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A homeless person sleeps on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco, California.

I was attracted to the dichotomy of the high rise building and glamorous model compared to the homeless person sleeping on a sidewalk early yesterday morning.  I was glad he didn’t hear me taking this photo.

Some more random thoughts:

San Francisco is a very interesting city.  Along with the fancy buildings and wealthy businesses and individuals is a large homeless population.  I  don’t remember seeing so many homeless in a city except maybe in Reno.  Along with the homeless is a large population of, for lack of a better word, weird people.  After just one full day, seeing someone walking around talking to themselves doesn’t even draw my attention any more.

San Francisco has to be right up there in cell phones per capital and by in large the most technically advanced population that I have encountered.  Last night I saw a person digging through trash cans for recycled bottles stop to answer a cell phone!

Thanks to Priceline, we were able to rent a nice car for $21 per day – I didn’t except to pay more then twice as much for a 24 hour parking spot then I did for the actual car!  Although that is part of what makes San Francisco great – thanks to a wonderful mass transit system, you really don’t need a vehicle unless you are heading out of town.

Pier 39, San Francisco, California.

So here is the deal.  This trip has definitely been very different then most our photography trips from Alaska.  First, as most of you know, we spent a week with a family issue.  Then we spent a week that was effectively a vacation.  For the first time in probably 10 years we  spent some time where photography or the photography business wasn’t our sole focus and main priority.  Sure I have still been taking photos, but as more of a secondary activity.

During this week we spent the time around Lake Tahoe and San Francisco with some long time friends and had a great time.  I saw my first professional football game, and did lots and lots of fun stuff that I am really grateful for – it was a blast.   But now we are back to “work”.  We are now in San Francisco and are back to full time photography mode where we hope to improve on our collection of San Francisco photos.  The above photo was from last night at Pier 39 – we hope to hit this area hard over the next couple of days before moving on.

San Francisco Giants vs the San Diego Padres game last weekend at AT&T Park, San Francisco, California.

We are on a bit of a working vacation right now as we visit some long time friends in the Bay area and Lake Tahoe.  Nine months ago when our friends picked up tickets to this game – we had no idea how big it would be with the playoffs on the line.  The atmosphere was electric!  Much more like a college basketball game then a baseball game!

Thanks entirely to our wonderful friends, we had some of the best seats in the house.  I had to briefly pull myself away from the great seats and the action to climb to the top of the stadium for a few photos.  From this vantage point you get a better feel for the ocean side setting for this baseball stadium.  This is the middle photo of 3 that may one day be part of a panoramic.

Wildflowers in the Pioneertown Mountain Preserve, Mojave Desert, California.

I was disappointed when this beautiful area burned a few years ago, but was pleasantly surprised to find this wash with bright red wildflowers – especially this late in the year!  Given the reason we were in Pioneertown this week, seeing the drastic difference between life and death wasn’t lost on me.  Truthfully, everyday is a gift!

Pioneertown Post Office in Pioneertown California claims to be the most photographed Post Office in the United States

This morning (Friday) we begin the two days of travel to Pioneertown, California with very heavy hearts, but more on that in a minute.

Pioneertown is almost like a second home.  This tiny Mojave Desert community is actually a former western movie set built in 1946 and used in various old time movies stared in by the likes of Gene Autry.  Today the buildings are actually in use like the one pictured that is an actual Post Office.  Pioneertown is about an hour from Palm Springs has also been the base of our Lower 48 travels, and I actually have numerous wildlife photos grace the covers of magazines that were captured from right within the city limits, most recently was Your Big Backyard.  We have found it to be a convenient place to store our RV as the nearby Palm Springs airport is easy to fly in and out of, and the area is located near I-8 and I-15, making it easy to move on the Nevada, Arizona, Utah etc. in case we aren’t photographing in California.  But the real reason we use this as our base is because Janine’s Dad and Step Mom live there and have made our travels to and from wonderful and enjoyable experience over the years.  Janine’s dad has ridden motorcycles on every back-road from Colorado to California and always has tons of great advice on places to see – really, he always had great advice on everything, I have always valued my time spent with him.  He treated me like one of his own kids – well actually, maybe even better.

This gets me back to the heavy heart.  Unfortunately Janine’s dad, Doug Nelson passed away unexpectedly this week.  It is a huge shock, and has us deeply saddened.  Obviously our travel plans are now up in the air – but I do know over the next week or so, what phone and internet access we do have will be used to keep up on business, so I anticipate little if any activity on the blog next week.  I will sure miss you Doug!