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!