Odd Ball

Odd Colossal Auburn Statuary

/ Bulldog Travels / 13 Comments

Auburn is another fine Gold Country town near Sacramento, California.  Auburn is known for its mining and mandarins.  But, for those looking for something random and unusual look no farther than Dr. Fox’s Colossal Statues.

One giant Gold Miner can be seen from the freeway welcoming visitors and passersby.  This gold minor embodies the Gold Rush and is the unofficial mascot of the town.

Stranger and slightly more controversial are the naked Amazonian women and their friend in bondage who sit and protect a local auto mechanic’s shop.

I remember driving by these tall muses on my way to a yoga class one day and nearly drove off the road.  One just doesn’t expect to see something like this in the middle of an old fashioned gold country town.  And from what I understand they were quite controversial at one time.

Sacramento Train Museum in Old Sacramento – Train Nerds Rejoice

/ Bulldog Travels / 22 Comments

A young friend of mine expressed some interest in learning photography recently.  I was going to take her to my backyard and teach her some basics about her camera.  But, instead, another random opportunity presented itself.  Mike’s Camera Shop in downtown Sacramento hosted a free photography meetup at the Sacramento Train Museum.  I couldn’t think of a less interesting place to take a 12 year old girl so we headed out with promises that it would be a great place to practice her skills.  It turned out we both had a blast taking photos of “creepy manikins”, welds, train wheels, cattle guards, old luggage, and to be honest things I don’t even know the name of.  I considered it a success because my young friend took hundreds of photos and never got tired of looking at the details of cool old trains.  She left boasting terms like depth of field, manual focus, and shutter speed.  A highlight for me was watching her lay on the floor in order to get a cool shot with a “fuzzy background” as she called it.  (Good photographers always get on the ground in my book!)  We rewarded ourselves with an ice cream cone and a walk through Old Sacramento!

Train nerds rejoice.  (You know who you are.)  I took far more photos of train details than I care to admit.  I hope you enjoy!

I consider this to be an “odd” subject to photograph so I am happy to submit the post to Cee’s Odd Ball Challenge!