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Thirsty Thursday: Beauty is all around us

Rambler: Terry Drink in Hand: 2007 Le Mistral (quite possible one of the best red wines around)

What can I say this week. . . it's been a rough week. We both seem a bit overly busy and can make progress on the little things that are supposed to be easy and quick but it seems like the bigger (maybe more important) things seem to elude us (me). Perhaps both of us have stretched ourselves a bit too thin, or maybe we need to manage time better. Most of these issues are at work, but keeping them separate from everything else is always tough. A delicate balance of work and real life. To complicate things, we also have a dear friend fighting perhaps her final battle with cancer. Through all the noise this week, our hearts and hopes are with her and her family. Sometimes it feels like you want to lock yourself away from the world and wait for it (whatever it is) to pass. Thinking about these things makes me appreciate the little things a little bit more. The music you listen to while driving to work, the feeling you get from a good run or workout, the good food and drink you share with friends (the tomatoes, the wine, the fish, the ice cream...), the dog that always makes you smile, the falling asleep next to that one person you always fall asleep next to. I think I could probably keep going, but for this short post, it's the walking around a city (Portland, OR) with a camera finding the things that most people just pass by. So, instead of locking yourself away from it all, go find those average things and take them in. Take it all in. Time is against all of us. Go enjoy.

Thirsty Thursday: Veggies

Rambler: Terry Drink in Hand: 2010 Montoya Pinot Noir

Not a lot to say this week. It was suppose to be a regular week, but all I can seem to do is think about wandering around Portland. Here's a few shots from the Portland farmer's market...which I wandered around for about three hours while I was there. The produce was awesome!

Massey Monday: Locked Up

Massey locked up in a bike rack while I went exploring the streets Portland. Don't worry, she had a great view of the squirrels!

Okay, so I actually didn't leave her, but she was definitely content to just stand there for about 10 min while I took a few shots of her.

Thirsty Thursday: Ft Ord Stroll

Rambler: BethDrink at Hand: 2005 Mission Trail Vineyards Friar's Reserve Garnacha (local Monterey County wine at its best!)

Thirsty Thursday here again! Time to pour something yummy (we certainly did) and make those weekend plans. This week I recap a backyard adventure.

A few weeks back I ran the Salinas Valley half-marathon. After turning in a personal worst 1/2 marathon time, I decided that Sunday needed to be a recovery day. Unfortunately, Massey doesn't understand recovery days, so she still needed to go out for an activity. We are pretty spoiled to have the seemingly endless trails of Ft Ord Public Lands less than 5 minutes away, so its not too much effort to get the dog out for some quality exercise. Since I wasn't running, I grabbed the camera, slapped on the 180mm macro lens, and off we went!

Terry and I shoot most often with zoom lenses as they give us the most versatility when we are out and about. The only prime lens we own is the 180mm macro, but I wish we had a few more...I love the crispy sharp images and distinctive depth of field that you can only get with a prime. One of these days...

Get out and find your own adventure in your backyard this weekend!

Massey Monday: My Shoes!

I'm not sure of my new shoes. I kind of like them. They are red. Well, I really only like them when I'm running over sharp rocks...or a distance of less than a mile or so. Anything over a mile, or about a mile and a half, I'll just sit down in the middle of the trail and refuse to move until someone helps me take them off. I mean, come on, a mile, that's a long way!

Thirsty Thursday: Not Too Shabby

Rambler: BethDrink at Hand: 2004 Parrot Ranch Cab Sav

Welcome back for another edition of Thirsty Thursday...time to pour something yummy and make those weekend plans. Last weekend was a pretty good one here at Welliver Photography, mainly because we weren't so much "here" as we were "out there" -- the best way to spend a long holiday weekend!

Saturday morning we parked Ellie near Saddlebag Lake and the three of us headed out into the Twenty Lakes Basin in the Hoover Wilderness. The hike to our camping spot was pretty quick and easy, leaving us most of 3 days to explore the endless alpine lakes in this High Sierra basin. Beautiful, glacier-fed lakes nestled beneath 12,000 peaks.

