I admit it. I am still stuck in the "good ol' days" when it comes to taking pictures. 10 years ago when I was about to embark on a journey to Australia, I received a nice 35mm SLR camera for Christmas. It was a great gift and at the time the idea of digital photography was still on the horizon and the thought was, there is no way digital will replace film. Well, at the time the idea of a 1GB processor was also an absurd thought.Well, I've continued to use my old standby 35mm SLR to take numerous photos. I even spent a chunk of money (enough to have bought a decent pocket digital) to get it repaired a year ago. Yes, I like my camera, its features, and like my blanket from my youth, I don't want to part with it just yet. In a recent trip I discovered some of the downsides to the 35mm SLR, the above photo is evidence to one of those downsides. That's a photo of Lake Ellery in Yosemite National Park, a photo I took in August of 2006 and just got developed now because I didn't finish the roll of film until my recent vacation.
What follow are photos from a recent trip to San Simeon, Monterey, and San Jose (all in California). I sort of jumped into the digital age and when I had my film developed I opted for the "digital photo CD" in addition to my prints. It's nice to have the digital option, but most of the photos weren't really worth it. A lot of the photos would have met the delete button on a digital camera for various reasons ... but here are some favorites ...
Above is Big Sur, California. I'm still a little unsure on exactly what the boundaries of Big Sur are. In different books I looked it the boundary ranged from a small town midway between Monterey and San Simeon to a general description of the area that is covered in that whole stretch. Either way, this gives you an idea of what the terrain is like, this photo was taken from a roadside stop on the very twisty, turny, Highway 1. Great fun for views, not so much fun when you're the driver (especially at night).
This next photo reveals one of my favorite "games" to play with a camera. Taking photos near still water and trying to capture the reflection to the point that you can't figure out which way is up or down unless you stare for quite a while at the photo. This happens to be a photo from the Hearst Castle in San Simeon of the Indoor Pool.
Of course there's a downside to this method of photography as well. Sometimes even I can't tell which way is supposed to be up and the place I took my film to have it developed didn't help much. When I opened the photo CD all of the images were turned upside down! The CD was supposed to have "photo editing software" with it, but the software they provided didn't allow me to save the photos after I modified them (I'm not sure what the software was good for) so I ended up downloading an Adobe Photo product and was able to at least turn the images the right direction before saving them. It shouldn't be this difficult!
On the day we visited Hearst Castle, it was a little foggy (a lot like the seminary campus most days) so we didn't get to see some of the amazing views, but we did get some interesting views like this one of the Hearst Tennis Court. Sometimes what you think is a bad thing (fog) turns out to be a good thing ...
As we drove back toward home, we spent a bit of time in the Monterey area and ventured on to what is called the 17-mile drive. You pay $9 to drive around a prestigious neighborhood and you get to look at Pebble Beach Golf Course (more on that in a minute). There are some nice views, like this one of the famous "Lone Cypress". This is the tree that became the corporate symbol for Pebble Beach.
And what would a visit to this area be without a chance to look out onto the 18th green. The club house itself is fairly un-exciting, just a block building (oh, sure they had a jazz combo playing in the lounge, but that's nothing to blog about) but the view is certainly amazing. What amazed me even more was the level of play of this group of guys on the course. Pebble Beach is a public course so anyone is welcome to play. The even had open tee times, so I considered it. That is, until I discovered the price tag of $475 a round! At that price, you would think you would be a pretty good player to be willing to shell out the money, not so. 
This group of guys were probably among the biggest hacks I've seen on any course. Dirt flying every which way (and I didn't see them replace their divots) and the ball only seemed to travel short distances, but I guess they can say they played Pebble Beach!
The next day we ventured up through San Jose and stopped at the Winchester Mansion. If you are ever in San Jose, you have to make time to visit this place, it's a trip. The photo below is one that my dad took (mine is still on a roll of film that will probably be developed some time in 2008), it looks like a fairly normal house from the front, but there are about 165 rooms, with all kinds of odd things going on in them.
As the story goes, Sarah Winchester (who married into the Winchester Rifle family) built this house and continued construction on it for 35+ years to ward off the evil spirits of the people killed with Winchester rifles. There is a stairs that goes directly into the ceiling, doors that lead to nowhere, windows in the floor, and the list goes on. Talk about your eccentric people!
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