Maine Day 4 – Travel Day

October 30, 2016

Travel Day

Today was a Travel Day. Not much going on. We visited a couple Maine Fish and Wildlife locations. After we got to our hotel and settled in we got dinner and went into Acadia.

We went to Cadillac Mountain and I took a few star shots before returning to the hotel for the night.

Source: http://www.bigalsadventures.com/maine-day-...

Maine Day 2 – Maine Wildlife Park

October 18, 2016

Maine Wildlife Park, Gray, ME

Day two of out trip and we had to change our plans due to weather. We planned to go to the Maine Wildlife Park on Wednesday but now the weather is calling for rain on that day. So since the park is outside it made sense to go today while it was nice.

Today was a nice day with great temperatures and clear skies. We arrived at the park around noon and started our journey.

Deer

The first enclosures we went to held some deer including one that had white hair. It was not a true albino but was cool either way. There were maybe three or four deer in the enclosure but they were in the shade and hard to see and get photos of.

Other Small Animals

The next few enclosures housed a few different animals. The consisted of a Skunk, Woodchuck, Fisher, Raccoons (normal and white), Beaver, and a Porcupine. Some of them were not out and active while others were very playful.

The Fisher, for example, would run around his enclosure and jump up on the fence and hang there for a bit before jumping back to the ground. The White Raccoon was moving around while the other raccoon just laid there. The Woodchuck and Bever were not in their pens at this time.

Moose

Next, we went to see the Moose that they have in the park. Over the last couple trips to Maine, we have tried to find a Moose in the wild with no luck. So for us just seeing some would be a cool thing.

When we got to the Moose pen we found that they had four Moose. Two Bulls and two females. Again we had the issue of the pens being in the shade and not only that the Moose were all laying against the fence in the dark.

We were able to get pretty close and could see them well but with the fencing and them laying down getting a good photo of them was impossible. Either way, we were able to finally see a live Moose and one of the females even sneezed wich was unexpected.

Lynx

When we got to the enclosures for the Lynx we saw two of them. As we noticed with any zoo the animals sleep a lot and these two were no exception. They were taking a cat nap in the sunlight making it had to get a photo of them that was not washed out.

Bobcat

The Bobcat on the other had was awake and sitting up. The problem with him was not the sun but the fencing that was around him. Again another shot that was hard to get.

Mountian Lion

I have never seen a Mountain Lion close up before just in museums stuffed. This one was pretty big and intimidating. Not something I would want to run into while out hiking.

Now it was sleeping but every time I got close to take a picture it would open its eyes and stare me down. Very pretty animal for sure.

Cougar

Out of all the animals, we saw at the Maine Wildlife Park the Cougar was the most active. He was walking his enclosure and taking a drink of water. Lucky for me I was right there when he did it.

The Cougar was very pretty and photogenic. It was basically posing for me.

Coyote

There was also a Coyote there too. When we went to see it they just finished feeding it. They let it out of the feeding enclosure and it ran into the bushes and out of sight. I checked back a few times and it never did come out of hiding.

Black Bears

The Black Bear enclosure was void of other people when we walked up. We noticed they had two Black Bears that looked a little different but were very active.

One of the bears was sitting staring up at us from his pen. Then we realized that there were two feeding machines that for a quarter you could feed the bears some pellets. We fed them a few times and I got some nice shots through the glass of them.

Bird Exhibit

The next stop was the bird exhibits. Now this was disappointing since many of the birds were not in their enclosures for one reason or another. Another disappointing thing was the sun shining into the chicken wire made it difficult to get any pictures and the birds moved to the back out of the sun.

There was a Bald and Golden Eagle also there but they had glass in front of their enclosure that reflected everything in the area.

Turtle Pond

Next stop was the turtle pond. I was surprised at how many turtles they had in the pond. Also, they must see many people due to when we walked up they did not jump into the water like the ones I have seen in the wild.

One thing I did notice were the leeches on the turtle shells. I have never seen that before and have no idea why they are on the shells and not the turtle themselves.

Another animal in the pond was a couple of frogs and a bunch of tadpoles. They also were not afraid of us and allowed us to get close for some nice images.

Dry Mills Fish Hatchery

Dry Mills Fish Hatchery was pretty neat to check out. You can see the fish in the building swimming down towards the exit. At the end, there is a big holding area that the fish are in till they are collected and moved to stock some lakes nearby.

In the holding area, they said were around 6000 fish.

Maine Warden Service Museum

The last place we checked out was the Maine Warden Service Museum. It is not a big building but has some neat old gear and information from years past and present.

Source: http://www.bigalsadventures.com/maine-day-...

Maine Day 1 – Let the Adventure Begin →

October 17, 2016

Posted from Big Al's Adventures: http://www.bigalsadventures.com/maine-day-1-let-the-adventure-begin/

Freeport, ME

Today we made a journey to Freeport, Maine to the L.L. Bean outlet stores. As usual, we forgot something in this case binoculars.

We got to the L.L. Bean store which we have been to before and this time I took some video inside the store that I will be posting on my YouTube Channel. We found the section with the binoculars and were quickly asked if we needed help.

Knowing very little about what the best binoculars were the Bean associate was able to steer us in the right direction. We ended up getting Nikon 8248 ACULON A211 10x50 Binoculars. After my brother saw them he also went and bought his own.

