Just a Sliver of a Moon

Tonight's moon from my front porch. This one taken quickly as a plane was passing by, which shows up as a couple red lights and a squiggly line.

And this one taken with a little more care.

Linking with Skywatch Friday. Click on the link to check out great skies from around the globe!

Giant Rock

Giant Rock is north of Yucca Valley near Landers in California's Mojave Desert. According to Wikipedia it is the largest free standing boulder in the world. Pretty impressive, don't you think? And as if that's not enough, Giant Rock was a major gathering point for UFO believers in the '50s and '60s. It's got a fascinating history. George Van Tassel, a purported flying saucer "contactee" and author of I Rode a Flying Saucer, built the nearby Integreton and organized annual UFO conventions at Giant Rock. A single large room, which was subsequently filled in, was dug beneath the rock and resided in by a prospector named Frank Critzer during the 1930s and early 1940s. Critzer, a friend of Van Tassel, perished in a self-detonated dynamite explosion in this room on July 24, 1942, while being investigated by local police (you can't make this stuff up!!).

George Van Tassel's book cover, with a picture of Giant Rock with an antenna on top to help attract
alien spacecraft, published in 1952.

A large piece of Giant Rock split off in February 2000. 

When you get up next to Giant Rock, you start to realize how humongous it really is! I like these shots that include my granddaughter.

Well worth a trip out to Landers to see the worlds largest bolder! Thanks for stopping by.
Linking with ABC Wednesday. G is for "Giant!"

Westbound Train

Somewhere near Cabazon, CA.

This was one of those long, desert trains I saw coming from quite a distance. I waited for it to turn the corner to frame this shot.

Linking with Skywatch Friday. Click on the link to check on great skies from around the world! 

Big Moon!

Seems like everyone with a camera was out photographing the super moon on Sunday night! It was pretty cool because moonrise and sunset came at almost the exact same time. I'm guessing that's a pretty rare occurrence. As I was setting up on one side of the street, getting ready for the moonrise to the east, I took a pic of some photographers setting up on the other side of the street (shooting toward the west).

Meanwhile, to the east, the supermoon was starting to rise over central Orange County and the Saddleback Mountain.

...And a few minutes later, it looked like the moon was rolling down the mountain!

As I was driving home, the moon was still low on the horizon so I stopped and took this photo of the moon and the Harbor Blvd. street sign. I like the way it turned out!

Hope you had a chance to get out and enjoy the moon over the weekend! Linking with Skywatch Friday. Click on the link to check out great skies from around the world!!

Orange County Fair

A friend of mine and I have a routine... you might even call it a tradition. Every year we go to the Orange County Fair to see a concert. This is a friend who was, many years ago, my boss. I was just getting started in my career and I'll always be grateful to him for helping me along when I was just getting started.

The challenge is that we have very different tastes in music. For a few years this frustrated me, and I wanted to dig in my heels and insist we see bands that we both like. Well, bands that we both like are few and far between and it's taken me a couple of years to figure out that our tradition has nothing to do with seeing great bands. It's all about friendship. I've changed my perspective, and if the bands are half-way decent, well, that's just icing on the cake!

Which brings me to last night's band at the Fair. Really makes me feel old when I'm seeing a band whose biggest hit was in 1972!! Yes, you read that right, 1972. I have a great video clip I captured last night on my iPhone, but unable to upload it on blogger. If you are from my generation, it would have brought a big smile to your face... Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple! Every kid who has ever picked up a guitar knows how to play this song. I would never go see Deep Purple on my own, but I must say, the band was great. We had a blast!

No cameras allowed, but I couldn't resist snapping a couple cell phone shots as we were walking through the fair on our way to see Deep Purple (opening band was Blue Oyster Cult).

Rock On!  Linking with Skywatch Friday. 
Click on the link to check out great skies from around the world!!