Landscape and travel photography is what I do that recharges my internal batteries and makes me feel close with God and in tune with myself. I always love when people purchase some of my travel photography. This morning we sold a print for this image. It’s from a trip I took to Oregon many years ago. I remember waking up really early in the morning to start a hike out to Cape Falcon. It was a foggy and misty morning and as the sun came up, the beams of sunlight came bursting through the trees and it was a magnificent site!

To see more of our travel photography, please see
www.ArisingFineArt.com

I was going back through some old travel image galleries and I found some pictures that I’m shocked were in part of my junk pile.
I LOVE these photos and I think this first one is actually going to get blown up to a 175″ print to hang on our living room wall.

To see more of our landscape and travel photography, check out our new website at www.ArisingFineArt.com.

This past week I had the opportunity to visit my best friend Ben in Phoenix and go on an 1800 mile road trip around northern Arizona and southern Utah to do landscape photography.

Day 1 – 12/14/12
Within an a couple hours of leaving the Phoenix airport, we were driving up through Flagstaff and hit a major blizzard. I didn’t come to Arizona for a blizzard but…here it was anyway. Although it did make for some beautiful snow covered trees and pretty photos.

We must have passed 6 or 7 cars spun out on the road including one car that was totally upside down. Thankfully the police were already handling it. We were grateful for 4 wheel drive on Ben’s truck.

Humphrey’s peak was totally enveloped in a storm and as soon as we crossed over to the other side, the sky cleared up and we were once again driving through dry desert with open skies and tumbleweeds. As we approached the Grand Canyon, another storm was blowing in. We were greeted by a full rainbow.

When we arrived at the first lookout point, the wind was whipping and it must have been a zero degree windchill. It hurt just to stand there.
The stormy skies over the Grand Canyon made for some really interesting photos. Thankfully we got there when we did because within about 20 minutes the storm had totally rolled over the canyon and you couldn’t see ANYTHING.

We then drove to Page, AZ where we spent the night.

Day 2 – 12/15/12
At 6:15am we headed out to the viewpoint at Horseshoe Bend just outside of town. It’s one of my favorite views that I’ve ever been to because you can literally walk right out to the edge of a 1000ft high cliff. It was raining when we pulled into the parking lot but stopped as soon as we started to walk out there. Although we never had cool light in the sky, we still got amazing soft light from the overcast morning which I actually prefer anyway.

Ben took a couple cool shots of me on the cliffs.

Looking back the other way we had a beautiful cloudy morning which is not what I expected in Arizona but I was grateful for it.

While we were out there we met a really cool guy name Mylo Fowler who does some amazing 4×5 photography work.

Next we met up with Brian from Hummer Adventures who took us on a private tour of Secret Canyon which is a slot Canyon resembling some of the more popular ones such as Antelope Canyon. From a photography perspective, a private tour is the way to go so you can setup your tripod and not have people in your way. The ride itself was pretty cool with some serious off-road driving.

The slot canyon was spectacular and equally impressive to the more widely known slot canyons in the area.

By the end of our walk through the canyon it started snowing like crazy!

After leaving Page, we drove up to the Wahweep overlook which provides a beautiful view of Lake Powell and some of the surrounding Mesas.

We had planned on driving north through Grand Staircase/Escalante National Park however due to the storm, we were told that the dirt roads were in terrible condition. They have some sort of soil that when it gets wet, it turns into a mucous-like consistency which is slippery and slimy making it very dangerous on some already precarious roads. Not being able to go straight north through the park led us on a long detour around. This took us first to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes area which was completely covered in snow and didn’t look like much. Since we were driving near Zion National Park and Bryce National Park, even though we both had been to them multiple times, we just had to stop in again. Zion was also very stormy which allowed for some really unique photos.

We spent the night in Springdale, UT just outside the park.

Day 3 – 12/16/12
We started the day really early again today in hopes of catching some beautiful morning light in the park. However, it was still completely overcast as the storms had not left the area. We decided to head out before sunrise and make our way to Bryce Canyon and still catch some morning light. About an hour outside of Zion, we came to the edge of the cloud line and were then greeted with sunny blue skies.

