We had a great time at Angora this year, in large part because Caroline and Arthur were both able to join us, as did Barbara’s sister Robin for part of the time.
We did have an unusual adventure, though. The local utility shut off the power the first couple of days we were there, citing heightened wildfire risk due to high winds (which, of course, didn’t manifest themselves, at least not at Angora).
Which forced us to conserve and do without hot water and electricity. But we made do, cooking on the grill, buying some battery-powered lanterns and going to bed early (it’s surprising how quickly you get sleepy when it gets dark and you don’t have lights). We all agreed, though, that electricity is something you definitely don’t appreciate until you don’t have it :).
I also got to take a bunch of cool photos with my new Canon R7 camera. It’s amazing the difference a superzoom lens1 makes!
All the photos in this post, and more, can be found in higher resolution in this Google Photos album. You can also click on most of the photos to see a larger version.
I particularly loved how I could take more natural photos of animals because I was able to stay far enough away from them so as not to startle or threaten them.
My favorite animal shot was this one of a perplexed jay. He looks like he’s trying to figure out what we’re saying and can’t quite get it.
Or, more likely — since they’re notorious beggars — he’s wondering just when we’re going to stop screwing around with the camera and do what we’re supposed to do, i.e., give him some peanuts :).
Neither Barbara nor I did any big hikes this year, but we did go down to the fire lookout a couple of times. Arthur and I also did the Lily Lake trail which, for my money, has the best views you’ll find around Angora without having to climb 1,500 feet to Echo Peak.
But the greatest number of pictures I took involved people jumping off the “diving rock”…which, fortunately, I’ve never seen anyone actually dive off of, because I think you’d likely crack your skull if you did.
My primary subject, of course, was Arthur2.
You’ll notice the later photos are sharper than the earlier ones. That’s because I was figuring out how to tweak the R7’s settings to have it track falling people.
The manual (which is only available online) is 962 pages long!! I like to say the R7 is a high-powered computer which happens to take pictures…
One of the unexpected challenges taking these pictures was trying to keep the boat I was in on station, and pointing in the right direction, so that the camera angle stayed (roughly) the same. Juggling a camera and two oars in the face of a constantly changing breeze was not easy!
Another jump seen from the front…
Finally, everything came together to get good, sharp shots…I think :).
Here’s looking forward to next year at Angora!!
2 thoughts on “Angora 2024”
Thanks for sharing! I can imagine Arthur’s reply to “OK, Arthur, time for take #37…”. 🙂 Great shots, though.
I remarked to Cathrin that I thought I’d seen the chipmunk before (i.e. the Lair). She responded, “They’re on a circuit.”