I got lost, sort of

I met Gocatgo in Denton this morning to pick up some jackets. Thanks Theresa . Anyway I planned on doing dirt roads back to Sherman. The route I planned out using Mapsource was turning out to be a bust mostly just very bumpy asphalt roads. So I turned it off and used my KLR Jedi skills and just started hitting gravel roads. I knew if I went north and east I would eventually get home. I don't really know where I was or what roads I was on. I remember some of the Collin County roads that stood out were like CR9, CR57, maybe CR52 I think. I stopped and took one picture while I was out.



So I guess I was lost for awhile because I had no idea where I as. Are you really lost when you know that you will eventually get to where you are going? Any way it was a nice 2 hour ride home on about 60% of fast for me, 50-60 mph, gravel roads.

KLR Jedi skills, eh? You think that works on a Strom too? Cuz I don't even have a GPS...

Glad you had fun and made it home eventually. Maybe you should have left the GPS on to just track the route you wandered through so you can retrace the parts that were good?

You weren't lost, just disoriented.

1. You can't leave the GPS on when you using the Jedi mind skills because the electrons floating around the GPS dirturb the forces of nature that make up the power of the force. Plus you would alway be looking at it distracting you from succumbing your mind to the force.

2. Your never really lost until you run out of gas.

I always know where I am. The problem lies in figuring out how to get from there to where I want to be

"In all my travels across the American wilderness, I was never lost. There was one period of three days when I was confused." Daniel Boone

Just like me, you don't need no stinkin'map. That is about the best way to ride, general direction.

Chris, I'm glad you had a good time getting lost - um, I mean honing your KLR Jedi skills on the way home. Sounds like I should have gotten my DR off the trailer and ridden with you for a while. Hmmm, are there DR Jedi skills?

When I was in college, during the stone ages, getting lost was a goal.

I would ride alone or with a friend of mine. The only rule was you couldn't turn around. We would take turns picking a direction to go.

One time, we ended up riding through some pastures on our 750cc bikes with full Windjammer fairings. It was a little slick and we ended up doing lots of "doughnuts"(the low carb variety). Finally we came upon another road and eventually found our way back to civilization.

Those were great times. Probably a big part of why I ride a GS.

As long as the sun is up, getting lost is pretty hard. Without a point of reference, getting disoriented is pretty easy.

gocatgo said:

Hmmm, are there DR Jedi skills?

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Definitely... though I seem to use mine mostly to stay upright when the gravel gets deep.

Chris, what effect are you doing to the pics to make stuff like the sign stand out brighter?

You can do that with the flash on a sunny day. Also tends to make the sky look darker blue.

Tourmeister said:

Chris, what effect are you doing to the pics to make stuff like the sign stand out brighter?

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Well, There is no easy answer. I do the same things I would do in a darkroom but with Photoshop. There is no set effect or filter that I'm using. The tools I use the most are dodge, to lighten, and burn, to darken, and then adjust the saturation up a little.

I don't really let photoshop do any thinking for me. I use curves and sometimes levels to do some work. Never auto anything. I will use selective colors sometimes to get rid of funny color casts and to enhance certain areas.

To answer your question more better. On that picture I dodged the sign a little, burned the grass, sky, and field a little. Then dodged the road some and probably burned areas of the bike a little.. Then I did my saturation some and some sellective color adjustments. Or at least that's what I think I did All in all it was proly 2 or 3 minutes extra work , but I do it everyday so your time may vary.

I didn't use the flash on this photo, mostly because I'm going through a phase. About every six months or so I'll switch between using a flash for almost everything, and not using it at all. Don't know why, mostly boredom I suppose. Your right though, a flash would have done a lot of the same things, but it would not have looked the same in the end.

There are other tips and techniques I use, but I would have to kill you if I told you.

Now that I went back and actually looked at the picture I remmeber one more thing. The sun was behind the sign, so I metered locked off the area around the edge of the sign. Forcing the camera to expose for a brighter picture than it actually was. This makes the whole scene underexposed but it's better to be slightly underexposed than slightly overexposed.

Just remember no matter how cheap or expensive your camera is all it is is a box with a hole in it.