In this photo, the morning sun was back-lighting the mist coming off a nearby stream.

Bryce Canyon was spectacular as always. The snow covered orange hoodoos with the brilliant blue sky created a stunning combination of color.

Next we drove on highway 12 towards Capital Reef National Park. There is a stretch of highway between Escalante, UT and Torrey, UT that is spectacular with many beautiful vistas. We didn’t realize that the road was going to bring us up to nearly 10,000 ft. We got above the main evergreen tree line and were left with fields of aspen trees covered in glistening snow and ice with blue skies one way and dark moody clouds the other way. It was breathtaking and a perfect place to stop for some tailgating and lunch.

Shortly after passing Torrey, UT, we came to Capital Reef. We had planned on spending half a day exploring the park but due to our detour in Zion and Bryce which lead to a lot more driving, we were running behind and really wanted to make it out to Moab, UT for a sunset over the canyons. We ended up passing through Capital Reef and stopped for just a few pics.

We high tailed it to Moab and decided to go to Dead Horse Point State Park for the sunset. We arrived there right at 5:00pm and literally had about 5 minutes worth of sun before it dipped behind Canyonlands National Park in the distance. After the sun dipped the sky caught fire and left us with a breathtaking panoramic view.

After enjoying this dazzling display of color we went and stayed the night in Moab.

Day 4 – 12/17/12

One of the things that I was most excited about photographing the sunrise at Mesa Arch in Canyonlands National Park. I had seen photos of this before and it’s probably the thing I’ve wanted to see most in this whole region. Therefore, we started the day at 6:00am and drove the roughly 45 minute drive to get to the parking area, then walked the short trail out to the overlook. To be honest, I was pretty shocked at how small the arch is. I was expecting a massive arch and this was really small. There were already 4 other photographers there when we got there and two of them were nice enough to let me squeeze my tripod in between them. Shortly after, about 15 other people showed up and there was barely room for anyone to take photos from a good angle. Although the arch was smaller than I expected, it was still absolutely breathtaking!

This gives you a bit of perspective on the size:

Once the sun came up, it lit up the canyons. We went to most of the major overlooks to find our spot for sunset tonight. The winter sun comes in on such a low angle, all day it led to beautiful shadows in the canyons.

Not far from the visitor center is an overlook where you can see the Shafer trail which is a harrowing road that brings you down the side of the canyons and into the valley. The road was closed for construction but it’s pretty cool just to see it from the top.

We found a nice spot to relax for a bit with a beautiful view.

Next we drove roughly an hour into Arches National Park. Although they are practically connected, Arches and Canyonlands are VERY different. Arches is filled with beautiful rock formations that we could have easily spent days photographing.

Our first stop was into an area they call the Windows as there are stone archways that provide beautiful views as you look through them. We decided to stand in the South Window to give a size perspective.

Right near the window area is a short trail that leads to Double Arch which is a very unique rock formation.

Before leaving the park we checked out a few more of the main viewpoints including the view of Delicate Arch from the lower viewpoint.

We planned on hiking out to Delicate Arch in the morning and for now, it was time to head back to Canyonlands to photograph the sunset. It was a long extra drive for just shooting the sunset, but totally worth it. It was probably one of the most spectacular displays of color I’ve ever seen. The sky was on fire! The Green River Overlook has to be the best spot in the park for a sunset.

It was extremely cold and windy up on the ridge but been found a fairly sheltered spot with an old twisted juniper tree that made for an amazing foreground so we decided just to stay there and enjoy the incredible scene that was unfolding. Every few minutes the color changes into something even pretty than before. Ben got this nice shot of us sitting on the cliff.

When the show was over, we drove back to Moab for the night.

Day 5 – 12/18/12

The next morning we wanted to see the sunrise at Dead Horse Point so we ventured out early one more time. The morning sun should light up the cliffs. Unfortunately with another storm coming in, the clouds were too thick to get much sunlight through, however, it did lead to some amazing cloudscapes.

Next we headed for arches and did the 3 mile round trip hike to Delicate Arch which is a really unique rock formation because it is a MASSIVE free standing archway. We stood inside it to give a better perspective of size.

