Spring Break II...The Sequel

Hello all! I thought I'd post more pictures. I might come back to this posting as I finish more photographs, but for now I will put up what I have. WARNING!!! It might be a lot. First things first...A couple more shots from the Ice Sculptures.









On Tuesday, Jen and I went for a long trip to Cantwell, AK (a very small town) and the drive was amazing! It was a mostly cloudy day through the mountains...with the sun peeking out every now and then to say, "Hello." I have LOTS of pictures from the drive, so here they are. Enjoy!!

Not far from Fairbanks, we stopped to shoot the mountains in the horizon. Here is Jen capturing the Alaskan Mountain Range.


The Nenana River is frozen and looks cool. Fun colors and lines!


Then here are some mountains:








This one might be my favorite:





Now...a couple shoots of the moose. I love moose. Both to look at and to eat.




WOW that is a lot of pictures...but wait..there's more!

(ok...just three more...one of me in the hot springs and two from around Chena)


Open water from the spring:


It's kinda cool. The Chena Hot Springs Resort have several hotels and a restaurant. All hot water (not used in food) is taken from the hot springs. They use the geothermal heat for almost all heating. I am guessing this is one of the places they pump the water from:


Yesterday was my birthday, so we celebrated by going to Chena Hot Springs...WOW was that amazing. It was a little below freezing yesterday (about 20 - 25 degrees) and the water's average temperature is 106 degrees..but there were some severe hot pockets that, my guess, where around 120 degrees...way to hot for me. On the drive there and home we saw LOTS of moose. Between the two outings, I saw at least 10 moose and a couple of caribou.

I've had a great couple of days with a few more left to go. I hope you are all having a wonderful week out there in Blogging world.

Take care!
~Mr. Lockwood

SPRING BREAK!!!!!

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

Ok...it may not be time to talk of cabbages and kings...but it IS time for spring break. Last week one was of the busiest weeks I have had yet in my teaching career. With dress rehearsals, concerts, and TONS of snow...I am very happy last week is over.

I will start off with a picture, then a lot of pictures =) My friend Jen is up here visiting me for Spring break...and she brought me a couple of camera lenses to play with. THEY ARE AMAZING!! This picture is one of my favs with a Canon 50mm 1.4.


Yesterday, Jen and I went to "Ice Alaska." A place where people from all over the world come to create these amazing ice sculptures. It was unbelievable what these people can do with a bit of frozen water and a chainsaw! But before we went to the ice park...we had a very tasty lunch of Copper River Salmon Salad with Basil Blue Cheese Dressing and Red Wine.


We arrived at the ice park around 2:00 and walked around with cameras. It was pretty fun! Tons (literally tons) of very cool sculptures everywhere. Here are a few that caught my eye...and my lens (ok...not my lens, but I wish it was.)

Ok...now for some pictures....WARNING!! There are a lot of pics, and I am uploading then as large files...so it may take a while for them to come up.








There are MANY MANY more pictures...but these are some of the more impressive sculptures. Taking pictures of ice and snow is very challenging. It is easy to overexpose the photograph...I am still learning everyday fun new things to try in order to make my photography better. I love Alaska!

I'll will try very hard to be back more to update this site. I plan on taking LOTS of pictures over spring break, so be on the look out!

Rock on
~Mr. Lockwood