Beautiful Bokeh

More Roadside Attractions

~brf

1880 Town:  Surprise hit!  We had never even heard of this one; when we encountered it in the middle of nowhere it looked unimpressive and we would not have stopped had we not been hungry and looking for a way to photograph the ‘man walking dinosaur’ sculpture on the side of the freeway without actually pulling over on I-90.  (There isn’t a way.)   1880 Town is a fantastic collection of authentic late 1800s buildings and relics.  Most structures are remarkably well-preserved, some having been trucked in from all over the state. Visitors are encouraged to enter the buildings to check out the period-appropriate surroundings (and in some cases, the actual original contents from that exact home or barbershop or saloon).   We bought sarsaparilla from a guy with a handlebar mustache and drank it in the cool comfort of the saloon while a pretty girl sang cowboy songs on stage.  There is also a sizable museum of ‘Dances With Wolves’ set props and memorabilia, as the movie people rented quite a lot of artifacts from the proprietor to make their sets authentic.  That wasn’t so interesting to us so we skipped that bit, but there is a ton of awesome cowboy and rodeo memorabilia crammed into every inch of the main building that was worth poking around in.

Incongruously, there is a ‘50s Santa Fe Train Diner on the premises.  Burgers were passable, but we were starving.
http://www.1880town.com/

“Have you ever experienced a place where the laws of nature seem to have gone completely berserk?  Cosmos Mystery Area. See it. Feel it.  SURVIVE IT.”  Oh, hell yes were were stopping here.  Weirdly, our first attempt at locating Cosmos was a bust:  Charlotte, our GPS, had the attraction in her list of POI, but guided me repeatedly to the same little row of Stepford houses no matter how many times I verified the address.  Could Cosmos’ power extend to scrambling GPS signals?  We finally found a Cosmos brochure in a Rapid City pub, and we followed its ambiguous squiggly line map until we found actual road signs pointing us in the right direction.  Some enterprising college boys constructed a cleverly-built cabin on a wooded hillside and started charging people for demonstrations of the area’s "awesome power".  Water flows uphill, strong men are reduced to weaklings while tiny women seem to have boundless strength, people change height, and things just look weird.  I love these places.  Pressed penny machine was broken, sadly.  http://www.cosmosmysteryarea.com/

Reptile Gardens:  It was for this one attraction that I absolutely put my foot down and insisted we visit.  I remember it being a glorious showcase of creepy and interesting things, and thirty years later it does not disappoint.  The same family has owned and operated it for its entire 70+ years.  They’ve made some really great improvements since my last visit (updated facilities for the animals, no longer permitting children to ride the giant tortoises) but none of the roadside attraction charm has been lost.  There is still a huge pit of dozens of alligators, crocodiles and caymans that mostly lay motionless, piled in what looks like the most boring reptile orgy ever.  Sometimes one will endeavor to heave his bulk over all his friends to get to the pool, which occasionally elicits a hiss from some gator who has been trod upon too heavily.  The dome houses hundreds of varieties of exotic plants, snakes, lizards and frogs, plus a seriously big-ass crocodile named ‘Maniac’, who, at about 16 feet long and 1200 pounds, is among the top three largest in the world.  The story and photos describing Maniac’s transport from Sydney to Rapid City are amazing. 
http://www.reptilegardens.com

Roadside Attractions: South Dakota

~brf

I love roadside attractions.  All kinds.  Back in June when we began planning our road trip to the badlands, CW was the very model of patience and understanding as I sent link after link of ridiculous Americana panoply  that we simply HAD to see on our trip.  Luckily, Interstate 90 in South Dakota hosts a vast majority of this type of thing so it was pretty easy to screech to a halt whenever we chose. Some of these places I had visited 30 years ago, in an RV while on a Griswold-style family Adventure Across America.  I was surprised and thrilled to discover that some attractions were virtually unchanged since my last visit; particularly the Reptile Gardens (totally freaking awesome) and the Petrified Gardens (creepier than I remember).

With regard to Wall Drug:  Monumental let-down.  It’s not much more than a series of micro-stores selling all manner of horrid souvenirs and some arguably useful but undoubtedly overpriced items such as sun-showers and wine keys (the latter being something I was grateful to have found amongst the snow globes and crappy tshirts).  What they DO have is a good collection of pressed penny machines, a huge tyrannosaurus rex that activates every 15 minutes or so complete with flashing eyes and  Mesozoic mist, a really creepy animatronic cowboy band, and a giant concrete rabbit. http://www.walldrug.com/

 