Lunch

Once we finished making out purchases it was afternoon so we decided to find a place to eat. The great thing about the area around L.L. Bean is there are more shops and food places.

Out of all the different places, we looked at we settled on Linda Bean’s Maine Kitchen and Topside Tavern. Linda Beans has seating on both the inside and out. We went in and were greeted and sat right away. They were even able to get us a spot downstairs so we didn't have to climb the stairs.

My dad any myself decided to go light and get two red hot dogs. Yes, RED hot dogs which were really good. The others got a lobster sandwich and turkey club.

The food was very good and the service quick and helpful.

Linda Bean’s Maine Kitchen and Topside Tavern Red Hot Dog

Kennebunkport

Now with lunch and shopping out of our way, we moved to our next location Kennebunkport. This location was not my idea, but the others wanted to go see Walkers Point.

Walkers Point is where President Bush's family have a compound that you can see. They have a small pull over for you to park and get a look at the compound. You can not get into the compound, though. They have Secret Service and gates blocking the road in and ocean surrounding it on the other sides.

It is a nice place to get some photos, though. The coastline is pretty with rocks and nice waves crashing in most of the time. If you are lucky and the Bush's are staying there you might be able to see them outside if you have good binoculars or a telephoto lens.

Tomorrow

I do not have any idea of what we are going to do tomorrow. Someone said something about some outlet stores in Kittery. To me, that does not sound like a lot of fun, but we will see. I am sure we will have time to check out other stuff too.

Maine Travel Day - Let the Adventure Begin

October 16, 2016

Posted from Big Al's Adventures: http://www.bigalsadventures.com/maine-travel-day/

Heading Out

Today we started our trek to Maine for a nine-day vacation. Now granted when I go on vacation I am looking to do some photography on top of relaxing.

Maine at this time of year can be even more amazing with the changing of the season. I have already seen tons of beautiful red and yellow leaves on the trees along the road.

We were planning to leave around 7:00am, but as normal, we did not leave till around 8:00am.

It was pretty smooth sailing till we hit Connecticut. There we hit some major traffic due to some construction. They had two lanes go down to one for about a mile.

The best part was the construction zone was only a tiny section of a bridge. The backup was many, many miles long. Though it is funny since last time we went through the same area we had traffic without construction.

Maine Reststop

We did pretty well on gas while heading up here. We made it almost to the hotel but decided to stop to fill up on gas before arriving so in the morning we could just go.

The rest stop we went to was one that we have visited before. They have this big Moose statue by the building that has the restrooms and food services.

I decided that since we were going to be a few minutes I would go take a few pictures of the Moose statue. Again another snag. There was a maintenance guy cleaning the mulch around the Moose statue.

He did say if we wanted to take a picture with the Moose that we could. Since I just wanted to get a picture of it I did. I took three shots, but one had a tanker truck in it so I did closeups of the Moose's head.

We will probably go back at some point to get a better shot of it later this week.

Moose Statue

Arrival

We finally arrived at our hotel around 4:30pm. By the time we moved everything into the room and got settled it was around 6:00pm.

We decided to head out to get something to eat. We ended up going to Longhorn Steakhouse that was maybe 10 minutes down the road.

I got the Bison Meatballs for an appetizer and the Chicken Parmesan for my meal. Overall not bad at all. The 30-minute wait did drag out to about 45-mintues. Other than that I would give my experience a 4 out of 5 stars.

This Week

Here are some of my ideas for this week.

Try to make some small video blogs for my YouTube Channel
Look for and photograph some Moose and other wildlife
Write a post for every day that we are in Maine
When we go to Acadia try to get some good astrophotography
Take pictures of the changing leaves
Have fun

We are on a nine-day trip. Half in one section of Maine the other half in another.

What I Brought

This is some of the gear I have brought along to take photographs.

Nikon D800 (Amazon)
Nikkor 24-70mm F/2.8 (Amazon)
Nikkor 300mm F/4 (Amazon)
Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 (Amazon)
Sony A7R (Amazon)
Sony 50mm f/1.8 (Amazon)
Canon 28mm f/2.8
GoPro Hero 4 Silver (Amazon)
Marrex Geotagger GPS for Nikon (Amazon)
K&F Concept Lens Mount Adapter FD-NEX For Canon FD FL Lens to Sony (Amazon)
Lens Mount Adapter, K&F Concept Nikon G Mount Lens to Sony E-mount (Amazon)
Waterproof Nylon Camera Backpack Bag Case Rucksack Daypack (Amazon)
Formatt-Hitech 100mm Resin Travel Filter Kit Elia Locardi Signature Edition (Amazon)
MeFoto Roadtrip Travel Tripod Kit commemorative Limited Edition (Red White Blue) (Amazon)
Luxebell C200 Aluminium Alloy Skeleton Thick Solid Protective Case Shell with 52mm Uv Filter for GoPro Hero 4 (Amazon)
Neewer Shoot Digital Intervalometer Timer Remote Control (Amazon)
Think Tank Photo Retrospective 30 Shoulder Bag (Blue Slate) (Amazon)

Plus I have other things like lens cloths, extra batteries, and camera straps.

End

Make sure to check back for the tomorrows adventures!

Source: http://www.bigalsadventures.com/maine-trav...

Photo Re-edit

February 6, 2015

So I have been playing around with some of my old photos that I have already processed. After learning new "tricks" I have made a few much much nicer then originally done. Here is one of them.

Take with: Buy - Rent