I dropped MJ off at the airport very early this morning so she could go visit Blair. Afterwards, I went into downtown Pittsburgh to meet Brad for some sunrise photography. After the sunrise, I captured this photo on the Clemente Bridge. Of course, Heather & Jacob made it here before me.
Everglades Safari
During a past Florida trip, MJ and I completed an Everglades tour on one of these air boats. It was cool, but not exactly as interesting as I thought it would be. I’m not sure what I thought would happen or what we’d see, but it was “ho-hum”.
Note, the tour operator was great. I just wasn’t as impressed with the Everglades swamp as I expected….. Maybe because it wasn’t drained (that’s a joke, let’s not get political).
Iconic Urbex Cathedral
This is the beautiful St. Peter and St. Paul Cathedral. I’ve been to this spot numerous times. Its an iconic urbex location.
Jordan Berry
The Pittsburgh Steelers cut Jordan Berry from the team today as part of their reduction to the league mandated 53-man roster. He was their punter for the last six seasons.
I took this photo of Berry last season. I didn’t plan to post this photo, but I heard about his release from the team and just happened to find this photo tonight looking for something to post. It wouldn’t surprise me if he had the same expression on his face when he learned about getting cut from the team…. Of course, I’ll never know.
Mission Point Lighthouse
I took this photo last October during our Michigan trip. You can’t see it from this photo, but Lake Michigan is just over the white fence. Anyway, this is a great spot and has some nice hiking trails through the forest and along the shore.
Saeborg
MJ and I came upon this ship in the village of Husavik, Iceland. I loved the scene and had to capture it to share with you.
Maximum Security
After taking this photo of this prison cell, I went into the cell and took it from the opposite direction. When I did that, I closed the door 75% of the way closed. Good thing I didn’t close it completely because it wouldn’t reopen. I almost locked myself in….. that would have been a huge problem.
This is the Maximum-Security wing of an abandoned Pennsylvania prison.
Vatnajokull Tongue
Vatanjokull, a huge glacier, takes up a large part of Iceland in the southeastern corner. This specific portion of the glacier, which is called a tongue, was right behind our hotel. Well sort of right behind…more like 4 km down an extremely rough trail that required a 4-wheel drive vehicle.
If you don’t know, a glacier tongue is a small finger shaped portion of a glacier that usually comes down off the mountain. The scale of this tongue and the entire glacier is impossible to understand in this photo. Sometimes a photo just doesn’t do a location justice (think about trying to capture the beauty of the Grand Canyon in a photo). You’ll have to trust me when I say, what you can see in this photo is probably less than 1% of the entire glacier.
Again, you can’t tell from this photo, but there are dozens of icebergs in the water that have broken free from the glacier. I didn’t know either until I piloted the drone over them. The distance from where I took this photo to the icebergs in front of the glacier was just over a mile. I guess that gives you some sense of the scale.
I had this wonderful spot all to myself from about 9pm to 11pm. It wouldn’t surprise me if I was the only one to visit this spot all day…. Just based on the condition of the trail and the location. You could tell it doesn’t get many visitors like Iceland’s more popular spots.
Bonaire's Salt Flats
Honest, I don’t have much to say today. So, just enjoy this pretty aerial photo from the island of Bonaire. Cargill operates this site and creates food products with the sea salt they harvest from the salt flats.
Jupiter
Did you have a great week? I’m glad we’re going into the weekend, and I can get some things done around the house.
Today’s photo is from the abandoned Jupiter Factory in Pripyat Ukraine, which sits a few miles from Chernobyl and is within the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. The Russians claimed the factory made cassette recorders, but in reality it made semiconductor components for their military. We spent a couple hours exploring this site during our 2018 Chernobyl trip.
64th
I hope you’re having a great weekend. We had family in visiting for the weekend. It was nice spending a little time with them and attending the WHS Foundation Annual Sporting Clay Shoot.
Here is an old photo (which I didn’t post in the past) from the US Steel Building in downtown Pittsburgh. As you may or may not know, the UPMC Executive offices are on the 64th floor. In addition, they rent a bunch of other floors inside the building.