The Petrified Garden was a place I was very much looking forward to.  My dad was a major rock hound and I have many fond childhood memories of sifting through trays of pyrite, jasper, opals, quartz and other shiny bits.  I remembered the Gardens as a vast playground of amazing fossils, minerals, petrified logs, geodes etc.  I didn’t remember the really cranky proprietor who clearly thought we were up to no good, nor did I recall the curiously religious tone the place had. Weird mashup of  “look at these beautiful million year old ammonite fossils’ and, um... a lesson on what has transpired in the 10,000 years between Creation and Today.  Can someone explain the deal with ‘clean’ vs. ‘unclean’ animals on the ark?  http://www.badlandspetrifiedgardens.com/

Corn Palace:  Not much more than a small stadium/entertainment venue with corn cobs in intricate designs hammered to the outside.  It used to be much more impressive judging from the photo gallery inside; there were pictures taken almost every year beginning in the early 1900s. Used to be a completely wooden structure, the exterior of which was fully redecorated each year using a variety of colors and sizes of corn cobs.  Turns out the city finally figured a wooden building encased in dried corn cobs *might* be a fire hazard, so some time in the ‘20s they rebuilt it for safety leaving a few open spaces for the cob murals. Best things about the Corn Palace was the mind-blowing frozen lemonade, the poster advertising Rick Springfield’s upcoming show, and the bizarre carved characters seated on benches with whom you could have your photo taken but aren't supposed to touch. They were both missing their thumbs. http://www.cornpalace.org/

I miss Zeppelins

I'm not sure what it is about them, but when they weren't exploding violently Zeppelins were seriously bad-ass. I wish there were a way to see what the world would be like if they had evolved to become a mature, more luxurious (if slower) alternative to jets, docking at the empire state building and all that. I don't care what you thought about that Skycaptain movie, that opening scene was amazing. I would honestly pay more for a slower-but-way-more-awesome luxury zeppelin ride across the atlantic if I could. Our friend Dante is an even bigger Zeppelin fan and today he showed us his private Zeppelin museum which was incredible. It's full of scale models and blueprints and all kinds of zeppelin artifacts, and he even has some pieces from the Hindenburg.

One thing I learned today was that some of the bigger zeppelins were like flying aircraft carriers. Well I guess they literally were in that they flew and carried aircraft. They had an internal hangar that contained biplanes (sometimes even without landing gear) which could be launched and return to the ship. How cool is that?

Whip Practice in the Heat

Today we had whip practice outdoors in a park which was in some ways really great because with my long arms I sometimes hit the ceiling pipes at our practice theater. But it was really hot too and so we ended up cutting it kind of short. There was a new family who came and it was fun watching Dante show their adorable kids how to get their first crack. The first time is pretty exciting I don't care how old you are. They also found out that it's possible to hurt yourself too but they took it really well and I think had a great time. I'm sure we'll see them again.

At one point target girl tina showed Brenda how to crack-wrap a stick, and then her arm (!!) and I HAD to get some of that. After a while I figured it out too and she surprised me by moving a little more to the side and extending her finger. I crack-wrapped her finger on the second try and felt like a god damn superhero. No pics of that 'cause I was doing it, not shooting it.

Paaaaaaaancaaaaaakes!!!!

The homeless in Minneapolis rule. It's hard to generalize something like that but the word 'rule' is pretty vague so I kind of feel justified. Anyway we were on our way home from brunch and met a really cool couple of guys who were just back from recycling cans. We chatted with the one in the dress for a while, (s)he was a LOT less shy and had a lot to say about her shoes and how big an asset they were with the can stomping process earlier. She also put on an awesome demonstration of either her kung fu abilities or a really violent dance routine, not sure which.

Cycling the Badlands

After quite a bit of research, I took two bikes with us to the Badlands: A cyclocross bike and my mountain bike. I knew that the main hiking trails in the park are off limits to bikes but that (1) the dirt roads are all fair game, and (2) riding is allowed in a good half of the park (the "South Unit") but I'd read it was more...well, brutal, than the other half: hence the mountain bike. What I didn't realize though, until the Ranger at the park explained it to me, was that not only are there no road or trail entrances into the south unit, but it's also impossible (almost) to enter that area without crossing private land or an indian reservation. It's still possible to get in, you just have to gain permission from an owner (and they have a list of them). Some warnings though, if you try to go riding in there....it used to be used by the Air Force for practice bombing runs and there are spent shells but also some unexploded shells still lying around. Also, NOBODY goes in there, so make sure somebody knows your flight path in case you get lost, and bring lots of water. And watch out for cliffs. The Rohloff hub performed spectacularly on it's first real I-will-die-if-you-break test. The only time I had an issue (I thought I had lost half my speeds) it turned out that when I replaced the rear wheel, I hadn't fully hand-tightened the screw on the Rohloff thingy that you're supposed to fully hand-tighten when you put the replace the rear wheel. Once I did that I was golden again.

