Heather Dalton Photography | Blog » landscapes

San Francisco

Heather — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:37:52 +0000

In early December, I headed to San Francisco for the annual Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union. While most of my time was spent at the conference, I did find time to catch up with friends who live far away and see some of the sights of San Francisco.

I went to lunch with my roommate from my internship in 2004, Sarah. She lives in England and I only get to see her once a year at this conference

My South Dakotan friend Cassie and I spent a couple hours exploring Chinatown one evening

The only part of my flight from San Francisco back to Houston that wasn’t completely covered with clouds was right after taking off, so below are a few photos of California

Moonsoon at SP Crater

Heather — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 02:58:10 +0000

While on the teacher workshop field trip in northern Arizona, one of our stops was a cindercone volcano called SP Crater. When we arrived at the cone, the sky was blue with a few puffy clouds. We spent less than an hour climbing around collecting cinders and lava bombs before gathering at the bottom to discuss what we had found.

About that time, the sky started looking like the second panorama and giant cracks of thunder were booming, so we decided it was time to go. I took the nine photos in the second panorama and hopped in the minivan, and as soon as we started driving down the dirt road towards the main road, the sky opened up. It was pouring rain blowing in sideways and hailing, and we were driving in minivans (no four-wheel drive…) on a road that quickly turned to mud. I rolled down the window every so often so I could get pictures (and video!) but could only leave it down for a few seconds before I (and my camera) were soaked; those are the middle two photos. It’s not a geology field trip without some sort of adventure! The last few photos are the view of the storm after we had gotten back onto the main road. We got out just in time!

Meteor Crater!

Heather — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 17:57:43 +0000

One of the stops on the teacher workshop field trip in Arizona was Meteor Crater (or Barringer Crater). Meteor Crater was formed when a meteorite about 150 feet across made mostly of iron and nickel metal slammed into the northern Arizona desert, creating a hole about a mile wide. At 50,000 years old, it is one of the youngest impact craters on Earth, and because of its arid environment, it’s the best-preserved crater in the world. This crater helped planetary scientists figure out what craters were and how they were formed (from space rocks hitting the Earth, rather than volcanic craters). There is some neat history about the crater you can read about in the links above.

While we were there, we had some free time to wander around, so I got some fun pictures. Storms from the monsoons were building on the horizon and heading toward the crater, which made for a dramatic backdrop.

Rocks are fun

Andrea, my partner in crime (and workshop facilitation)

Storms approaching the crater

Storms over the distant San Francisco Peaks

Nighttime in San Francisco

Heather — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 03:38:21 +0000

We did a lot of walking around San Francisco at night, which gave me a lot of opportunities to get some long-exposure photos. I really liked the giant bow and arrow on the edge of the water near the Bay Bridge. Very cool!

Foggy ferry ride out of San Francisco at sunset

Heather — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 05:50:25 +0000

I was in San Francisco for the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union a couple of weeks ago, so the next several sets of photos will be from that trip. My friend Cassie and I went out on a ferry ride to Sausalito in the fog at sunset the first night we were there. It was a spectacular sunset; the sky looked like it was on fire. It was freezing out on the deck of the ferry but I kept having to go back out there because the sunset kept getting better and better.

Foggy San Francisco

Pelican flying over the Bay Bridge

Buildings in the fog

Our very loud ferry companion

San Francisco silhouette

Lighthouse barely visible through the fog

San Francisco sunset. I like the ribbon of fog along the water and how it picked up the sunset colors

Golden Gate Bridge

iPhone photo (with Moon!)

The view from Sausalito

Sunset in Galveston

Heather — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 21:18:10 +0000

It seems that every time we go down to Galveston, there’s a nice sunset. These are from a few weeks ago. Most were taken with my Canon, but I took the triptych of gulls with my iPhone.

Bluebonnets!

Heather — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 20:13:58 +0000

The bluebonnets and Indian paintbrushes were out in full force when we were in Austin last month! Spring has definitely sprung in central Texas!

Galveston sunset

Heather — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 02:54:22 +0000

Juliane, Em, and I were down in Galveston getting trained for sea turtle patrol and on our way home, we caught a gorgeous sunset!

Downtown Austin

Heather — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 02:13:46 +0000

I made a seven-picture panorama of the downtown Austin skyline at dusk, and I can’t decide if I like it better in color or black and white. I also got a decent shot of the moon.

Fort Davis, TX 1

Heather — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:46:48 +0000

On our way out to Arizona from Houston, Em and I stopped for the night in Fort Davis, TX. We saw a gorgeous sunset with some amazing mammatus clouds and stayed in the fabulous Harvard Hotel.