Leon Turnbull Photography

On our way down to Disneyland we first stopped off for a couple days at Joshua Tree National Park. The first night there we had a pretty darn nice sunset, but unfortunately we were not in a great “scenic” location. This was taken from the Indian Cove area, where we hiked along a loop before sunset. I wasn’t happy about the location (and my composition in particular), but the sunset colors more than made up for it. This was the only decent photo I took at Joshua Tree. It is my own fault, I should have made more of an effort there, but we did other things instead. I really liked the park and the desert, it is incredibly interesting. I was hoping to see more wildlife, however. The most interesting thing we saw was a jack rabbit, and that was on the first evening here (when I took this shot). We spent the entire next day wandering around the park, seeing the sites, and hiking the easy trails. I think everyone (kids included) really liked the desert and the park. They loved climbing around on the rocks and exploring beside the trails. By the end of that day I was totally beat. We got back to the hotel, I took a nap, and ended up missing a second nice colorful sunset. That did not make me too happy. The third evening we tried for a sunset shot, but the clouds rolled in an hour before the sun went down, and it was a washout. Bummer-ness!

I went hiking after work last night down to Folsom Lake. Not for the sunset. I am trying to lose some more weight, and I figure I need to do more than just one hike per week (on Saturday). It is very difficult to do any sort of exercise after work during the week, since I get home so late. But I am going to try to start doing something at least a few days a week. Going down to Folsom Lake at the old Salmon Falls bridge is an easy but good little hike.

I did take my camera with me (and I plan to keep doing this now, of course!). The sunset initially looked like it would be a wash, nothing at all. There were a lot of thick clouds in the sky. I almost left my tripod in the car. I arrived down at the bridge, which is usually under water, but with the lake being low right now, it is showing. It was sunset time. I did not take my camera out of the bag. I waited. The sky started getting redder. Camera is still in bag. And redder. Still watching. And redder. Now I’m getting intrigued. And redder. Out pops the camera. It was well after sunset by this time, but I quickly setup and took a couple shots. I was definitely not expecting such a sunset, but it was pretty darn sweet. Thanks, Lord.

Well, since I struck out on my waterfall hike last weekend, and since this next weekend I will not be able to go out hiking at all (as my wife has a karate seminar), I was in a bit of a quandary. The waterfalls were rushing. How could I get out to see them? The solution I came up with … go out after work during the week. That meant I had to go someplace close by. Dutch Creek Falls was the decision, and it turned out to be a good one.

I got hold of my friend Rob at the last minute, and he was up for it. Cool. So at 5PM, we met up at Coloma ready to head out in the very hot weather on our hike.

Dutch Creek Falls is such an amazing place. Four fantastic waterfalls in one place, two of them being about 100 ft. high and falling side by side into a beautiful and rugged canyon, with steep dropoffs all around. I definitely would have to say that these are the best waterfalls in the greater Sacramento area. They do not flow in the summer, but in the winter it is a stunning location. And they are sure flowing right now. After an incredible March, we are now at 170 percent of normal snowpack. We are going to be in for one heckuva spring waterfall season.

Anyway, in short order Rob and I battled our way through the ticks up to the waterfall. I led the way, of course, swatting away hundreds of them with my hiking pole from the grasses hanging over the trail. Rob still owes me a beer for doing that. Once at the falls, we decided to go up to the top, and try to cross the creek above Johntown Creek Falls. Johntown Creek Falls was raging. How would we cross? Well, as it turned out it was not as difficult as I imagined it would be. The water was deep, up to my thighs, but it was calm enough to cross without difficulty. Rob had a little more trouble as he had to cross in his bare feet, and as he puts it, he is a “tender foot”. Fortunately, I brought my water shoes in anticipation of such a crossing. We worked our way down to Dutch Creek and Johntown Creek Falls on the other side, Rob going the mountain goat way (down the  cliff), and I going the easier way (steep but less treacherous). Johntown was very misty so we just took a quick shot there, then went over to Dutch Creek and spent most of our time there, and eventually waiting around for sunset. There were some nice wispy clouds over the valley, and the sunset was absolutely gorgeous. It was amazingly beautiful, standing beside a fabulous waterfall, looking across the canyon at a gorgeous sunset.

After this, of course we had to hike back down. In the dark. We tried to hurry, crossing back above Johntown Falls. I did not want to climb down the cliff on the other side in the dark, but by the time we got there, it was already fairly dark. It was not really too bad though, as we both had headlamps. We walked pretty fast back to the car, and I think because of this I managed to wrench my  back again. I was in severe pain the next day. I certainly do not recall doing anything in particular, it must just have been that I was hurrying too much and straining it on the hike back. We also almost got waylaid by a skunk on the way back, which was rather interesting. I was in the lead, and as I looked ahead I noticed a small black animal running up the trail ahead of us. I could not see any white on it. Was it a skunk? A racoon? maybe a house cat? (there were houses in the area). What was it? Rob decided to follow it into the bushes for some odd reason. Then all of a sudden he is yelling at me. “Leon run away! Run away! It is a skunk. And it has its tail up!”. Well, fortunately we managed to avoid getting sprayed. And we also managed to avoid getting tick bites as well. Now where is my beer, Mr. Macklin?

More info on Dutch Creek Falls:
http://waterfallswest.com/waterfall.php?id=459

This is a sunset we saw at the Monterey coast. It was nothing very spectacular. In fact, it really bombed. This was the most color that I witnessed and it did not last very long. At first though, the sunset seemed quite promising. We were going back to our motel from the day’s outing, and the clouds looked not too bad, so I suggested to my wife that we go down to the beach for sunset. She was all game for that of course. So while the kids played on the beach, I was off to take pictures. I decided to walk up on the dunes overlooking the beach and ocean and settled on this spot. Another photographer had this plan also, and he also agreed with me that the sunset bombed that night. Oh well.

In the meantime, my wife and kids found about a “million” dead jellyfish on the beach. I did not see them as I was up on the dunes, but she said it was very odd. It was also around this day that a large number of fish had washed up on shore south of here. And interestingly enough, this was the day before the big earthquake in Japan. Was this all a coincidence? I wonder.