The winds were WHIPPING around and we were glad to head out of there and back to the car. Our next stop was a few hours drive. We were heading to the Valley of the Gods which is similar in landscape to the more popular Monument Valley right nearby. On our way, we were driving down highway 261 which goes over 7000 ft. With another storm coming in at the high elevations there was some snow but really heavy fog which made driving super slow. I shot this with my iphone through the car window while Ben was driving.

We were extremely confused at how the Valley of the Gods was only a few miles away, yet we were still at extremely high elevations. We were also confused by the amount of time the GPS was telling us it would take to get there. What was pretty insane is that highway 261 is a fairly street, fast driving, pave, rural highway. Then all of a sudden, it comes to the edge of what seemed like a 1500 ft. cliff and the road turns into a dirt road with steep, winding switchbacks as you traverse down the side of the cliff. Then at the bottom, it picks up into a highway again. It was so weird, I had to share the bing map:

Valley of the God’s is supposedly where the Mesa is located that was used in the 80s television show Airwolf. We let our nerdy side take over and decided to try to find the Mesa but unfortunately we did not. It was till beautiful. Here’s a pano shot with my iphone.

We passed some old gnarly trees which made for some dramatic elements with the deep blue stormy sky behind them.

After leaving the park and not finding the Mesa we were looking for, we found later that the Mesa airwolf flies out of was actually an artists composite of three different Mesa’s in the area so it doesn’t even exist…oh well!

Our last stop was nearby Monument Valley. We’ve been there a few times but never during stormy skies which provided the opportunity for some moody black and white photos. The highway heading into Monument Valley from the north provides an amazing view with the road leading to the Mesas.

When I got out of the car to shoot that last photo, my brand new Canon 5D Mark 3 fell out of the car and shattered the LCD screen….AAAARGH!!

Once inside the park, we were both exhausted and didn’t feel like driving the 17 mile extremely bumpy dirt road around the park so we stopped for a few of the nice views.

We then began the long 5.5 hour drive back to Phoenix and kept coherent by playing 80s TV theme music trivia thanks to youtube!
That night we stayed at Ben’s house.

Day 6 – 12/19/12

I had to fly home today but before going to the airport I wanted to get a few cactus pics as I’ve never been in an area with the big Saguaro cacti.

It was time to leave after a long but amazing trip. So glad to have a friend like Ben who I can do this stuff with!!

This past weekend I went to a men’s retreat with our church at Springhill camp in Evart, MI. When planning my drive up there, I realized that any time I drove up north, I was always on I-75. I had never really seen much of the state. So, I decided to take the non-expressway roads all the way up and hopefully get some nice fall color pics on the way. The 2.5 hour drive took my about 5 hours. During that 5 hours, I realized that there really wasn’t much of a scenic route or at least I wasn’t on it. Most of the roads that I took just had houses and power lines. I never saw much of the wide open landscape and farmland that I was expecting. There are actually much nicer views from the expressway. However, it was still a nice drive and I found a couple gems in there.

At one point I had to stop at a gas station to fill up my tires with air. This beautiful little lake was literally right next to the gas station on the side of the road:

This beautiful river scene was over a small bridge that would have easily gone unnoticed if I wasn’t specifically looking for it.

On my drive up north, it was perfect weather with low puffy clouds. I found this patch of farmland on a small side road that gave views to the open sky.

After the retreat, I had planned an extensive road trip to go up north. I planned on going up to pictured rocks. However, it was rainy, windy, and gloomy and most of the fall color was already past peak. So, I decided not to do that and instead opted to drive back home.

On my way home, I saw a sign on I-75 for Seven Lakes State Park in Holly, MI. I’ve never been there before and since I was back in the southern part of Michigan, the color in the trees was much more full. It finally stopped raining so I decided to stop. The park was quite beautiful. The color in the trees was spectacular and the dark moody skies made for some great photos.

