Power

Tonight I nearly finished preparing my dinner, when the power went out. In Texas the power returns typically after a few minutes. We'll not today. I'm already half an hour in the dark. Luckily I have a few flash lights because of nighttime photography shoots.

Annoying is that the uninterrupted power supply for my router is beeping every 15 seconds. What were the designers thinking? That I wouldn't notice the power went out? It is pitch dark!

I guess I have to drive to McDonalds for dinner.

Day 3 - New Mexico

I scouted the Very Large Array location, last night. Therefore this morning it was an easy drive to the location. I have to look up the exact dimensions but the dishes have a diameter of 25 meter. This half year they are all I the D-configuration. Unofficial that stands for Darn close. What I didn't know was that they move quite quickly. At 8am the visitor center opened and I could get some shots closer to the VLA. But when I got there they were all in an unfavorable position I.e. a lot of shade. When I was thinking about what to do with the situation, one of the operators came out to smoke a cigarette and told me they would rotate in about 15 minutes.

On my way to the state park City of Rocks, I realized that New Mexico has a, even lower population density that Texas. I drove for over an hour without spotting a house or gas station.

Day 2 - New Mexico

After yesterday's drive through Texas, I decided to sleep in this morning. My first stop was 'White Sands NP'. The National Park is located in the middle of a missile test range. Luckily no tests today, otherwise the park would be closed. The dunes in the park are actually not sand dunes but gypsum. You might wonder why the rain didn't take away the gypsum over the centuries, that is because the dunes are in a basin. There is no way out for the water.

The next stop was Cloudcroft. This village is on top of a mountain but is not much special besides all the tourist shops.

The last stop for today was the Very Large Array (VLA). Sunset wasn't really special because of the cloudy skies. At least I knew my way around for sunset.

Everything is bigger in Texas.

I spend most of my first vacation day behind the wheel, driving from Houston to El Paso. After 1 bottle of water, 2 coffee, 2 hamburgers meals,  4 stops for gas, 6 granola bars, 12 hours of driving (and stopping to take 106 photos), 28 gallons of gas, 722 miles ............ and I'm still in Texas. El Paso is in a different time zone though, i.e. Mountain time.

For the Europeans that is about 106 liters of gas for 1228 kilometers. I don't think I will get the Al Gore award for this vacation.

My gps logger says that my average speed from my apartment to my hotel room was 53 mph. That's not to bad given the stops I made. No, I didn't break the speed limit. Shortly after San Antonio the speed limit is raised to 80 mph. I was surprised to see that s the fuel consumption increased about 20-25% just by increasing the speed from 70 mph to 80 mph.

Theater District Open House

Shooting photos at a theater is usually impossible. Today, there was an Open House at a number of Houston theaters during which photography was allowed.

The Flying Karamazov Brothers


This was not one of the performances, but someone walking inside Alley Theater. Overthere they didn’t allow photography during a performance, but they had great pizza for $1.00


Karen Stokes Dance




Last but not least an hour long performance of the Houston Symphony in Jones Hall.

Port Arthur

I had scheduled to make a short visit to Port Arthur before visiting the state parks north of Beaumont. I never got that far, because the city gives so many photo opportunities. On Monday, I had a hard time explaining to my colleagues what is so interesting about Port Arthur. Yoiu can judge yourself.

On January 10, 1901, a well at Spindletop struck oil. The new oil field soon produced more than 100,000 barrels (16,000 m3) of oil per day. Since there wasn’t a refinery in Beaumont, the oil was shipped to Pennsylvania from Port Arthur. Starting. Today, there are many oil related plants in Port Arthur.

The population dropped since the 80s of the past century. Add a few hurricanes (Rita & Katrina 2004, Ike 2008) into the mix and you end up with many abandoned houses and retail space. The surprising part is that they never bounced back to business as usuall. To business owners just left. This is a big negative for the population, but creates some great photos.

Jet Taxi is one of the companies that did not return to business after the Katrina.,


I luckily always have half a dozen water bottles in my car, because the Port Arthur Water Plant didn’t predict too much.


This is a typical image for Port Arthur: close to the plants and a few abandoned houses. I have to point out that there are also very nice neighborhoods in Port Arthur. Click on the image for the large size photo.


With the temperatures finally dropping from a 110F heat index, the early evening is the right time to shoot hoops.

Bolivar Peninsula

I had a meeting in Beaumont, Saturday evening 8pm. Driving from Houston to Beaumont takes only about three hours when I would follow I10. Since I had the entire day, I decided to take the long route through Bolivar Peninsula.

Waiting for the ferry from Galveston to Port Bolivar, I spotted this truck. It is common accepted practice for people to sit in the bed of a truck. The restrictions for riding in cargo areas are set (or not) by each state.


The Bolivar Peninsula was hit hard during hurricane Ike. This category 4 hurricane made landfall near Galveston on September 13th, 2008. At category 4 hurricane has wind speeds up to 155 mph / 249 kmh and storm surge up to 18ft / 5.5m. Along the beach most (summer) houses were simply gone, only the pile foundation was left.

During my visit, some buildings are still in the same condition as they were after Ike. The cross on the wall is created by an urban search and resue team. At the top of the cross, the time is listed when the team left the building, the zero to the right indicates that there an no risks, the numbers at the bottom of the cross indicate 0 survivors and 0 casualties. The team name and date are listed on the left. Typically the SAR team uses orange spray paint, but I guess that doesn’t work to well on an orange wall.


After Ike, home owners rebuild there house, but this time high enough to survice a 20ft storm surge.


After driving on the Interstates around Houston and attending the annual Art Car Parade, I thought I wouldn’t be easily surprised about Americans and car. The beach at Crystal Beach surprised me a little. Everyone just drives their SUV or truck to the shore line, takes out a couple of chairs and has a good time.


The Bolivar Peninsula is an interesting area to spend a day.