Photos

Kennedy Space Center

  • 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!

  • Command Module
  • Vehicle Assembly Plant

    This building is where every NASA space vehicle is assembled. Again, the picture does no justice to the height of this building.

  • Lucky Shot!

    A gull dive-bombing to catch a fish, at the moment of impact. Took quite a few trys to capture this!

  • Crawler

    One of NASA's two land crawlers, currently being outfitted for SpaceX missions.

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!

  • Locking horns
  • Almost to the top!

    Nearly there! And an amazing view of the surrounding mountains.

  • Alphorns

    The business end of some of these horns. Looking east.

  • Cloudsplitter Gondola

    The quickest way to the top of Little Whiteface! 

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

  • Entrance

    Entrance to the facility - and my car!

  • Workshop

    Inside another building, some sort of workshop.

  • Worker's Desk
  • Machine Shop

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

  • 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!