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October 10, 2010, a Sunday
Manti-La Sal National Forest (Skyline Drive), Utah, USA
— Photographed fall color
We got up around our usual time and there were some nice wispy clouds in the sky. I made a mug of coffee to go and J started a mug of tea steeping, and we left in the Jeep around 8:15.

I had Clif Bars for breakfast as we took UT-31 towards Fairview and some stands of aspens that were turning color. We stopped to photograph a Red-Tailed Hawk perched near the road (below left). We set up to photograph it from the Jeep, and it was quite cooperative as we pulled up into position and shot then moved to a different position and shot.

We continued heading down towards Fairview and stopped to photograph a hillside covered with yellow aspen. I particularly liked the pattern formed by the rows of aspen along a side canyon (below right).


We returned to the RV around 9:30. I downloaded the images I took this morning then downselected the images from last night. I processed two images for the blog then worked on a blog entry.

I had lunch around 12:20 and finished the blog entry. Then I processed a bunch of images for a stock submission. We left around 5:15 in the Jeep.

We headed down UT-31 towards Huntington, and after a while it started following the Huntington Creek. There were some patches of aspen along the way, but nothing that grabbed us. We turned around and then took FS-14, Miller Flat Road. It went through a valley covered with sagebrush and the hillsides had patches of aspens, some orange, but nothing really grabbed us there either. We turned around to head for home, and stopped to photograph a small patch of aspen (below left). Then we went to the scenic overlook near the summit on UT-31 and photographed the layers at sunset (below right).

Layers At Sunset
Layers At Sunset
Manti - La Sal National Forest, Utah, USA
Canon EOS 1Ds Mk III, 100-400 (at 220mm),
1/20, 1/10, & 1/6 sec, f11, ISO 100

We returned to the RV around 7:05 and I downloaded the images I took this afternoon.

We had dinner around 7:20 of leftover Creamy Baked Chicken Breasts and fresh broccoli. J really liked the topping much better this time around.

After dinner, I downselected the images from this afternoon, then selected and processed four images in Capture One (C1) for the blog. I didn't process the images through Photoshop because our batteries were low in terms of voltage (about 12.1 VDC) even though we had only used about 50Ah. In theory, our house battery bank has 400Ah of capacity, so we should easily be able to use 200Ah without loosing much, if any, voltage. So, I think we've damaged our batteries by accidentally running them down too far over the last few weeks and we'll have to replace them. :( I use a high-quality, color-calibrated external monitor when processing images, and I didn't want to put an "unnecessary" load on the batteries, so I'll wait until tomorrow after we start getting some solar electricity to process them. I did some computer work before going to bed.