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7
August 2002 = Starfish Trek Episode 2:
The
Trip Down
Hi all!
I got
so many e-mails asking for more and pictures; I have decided
to write a few episodes of Starfish Trek. Having recently
experienced a dial-up connection in Houston, I know well
how long it can take to download a bunch of pictures in
one e-mail. For those of you with high speed connections,
I can send you several at once upon request. Otherwise,
I will send one JPEG image around 100KB in size attached
with each e-mail I send to the group daily (If I can).
In the apparently unlikely event any one of you would
rather not receive any more of these e-mails, please drop
me a note to exclude you and I will. It will be as fun
for me to write these as I hope they will be for you to
read. Feel free to forward to anyone you wish or send
me their e-mail address and I will gladly include them.
Having
been a professional photographer closer to the middle
of the last century, I regret I didn’t have a better
camera for this adventure. I only brought my Creative
PC600 web cam with me and it will only hold about 25 pictures
before I run out of storage and have to upload to a computer.
I used it sparingly on the trip. I wish the quality was
better. I can improve them a little later but for now,
I am using my 1994 model 1MB Trident PCI video card because
my AGP card isn’t compatible with this new motherboard.
It seems I’ve stepped into the “Way Back Machine”
with my technology too, Mr. Peabody.
The first
scene I am sharing with you today made me slam on the
breaks at 110MPH. It was so striking; if I still had my
4 X 5 camera, I could win a prize with this one. For the
entire trip, it had either just rained or rained behind
me. I so desperately wanted it to rain on Ole’ Blue
so I could get the bug cemetery off my windshield, not
to mention the diesel scum left by the semiremolques who
all must have had terminal lung cancer from smoking so
much as they rolled down the middle of the 1 ½
lane highways at 35MPH while people passed them on both
sides - onward through the fog. It seems all cars and
pickups drove 95 to 100MPH and the big trucks all drove
35MPH on the same road. And I wasn’t kidding about
1 ½ lanes wide total. It is truly amazing I didn’t
see a head on collision.
Anyway,
back to the rain. The clouds in the picture were full
of lightning and it was thundering with long rolling rumbles
that sounded like a stampede of cattle headed right for
us. This scene was so picturesque, I just had to sit and
watch the sun shine right through this huge thunderstorm.
I had hoped to catch some lightning in the shot too, but
I still am not sure when the picture is actually taken
on this simple little camera. Hopefully some day, I will
be able to make some enhanced prints of this scene. I
liked it anyway.
I guess
I had better let you go for now. I am flat worn out. I
spent the entire day clearing weeds with my machete, raking
them up and burning them with a huge pile of coconut fronds.
The Fire Marshal never showed up. I’ll bet you guys
in Houston will get some haze from my fire in about a
week.
Hasta
la Vista from Portillas!
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outside my domain. Some do put spyware on your computer.
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is generally harmless but, those who are concerned should
do a scan after visiting. Search for AdAware from Lavasoft
on the internet, it is free.
Click
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Mahahual
For
The Following Links If You Want To Use Portillas (3
miles south of Xcalak) As Your Location, My Location
Is: 18.2285 ° N By 87.84166 ° W
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