Yankee Air Museum

Back in 2004, a fire burned the hanger that the museum was housed in.  Luckily, the aircraft that were able to fly were saved.

They are currently housed on the east side of the airport and have a small display area.  In October the Yankee Air Museum had an open house. They received one final extension to their quest to raise enough money to buy a corner of the old Ford Bomber plant, later known as GM Hydramatic.

Here restoration and painting is done on a F4.

A helicopter on display.

I feel like I should know what make this sailplane is.

The Yankee Lady, the B17 that the Yankee Air Museum operates.

One of the engines.

Another engine with the cowl removed, but with the propeller on.

Finally, we were able to view the area that the museum wants to buy and run out of.  Henry Ford built this factory to produce B24 bombers during WWII.

It was roped off, so I was only able to get pictures from near the front, but since there was no light, that was fine.

The place reeked of machine oil.

This is just one of the doors that B24 bombers rolled out of during the war.

Rosie the Riveter was there campaigning to raise the money.

One of a few planes parked outside the factory.  It is hard to believe that it will ever fly again.

The exit to the hangar.  Here you can see just how truly massive the doors are.

A DC3 operated by the museum.

Here is their proposed layout of the space they want to purchase.

A Kaiser automobile.  Kaiser bought the plant to produce cars after the war.

There are some static displays near their current locations.

Another of the static planes.

This is a Russian biplane.  The largest in the world.

Rene

I was asked to take some pictures of the Rene, who is staying with some friends for the year.  I said sure, but don't expect much since people aren't my forte.  These images are the result.  Not great, but not bad considering I don't really have much experience taking pictures of people.

Absence of updates

There have been a couple of reasons why I haven't been updating. 

The first is that I've been on an abnormal work schedule which has thrown me off a bit.

The second is that I'm experiencing problems with my camera.  I'm not sure what the problem is, but images are not clear.  This started about a month ago.  I don't know if it is a lens problem, a problem with the sensor or what. 

The fact is that nothing I'm shooting is turning out well.  This has led me on one hand to shoot a bit more than normal and on the other become somewhat discouraged as it seems nothing I'm doing is making things better.

If I don't get better images soon, I'll be sending the camera in for a good servicing.

Snakes!

A couple of weeks ago my brother and sister-in-law came down and brought some snakes. The plan was to do a practice session in snake photography.

Let us start by saying that I don't have the right lighting equipment.  It is clearly something I need to invest in if I want to do any type of indoor photography.  I also have to invest in an auto focus macro lens.

Another thing I learned is that snakes don't really stop moving. 

As a result of the combination, most of the pictures were only partially in focus.

My sister-in-law could tell you all about these snakes, for the moment a snake is pretty much a snake.  If it is a viper, I can tell you I wouldn't be this close.

Showing off some of the markings.

The sun came out briefly.  The colors were really surprising.

Daisy was unimpressed.

Just hanging around.

Who are you looking at?  I would like this a lot more with a larger depth of field.

Dodge No. 4 State Park

I was up in Pontiac a while back.  On the way back I noticed the sign for Dodge No. 4 State Park.  Since this was a park I'd hoped to visit, I made the detour.  This was a pretty small park and I was able to able to explore it pretty well, though I'd still like to get back there when the weather was nicer.

One of the first things I saw when I got there were deer. This rather surprised me given how urban the area was. 

Dodge No. 4 State Park covers about 159 acres along the shore of Cass Lake.

The land was donated by the Dodge Brothers Corporation (Dodge) with the condition that it remain a public park.

The Dodge brothers donated 11 tracts of land to the state in the form of state parks and recreation areas.  I believe that this is the only one to maintain the Dodge name.  Highland Recreation Area was once called Dodge Brothers Site No. 10.

A pair of swans.

Despite the proximity to Pontiac, this was pretty peaceful.  I expect that it'd be much busier during the height of summer and if the weather had been nicer.

I enjoyed watching these swans and for awhile I saw no one else.  Talking to one of the rangers who was doing maintenance she told me that aside from the deer and birds, there is a fox den in one part of the park and in the spring and summer you can see them sunning themselves.

One final shot. 

Looking out at Cass Lake.

The swimming beach.

A foot bridge under repair.

The picnic area.

There was a hill covered in pines in the center of the park.

I enjoyed this area of the park the most.

The sidewalk to nowhere.  After walking up the sidewalk towards pavilion it just ended.  I'm not sure if there was something here previously.  It looked like there used to be a road over this ridge, but if there was, it had been removed some time before and had been pretty well sculpted into the landscape.