The Johnson Blog

Ramblings of a geek with a few hobbies…

Tag: autumn

  • Pike County Fall Color Drive

    This morning we left the house and headed over to Pike County, Illinois for their annual Fall Color Drive.  The drive consists of a collection of small towns in western Illinois playing host to the travelers, with a variety of activities.

    The trees have only begun changing colors, so it wasn’t much of a Color Drive.  But it was still fantastic weather and we all had a good time.

    The first place we planned on visiting was Time, IL.  A town so small that Motion-X GPS didn’t recognize it (no worries, Google Maps on the iPhone stepped up).  En route to Time, we passed an intersection in Milton, IL which we just couldn’t pass up.

    Tractors, old tractors, antique tractors, and more tractors!  We didn’t count but I’d estimate there were at least two and a half dozen on the lot and packed into a couple buildings.

    David could hardly contain himself.  I think he sat in a dozen, his butt barely able to stay in a seat for five seconds before seeing the next one he wanted to experience.

    And there was a combine he just couldn’t get enough of.  When we told him he had five more minutes and could pick one more to sit on, he immediately went back to it.  I think this picture sums it up.

    Here’s what his hands looked like after the tractor jungle.

    After starting a day with a bunch of tractors, the rest is sure to be a let-down for a three year old  boy.  But he was a good sport and had a very fun day regardless.

    Our next few stops included seeing a set of blacksmiths, a knife maker, plenty of bonfires, and much more.  We ended our westward journey in Hannibal, MO which was having their annual Fall Festival.

    After lunch, our trip up too many stairs to count, and the lighthouse, we headed back to Springfield with root beer, cajun roasted peanuts, and a bag full of fudge in hand.

    Good times.

    I’ve got plenty of photos, which I’ll get edited and posted soon.

  • Oh the Colors!

    Today after work we went out to a lake park to enjoy the weather, the colors, and to take some photos (of course!). It’s very hard to believe that it’s already the end of October, isn’t it?

    Anyway, today was the first time I’ve made use of the Neutral Density filter I purchased over a year ago for my camera.  I originally ordered it to help take shots of waterfalls on our vacation, but it was delivered long after we departed.  If you’re wondering what a Neutral Density filter is, it’s a filter for the lens that darkens the image without any color tinting (that’s the neutral part).  This allows you to slow down the shutter speed to durations that would normally produce dramatically overexposed pictures.  We had some fun with it:

    Later we learned that David has been taking lessons from the great Obi-Wan.  Seriously, he was doing some serious re-enactment with this stick.

     

    The rest of the series are in the gallery, yell at me for access.