The Great Adventure of the Road; Days 13 and 14

Large room in Carlsbad Caverns at 750 ft. below ground level (click to enlarge)
Nikon D810 (balanced by hand on the silver handrail), 1/3 sec. @ f/4; ISO 6400

Today, marks the two week point in our road trip and I declared the day a "no photography" day.  Why?  Well, we are in San Antonio Texas to see the Riverwalk and the Alamo as well as some other nearby sites and I have been here several times before and made many images.  Does that mean that I won't encounter potential images?  No, but I just wanted to walk around and enjoy a beautiful autumn day without carrying a camera.  Heresy, you say!  Yes, but that was my decision.

Alien landing site (click to enlarge)

But yesterday, we visited two interesting venues. First, in the morning, and as we were in Roswell New Mexico, the home of the 1947 alien craft crash and destruction of four small in stature, but big headed with huge black almond shaped eyed aliens (I don't believe it was anything more than the Air Force said it was, an experimental Mylar weather balloon that was being tested as a spying instrument over the Soviet Union during the Cold War), we had to visit the International Alien Museum and Research Center.

The Center was located in an old theater and was pretty well done.  For the most part, along all the walls were newspaper articles and photographs pertaining to everyone and everything involved with the incident. Additionally, they had some "aliens" inside as well as Gort.  You remember Gort, don't you?  From the 1950 film, "The Day the Earth Stood Still," starring Michael Rennie, Billie Gray, Patricia Neal, Sam Jaffe, Frances Bavier (Aunt Bee from the Andy Griffith Show) and others.  Gort was Klaatu's (Rennie) robot to which he famously exclaimed, "Gort, Klaatu barada nicto!"   Not sure how to spell it, but you get my drift.

(click to enlarge)

We had a nice and enjoyable time in the museum.  I have included a couple of images from the museum.

When we left the museum, we headed south for a real treat. We drove to the Carlsbad Caverns National Park.  Wow!  I remembered first hearing and studying about the caverns in grade school and I finally made it to visit.  Having a bachelor of science degree in geology, the caverns were of special interest.

We decended 750 to the level of the first caverns.  The lower level was closed to self-guided tours, so we spent about 45 mintues touring the caverns at the 750 below ground level.  I tried my best to make a few images, but with no tripod and only one lens, I tried to hold the camera still on a handrail for the average 1/3 second exposure.  I will say I was semi-successful.  It was really dark and the National Park Service only had spotlights pointed at certain spots so the lighting was uneven.

(click to enlarge)

I have to say on behalf of the Nikon D810, it performed admirably.  The camera was able to autofocus successfully in almost no light.  The typical exposure was 1/3 second @ f/4; ISO 6400.  pretty dark, in other words.  I'm also posting a couple of those images.

Tomorrow, off to Louisiana, then on to New Orleans on Tuesday.  I'm looking forward to wandering around Bourbon Street at night.  Last time I was there, I had my D700 and a Nikon 35mm f/2 AF-D lens.  I made some successful images and I hope to make even better images with the D810 and 50mm f/1.4 G.  I'll be posting some images from New Orleans so check back.

Thanks for looking.  Enjoy!

Dennis Mook

Many of my images can be found at www.dennismook.com.  Please pay it a visit.  I add new images regularly.  Thank you.


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