This week I had the opportunity to go with my friend Ben to Spain for a week. Ben and I were roommates in college and we’ve been doing various traveling and exploring the world ever since. It’s hard to imagine it’s been 14 years since college! Our last trip was in 2009. Ben lives in Phoenix so these trips give us a chance to reconnect.
We had planned out a very aggressive trip with lots of things to see and photograph. Overall the trip was a success but it was a bit too aggressive. We covered too much distance in too short a time. Our days started at 6:00am and went to 9:00pm so every night we were completely exhausted but the photos were definitely worth it!
The pictures below are all available for sale at:
http://www.arisingimages.com/fineart/00_all/index.html?show=__Spain%202012

Day 1
After delays en route to Philadelphia and then more delays to Madrid, we finally arrived at around 7:00am in Madrid after just a few hours of sleep on the plane.
After picking up our rental car, we drove into the city, parked, and started to walk around to explore the sights.
There were some pretty statues and fountains that had to be creatively cropped to hide all the surrounding traffic.

The Royal Palace was by far the most interesting place to see there, however, walking 5 miles in the city was pretty exhausting.

and right across the walkway from the palace was an amazing church!

With all the walking we did we passed some cool narrow streets and colorful buildings.

We then went over to the mayor’s plaza.

We were surprised at how much graffiti was around Madrid. Also, clearly any anti-smoking campaigns haven’t taken off in Spain yet. It was definitely quite Americanized with a burger king and people dressed as Sponge Bob.
We stopped for lunch in a small cafe and saw lots of people drinking at 10:00am and then as we were walking back to our car, we passed lots of hookers.
Let’s just say that we were not impressed with Madrid as most of our walking was on busy streets with lots of diesel pollution. We were eager to head out of town and hit the small country towns.

We next went to go view a beautiful castle in a town called Manzenares. It was really cool to see but it was surrounded by apartments in a fairly dumpy neighborhood again with lots of graffiti so that took away from the ambiance. However, shooting photos from creative angles hid all the “stuff” nearby and made for some cool images.

Onward to Avila. Avila is a town surrounded by giant stone walls that clearly provided fortification back in medieval times.
It was mid-day with minimal clouds. For any of you that know about landscape photography, this is literally the worst time of day to be out taking photos. The light was very harsh and not good for pictures at all. However, it was still really cool to be there. This is what it looked liked:

By playing with the exposure and white balance, I was able to make it look like evening which I thought was a much more interesting photo:

I also enjoyed looking for some random street images:

A few hours later we arrived in Segovia which I was super excited about. Segovia had a huge aqueduct that used to bring water to the city. On the western edge of town, there was a gigantic beautiful castle. By the time we arrived in Segovia, we were exhausted from a long day. Unfortunately there was some road construction in the city which caused us to have to take a long detour to get to the view of the castle. After getting an idea of where the best light would be at sunset, we wanted to find a hotel and get some dinner. We drove a long way back around to the city to find the hotel that we had looked up on the GPS. Unfortunately that hotel must have gone out of business because we couldn’t find it. We found another hotel that was on the road that was closed for construction so we decided to go back there and park, and find the hotel and hope it was open. It was!! We then went to the nearby bar to try to get some dinner but after much difficulty with the language barrier, we realized that they didn’t serve dinner until 8:00 which was still an hour away. That meant that we had to drive all the way back around into the city again and find something to eat. We did that, headed back around again to the castle for some evening photos. Even in the evening, it was definitely harsh angular light with no clouds, but it was still incredible.

We went back to the hotel for sleep as we knew we were going to start the next morning very early.

Day 2
We started the morning with some more pics of the castle and town. It was a breathtaking sight. It was a cold clear morning but well worth getting up early for!

At the viewpoint overlooking the town, there was also a pretty stone church behind us.

Next we headed to Coca to view another majestic medieval castle. On the way, we were driving down an open country road. The sun was low and provided some beautiful morning light coming through the trees.

When we arrived at Coca, the castle was difficult to photograph due to the harsh sun but still amazing. The castle was open to walk around in. It was crazy to think about people shooting bows and arrows off the ramparts to fight off fending attackers.
Now the castle just sat in the middle of town with an elementary school across the street. I think it would be weird to go to school next to a castle that is hundreds of years old.

