The Great Adventure of the Road; Days 5,6 and 7

From the Route 66 Museum in Clinton, Oklahoma (click to enlarge)

The first part of this post will be a continuation of my travelogue.  The second part will be some comments on carrying and using my Nikon D810 and associated lenses versus my previous few trips where I primarily used my Olympus OMD E cameras with those lenses.

(Disclaimer: I am processing the images on this trip on my old laptop.  I can't really vouch for the color collection nor luminance as the brightness of the laptop screen changes as one's head moves.  So, forgive me if they are no up to my usual standard. Thank you.)

When I last posted, we spent the night in Yukon, Oklahoma.  The next morning we arose early, as usual, and headed west on Route 66.  Our first excursion took us through El Reno then onto the famous 38-section truss bridge.  Additionally, we found some original Portland concrete sections of the old road and slowly drove over those.  The engineers built curbs into the roadway, which they thought would have been very innovative.  Problems soon arose in that water could not escape the road and any low places or bottoms of hills became small lakes!  Additionally, the sloped curbs meant to keep vehicles from unintentionally leaving the road, often flipped.  Interesting concept but a failure.

Those old sections of the road are in remarkably good condition.  I don't know what they did differently than our roads of today, but the old road seems to last indefinitely.

From there, we stopped in Clinton, Oklahoma to visit the Route 66 Museum.  Wonderful place and a group of wonderful ladies working there.  I really enjoyed this museum.  On my last trip to Clinton, it was on a Sunday and the museum was closed.  I made sure I didn't run into that problem again.  If you are a Route 66 or even an Americana aficionado, I highly recommend this museum.

The day progressed and we continued on Route 66 west.  The day was beautiful and my Nikon D810 and primary lens, the Nikon 24-120mm, performed perfectly.  Beautiful images.

From there, it was into Texas.  We made stops at the Cadillac Ranch outside of Amarillo as well as Shamrock, where we had a very nice lunch at The Roost.  As a bonus, Shamrock has two wonderful restored gas stations.

Old truck at the Tucumcari Trading Post.  This is one exposure.  With
any other camera, other than the D800 or D810, this would have had
to have been an HDR image. The inside of the truck was in very dark
shadow and the sign was illuminated in bright afternoon sun.  Even
I was surprised I was able to pull these shadows up and tame the highlights
in a single exposure.  (click to enlarge)

After a long and very enjoyable day, we ended up in Tucumcari, New Mexico.  This is the same town in which I stayed 18 months ago on a similar road trip.  Previously, we stayed in a Hampton Inn, but when I called to make reservations, I couldn't get through.  When we got to town, we saw why.  The place had been hit by lightning and was severely burned.  It had been closed since the fire.

We had a very nice dinner at Del's, one of a few restaurants in this small, almost forgotten town.  I ordered a glass of wine with my meal and they brought out a wine glass bigger than my 12 ounce water glass!  It had about 12 ounces of wine in it and weight over a pound!  That was a first.  Good food, however.

If you like Americana, nostalgia, historical places and the southwest, Tucumcari is a very interesting place to stay and especially photograph.  Many, many of the old motels, signs, old trucks, and other paraphernalia reminiscent of the 1930s to 1950s.

The Route 66 Diner in Albuquerque (click to enlarge)

We left the next morning and another downpour, but it had stopped and the sun had come out by the time we reached Albuquerque.  We spent time at a farmer's market, Old Town Albuquerque as well as ate at the Route 66 Diner on E. Central Avenue. I had an opportunity to make several very nice images of hanging dried red peppers, the SW architecture, details, and in the diner.  Very enjoyable.

From Albuquerque, we headed west on I-40, then picking up Route 66 in Grants, then Gallup. In Gallup, we toured the historic El Rancho Hotel, which was the place Hollywood stars stayed when many of the western movies were made in the area.  Very interesting old hotel.

Into Arizona and a tour of The Painted Desert and The Petrified Forest National Park.  I had been to both before but it was interesting to visit again.  I made a few images of the petrified wood with its colorful minerals.

As we were leaving the park, a large crack appeared in my windshield.  In over 600,000 miles of driving in over 47 years of driving, I have never had a cracked windshield.  So, I guess I was due.  If the crack doesn't spread too far across the windshield, I'll wait until I get home before I have it replaced.  If it becomes a distraction, I'll have it replaced while on the road.  Safety first.

We then had to "stand on the corner in Winslow Arizona" as thousands of others have done in the past.  Kind of hokey but kind of fun also.  We made images of each other standing there.  If you are driving I-40 through Arizona, you must stop and try it.  It is one block south of Route 66.

We ended up for the night in Flagstaff, Arizona.  The last 10 minutes of our journey as we came into Flagstaff was ruined by rain!  That pesky rain seems to be following us.  It rained really hard for about 30 minutes, then it was gone.

This morning, because our bodies are still on Eastern Time, but locally it is Pacific Time, we all awoke at about 4:30 a.m.  I tried to sleep longer, but just couldn't.  We all met for another "free" hotel breakfast of mediocre food, had some pretty good coffee, packed up the truck, then headed to the Grand Canyon, where we spent all day today.  It was a marvelous day.  Of the time I have spend over three visits I have made to the Grand Canyon, this was by far the nicest.  It was just a gorgeous day with cumulus clouds contrasting with an azure sky, low humidity which allowed the distant rock colors to not be muted by moisture in the air and look saturated and intense.  We had a nice lunch at the El Tovar Lodge, then toured the park.

By the late afternoon, all of us were really tired.  I looked to make images that were a bit different in a place that has millions of pictures taken over the years.  I'm not sure I succeeded, but I made some nice images, in my opinion.  Because the day was so beautiful, there was no compromise in the images due to weather conditions.

Typical view of the Grand Canyon, which is 18 miles across at its widest
point. (click to enlarge)

Now, to my comments on using a full frame digital SLR and several lenses versus using my Olympus OMD E cameras with those lenses on previous trips.

I'll give you a real life example of how my day went today at the Grand Canyon.  We arrived about 9 a.m., parked and I got out my Domke bag with the D810, 16-35 f/4, 24-120 f/4, 70-200 f/4, 1.4X Nikon converter and the 50mm f/1.4.  Of course there were a couple of extra batteries, cleaning supplies, filters, etc.  We walked from the parking lot to the rim of the Grand Canyon, which was about 600 yards.  By the I reached the rim of the canyon, I knew that there was no way I was going to carry that gear around with me all day.  After making a few "tourist" type images, as well as some serious images, I headed back to the truck to put most of the gear away.  I ended up carrying the D810 with the 24-120mm lens attached, a polarizer in my pocket, a lens cleaning cloth in another pocket, a Colorchecker Passport in a shirt pocket and the 70-200mm f/4 lens carried in my hand by the tripod foot. Not a good way to carry it, but I didn't have a little bag of any kind in which to put the lens.

I walked around all day with that gear and I was still tired of carrying even that.  It was a pain.  If I do that again, I will have a small shoulder bag in which to put the second lens, filter, cleaning cloth and Colorchecker.

As far as image quality, of course the D810 produces superior images overall, especially if you have to crop to any extent or want to make large prints.  But the M4/3 gear is so much more pleasurable to use as it is smaller, lighter but keeps essential quality for all but the worst conditions or the largest prints.

Bottom line for me is that if I am working out of a vehicle or won't be walking much, I will choose the full frame gear.  But if I plan on walking or hiking for more than a half hour away from the truck, I will take the M4/3 gear.

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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