The ’emboss’ filter…
Not an improvement on the photo I took at Christmas time, but it does look cool.
The ‘neon’ filter is interesting.
I forget what that filter is called, but I like the way that only the Golden Gate Bridge remains identifiable.
‘Space’ filter… the final digital frontier.
The sky looks like waves.
Hmmmm…
I do love the ‘flame’ filter.
But I will never get sick of the ‘groovy rainbow’.
My cousins and I had so much fun at the tide pools on my first night in Santa Cruz, that we decided to visit the beach again.
We had to park at the top of some bluffs… or cliffs…
That meant we had to walk down a really tall stairway carrying a lot of beach toys…
But it also meant that I got a few good photos of a cute part of Santa Cruz, and the beach.
More tide pools.
And more kelp forest.
It was almost time to say goodbye to my cousins.
All the other little kids on the beach were wearing little wet suits.
But we come from hardy stock.
I mean, yeah, both kids were shivering and had blue lips by the time we left…
But they had fun, and I met a bunch of cute kids and petted some nice dogs. Okay, we are to the last day of my whirlwind, detour-packed adventure down the coast of California. Join me later for the part where my adventure got really twisted.
This post takes us to the end of my morning adventure with my big cousin and my two little cousins, to that little farm on the coast near Santa Cruz, in Northern California.
After this morning of fun, we went back to my cousin’s house… or is that cousins’ house?… for lunch and naps for the kids, and then we had one more little adventure, before I left the following morning to continue my detour-laden drive up the coast.
Behind the farm, there was a dirt road, and this led to another exciting find.
Horsies!
Or is that horseys?
Either way, you know how I feel about horses.
Any day that you get to pet some horses is a good day.
I also spotted a Peregrine Falcon as we walked back to the car.
I didn’t think he would sit there for long, so I didn’t change the lens on my camera to the zoom lens.
But, thanks to the huge size at which my camera saves the photos, I just cropped a bunch of the photos off, and it looks like I did use the zoom lens.
Here are a few simple digital filters, used with this photo…
I took that photo on my recent trip to the Bay Area for Christmas.
I am a big fan of this easy-to-do form of digital art.
You never know how they will turn out. That is a wave made out of a sunset, a city skyline, and some water.
The starry sky effect is sort of cool.
And I like that one… but my favorite is always the ‘groovy rainbow’ filter…
Oh yeah… groovy…
I can’t remember the name of the old farm that my big cousin and I took my two little cousins to…
I know it is near the coast, just off Highway One, about ten miles North of Santa Cruz.
And I know it was a great place to take kids.
They had some old farm equipment.
My littlest cousin liked the old tractor.
Sorry about the window reflection. I tried to take some pictures of some old cars in a barn.
That one came out a little better.
Like any good farm, this one had some chickens. There were also some goats, but I didn’t get a photo of them. And there were horses, but I saved those pictures for the next post.
There was also a blacksmith shop.
As most of you know, I am learning how to be a blacksmith, so this was of some interest to me.
Okay, we are almost done with the little farm.
Just some pictures of the flowers growing at that little farm near Santa Cruz, in Northern California.
My two little cousins, exploring an aloe cave.
After our little jaunt down to the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean near Santa Cruz in Northern California, my cousins and I walked to a lovely old farm. In front of the farm were the biggest Aloe plants I have ever seen.
I have some aloe plants in my back yard in San Diego. They are less than one-foot-tall…
These aloe plants tower over twenty feet in height, and you can go right inside them.
I have never seen anything like it. I mean, not with aloe plants. And the people who run this historic old farm even go to the trouble of removing the sharp, curved thorns that run down the side of each aloe leaf, at least to the level that they would rip little kids apart.
Man, me and the cousins had fun!
I might have to move my aloe plants to the middle of my yard when they get a little bigger, and make me some aloe caves!
Aloe is also very useful. If you get a burn, you can snip off a bit of an aloe leaf, and rub the clear, jelly-like sap onto the burn. It soothes the pain and helps the burn heal.
Ain’t nature wonderful?
I suggest we all plant some aloe.
But the aloe plants weren’t the only remarkable thing growing at this quaint old farm.
There was also a great big tree, that was not only the perfect tree for a kid to climb in, but its canopy grew over the trunks like a giant circus tent.
Inside, it was like a cool, green grotto.
This is the tree every kid is looking for.
As long as we are focusing on plants, I think my next post will be a bunch of photos of the flowers that were growing around this farm… you know, just for you people who are living under 6 feet of snow right now.
We have made it to the morning of the second day of my three-day, detour-filled California road trip adventure. My first detour involved going out of my way to visit my cousins in Santa Cruz… which is decidedly not on the direct route back from the San Francisco Bay Area to San Diego.
This little outing, which required me to backtrack North on Highway One, over ground which I had just covered the day before, could be considered my second detour.
My three cousins and I took a long walk out to the Northern California coast.
We enjoyed views of the Pacific Ocean from some cliff tops.
It was quite lovely.
Campbell and Clark enjoyed snack time quite a bit.
There were quite a few birds about.
Taking pictures of small children and birds is challenging. They are always moving.
You just have to hope for the best.
Every once in a while, you get lucky.
I think this was a segregated beach.
Or maybe it was just birds of a feather flocking together.
I love trying to take pictures of birds in the air. I will be honest, and admit that I cropped some of these photos to get rid of all the extra blue sky.
It makes it look like I am a better photographer than I actually am.
And yes, as the title of the post implies, I did take some pictures of bushes.
There was something interesting about them.
And I do like Spanish moss… which I think is really some kind of lichen… maybe…
Here we are, at the end of the first day of my three-day, detour-filled California road trip adventure.
I know, I didn’t post yesterday. I got the flu… with a migraine… wheee…
I had a great time, visiting that beach with all the tide pools, in Santa Cruz in Northern California.
My little cousin, Campbell, had fun too.
I spotted a mommy otter with her baby.
I love otters.
I love a full moon, too.
You will see more of this little guy tomorrow… uh… I mean, the tomorrow of this day, not the tomorrow of today… if you see what I mean.
There is a nice sunset in there… somewhere…
Not the best pictures I ever took of otters.
They were pretty far from shore.
But still… otters!
Good night, moon.
Good night, stupid telephone wires, enemy of all photographers.
I have not tried the paddle board thing yet. It looks relaxing… and sort of boring.
Okay, I am going back to bed. See you soon… I hope.
Yes, I know it was a bad joke. Or pun… or whatever.
I try to make my titles interesting, to increase my readership. You might also have noticed, in the title, that this is part 6 of a series. That is why I am not going to explain again why I was on this beach in Santa Cruz in Northern California.
Because you should already know why I was there, who I was with, where I was on my way to, where I was coming from, and many other interesting details that make this a good adventure.
You should also know that I am partial to the green anemones.
I don’t know what this stuff is, so I call it ‘sea moss’.
A humming bird finds the mother lode in some aloe flowers.
I hope you like the aloe flowers…
They are going to play an important role in an adventure I had the following day.
That is a nice picture of some drift wood… or a drift tree…
Soak it in… especially if you live where it is snowing.
Hey, cousin!
I have one more post of photos from this, the end of the first day of my three-day, detour-filled adventure.
I hope you stick around for the rest of the story.
Because it is worth hearing about.
Otters!!!
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Pouring My Art Out by Arthur H. Browne is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.Based on a work at https://pouringmyartout.wordpress.com/.
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