Featured Download:In the Lead

By Jay Patel,on July 12th,2010

So –we’re sitting here at the airport waiting for our flight. The kids are reading books,and Jay and I are enjoying the relative quiet. (Yes –you read that correctly. A crowded airport is quiet…relatively speaking. Have you ever spent 9 days in a car/hotel room/plane with six children? They are really good kids –I’m not complaining –but I’ve spent the last several days saying things like “no,you may NOT take a hermit crab home with you”and “all right,that’s it…the poking game is OVER”and “you need to pee,again?!?”. So,I’ll take whatever sorry approximation of peace I can find. Honestly,after this trip,a visit to the dentist sounds relaxing.)

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Anyway –we really did have a fantastic time. We lit a fire at Ruby Beach last night –after spending most of the day bumming it in the sand and surf. The kids built sand cities,and tried to hold back the tide. We stayed late since it was our last night in ONP,and Jay and I even got a few shots of a beautiful sunset. Since we don’t have our photos from this trip ready for posting,we thought we’d put up a randomly selected featured download for your enjoyment. It has absolutely nothing to do with the Olympic Peninsula. Nope. No sandy beaches or dripping rain forests,here…this is Death Valley National Park in California.

Visiting the Racetrack in Death Valley is a spiritual experience. It challenges your mind to imagine how a heavy,inanimate object can skate across this dry lake bed on its own.

On this particular visit,we waited until long after the sun had dipped below the horizon –plentiful clouds and a clear horizon meant we would probably see some color in the sky after sunset. We were rewarded with a spectacular light show. This lone rock made a perfect foreground object. The cracked playa provided a clean (but still interesting) stage upon which the rock and the track need not fight to be noticed.

Whether you are a photographer or not,we highly recommend a visit to the racetrack. It’s just darn cool.

These images are provided for personal use as computer wallpaper or backgrounds ONLY. Copyright belongs to the photographer,and photographs cannot be used,redistributed,or recreated in print or on the web or on any other medium without written permission from the photographer.