Turned Skyward

Portland the Long Way – Photos!

Post author By Brian Burger
Post date August 15, 2015
No Comments on Portland the Long Way – Photos!

Haven’t updated since getting back from the trip; short version is that four days into the adventure, just outside Cle Elum, Washington, my brother broke his bike frame right at the rear axle mount and we aborted the trip, taking the Greyhound bus back to Seattle for a couple of days there before coming home via Vancouver a week early.

It was still a great bike tour while it lasted, and the Iron Horse State Park/John Wayne Pioneer Trail section up and over Snoqualmie Pass through the Cascades is an amazing trail, well worth the effort it takes to get a fully loaded touring bike up and over the gravel trail!

The full set of photos so far can be found over on my Flickr account in the Long Way To Portland album.

Here’s a few selections!

Tags biking, travel, Washington

Travel

Portland The Long Way

Quick late night post to say I’m off on another bike adventure! Not as epic as last year’s European trip but more adventurous than going out to Salt Spring Island yet again!

My brother and I leave Saturday the 25th of July for Portland, OR, taking a long route, up and over the Cascade Mountains via Snoquomish Pass, to Yakima, then down to the Columbia River and back to Portland via the Columbia Gorge. We’ll end the trip with an Amtrak train ride back to Vancouver, BC to get home.

Posts from the road as I have wifi or pay the extra for a day of data usage on the phone, but here’s some maps:

First Half – Victoria to Yakima – overnights on Whidbey Island, Tolt-McDonald Park near Carnation WA, Lake Easton State Park, Ellensburg, and Yakima.

Second Half – Yakima to Portland – overnights in Yakima, Brooks Memorial SP, then several days of wandering down the Columbia Gorge with lots of camping choices.

We’ll end in Portland sometime around the 5th of August, spend a couple of days there drinking beer, eating donuts, and poking around, before taking Amtrak’s Cascades run back up to Vancouver, BC to meet our respective girlfriends and end the whole trip there.

Tags biking, travel, USA

Local

Saanich Bike Festival

Starting to look at the several dozen photos I took at the Saanich Bike Festival back on April 19th. I’ve been given a Canon 50D DSLR by my father, who has upgraded himself to a very, very shiny 7D, so I took the new-to-me camera out to the Festival to fire off a few shots. I’ve never used RAW before, it’s been years since I handled an SLR, and I’ve never really used a DSLR, so the learning curve is fairly steep. It’s nice having a full-size camera again, though, and even though I’m still at the “no idea what I’m doing” stage the difference in photo quality is pretty obvious.

The Saanich Bike Festival itself was a lot of fun. The weather was gorgeous, I only dealt with a couple of dumb aggro drivers while I was being a volunteer road marshal (ie, human road barricade) during the bike parade up Shelbourne Street, there was a great turnout, and it was just nice to see so many people enjoying bikes!

Here’s a couple of photos; there’s a lot more waiting to be processed on my computer as I get to them and figure out RAW file processing. I still don’t have the colour and contrast quite right, and I’m honestly not sure if that’s because of the camera settings or the RAW processing settings I’m using. Further experimentation will have to take place.

I should also actually read the 50D’s manual sometime…

Tags flickr, photography, Victoria

Travel

Photos: Central France & the Loire

Post author By Brian Burger
Post date March 11, 2015
No Comments on Photos: Central France & the Loire

Still getting photos up onto my Flickr account, although over there I’m actually up to Nantes and nearly at the end of the trip, especially as I took very few photos in Paris right at the end of the trip.