Exploring Shamrock Lake. The middle of the glacier-fed Conness Lakes, roughly 11,000' up. There was one more up above this lake! Requisite glowing tent photo (forgive me, its my first one!). North Peak in the background.

Roughly 3 days and 27 miles later, we had sufficiently explored Twenty Lakes Basin and give it two thumbs up. Over the top beautiful, though I think the 10,000' altitude certainly wore us out by the end!

If you want to visit the Twenty Lakes Basin yourself (and you should!), you can find the trailhead at Saddlebag Lake, 2 miles north of Highway 120 / Tioga Pass (the dirt road to Saddlebag Lake roughly 4 miles from the east gate to Yosemite National Park). There is a shuttle boat that will take you across Saddlebag Lake and drop you very close to the first of many lakes in the basin without having to do more than a half mile of hiking. Get out there and check it out!

Thirsty Thursday: Pfeiffer

Rambler: Terry Drink in Hand: Hahn Meritage 2010

It's been a long week and it is only Thursday. One more busy day to go. I don't know about you all out there but work has been crazy busy. I get in at about 7AM and it's 100mph until I just give up at the end of the day. I've also seemed to have brought some of the work home this week...crazy. Anyways, the three day weekend is most welcome. Tonight's shots are from last weekend...a weekend we were supposed to go backpacking but couldn't because work got in the way...so instead we just went down south (all the way to Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park) for several hours. The lighting wasn't fantastic and the sunset didn't happen but I think we got a few.

Thirsty Thursday: Point Lobos Sunrise

Rambler: Beth

Drink at Hand: 2010 Hahn Meritage

Good evening and welcome to another Thirsty Thursday...time to pour something yummy and make those weekend plans. This week I dug into the archives and found some photos I needed to edit.

When I first moved back to California from Lousyana, I had nothing to do but ride my bike and take photos. One morning I found myself at Point Lobos State Natural Reserve on the south edge of Carmel for sunrise. It wasn't the best sunrise morning, but Point Lobos is beautiful in pretty much any light. I'll let the photos do the rest of the talking.

If you find yourself in Carmel, you should definitely visit Point Lobos. Wherever you are this weekend, get out there and find a sunrise.

Thirsty Thursday: Desolation Wilderness Trip

Rambler: Beth

Drink at Hand: Ancient Peaks Rose

Hey Welliver Photography fans! Thanks for tuning in for another Thirsty Thursday...time to pour something yummy and make those weekend plans. This week I'll give you a little recap of our recent backpacking trip to Waca Lake and Lake Aloha in the Desolation Wilderness.

Desolation Wilderness is in the Lake Tahoe area and is one of the most heavily visited wilderness areas in the country. Therefore, getting a wilderness permit for this area is a challenge. We wanted to go to Lake Aloha, but that's super easy trek destination, so the permits were sold out for that zone. I figured, hey, the Team Welliver is a hardy bunch, so the three of us could handle a little cross-country travel to a zone that still had overnight permits available. After much topo map studying, I was sure that a roughly 2-mile off-trail, cross-country over a saddle point that was only 1 contour interval on the map to a beautiful alpine lake would be easy peasy lemon squeezy for us. So on a warm Friday afternoon we left the Echo Lake parking lot for Waca Lake.

What's that? You've never heard of Waca Lake? Yeah, turns out most people haven't. Why is that? Because its ridiculously difficult to get there. The first 6 miles of the trail (yes, trail) were easy, straightforward, no big deal. Then we left the trail to begin our 2 miles of exhausting scrambling up and down granite boulders with our packs on. Not as easy as it looked on the topo map. But we made it and the lake was pretty and we collapsed into our tent. The next morning had a nicely colored, albeit cloudless, sky. One of these trips we'll get some clouds! We decided to pack up camp and head back toward Lake Aloha in order to cut off a little bit of distance and pain for hike back to the car on day 3. We originally planned to spend most of Day 2 exploring the numerous lakes and playing around with a little bouldering. Unfortunately, little Miss Massey and her delicate little paws had a rough time on the abrasive granite on Day 1, so once we made it back to Lake Aloha for Day 2, we took it easy. Terry didn't seem to mind either. The final sunrise at Lake Aloha wasn't too bad either. Get out there and find your own backcountry adventure this weekend!