Yosemite National Park is probably one of the most photographed locations on Earth - and for good reason. I’ve gone camping, driven through the mountains, etc. plenty, but while I’ve seen many beautiful natural scenes I’ve never seen anything like Yosemite first-hand.

That’s not to say I wasn’t familiar with what Yosemite had to offer a landscape photographer, however. Photography legend and naturalist Ansel Adams did much of his most famous and best work here, including shots of such landmarks as Half Dome and El Capitan.

So, it was a natural destination for the first leg of my trip.

Yosemite National Park

After departing from Mono Lake, it didn’t take long to find myself pulling off to the side of the road and grabbing my camera. It probably took me three times longer to get to the park entrance than it should have because I couldn’t keep myself from stopping to take more photos. This pattern held true the entire time I was at the park.

I spent roughly 10 hours driving through the park (stop and go, really), both through the less-traveled Tioga Pass route as well as the popular valley areas further south.

There isn’t much that can be said about Yosemite beyond what the pictures themselves show.

Sunny day in Yosemite

Teapot Dome at Yosemite

Frozen stream at Yosemite

Half Dome in the distance

El Capitan

Half Dome near sunset

Twilight in Yosemite

It was a long day - 10 hours or so - and I took somewhere near 700 photos of just Yosemite alone. Be it the excellent lighting conditions or the sheer beauty of the landscape, I was consistently quite happy with the results (normally I have to throw out at least half of my shots right off the bat for being too blurry or other technical defects, but here the real challenge was in choosing which I liked the most).

If you’d like to review more photographs from Yosemite, you may do so in the Gallery.

Those following me on Twitter may have noticed that I’ve been on a road trip from home in southern California to Washington State.

This is a trip that I’ve done many times but - due to my (as of October 10th) lack of a job and the fact that I would be traveling alone - I decided to take a bit of a detour and drive up highway 395 instead of Interstate 5.

What’s funny is that, years ago (when I still lived in Kennewick), I actually lived about a mile from U.S. Route 395. Now - over a thousand miles away in California - I am still only about 20 miles or so from the same highway.

I’ve made this trip before, but this time I decided to do some photography in the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains - specifically, Mono Lake and Yosemite National Park. Both are pretty much a straight shot north for me.

My first priority was to get as close as possible to Mono Lake so that I could get started very early in the morning. After a drive of 350 miles or so, I stopped off in Lee Vining, CA for the night. Remarkably, the southernmost stop in my drive was also by far the coldest (below freezing at night - I had to be careful not to slip on ice as I went to and from my room).

Early the next morning, I packed up and left for the lake.

Mono Lake

The view at Mono Lake, as I arrived, was astounding.

Mono Lake is a bit unusual in a few respects. It is a salt water lake with unusually high alkalinity, and for this reason does not contain any native fish species (though it does have, curiously enough, its own species of brine shrimp - sea monkeys!). This is also responsible for the odd “lake foam” that lines the lake’s shore.

Another interesting feature are the tufa towers, formed of calcium carbonate, which rise from the surface of the lake. Combined with the morning fog, these towers feature an otherworldly appearance.

I was only able to photograph a very small area on its western shore - some day, I’d like to return and spend a little more time capturing it from different locations.

After an hour or so, I packed up and left the lake for Yosemite. More on that shortly. In the meantime, you can review more Mono Lake photographs in the Gallery.

As expected, the House passed the revised bail-out Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 bill - after it had been laden with additional pork and other “incentives” - by a wide margin, 263 for and 171 against.

Of course, the actual reasons why so many people opposed the bill - the fact that it rewarded bad behavior on Wall Street, did not address the ridiculous compensation packages given to these firms’ managers and did nothing to stop a continuing wave of home foreclosures - were completely unaddressed.

In every rational sense this is the same bill that was rejected earlier this week.

Needless to say, an ugly bit of political theater was played against the American people this week.

Here’s the final tally of those House members who took part in selling our country out by voting for the bill.