air. The open cockpit flight was amazing, and I love the sound of the 7 cylinder radial engine.

[DHC6twinotter]

I need to hurry up and get you all updated so I can start posting new stuff. The last few days have been awesome, and I managed to get some great pictures.

Let me know if I'm posting too many pictures. Also, I'm still learning photography, so if anybody has any suggestions about how I can improve, please let me know.

I'll post more updates in the morning.

[Obi..]

Cool pics and trip info man. As far as photo tips, Rule of 3rds, lead your shots into the movement, use the golden hours, don't be afraid to experiment, take more shots than you need to, and never second guess the shot. Do that and it'll all work out. The composure and framing of that one train from between the cars is my favorite so far.

Oh yeah, last tip, you'd be surprised what you can fix in a digital editor or even completely tweak into something better than you ever thought of.

~Editing dropping the exposure and upping the saturation https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-_...0/IMG_0060.JPG
~Experimenting and not doubting yourself (also how to risk your camera going swimming ) https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-C...0/IMG_0039.JPG
~Experimenting and changing what I thought was a completely ruined shot because of all the smoke from the Tahoe fires into an amazing pic just by upping the contrast and upping the saturation, saving, and repeating in different forms to get this https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-I...s-Panorama.jpg

[DHC6twinotter]

Thanks, Shane. I have been playing around with color saturation and making various tweaks to some of the photos. All the train pictures have had the the color saturation turned up.

Unless I'm shooting through the windshield, I've been using my DSLR. I'm still learning how to use it, but for most landscape shots, I leave the aperture between 18-22 and the ISO around 100-200. I don't know if that's correct or not. Many of the pictures, when shot with overhead sunlight, appear to be a bit over exposed. I need to experiment with shutter speeds a bit more as well.

[DHC6twinotter]

Northern Wisconsin

While in Wisconsin, I decided to drive up to the tip of the "thumb".


Light house on the shore of Lake Michigan. Algoma, WI.


Feed store in Algoma, WI.

I found a road that weaved its way along the shore of Lake Michigan. I really didn't know where I was going, but I figured it would be difficult to get lost on a narrow peninsula.


Shore of Lake Michigan

On this winding road, I found Cave Point County Park. This place was really awesome, but I really wish I could have seen it in the early morning sunlight.


Cave Point County Park, Wisconsin

As I followed the road up a bit more, I rounded a bend and was surprised at what I saw. Ford Model A's! Lots of them! As it turns out, here in the middle of nowhere, there was Model A gathering. Way cool.


Model A gathering

Then I reached the tip of the peninsula. There's a ferry that runs over to Washington Island, but I was running low on fuel and daylight, so I had to turn back.


Tip of the Wisconsin "thumb"

Then I headed down the Green Bay side of the Peninsula. This side of the Peninsula was dotted by neat little bay side town.

I passed a neat looking barn with graffiti painted all over it. Turns out that years ago, boaters would sign their name on the building whenever they came to port. The city continues this tradition and lets anybody sign their name.


Anderson Warehouse Graffiti


Sunset over Green Bay

On the way up, I passed this place.


Pooh Soon? I caught a blimps of the sign as I was passing by. What's Pooh Soon? I thought maybe it was a pharmacy that specialized in laxatives, but that would be odd. As I drove by again for a second look and a picture, I realized it was some kind of Thai restaurant. Pooh soon indeed!

[Obi..]

*Done on a mac, not sure how well this will show on a screen for a pc.