Plumas Country Fall Colors

New England of California...that's how it looked like to me given that I have been to Maine and Vermont, I could easily compare.

A short trip to Napa Valley for fall colors and Wine tasting

We were looking to go Hope Valley but decided to skip as the colors were not close to peak and the long drive may have had some implications on my lower-back. So we decided to try something close-by and Napa Valley was suggested by our fellow colleague. Nice colors but people suggested to come back in the first week of November and that's when whole valley will turn yellow. The red colors you see below are due to plant disease.

Fall colors of eastern Sierra Mountains and Mono Lake

Now that my lower-back is slightly better, I'm able to go on short road trips and what way to start with fall colors than anything. We started on Friday evening, camped in Yosemite and then headed to Bishop on Saturday morning. The fall colors had just started and were not even close to peak but nevertheless we got to see few colors over there. The Sunday was the day of fresh snow fall and perhaps the first snow fall of the season. In the morning, my car was struggling on the road but as the day progressed snow also melted. June Lake loop had some colors though. Overall a good road trip and we got to see Mono Lake again :-).

Fall colors of eastern Sierra Mountains




Mono Lake

Castle Rock State Park (4-miles hike)

This was my first hiking trip since my last backpack in March 2009. I have been down with lower back issues since March/April (caused by lifting heavy machines at work) and this small hike was quite refreshing given that I had not been to forest for so long. I managed to do well and looks like I'm seeing green shoots (recovery is on the way) now.

Moving to FX DSLR body and Lens

I was able to sell my 18-200mm VR Nikon DX Lens through amazon.com and this opens the door for going FX (Full Frame) way...The first question you will have as to why go FX. Actually there are couple of reasons -- (a) Larger sensor size which produces better pictures (b) you get actual focal length (no 1.5x or 1.6x factor) and you can go ultra wide with 12mm lens (c) Good quality DX lens are as expensive as FX lens; so the notion of FX lens being a bomb shell isn't true. (d) much better low-light capabilities with FX body.

I think the only advantage of having a good DX lens is that it can be a better telephoto zoom lens because of the 1.5x factor.

Nikon's 18-200mm is a very good all purpose lens but not a good lens if you want to be different and creative. I'm not into expensive photography but I want to do things differently and bored of taking landscape pictures etc. I think its time to get creative :-)

We all can hope that FX body/lens will be cheaper in the future as the production of the sensors seems to be extremely costly as of now and I'm sure they will be much more affordable in a decade.

As of now my plans are to move to Nikon D700, 17-35mm f2.8 lens and a telephoto zoom lens.

MRI of lower-back

I thought I should share the MRI results of my Lumbar Spine on my blog

Technique used :-
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Axial and sagittal turbo spin echo T1.
Axial and sagittal turbo spin echo T2 weighted sequenses on a Siemens Symphony 1.5 Teals system.

Findings :-
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L5-S1 : The height is maintained. There is approximately 3mm retrolisthesis of L5 on S1, mild disc desiccation and posterior annulus bulging. Facet arthropathy and mild neuroforaminal narrowing are also noted.

All remaining discs are intact. There is slight left-sided posterior and lateral L4-L5 annulus bulging. There is no disc herniation. The vertebral body heights, bone marrow signal, lumbosacral curvature, spinal cord, cauda equina and paraspinal soft tissues are unremarkable.

Impression:
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1) Grade 1 degenerative L5-S1 spondylolisthesis, minimal disc desiccation and mild annulus bulging.
2) L5-S1 facet arthropathy and mild neuroforaminal narrowing.
3) No canal stenosis or disc herniation.

Burney waterfalls