I believe in nothing that I cannot touch, kiss, embrace... The rest is only hearsay. - Edward Abbey

I spent the rest of the afternoon checking out Canaveral National Seashore and the Indian mounds of Seminole Rest and picking up a NPs stamp before later going to Merritt Island to a friend's house to watch the Saints triumph in the Super Bowl. The next few days I'll be able to stay at a friends house in Titusville so I can take part in a special media correspondent program at Kennedy Space Center as part of the Solar Dynamics Observatory launch.

Snow is nature's way of telling folks to come to Florida.

As soon as I got back from my AYCJ trip, I got a call from the property director for the corporation for whom I was working until the end of July when I lost my position. They were still working on grants and hoping to at some point find another full-time position for me, however in the meantime, they wanted to hire me for a particular consulting job. The company had 1800+ housing units throughout a two dozen properties around the state. Only one or two people in the company had ever actually been to all, or even most, of the sites, so they wanted me to visit each on and take photographs of the interior and exterior areas of each place and even some portraits of residents for potential future use. So within a few days of getting back, I was on the road once more, this time on a job to shoot pictures around the state. I had to visit most of the major cities in the state including Gainesville, Lake City, Jacksonville, Cocoa Beach, Miami, Sebring, Ft. Meyers, Ft. Lauderdale, and multiple sites around Tampa and Clearwater. It was actually kind of fun to get the chance to use some of my skills and provide the service. Though I cannot post any of those pictures here due to NDA and copyright retained by the client, but I was able to take a little bit of time between driving stints and take some shots of roadside Florida. I was able to visit Ft. Caroline National Monument to get my park passport stamp for that site and even get in a training run with the local H3 group in Ft. Lauderdale. To add to the adventure a bit I used the little tear drop trailer for sleeping so I could be on site at first light whenever possible in order to get the best shots outside. The new wide angle lens I picked up a few months ago was excellent for getting inside pictures without having to deal with stitching things together and the resulting ghosting artifacts.

Olympics: Official Sports Marketing Division of Coca-Cola

Day 27
Seattle, Olympic Peninsula

I was up relatively early to get a few pictures and head out before weekday traffic got too bad. I took a few shots of the Freemont Troll and then the art district for a few pics around the statue of Lenin. I headed north and then got my ticket for the auto ferry ride to the Olympic Peninsula on the Edmonds Ferry. While waiting I was able to find a nearby geocache and get in a couple of shots of some passing Boeing airplane fuselages being carried by train. After getting back on land I drove through Port Gamble and some of the other old small company timber towns. After going over the Hood Canal floating bridge, kind of cool in that much of the bridge does indeed float on pontoons and the span retracts to allow for traffic, I headed towards Port Angeles and the Olympic National Park visitor center. I made a quick stop at the Dungeness River Bridge Park for a few pictures. After getting my park stamp, I took a hike to Hurricane Ridge in the park before also checkout out one of the side roads for some pretty stunning vistas. I was able to enjoy watching some of the deer population walk around and get in some decent shots. I wish I had more of my camping gear with me as this park would be an astounding place to visit for a week and do some more serious hiking. I doubt I'll ever really have the chance to come back, but it was worth checking out.

Rocky Horror fans are very committed...or should be!

Day 14:
Denver
Rocky Mountain National Park

After grabbing breakfast and doing laundry at a coin facility, I headed back to the airport to pick up my next travel companion, Jessica. She had just come in from New Orleans where she spent several days with Mike G (the guy with whom I was hiking in Maine just a week earlier) and other passholders. After throwing her stuff in the car, we headed for the mountains. I've always wanted to see the Rocky Mountains National Park and this AYCJ pass gave me the chance to do it. This mountain chain is only one of two in the world, the other being The Remarkables near Queenstown New Zealand which I got to see in March 2008, that line up exactly north-south for the entire length. It was a bit of a long drive, the the scenery kept getting better and better as we went along. We stopped at the visitor center so I could get my NPS park stamp and a hiking map. It was too late to really start much of a trail, but we did get the scoop of a few good spots for watching the elk. Even though it was cold with occasional snow flurries, we hung around for a while and even really enjoyed the ranger presentation that covered the habits and history of the elk in this area. I wanted to be able to do a scenic loop drive, however the high mountain roads seemed to have just been closed due to high-altitude snowfall, so we were denied the opportunity. After filling up on a good dinner and a micro-brew restaurant in Estes Park, we drove a little outside of town until we found a good spot just inside National Forest property where I threw up the tent and sleeping bags and crashed for the night.