Welcome to Friday Night Photos everyone. Your once a week break from the daily madness of the crazy world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music, or whatever else you find of interest that helps you escape the madness.

It's been sunny and 70s all week so I took advantage of the nice weather and went to the zoo for a few hours on Mon. and Thur. morning. It's always hit or miss on how active the animals are. Both mornings were a hit this week.

Each morning when the zoo opens they have a flyby of Macaws. This Blue and Yellow Macaw was from yesterday's flyby.

Welcome to Friday Night Photos everyone. Your once a week break from the daily madness of the crazy world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music, or whatever else you find of interest that helps you escape the madness.

Last week we went to Egypt. This week we will be staying closer to home. In fact we will be going to a home. The uniquely strange and mysterious home of Sarah Winchester known as the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, Ca. There are a lot of strange tales about Sarah Winchester and the house. I don't know how many are true and how many are made up. Here's a link to its wiki page where you can read all about Sarah and her mysterious house.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_Mystery_House

A few statistics about the house. It's 24,000 sq ft in size and has 10,000 windows, 2,000 doors, 160 rooms, 52 skylights, 47 stairways and fireplaces, 17 chimneys, 13 bathrooms, 6 kitchens and cost $5 million ($71m in today's dollars) to build.

Along with the shot of the outside of the house I've included images of six of the rooms as shot and a version of each of those after editing with tone mapping software.

Welcome to Friday Night Photos everyone. Your once a week break from the daily madness of the crazy world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music, or whatever else you find of interest that helps you escape the madness.

One of my stops while traveling was at the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose. The museum is sometimes referred to as the mummy museum since it is devoted to ancient Egypt. Items on display are a mix of ancient Egyptian artifacts and more modern art depicting Egyptian rulers, deities, and Egyptian life.

North side of the building and meditation garden. The museum was constructed in ancient Egyptian architectural style.

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One of the photo stops I made while I was in the Bay Area was at the Blackhawk Museum in Danville. When the museum opened in 1988 it was devoted exclusively to the automobile, but over the last ten years the menu has expanded to include exhibits of African art, Chinese art, the American West, and nature.
Tonight's menu item is the American West. The exhibit is split into two halves. One half is devoted to the Plains Indians and the other half to the white settlers. From a visual perspective I didn't find much of interest on the pale face half of the exhibit so all but the last photo are from the Plains Indian side, which I found to be more interesting.

Chiefs Headdress

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Earlier this month I went on a road trip to the San Francisco Bay Area for a family get together. The drive there, though long (8.5 hrs), went smooth most of the way. As is often the case, the traffic gods imposed the slow crawl toll to get through L. A. adding an extra hour of drive time. The rest of the drive was a breeze.
I had a wonderful time. It was great seeing family. Beautiful weather and a little time to get out with the camera while there added icing to the cake.
First up in the travelogue is a drive through 17-Mile Drive in Monterey, home to some of the most scenic coastline in Ca, 8 golf courses, and some really expensive homes.

The Ghost Cypress

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Just got back from a week on the road and haven't had time to go through all the photos I took (500+), so until next Friday, lets go surfing.
These are from last month when I went to the Wavecrest woodie meet in Encinitas. After photographing the cars I changed the wide lens for a long lens and spent a little time photographing the surfers. There were a lot of surfers in the water that morning but not much surf.
Last but not least, thanks to Captain Q for hosting in my absence last Friday. Nice shots of the northern lights.

Welcome to Friday Night Photos everyone. Your once a week break from the daily madness of the crazy world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music, or whatever else you find of interest that helps you escape the madness.

I picked up a new lens for wildlife photography last week and took it for a test drive Monday at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park and Tuesday at the San Diego Zoo. Photography wise it was a great day for the big cats at both the zoo and safari park. For all the other critters, large or small, not so much. To paraphrase Forrest Gump, "The zoo and safari park are like a box of Chocolates. You never know what you'll get".
I'm headed to the SF Bay Area for a family get together next week and won't be able to host FNP next Friday night. For any of you that have always dreamed of hosting FNP, now's your chance.

Sumatran Tiger

Welcome to Friday Night Photos everyone. Your once a week break from the daily madness of the crazy world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music, or whatever else you find of interest that helps you escape the madness.

Last Saturday morning I took a drive north up the coast to Encinitas for the 44th annual Wavecrest Woodie meet. Weather wise it was a nice morning. Temps in the upper 60s and overcast skies providing nice diffused lighting. Not as many cars this year as there was last year, but still a nice selection of Woodies, some that I had seen before and some that were new.

Welcome to Friday Night Photos everyone. Your once a week break from the daily madness of the crazy world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music, or whatever else you find of interest that helps you escape the madness.

In 1975 the city of San Diego built a velodrome (a track for cycling) in the northeast corner of Balboa Park. I figured since I've lived in San Diego or surrounding cities since 1977 it was about time to go check it out. Races are held Tuesday and Friday nights. Already having a regular Friday night online gig, I went last Tuesday night.
The track is a 333m banked oval. For those that don't do metric (raising my hand), 333m converts to 1092 ft or 1/5 of a mile. The bikes are single speed constant drive, which means the size of the front and rear sprockets determine top speed and unlike the bike you ride around the block on, there is no coasting/neutral. If the rear wheel is spinning, the pedals are turning.

Welcome to Friday Night Photos everyone. Your once a week break from the daily madness of the crazy world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music, or whatever else you find of interest that helps you escape the madness.

Well, after a week of triple digit temps things finally cooled off on Wednesday. The last two days have been in the low to mid 80s with a mild breeze, dropping to the upper 50s at night. The 7 day forecast calls for more of the same. Infinitely better.

On Tuesday the camera club had its monthly outing in Coronado, a spit of land in the San Diego bay with a land bridge (the Silver Strand) running south to Imperial Beach at the south end of the bay, and a man made bridge (Coronado bridge) going east to San Diego. Coronado is an odd mix of a famous hotel (Hotel del Coronado where the movie Some Like It Hot was filmed), multi million dollar beach and bay front homes, a lot of trendy shops, and 2 navy bases (one of which I worked at for 20 years).

$600-1500 for a one night stay at the Hotel del Coronado