Photos

Kennedy Space Center

  • Motor Closeup

    The business end of this rocket looks more like a tangled mess of tubes and wires, but its a very advanced and complicated machine.

  • Another Crawler

    Another one of NASA's land crawlers, hiding inside.

  • Off topic - Stone Ball

    Instead of a boring fountain, the center had a map of the cosmos carved into a 2 ton granite sphere, suspended and slowly rotating on a water base. With enough force you could spin it a different direction!

  • Space Shuttle Atlantis

    The retired Space Shuttle Atlantis. 'Murica!

  • Apollo Guidelines

    A list of mission status and abort codes from the Apollo era. View full size to read it.

Last November, I had the opportunity to visit the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, while visiting relatives living in the area.

Oktoberfest 2013

  • Yodeling

    We met our yodeling friends from earlier, they were demonstrating how sound from their alphorns could be bounced off other mountains and heard echoing. Very neat demo!

  • Olympic Ski Jumps

    Not the best photo, but I think it came out alright considering the range was about 12 miles.

  • Base camp

    A better view of the festivities below. The line across the picture is the arm-size cable hauling our gondola to the summit.

  • Summit

    A short distance from the gondola drop-off, the peak of Little Whiteface.

  • Selfie!

    This guy was awesome.

Every October, the ski resort at Whiteface Mountain has a small Oktoberfest. Traditional German music, food, beer, and demonstrations are featured, and many local vendors come to show off their homemade crafts.

This is the first time I've gone in many years, and the first time I went being older than 21! It's a ton of fun and is definitely worth checking out if you're in the area during the skiing offseason.

Exploring Benson Mines

  • Machine Shop

    Judging from the abundance of 440 volt hookups in the building, this likely was some sort of machine shop.

  • Abandoned Excavator

    ...With no bucket. Likely a Massey Ferguson 450.

  • Garage Door

    Outside view of another building showing the decay of the area.

  • Ore Silos

    Rusting silo between concrete silos for holding iron ore. It looked like there was more machinery on top of the silos that had rusted away and collapsed.

  • Overgrown

    Tree blocking a doorway.

Benson Mines is a long-abandoned iron mine near Watertown, NY. The mine was shut down in 1978 and the buildings and have been completely abandoned ever since. Abandoned man-made structures are my favorite to take pictures of, so I couldn't resist exploring!