Jim Nix 4/9/19 Jim Nix 4/9/19

Along Route 66

A lovely sunset brings life to an interesting diner along Route 66…

So much goodness on the Mother Road! This was a diner in Albuquerque, which I had previously looked up and hoped to catch in interesting light (or blue hour at least). Luckily I had a lovely sunset in the background which accentuated the neon and colors here.

Jim Nix 1/25/19 Jim Nix 1/25/19

Abandoned on Route 66

A collection of 4 photographs from Route 66, specifically in New Mexico. Just some abandoned goodness from the Mother Road!

For me, one of the great things about driving (and shooting) along Route 66 is the amount of old, abandoned spots and things that you find. It’s really visually interesting and I find these empty places to be really photogenic. I’ve been along parts of Route 66 several times, but a while back I did a large portion of Route 66 across the Southwestern US - essentially, I drove the entirety of Arizona and New Mexico. While that is far from a comprehensive tour, I do think it represents some of the best parts of the Mother Road and according to what I have read, it contains the most popular ones as well. Here are some abandoned spots that I encountered. Enjoy!

Jim Nix 8/7/18 Jim Nix 8/7/18

Sunset in the Badlands

Sunset in the Badlands of South Dakota - another state visited!

I have wanted to visit the Badlands in South Dakota for a really long time. Having seen many pics of the place - and being a huge fan of the Springsteen song, too - I just had to see it and photograph it for myself. So a few weeks ago I took off on a road trip with my daughter. It spanned about 9 days and we covered 3100 miles. It was awesome, but boy did I get a little tired of all the driving. Regardless, we made it and I took some shots that I like, including this one that I am sharing today. Enjoy!

Jim Nix 8/3/15 Jim Nix 8/3/15

Driving Highway 1

I recently drove up a large part of Highway 1 in California, making stops in some of the iconic, wonderful, and always photogenic spots along the way. I started in San Simeon and made it through Big Sur and Carmel, ending in the Fort Bragg and Mendocino area. Here are 25 photos that illustrate the beauty I witnessed!

What's more iconic than a drive up Highway 1 in California?

As you know I am on a Griswold-style road trip in the Western US with the family, and we have seen a lot of things. So much that it's hard to keep track (though thankfully I take some pictures). We started at our home in Austin, TX and are currently in Oregon, before we head up to Washington State for a bit. Then it's time to go home.

One thing we were really looking forward to was the drive along Highway 1 in California.

It has a reputation as a famously beautiful drive, and it's earned it. It is beautiful. Since we were coming from Texas, we came in at about San Simeon, California where we spent the night and toured the Hearst Castle the next day (I still need to work on the pics from Hearst). From there, we meandered along the coast up to Carmel with several stops in the Big Sur area. That place is gorgeous - what an incredible stretch of coastline.

After that it was the 101 through San Francisco and up into northern California, eventually getting back on Highway 1 in the Fort Bragg and Mendocino area, where we spent a couple of days (and when we left, we took the highway hugging the coast all the way into Oregon). It was our first visit to this area, and we loved it. It seems like Mendocino gets more press than Fort Bragg, but we really liked Fort Bragg. Whereas Mendocino feels a little more "fancy", it seemed like Fort Bragg was more of the "salty dog", and I do love the salty dog places.

While there, we did a fair bit of meandering around the coastline in the area, despite having just spent the better part of a long week driving across the country. Isn't it interesting that you can be so tired of driving, but if there is something beautiful or interesting to go see that you forget you are sick of being in the car? Such is human nature. A little excitement can overcome a lot.

So today's photos are those that I collected after leaving San Simeon, driving up Highway 1 through Big Sur, and in and around Mendocino and Fort Bragg. If you had asked me a month ago if I preferred mountains or beaches, I would have said mountains for sure. And though I probably still do, finding beaches like these (and the ones I have explored in Oregon) are pretty dang hard to beat. I just love a rocky beach with sea stacks and other things to explore. I find them beautiful and endlessly interesting.

Well that's it for today my friends. Thanks for stopping by, and more stuff from this trip coming soon!

Jug Handle State Reserve, between Mendocino and Fort Bragg, CA

A boat leaving the harbor in Fort Bragg, CA

A secluded cove along Highway 1 north of Fort Bragg, CA - loved this spot!!

More from that same spot just looking South instead of North

And more from there but looking West this time into the never-ending Pacific Ocean

Next to the lighthouse at Point Cabrillo

One last look along the rocky Pacific shore - so awesome!

Jim Nix 7/9/15 Jim Nix 7/9/15

My 2015 summer plans

We are just starting a multi-week family summer vacation and it's awesome already! Read on to see where we've been so far and what we plan to do for the next few weeks (hint: lots of outdoor photography). I also included a few teaser iPhone images taken on the trip and a map of our travels. Fun!

Look out Clark Griswold, here we come! :-)

As I mentioned somewhere here on the blog in a recent post, I am in the midst of a wonderful and awe-inspiring family vacation. It’s a bit like Clark Griswold and his clan doing the whole drive out to Wally World, though I don’t think we will end up with a dead Aunt Edna tied to the roof. At least I hope not. I don't even have an Aunt Edna.

