On the 23rd Day of the PapiBlogger Family Road Trip, the midway point of our journey, the Ruiz clan spent 12 hours driving from Washington state to Bozeman, Montana but discovered some small town gems along the way.
NO WASHINGTON APPLES IN THIS DESERT
As we headed back east for the part of the trip that takes us from Seattle to Maine we started seeing that the eastern part of Washington is largely desert. It was a large contrast to see chunks of a state so green with tall pine trees turn into desert.
We pit stopped in the city of Ellensburg, Washington for lunch at The Palace Café (circ. 1894). While we waited for the most delicious salmon meal I’ve eaten in a long time (everybody loved their food), we found that the local daily newspaper, The Daily Record, was across the street from our restaurant so we told them about our story and they interviewed Angela and I. A couple hours earlier my son Jonathan had his first ever media interview with a reporter from Univision.com.
OLD TOWN WALLACE IN IDAHO
When we were crossing Idaho into Montana, we were joking about the state’s potato reputation until we began to see how beautiful the Idaho’s mountain ranges and roads were. On our short drive through Idaho, from the highway, we noticed an Old West-looking town called Wallace (pop. 900+) that we just couldn’t pass up so briefly stopped for some photos.
We wished we had known about Wallace before because it is brimming with historic-looking buildings and a one-night stay there would have been $35. The short time we had to see Wallace we used it to walk and take some quick photos. Apparently it has a rich haunted history related to its mining past.
SPRINT NEXTEL ROAD TRIP TIP OF THE DAY
When photographing landscapes your photos almost never do justice to what you saw because your eyes perceive depth in 3D but your camera only records in 2D.
There’s a couple of things you can do to take some killer landscape shots however. Here are some tips:
– Look for landscape shots that show contrast scenes such as clouds on a mountain or desert.
– Try to photograph soon after sunset or one hour before sundown. This will help you avoid shadows.
– Sometimes it’s useful to include a person, thing or vehicle to give the landscape you’re photographing scale.
– Try multiple camera angles because sometimes the most obvious angle you choose first is the one you will find least interesting later.