Next we drove to a town called Burgos to photograph the cathedral downtown. This turned out to be a frustrating experience as it was very difficult to navigate the narrow streets in the city and find a place to park. We finally found a REALLY tight parking garage and managed to get a spot but soon found out that you had to be a guest at a hotel to park there. It took a long time to maneuver the car out of the parking space and after that we were not able to find another parking spot so we eventually just drove out of the city and viewed the cathedral from a distance on the highway. We were not able to get any pictures of it.
We stopped for lunch, then drove through Vittoria and on to a sleepy village named Arroiabe. There was an incredible church on a hilltop and if you drive around to the backside down the farm roads, it provides an incredible view.

Just a few minutes up the road is a small town called Ullibari-Gamboa which could be viewed from across a nearby lake.

Next we drove up to Bilboa which is home to a Guggenheim museum. We wanted to photograph it in the evening but wanted to make sure we knew where to go and where to park so that we didn’t waste time when the evening light was perfect. After getting the lay of the land, we headed farther north to view another medieval castle named Butron. It was another majestic medieval castle, however, it was difficult to get a good view of it and the harsh afternoon light made photographing it a challenge. Using some HDR photography, I was able to bring out the blue in the sky and get a cool shot.

We then headed to the north coast where we wanted to find a hotel for the night so that we would be on the coast for sunrise photos in the morning. We spent about an hour exploring some of the coastal lookouts and got some amazing views of the ocean.

After finding the hotel, we drove back into Bilboa, got dinner and then waited for the perfect evening light at the Guggenheim. It was truly an amazing sight. It’s probably the most unique architecture that I’ve ever seen. Personally I found it even more unique than the Sydney opera house, or the Eiffel tower. They even had jets of fire that shoot out of the water every 5 minutes which was pretty cool. I imagine it would be a little terrifying if you didn’t know they were coming though! The best view was from up on the bridge over the river which was easily accessible by walking.

One thing that was common pretty much everywhere we went in Spain was lots of graffiti. We figured we might as well use it for a portrait:

We went back to the hotel in Sopelana on the north coast for the night.

Day 3
We woke up early again to photograph the sunrise on the coast but being on the north coast with the sun rising in the south eastern sky, the morning light with no clouds did not provide an interesting scene. We hiked down to the ocean to shoot a few photos of the water breaking over the rocks. Long exposures and some creative editing made for some interesting pictures on an otherwise dull morning.

Next we drove farther along the coast to Gorliz but by the time we arrived, the sun had risen too much and the harsh lighting made taking unique photos almost impossible.
We then drove to Lekeitio. It was a beautiful drive through windy mountain roads through a heavily forested park and past hundreds of people riding their bikes for what looked like practice for a big race. The town itself reminded me a lot of Honfleur which was a town in northern France that Cheridy and I visited in France many years ago. Again, the harsh sun and no clouds made photographing difficult.

We then followed the coast to a town called Deva. The drive itself was very similar to highway 1 in California with twisty cliff top roads and a beautiful coastline below but there were very few pull offs on the road to stop and enjoy it. The ones that we did find provided some beautiful views.

We continued driving on to Biarritz in France. When we crossed the border, the security didn’t look at our passports but they did give the front end of our car some really odd looks. We later realized that at some point we had hit a bird while driving and by the looks of it, we had been driving a long time with a dead bird on the grill.
Biarritz had a beautiful little lighthouse on the coast. Today we were expecting 50-60 degree weather with rain, but instead it was 80 without a cloud in the sky.
We were so exhausted from driving so much we decided to sit here and relax for half an hour just to enjoy the sunshine and watch the surfers trying to catch the miniscule waves.

We continued on to Pau which is a town with an old white castle which lead to a lot of cheesy White Castle Hamburger jokes (thanks Ben). Once again the town was difficult to navigate and the castle was hard to photograph in the harsh afternoon sun but I still came away with a few pics that I liked.

We then drove to Lourdes where they have an amazing gothic cathedral. The drive itself was fantastic as we could see the beautiful snow-capped Pyrenees mountains to the south. Seeing those majestic mountains was really exciting and we knew we would be driving right through them tomorrow! We again had a huge amount of difficulty navigating the streets and finding parking in Lourdes. We must have driven around for an hour trying to figure out how to get to the cathedral. While driving around, we got a nice view of the hilltop castle.