Oh and I replaced the rear wheel a lot. Bring lots of tubes. The thorns out there are mean as hell.

One awesome feature of the whole area though is the ancient cars and stuff that the desert has reclaimed. Pre-dustbowl, the area attracted lots of settlers who were excited about the cheap land but disappointed to discover the land was, well, "bad." As a result you can run across some pretty cool stuff. The whole trip we had pretty bad luck with weather during the golden hours, but even though I was riding in the middle of the day in bad lighting at least it wasn't storming, so I took my little D40 with me in a little backpack (along with extra water). Some of my nicer shots ended up from the lil' guy. I guess sometimes luck trumps technology.

The cyclocrossing on the dirt roads turned out to be a bit tedious by comparison, although the scenery was still quite spectacular—especially on the (paved) loop road.

Badlands Brutalism

When I was studying architecture, one of my favorite styles was one that was really unpopular with all my fellow students: Brutalism. I liked the fact that those buildings had surfaces that looked like they would cut you if you touched them, but were simultaneously beautiful and inviting. I guess whatever part of my brain that draws me to that sort of thing is why I love the Badlands of South Dakota so much. It's hard to imagine more brutal terrain, but to my eyes it's also absolutely beautiful and other-worldly. Even the plant life that is badass enough to survive there has the same don't-mess-with-me look to it.

Thankless Speedwork: Domestic Pros in MPLS

Being a pro bike racer in Europe is one of the hardest jobs in the world. The doping scandals over the past several years have made it even tougher still. But at least in Europe the compensation is still good, the race locations are still sexy, the crowds are still big, and the admiration is still there.

But being a domestic pro in the US, even at the top level is almost as hard physically but they get little money, little love, and have to race on a lot of really boring roads. I don't know how they do it.

Recently the domestic pro peloton came to Minnesota's biggest race, the Nature Valley Grand Prix, and Brenda and I watched these guys turn themselves inside-out on the downtown Minneapolis streets. I hope most of the crowd understood just how impressive the show was.

Everybody seemed fascinated with the bad boys of Rock Racing though, especially David Clinger's facial tattoo.

New Favourite Photo

~brf

Perhaps the best CW photo in circulation.

Leica! Leica! Leica!

~brf

CW has been really wanting to upgrade his Nikon body to a D3 or D300 (don’t ask me what the difference is other than a few grand). While we were visiting his parents in Tanzania, his dad Charles took a keen interest in CW’s photography magazines brought along for the trip. One morning we awoke to find that he had evidently been up all night reading and researching the assorted pros and cons of both the D3 and D300, and before even a “Good morning” he declared “Chris, you should buy the 300 and use the money you save to get a Leica for Brenda”. I must have the best in-laws ever; I swear I had no hand in this whatsoever. End result: Leica for me! The whole tale involves some ingenious furtive planning on CW’s part to keep me from pitching a fit over yet another sizeable gear purchase as well as some impressive sneaking on the Leica acquisition itself, but as the whole thing is very complicated I won’t elaborate (not to mention that although I am absolutely certain that the wool has somehow been pulled over my eyes on this matter, I have yet to fully understand how exactly he got away with it).

It’s a model IIIa with a serial number indicating a production date of 1937, and came with an uncoated 5cm Wetzlar Summitar lens. This camera is gorgeous. Perfect. I can’t believe it’s over 70 years old. It works beautifully, fits my hands better than any other camera I own, and the sound of the shutter tripping makes the hairs stand up on my arm. So many reasons to love:

It has historical significance: The Leica screw-mounts were of monumental importance both in photojournalism and in establishing 35mm as a legitimate format.
It has a high difficulty rating: Loading is a bitch to get the hang of. Seriously. You need patience, faith, and scissors.
It’s portable: Being small or medium-format, all my cameras are portable but this one with its collapsible lens slips into a pocket almost as handily as the Perkeo.
It’s a rangefinder: Clear, flawless, smooth focusing.
It’s a looker: Chrome, chrome, chrome, and badass, hyper-precise machined bits all over the place.
Its a 70 year old Leica: Huge elitist pride factor here.
It makes great pictures: Still in the getting-to-know-each-other phase, but early results are awesome.

I love this camera the way I love my Thunderbird- with a curious, illogical, ill-defined affection and visceral pride that extends into a longing for its safety. When I fly, I hold the Leica in my hand for takeoff and landing because I think it will be safer there than stowed in my carryon in the event of a water landing or other untoward airline event. Also like my car, it has a name. I will not disclose it.

I must admit I do miss the monster 6x6 negatives, but because the little Leica rubs so many of my other camera love buttons I am sure I’ll have no trouble embracing small format.