This is something that we have been planning for a long time, and it is finally here (in fact, we are finally here). “Here” in this case is Arch Cape, Oregon and it is an incredible place. It’s a very small town outside of the slightly larger (and better known) town of Cannon Beach, Oregon.

We have been here before (for a week last time) and separately I have been to Cannon Beach on a couple of previous trips (including the first NXNW meetup, which was awesome). In other words, it’s so beautiful here that I always want to come back. I do love it, and for good reason. This is the land of incredible coastlines, sea caves, waterfalls, forests, and those awesome big ‘ol rocks dotting the coast (most famous example: Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach).

Have you ever seen the 80’s movie The Goonies? It was shot in this area. So if you remember that scenery at all, that will give you some idea of what I will be aiming my camera at over the next 5 weeks. (And if you don’t remember it, well come back and you will see a lot of it here!)

And yes, we are here for 5 weeks!

Isn’t that awesome?? We found a beautiful home to rent and it’s a short jaunt from the beach, so we will be spending a lot of time hanging around the edge of the Pacific Ocean and just enjoying the scenery, relaxing, and I will be taking photos. Loads of them!

As I said above, we drove out here, and though you can cover the drive from Austin to the Oregon coast in about 4 days (at least according to Google Maps), we opted for the scenic route and picked a few spots we wanted to see along the way. (We will plot a different route home, just for the sake of seeing different stuff - and thus taking photos of different stuff. Win.)

(I have inserted a few iPhone pics below that I have taken in the last 10 days, just to give you an idea of what's coming, when I find time to process some of this awesomeness I am capturing!)

We stopped first in New Mexico simply because that is a place we could stop after about 10 hours of driving the first day. Texas really is that big. From there it was on to Sedona, and since we arrived a little early we popped over to the Grand Canyon. It was my first time to see it and it was great! After 3 blissful days in Sedona (and about a million pics!) we took off for 1 night in Las Vegas.

The stop there was really just to allow my daughter to see the Cirque du Soleil show “O” and to show her around a little. She’s twelve and has seen pics of Vegas (and heard of it), and wanted to see it for real. She's a fan. Some of those casinos make quite the impression.

After that it was a straight shot over to the California coast. We stopped in San Simeon for the night, with a couple of tours of Hearst Castle the next day. It was my 2nd visit there, but first with a camera, and a first for my daughter (she loved it). Then we took a leisurely drive up Highway 1 with a stop in Carmel, ending the day in Santa Cruz.

hearst's office which is on the "upstairs suites" tour - highly recommended and better than the "grand rooms" tour which we also did

The next morning had us on the road again, off to Ft Bragg/Mendocino, California which is a quaint little beach town with some great scenery around it. We spent 2 nights there, then drove on to southern Oregon. Here we opted for a 2 night stay in Bandon, since I was dying to shoot the beaches there (and I got a great sunset both nights!!!), and then drove on from there to our rental in Arch Cape.

All together it was well over 2000 miles of driving over 12 days. Believe it or not, we enjoyed the drive. It helped to have a couple of 2+ night stays thrown in at strategic points to break it up a bit, and of course some of the scenery was literally breath-taking. We already want to return to Sedona. Wow, that place!

along highway 1, somewhere north of ft. bragg, ca

Quite a journey, and it’s just starting. Today is our first full day in Arch Cape (we arrived last night about 6pm). It feels like we have been on vacation forever, and it’s actually just getting started! Plus, I have already taken a couple thousand photos, considering all the Grand Canyon, Sedona, Hearst Castle, Northern California and Bandon Oregon stuff. I totally skipped over shooting in Las Vegas, having done that as recently as this past February (well except for a few iPhone pics).

a wonderful sunset in bandon, or that i shot this past Monday evening

And yes I did promise to share photos from my recent trip to Nashville and Oklahoma City (and I will at some point, because I caught some great stuff in both places!), but I am so excited about all the new stuff I just captured that I may have to come back around to NV and OKC later.

We’ll just have to see - so much to process, and so little time. And so much more to go shoot! (Actually, I have some other pics processed that I will likely share first. And as you can imagine, I could do about 5 different iPhone posts just from the drive up here - not to mention all the posts with images from my Olympus. I guess I better get busy!)

And if you are interested, look at this iPhone gallery on Flickr for all my recent uploads, which includes a BUNCH of stuff from this trip so far (and more coming I am sure!).

Anyways, here’s a map I built that shows our route, at least in general terms. We pretty much took the most direct route each time and stuck to major roads when possible. Plus, we brought our dog (you can’t leave a puppy for that long, it’s like giving up a child) and had to pick pet-friendly spots, which believe me, is somewhat limiting at times. But it’s worth it, because she’s a sweet little thing.

Anyways, we made it work and here we are. And it’s going to be an awesome summer! Time to go shoot some amazing stuff - be back soon! Thanks for stopping by!