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267/365: Not So Historic Mill.

Last day of the big Washington trip, and well, more travel than sightseeing today. Weather was downright wet and windy so we saw lots of rainbows while we were on I-79 and I-90, but never when there was a safe place to exit for a photo. One thing I did notice at a rest point – the Outlet Mall at Grove City – was this “mill” structure with the water wheel. Pretty convincing for a fake mill placed at an outlet mall parking lot. 

Tomorrow, it’s back to the local photography along my commute or other points. It’s the end of my “easy week” for the Project. 

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266/365: Dream Pool.

This is the “Dream Pool” at Luray Caverns, a very, very “Tacky Tourist Thing” but we took the time to visit nevertheless. This time of year the groups are large and you have to stick with a guide who moves a little quick for much in the way of photos. It took me a few attempts to get this photo with other tourists sticking their camera out in front of my lens, pointing their finger across the 10mm image area, or knocking my tripod during the 1-4 second exposure times. I did manage to get a few decent photos once the crowd died down, and I didn’t manage to fling anyone over the railing to the depths below thankfully. The image is of the “Dream Pool” – 2500 sqft of water pooled in an underground cavern that’s a maximum of 18 inches deep. The illusion here is from the perfect flat surface that reflects the cave ceiling. 

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265/365: Kaboom. 

Bit of forced perspective fun with this one. The cannon is part of the Ulysses S. Grant memorial near the US Capitol building. I positioned the camera in a way to place the sun at the end of the barrel and Mother Nature tossed in the clouds for more effect. The only edits done to this photo is an 8×10 crop and I removed one dust spot that has crept in on my sensor. 

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264/365: Enjoying a Sunbeam.

Cats are cats. Just like my little tabby cat does, so does the sumatran tiger at the National Zoological Museum in Washington. This big cat walked around for a bit, found a sunbeam and flopped down just the same as a housecat. 

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263/365: The House of Marine One.

I spent today wandering around the National Mall in Washington,DC. This place features a few recognizable spots … the US Congress, The Washington Monument, The Lincoln Memorial, places that are well known to most people around the world. Oh, and there’s also this small little building off to the north – trust me it looks tiny compared to what’s around it – simply called “The White House”. While I was taking my required tourist photos, it seems Obama had somewhere to be … as we saw Marine One land behind the building, take off and head off toward Ronald Reagan Washington airport … we think we saw Air Force One leave from there a few minutes later. 

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262/365: Canadian Arm Wrestling Champion.

Visited the National Air and Space Museum in Washington at Dulles Airport. This is handled by Smithsonian. We saw the Space Shuttle Discovery (again – last time it was on the launch pad), and tons of other aircraft marvels. One of the items I was able to get close to is a source of national pride back home in Canada, namely the famous Canadarm that used to hoist satellites out into space from the Shuttle’s cargo bay – yet down on earth, it’s not even able to hold it’s own weight. Here’s a closeup on the middle articulating joint of the device. 

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261/365: Trail Bot.

Spotted this strange bit of equipment on a rail trail today in western Maryland. At first we thought it might be some sort of apparatus for viewing something before we noticed the reflector on the other side of the trail. Near as we can tell, it’s some sort of sensor to track usage of the rail trail … or an early version of Wall-E. 

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260/365: Wooden Tunnel of Light.

Well, today I intended to travel up to Killarney Provincial Park for some camping. Before departure I pulled up the weather forecast…. rain and cold, then heavy rain and really cold, followed by cold, then heavy rain and bitterly cold. Well, let’s just say at that point I put the tent and sleeping bag back in it’s storage spot. Here’s a photo from today’s travels – easily a day trip from Toronto, this is taken at a Sculpture Garden north of Ellicottville, New York. An interesting road side attraction, there is a park in the mountains here – split into two parts – with various sculpture pieces around. Here, I’ve taken a photo from inside one of the pieces (no worries, people are meant to go in). If you’re a geocacher, GC8378 Walk with Giants is located here. 

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259/365: Lone Tree Cliche.

Visited GHAGAFAP at Guelph Lake, a large event held every autumn west of Toronto. There was all kinds of fun, including geocaching activities, geocaches, pot luck dinners and munzees. I spotted this photo while pursuing a “mystery” munzee at the north end of the park. Now, one of my photography friends posted something a week ago about “avoiding the lone tree cliché” on their project (they photographed two trees), but I’m firmly in the camp of enjoying that lone tree as the subject in a photo. So here’s my lone tree cliché shot. 

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258/365: Lakeless Starscape.

Attended a geocaching event at Guelph Lake Conservation Area – two of them actually. Tonight was the “Flames of the FAP” precursor to GHAGAFAP – one of Ontario’s marquee geocaching events. During the event a night cache was placed, and I went out with a couple others to locate it. Here, I’m at the north end of the Lake, but this year’s drought was enough that Guelph Lake has been drained to the point of not leaving much lake. I managed to get out far enough onto the mud flats left behind to get this photo of the stars without getting too mucky in the process.