Bonaire Flamingo
Blair and I explored this partially built, abandoned hotel the last time we were in the country of Bonaire together. Since then, I think someone has started to redevelop this site.
Either way, I loved the graffiti flamingo painted on this patio column.
Gufufoss
There are probably thousands of waterfalls in Iceland. Seriously, they are everywhere. When you’re visiting Iceland, by day three you start to say this phrase loud when you find/see another waterfall. “Oh, gee look another waterfall”. There are just so many of them you start to take them for granted very quickly.
Anyway, I didn’t know this one existed until we came upon it after leaving the village of Seydisfjordur. It was a great surprise even though it wasn’t early in our trip…
Rainbow Road
MJ and I drove about 45 minutes out of our way to visit this village. Seydisfjordur is a super cool little town isolated by itself on the other side of a mountain at the end of a fjord. As you cross over the mountain you go from summer weather with green vegetation to snow and back down through what seemed like dozens of switchbacks to summer weather again. Once you arrive, this wonderful village sits there by itself. The village is sandwiched between the steep mountain face and the ocean.
Honestly, the village is amazing. They have turned this old fishing village into a travel destination. It’s very clean, unique, pretty setting with nice bars, restaurants, stores, and other attractions. If I could go back in time to redo anything about our Iceland trip, I’d change our travel arrangements so that we stayed the night in this town. More time in this spot would have been great.
Anyway, they have this cool photographic street that leads right up to the church. The Icelandic people are very inclusive and embrace everyone including LGBTQ+ members of their society. To the point, they are proud to create and display symbols like this…. It doesn’t require Pride Month for a few to show their support. Iceland supports the LGBTQ+ members every day, including in this tiny rural village…. It was spending a little time with people who are welcoming to everyone…unlike the fair amount of hate we have in the United States.
Sunrise Point
Brad, Blair and I met way, way, way too early this morning (my sleep will be messed up for a week) to photograph the sunrise in downtown Pittsburgh. For those of you who don’t know, there is a Pennsylvania state park positioned where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers come together to form the Ohio River in the heart of the city. The park’s name is Point State Park for obvious reasons.
Anyway, at the “point” in the park where the rivers come together is a large water fountain. They turn it on right after sunrise each day. We wanted to capture the sunrise reflection in the water of the fountain. Fortunately, it worked out since I’ve failed to capture this a few times in the past. We finally got a nice sunrise and sky, which made this image powerful.
CCL Glory
I’m so ready to get back to normal or at least as close to “normal” as we can. For us, that means getting back on a cruise boat. You can help by getting fully vaccinated against COVID, if you haven’t already. If you’re already fully vaccinated, thank you very much.
I captured this via my drone right before the pandemic started.
PNC Park at Dusk
Here is another drone photo of downtown Pittsburgh. During games this is a “no fly zone” so getting this slightly before, during and slightly after a game is difficult without special approval. But I think the photo is more interesting when the stadium is empty.
Vik
This little church in the village of Vik is often photographed from numerous perspectives. There are a couple of cool rock formations in the ocean off the coast of Vik (behind the church from this angle). In the future, I’ll share a photo of this church from a different angle where you’ll be able to see them as well. In this photo, I was trying to frame the church with the purple Lupine wildflowers in the foreground. By the way, the Lupine flowers are everywhere in Iceland. Anyway, I hope you like this photo as much as I do.
Nati
I captured this photo when I was in Cincinnati last season covering the Steelers/Bengals game. Jake and I carpooled down there to cover the night game. The next morning before heading back to Pittsburgh, we went over to the Kentucky side of the river to get this photo looking back into the city.
Side note, Cincinnati has a bunch of nicknames including Cincy, The Nati, The Queen City, The Queen of the West, The Blue Chip City and The City of Seven Hills…….
Miami's Big Ball
Sunrise from Miami Beach earlier this year. I loved all the different Art Deco designed lifeguard shacks up and down the beach.
