Random Photos from Road Trips

[Mark Sedenquist]

I was looking for photos that I took near Zzyzx Road (Megan is presenting an academic paper on the "meaning" behind Zzyzx) and I found some other photos that you might find interesting.

This photo was captured on July 9, 2020 about 1/10th of mile from I-15 just south of the Cima Road off-ramp in Southern California. I had been hiking and was walking back to my car when these two critters decided that they could "buffalo" me. Their attempt to encourage my return to my vehicle was successful. There was just a tad too much 'tude from them.


Curious cows along I-15, near Cima Road by Mark Sedenquist


Another view of one of those characters that "encouraged" me to get back in the car.


Still taking a dim view of me being there -- see the I-15 call box in the rear of the photo?


Likewise, this jackrabbit attempted to "buffalo" me, but he wasn't all that intimidating.

Same day, about three minutes before I ran into the open range cattle.

[Rick Quinn]

Gotta love those ears!

[Mark Sedenquist]

Yep, she/he knew I was there long before I saw her/him.

Mark

[Mark Sedenquist]

Looking past the former Kokoweef Caverns sign at the MolyCorp mine at Mtn Pass, California
(Mark Sedenquist on March 12, 2006)

I drove past the mine two days ago and the tailings pile is extraordinarily tall -- making a new mountain there. I will have to go and get a new photo.

Mark

[AZBuck]

Mark, thanks for this opportunity to post atypical images from past trips. I would like to share some of mine from my first trip to Europe, specifically to Ireland. Now when most people think of such a visit they imagine scenes such as kissing the Blarney Stone, driving the Ring of Kerry, standing on the edge of the Cliffs of Moher, hiking the Giants Causeway, everywhere green, green, green - and stunningly beautiful images.

My experience was, shall we say, a bit different. The trip was part of a University of Delaware program to facilitate student travel in pursuit of knowledge. In my case this was in furtherance of some courses I was taking in photography. I note this because the course I was taking was aimed towards training the eye, so everything had to be shot as B/W slides. The thing about that restriction was that we processed the film ourselves, and the film that went through the camera was exactly the same film that got cut up after development and put into slide frames. No lighting or focus adjustments, no cropping, no anything - just exactly what the camera captured when you clicked the shutter.

Also, I did not go to the Republic of Ireland, but rather to Belfast in Northern Ireland during what was euphemistically called The Troubles. And another 'also', I managed to get myself detained by the British Army (King's Own Scots Borderers) whose Major suggested that I accompany his soldiers through the streets as he casually dropped my passport into his desk drawer. I decided it was in my interest to comply with his suggestion. So with that as background, here are some of the resulting pictures...






























AZBuck

[Rick Quinn]

Hey, Buck,

These are great! It clearly took some guts just to be walking the steets in those circumstances, much less pointing a camera at people with weapons, and taking the time to compose each of your photos. Traveling the world in my (much) younger days, I found myself in the middle of dangerous situations on a number of occasions--and I'll freely admit that I never had the stones to whip out my Nikon!

Rick

[Mark Sedenquist]

Yes, pretty awesome collection of photos and the back story is memorable too.

Thanks for sharing.

Mark

[AZBuck]

To be perfectly honest, I never thought in terms of fear or danger, and the time spent on the streets with the soldiers was not the scariest moment of that trip. My first unsettling encounter came early on. It had rained nearly continuously for the first few days I was in Belfast, so I spent the time at the Queen's University student union talking to people and getting suggestions as to what I should go see once the sun came out.

One place that kept getting mentioned was a flea market. I went and made the rounds of the stalls taking pictures mostly of the buyers and the general ambiance. But when I went to leave I was forced up against a wall by 3 or 4 men who wanted to know what I was doing. Once it became clear to them that I was a naïve (clueless) American, they let me go. Only after I got home and developed the slides did I notice that in every image I had of the sellers, they had a bag or newspaper in front of their faces. Aha! They were selling stolen merchandise.

I will admit to being a bit startled when I first turned around (at Long Kesh, the prison where the IRA members were kept) and saw 2 jeep-loads of soldiers with M-16s drawn. It was also a bit unnerving as they patted me down and stopped each time they came to a pocket in which I had stored a lens. But again I was a clueless young American who complied with their every request. When they took me in, the Major told the Sargent in charge of the patrol to 'examine' my equipment. Well there's only one way to examine a camera and film and sure enough when I got home I had no pictures of Long Kesh and one roll of exposed film.

Once out on the streets with the soldiers, it was a bit otherworldly but not frightening in the least. As you can see, soldiers and children co-existed on the streets and the youngsters didn't seem particularly afraid. Indeed that turned into the theme of the project, that interaction between the soldiers and the populace, particularly the children.

The only other time I worried was when I was crossing from Northern Ireland into the Republic. I had hitch-hiked a ride and as we were coming up to the border, the driver said to me "Now act normal, I'm smuggling." As we approached the checkpoint the thought occurred to me that any guns or explosives would be smuggled the other way, northbound. So again I decided that there was not much I could do but see how it all unfolded. As it turned out, he was smuggling contraceptive devices into the heavily Catholic Republic.

In any event, travel is supposed to be enlightening and rewarding. I have a story still worth telling and pictures still worth showing some 50 years later. So I guess it was all worth it.

AZBuck

[Rick Quinn]

The last time I was in Peru (1973) I flew into Cuzco from Lima, and landed in the middle of a tense demonstration. Hundreds of students were protesting a violent incident that had taken place the previous day in a different city (Puno). Three young people who were involved in an entirely seperate protest were shot and killed by the soldiers sent to keep the peace, and the mood, even there in Cuzco, the gateway to Machu Picchu, was close to the boiling point. Fires broke out in several of the government buildings lining the square, black smoke coiling into the sky. Police and soldiers formed ranks, and people in the crowd started prying up paving stones from the cobblestone streets, and hurling them at the soldiers, crouched behind their wall of riot shields. Right about then, tanks rolled into the square, and the soldiers moved forward in a line, swinging clubs that broke bones with sickening thuds. I prudently beat feet for higher ground, and watched from a distance as the army took over the city. There was a dusk to dawn curfew through the rest of my stay. Walking back to my hotel after dinner that night, I was a couple of minutes past the bell, as were several young Peruvians walking on the same street, and while I watched, a squad of soldiers appeared and beat them bloody with rubber truncheons. My camera stayed out of sight throughout the festivities.

This was a dark era in many parts of Latin America. The Generals were in charge, and they ruled with an iron fist!

Rick

[Rick Quinn]

This is one of the few surviving photos of the Dodge Powerwagon that I shipped to South America, the year I graduated from college. The picture was taken in Ecuador in 1973. The road in the background is the Panamerican Highway, and the two lines on the road represent the equator.



In the far background, obscured by clouds, is Volcan Cayembe, a volcano that's close to 19,000 feet tall, crowned by permanent glaciers (right on the equator, no less). In the Andes, altitude is everything!