It was already pretty late and we were hungry and tired so we decided to stay the night here. However, it’s the off season and almost all of the hotels and restaurants were still closed for the season. We found a hotel that was open and they were having some type of Ferrari convention. There were Ferrari’s everywhere! It was pretty crazy. There was also no shortage of Ferrari owners who were mostly middle-upper aged men wearing cheap cologne who were really proud of their cars. They even wore Ferrari shoes and Ferrari shirts. I felt like I should be having a mid-life crisis to hang out there.
We found a little street corner cafe where we got to eat some terrible pizzas and then walk over to the cathedral to photograph it in the evening.

Day 4
Today was going to be our longest day yet with LOTS of mountain driving. We woke up really early, got all packed up and ready to go and then realized that the time on our phones was different than the time on our watches. Apparently they went through the daylight savings time change last night so our phone alarm actually woke us up an hour too early. It took us a long time and a lot of confusion to figure out what happened and try to understand why the sun wasn’t coming up at the right time. We at first though that there might have been some kind of time shift between Spain and France with one acknowledging daylight savings time and the other not but with help from our friend Google, we figured it out.
Our drive started out with some beautiful views of the Pyrenees mountains covered in snow.

Around each corner the views kept changing and getting better.

We unfortunately realized that the mountain pass that we had planned to take to cross from France back into Spain was still closed for the season. This led us to an extra hour of driving to get around to the next road which was open. We were already anticipating a long day and losing an hour in the morning due to the time change and then losing another hour due to the re-route was not a good thing. Either way, the drive through the Pyrenees national park was fantastic with some incredible views.

After crossing the mountain pass and heading back into Spain we drove down to a much lower elevation where it was very hot and dry. Within a few hours we arrived at Torla which had an old stone chapel with large cliffs as a backdrop. It was an incredibly beautiful day and the smell of clean fresh air was exhilarating.

Later we arrived at a town called Ainsa with old ruins on the hilltop. We quickly realized the ruins themselves were not very photogenic from close up but while looking over the edge of the ramparts, we could see a path up a hill across the river which would give us a much nicer view of the whole town with the snow-capped mountains behind it.

This was then followed by hours of fairly dull mountain driving. The constant twists and turns and elevation changes gave me some occasionally nauseous moments. I have no idea how Ben stayed awake and focused with all that driving.
As the sun got lower in the sky, it led to some beautiful views of the mountain ridges falling away into the distance. There were also some stunning cliffs looming over the mountain valleys.

We found a spot with a very serene location with a reflection of an old house over a lake.

It was getting late and we were still a few hours from where we were hoping to make it tonight but it had already been close to 14 hours of mountain driving today.
The nearest town was St. Lorenc de Morunys. Thankfully we were able to find a hostel that was open in the off season. The only restaurant/bar that seemed to be open wasn’t going to serve dinner for another hour. Those Spanish folks like to eat really late! We walked around and found a place that said we could order pizza. Once again, we had a really bad Spanish pizza and then crashed for the night.

Day 5
We once again woke up really early and drove down to the lake we had seen the night before. It provided an amazing location for sunrise photos. There were a few clouds over the mountains and the lake provided an incredible mirror reflection. It was one of the most beautiful sunrises I’ve ever seen. We spent nearly an hour there photographing it from different vantage points as the light was changing.

Next, we drove a few hours to a town called Olot. Just outside is a village built right above a huge cliff called Castellfollit de la Roca.

We then drove to a medieval town called Besalu which had an old stone bridge leading to the medieval city. There were lots of young kids on field trips out there. I thought it was amazing that for a history field trip, these kids get to go to where history was actually made. When I was in school, the only field trip I remember was going to the salt mines in Detroit.

Next we drove out to the east coast where we came to a beautiful Mediterranean town called El Port de Selva. The white buildings on the blue water were really pretty. It had already been a tiring day so we parked the car on the beach and sat for 10-15 minutes to just enjoy the smell of the sea (and eat potato chips).

Driving up the mountains behind the town, it provided an amazing view of the seaside town down below:

At the top of the mountain we arrived at an old church and monastery.

We then drove to another tourist town on the peninsula called Cadaques which was also a pretty town with white buildings on the ocean. Parking was difficult and we decided to just move on and head out after a few quick photos.

