Just how curvy does a road have to get before it’s too curvy? Though opinions will vary, I’m sure, I have to guess that, from a civil engineer’s perspective, the Palms to Pines Highway must be pushing the limits.
Tag: aerial
Trilogy Panoramas
Drone panoramas have really opened up the kinds of images I can capture with a light, fixed-focal-length-lens drone like the DJI Mini 3 Pro.
These panoramas from Coachella Valley, covering the Trilogy subdivision and its adjacent golf course, capture a dramatic expanse of sky and wet, reflective surfaces following a rare rainstorm.
Trinity College Under Snow
Perhaps the best mark of a place I love is one that keeps its charm throughout the whole year. I only really enjoyed the North Country during the blaze of autumn foliage and I only really enjoy Coachella Valley during the mild temperatures and wet(ter) weather of winter. By comparison, Trinity College is beautiful at every moment of the year. A multilayer of serious snow arrived this weekend and finally brought Trinity into Winter Mode, confirming that this place is basically always fantastical.
Center Church with Fireworks
The incongruity of a brick church and centuries-old burial ground amidst modern urban architecture perhaps aligns with posting summer pictures in early January. Hopefully both aspects brighten the New Year!
Reflecting Roads Riding Off Into the Sunset
Welcoming in 2024 with a ride off into the sunset for 2023. A massive rainstorm in the Coachella Valley turned the roads into pools that reflected the last hints of sunset to form a golden path.
Palms to Pines Panorama
Definitely click through to Flickr for the full-resolution detail on this panorama covering the approach of the Palms to Pines Scenic Byway into Palm Springs.
Fireworks Where the Park Meets the City
Urban parks take my favorite gradient between nature and cityscape and turn it into a Heaviside function, stepping instantly from one to the other.
Christmas After Rain in the Desert
Days of rain covered Coachella Valley in mud, but the clouds broke in time for a Christmas morning hike at the La Quinta Cove trailhead. Out in the misty distance is the Salton Sea.
Back in the Air
After an unfortunate run-in with a tree on a windy day, my drone is repaired and back in the air. A big, dramatic sunset scene of Trinity College is the perfect capstone for may last day at work this semester. The repaired chapel seemed a fitting parallel to the repaired quadcopter.
Infosys Hub
I’m sure it’s perfectly innocent, but having an octagonal tower with a vague-yet-tech-themed name glowing atop it shouts “sinister cyberpunk corporation.”
Salton Skies
Bombay Beach‘s beach keeps expanding as the Salton Sea dries back to where it was at the start of the twentieth century, making for an enormous span to match the enormous arc of sky above.
Gates Quad
On an otherwise rectilinear campus, the gentile bubble-arcs of Trinity College’s Gates Quad provide a relaxing geometry that mirrors the true uses of a quad in student life.
The New Bombay Beach
Like a full-time Burning Man, Bombay Beach shifted from its origins as a sort of “California Riviera” in the 1950s to something with more the feel of an artists’ colony. The town’s little grid of streets amid the emptiness of the desert valley brings to mind open-world video game maps, but the eclectic nature of the beach itself makes reality (as usual) far more interesting.
Swingset Dislocation
Some kind of teleportation accident seems as likely an explanation as any other for how a swing set wound up in the middle of a lake.
Swingset in Its Cove
The human-made swing set structure is alone against the huge scale of the Salton Sea, mountains, and sunset beyond. (Excepting, of course, that the Salton Sea is itself effectively human-made.)
Decaseconds 