Ken Brunt said:
Being from the eastern part of the country, where it’s green most of the time, seeing all the barren browness is fascinating.
I agree. The high desert has a stark beauty that I absolutely love.
Thanks for the great pictures Ray, like many who live in green and often lush or heavily wooded areas it is fascinating to see these dry looking landscapes. Often they are termed arid but your pictures put that myth to bed. I do envy those who are able to see the stars and other things in the night skies which are often, in more light polluted areas, beyond normal vision. Looking southwards away from nearby conurbations does show, when the skies are clear, some of the more brighter and recognizable constellations.
Here’s the first video from my recent trip to the rugged Badlands area of the desert east of San Diego.
This main focus of this video is the scenery rather than any off-road action:
Enjoy!
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Here’s another video from my Nov. 2017 trip to the Badlands area of the local desert. This one has more of a “road trip” feel to it while also showing some different shots of the great scenery. Featuring Megaweapon, my Toyota 4Runner.
Music:
“Ghosts of California”
by Wes Hutchinson
YouTube Audio Library
I’m not seeing either video or a link to them
Try reloading the page. If that doesn’t work, here are the links:
A truly remarkable place Ray, it is hard to comprehend what it is really like to be at dirt level there. Not many signs of life, but I guess there are critters out there. One thing seems certain and that is you have to like your own company. (https://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
There appears to be many dry river or streams in the video. Are they dry most of the time with just the occasional heavy rains to briefly alter their appearance?
Yes, all dry except when it rains hard. This is the bleakest time of year in the desert, because everything has been parched all summer long but the winter rains haven’t yet arrived. So almost all the plants are either dormant or dead.
I can imagine it would be real easy to get lost out there.
Ken Brunt said:
I can imagine it would be real easy to get lost out there.
Yes, although you can follow any of the canyons down to the main wash in the middle.
Also the areas above the canyons are dangerous. There are places where you could be walking along on what looks like solid ground, and fall through into deep, narrow cave. This happened to a guy just a few years ago. He was hiking alone, fell into a narrow cave and got wedged in upside down, and died. No one knew what happened to him until months later.
OUTSTANDING Ray! The scenery is breathtaking in places. You and your drone are becoming quite the videographers. Thanks so much for sharing.
Thanks Bob! Flying the drone is a blast, and I really enjoy editing the videos too.
On Monday Cris and I went up to the little mountain town of Julian to celebrate our anniversary. We spent the night at the historic Julian Hotel, and had a great time. Anyway, while we were in the mountains I got a chance to fly the drone a few times. Here’s a brief video from those flights:
Enjoy!
PS: If the video doesn’t load here, you can use this link: https://youtu.be/1S_xxtUygWE
PSS: I’ve just changed this to show the new, improved version. I adjusted the colors to look less muddy, and also replaced the last clip with a better one.
Purty Kewl!!..(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
On UK tv last night there was a programme about the Wild West - no, John Wayne was not in it! (https://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
It traced the pioneers journeys across the Great Plains, it explained the hardships and great inconveniences (by today’s standards) of stagecoach travel: packed in like sardines, having to get out and push when required, not to mention attacks by the locals. Mention was made of The Apache tribes and their battles with soldiers. We visited Tombstone and Boot Hill and the mining towns were discussed but the interesting thing to me was The Badlands such as seen in the videos by Ray. The programme explained that the Badlands was where the bank robbers, and many other crooks - including some well known names - sought refuge and a hideout. It seems they were well acquainted with the place and knew where was safe and relatively difficult to reach. The posse’s, it was suggested, generally were made up of local farmers and business men who were happy to assist the Sheriff and pursue but drew the line at risking life and limbs - and their horses - in The Badlands. After all they usually had wives and children who needed them for their continued existence.
Just FYI, there are many places referred to as “badlands”. Here in our local desert there are at least two, the Carrizo Badlands which is where my video was shot, and the Borrego Badlands, a bit farther north.
The Badlands of South Dakota are probably the most well-known, especially since it is a national park. That is also the one most commonly associated with the Old West.
I witnessed the launch of Space X’s “Falcon 9” rocket while in my 4Runner this evening! I knew it was scheduled for today but forgot all about it, just got lucky and happened to catch sight of it right after liftoff while I was pulling into the Von’s parking lot in Clairemont Square. I saw the first stage separate, the upper stage engine ignite, etc. After separation, the booster’s attitude jets creating a sort of “smoke ring” effect.
This all happened as I was finding a spot to park. As soon as I got stopped, I hopped out and tried to get some video and stills with my pocket cam. Unfortunately that camera has trouble focusing in the dark, so most of the images were useless. Here’s the only half-way decent shot…
The crescent moon is in the upper left. Below it is the upper stage of the rocket. In the lower right, near the street light, is the booster rocket. At one point it was producing a long orange flame, presumably from the rockets firing to slow descent. At the time I thought they were going to land it on their floating landing platform but I read later that they didn’t try to recover it this time.
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That was cool! I assume it was launched from Vandenberg??
Gregory Hile said:
That was cool! I assume it was launched from Vandenberg??
Yeppers, it was carrying satellites instead of ISS supplies. It was also seen in Az. caused a stir by those unused to seeing space invaders …(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
I happened to catch one of them while I was in Plant City Fl one time. Standing on the loading dock waiting for my truck to be unloaded and on the eastern horizon a white vapor trail appeared going skyward. Purty neat…(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)