We drove to Tossa Del Mar which was another coastal town a few hours away. We were supposed to drive in to Barcelona tonight but we were totally exhausted so we found a hotel near the coast. We decided to leave our cameras in the hotel room and go grab something to eat and just relax. This was a tourist town so it was probably the first place we went where anyone spoke enough English to actually communicate which made things much easier for us.

Of course the day we decide to leave our cameras in the room, we got a beautiful evening sky on the ocean. I ended up shooting this photo with my iphone.

The restaurant that we stopped at was…interesting. Our food experience in Spain hasn’t been great. The green salad that I got had all sorts of funky things in it that I am not used to and they didn’t provide any dressing. When I asked for dressing, I was offered ketchup, mayo, or fish sauce…pass!

We stayed at a 4 star hotel tonight although we quickly realized that the star rating is very different in Europe then it is in the States. The 4 star hotel was pretty much on par with a motel 6 but for how tired we were, all we really needed was a bed to sleep in and a shower!

Day 6
Today we woke up really early because we wanted to head in to Barcelona to beat the rush hour traffic. We had picked a spot right downtown to stop at that had some old gothic buildings. However, we did NOT beat rush hour and the traffic to get downtown was crazy. Since we had already seen tons of old gothic buildings, we decided to skip that stop and go to Segrada Familia which is an amazing landmark in Barcelona. Driving in big European cities is very nerve wracking so it definitely had Ben on edge. We found a place to park and walked over to the cathedral but the construction cranes, scaffolding and bad light didn’t leave for any good shots. I just shot a quick one with my phone.

As we drove around Barcelona, we saw lots of garbage and graffiti which was a common theme in Spain. Some areas stunk as bad as the industrial section on I-94 in Detroit. We were relieved to get the heck out of there in a hurry! About 45 minutes from the city and up in the nearby mountains is the Monsterrat Monastery. We loved the drive and views of the mountains in the morning.

The monastery itself is a HUGE structure built right into the cliff walls. It was impressive to think about how they could have possibly built it. However, the structure itself was really not pretty as it was just huge blocky buildings that were overrun with giant tour buses, a giant cafeteria, and plenty of people setting up tables surely to sell overpriced memorabilia to all the tourists.

My favorite part about it was some stone archways overlooking the mountains.

We decided to use those for a goofy portrait.

And then I had Ben shoot another more artsy one with my phone.

We then went three hours west to a city called Saragossa which has a huge cathedral right on the river. The cathedral was STUNNING. Probably one of the most beautiful that I’ve ever seen.

The mid day light was harsh so some creative photography and editing were needed to make some really unique pictures.

It was another beautiful day so we decided to stop here for lunch.
We really had no great plan for the rest of the day. It was another three hours back to Madrid which we really had no interest in going back to. We decided to pick a direction and just drive. We picked a little mountain town called Medina de Aragon which had a huge old fortification on a hilltop.

Next we drove through a nearby National Park called Alto Tajo. On the way, the drive was really pretty. We had some decent clouds for the first time on this trip so we took some photos of open fields and white puffy clouds and such. It was super peaceful!!

On our way back towards the expressway I spent some time looking for some cool trees to photograph.

We drove a few hours over to Guadelajara which is a city right off the expressway that we would take back to Madrid the next morning to catch our flight. Parking in the city is always super difficult and we were grateful to find a hotel right off the expressway with parking and a restaurant. Well…we were grateful until we realized that the hotel smelled like feet and had beds with sunken mattresses before we even lay in them but…it was another long day and we knew we would sleep.

The next morning it was straight back to the airport for a long flight home. Finding the rental car drop off was very frustrating as there were no signs so we spent half an hour driving to all 4 terminals until we eventually found it at the last one we tried.
I’m writing this blog post on the plane and overall, I’m looking forward to being home with Cheridy and the boys and just relaxing and watching TV!!
I’m glad we came home with good photos but, we’re very tired!!! Overall, it was a great experience and I’m glad to have spent that time with my friend Ben, but we tried to do too much in too short a time and didn’t factor in extra time for delays caused by construction, parking issues, language barrier issues, etc.

Let’s just say it’s good to be home!!!