Images of my trip to the Anza Borrego Desert of California. Pentax K-7.

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Hi Pentaxian friends.

Maybe nature did not cooperate as much as I had hoped. The temperature in the desert reached 114 degree Fahrenheit at mid-day. It was so hot, that I couldn't touch any metal part on my Jeep. I spent a good portion of the day in the hotel's swimming pool, and contrary to what I usually complain about swimming pools, the water was too hot.

The town we were in, within the Anza Borrego Desert, is called: Borrego Springs. Before the run, I had time to drive around the small town, and discovered something unique. Dozens of  metal sculptures placed at random through the desert. As the story goes, a multi-millionaire , “Dennis Avery”, purchased land in the area, formed Galleta Meadows Estates in Borrego Springs and commissioned artist “Ricardo Breceda” to populate the land with sculptures of animals that roamed this part of the world in ancient times. This alone is a good reason to visit the region. Here are some of the sculptures:

Now, for the four wheeling night run...well it didn't go as I had planned. It was so hot that the Jeep did not run good. The fuel system had symptoms of vapor lock and I decided not to join. I wasn't the only one as about half dozen of vehicle owners decided not to join after all. None-the-less, I had a great time and made new friends. Here are some photos:

Sometimes it feels like the Jeep belongs behind my Chevy Silverado.

All photos were taken with the Pentax K-7.


Thanks for reading,

Yvon Bourque

Anza Borrego Desert four wheeling weekend. Bringing the K-7 and the K-x along.

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Hi Pentaxian friends.

This is Miss "Peggy"

I am joining a group of four wheelers this weekend for an adventure at the Anza Borrego Desert State Park.

The group is a Ford Bronco enthusiasts and I will be one of the few people driving a Jeep. A good friend of mine, also my mechanic when it comes to off-road vehicles, has a Ford Bronco and invited me to this run. It's a night run, doubling the fun...and the risks. We don't know which trails we're going on until we get there. Only the organizers know the agenda. What we know is that we will leave at around 5:00 P.M. Saturday night and return way after midnight Sunday Morning. We were told to make sure we had plenty of water and some kind of off-road lights, as it's more difficult to maneuver at night.

I'm a little nervous, but there is going to be many other vehicles, and four wheelers all help each others, at least I hope. I may be the only Jeep among all the Ford Broncos.

I intend to take many pictures and video as well, using the K-7 and the K-x. I will be posting on my return Monday. Hopefully, I won't have too many pictures of a broken Jeep! I think Miss Peggy will make me proud.

This is the Main Highway!

They live here.

The old Ford Broncos are very good 4WD vehicles.

Come back next week to see pictures and videos taken with the K-7 and K-x.

Thank you for looking,

Yvon Bourque

My old friend is back. Yes, after our separation, Ms. Peggy is back with me. She's back as my best photographic tool.

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Hi Pentaxian friends.

You never know how things will turn out. In this situation, I had decided to sell Ms. Peggy earlier in the spring. Due to uncontrollable circumstances from my part, she's back. She is currently at the Jeep hospital ongoing some surgery, but nothing life treatening. She needs a new "clutch" (Bad hips for humans) and some minor repairs.  She should be back home within a week or so, and I swear I will never try to let her go. Destiny has decided that she should spend the rest of her life with me, and vice and versa.

I'm glad we are going to go take pictures together again. My Pentax equipment is also thrilled to rekindle with an old friend.

I am truly  happy that she's back. I don't know what I was thinking when I let her go. In revenge, she decided to break apart in her new environment, forcing her return back to me. She's an old gal and she needs to ride nice and slow, just like me. She's currently suffering from a slight nervous breakdown, but I understand that she will bounce back after a few nice and easy trips atop the San Bernardino  mountains, her favorite place.

Thank you for reading,

Yvon Bourque

Nothing last forever. I decided to sell my best photographic piece of equipment. Boo hoo!!!

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Hi Pentaxian friends.

Sometimes, a guy has to do what a guy has to do. I reluctantly sold my precious Jeep. I will miss it a lot, but the reality is that any hobby costs so much money that I have to restrict myself to one hobby only. My photography hobby is costly enough. It would be even costlier if I wasn't using the Pentax equipment.

With the price of gas and insurance and the ever ending fixing that a 1988 Jeep requires, I will be better off saving that money. Blah Blah Blah Blah...it sucks.

Goodbye Girl. We had some good times together. Have a nice life.

Thank you for reading,

Yvon bourque

My best photographic tool isn't from Pentax.

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Hi Pentaxian friends.

If you've been reading this blog for a long time, you know about my favorite photo equipment...Ms. Peggy. That's my old Jeep. Every year, during the winter months, although it isn't really cold here in California, I add a few accessories to the Jeep. I use the Jeep mainly to go take pictures where I wouldn't be able to go otherwise.

My favorite place is the San Bernardino Mountains. Here, on the West Coast, the mountains are as high 10,000 ft elevation and a few are even taller. This spring, the wild flowers are very beautiful because we had more rain and snow this winter than we usually get. As you climb up. the flowers are different. At lower elevation, there are many yellowish flowers. As you get above 3,000 ft, it's a whole new type of flowers, purple, red, white, and it keeps changing as you go higher. There aren't much flowers at this time at elevations above 6,000 ft, but it will be spectacular in May.

Anyway, back to Ms. Peggy, this year she got new fender flares, along with a new fuel system, a new stereo system, new seats, new brakes and new drivetrain, except for the two differentials. That will be for next year. She got rid of the stickers, and the rack with the two fuel "Jerry Cans" and other goodies that were weighing her down. A cargo net was added so that my expensive camera equipment doesn't fall off  and it also protect the passengers from falling off. Here's what  she looked like in past years: 2009 , 2009, 2008, 2008/2007, 2007

This is what she looked like as a baby :) The year was 1988. I'm really her adoptive parent. She has been with me for a little more than three years. Before that, she was owned by my stepson, for about ten years. He got her from a student that had received her as a graduation gift. She came from a rich family.

So we're ready for another great season of photography. We will also be travelling out-of-state this summer and that should produce good images. We will be travelling to Washington State in May, Florida later on, Maryland and Montreal toward the end of summer. That will be exciting. 

Thank you for reading,

Yvon Bourque

After all the rain we had in California, it was impossible to get to the top of the San Bernardino Mountains.

The end of the road for us

There was plenty of water

One-car bridge, still standing

Marisa with the K-x

Another storm in the making

Here's a tree that was cleared from the road

There was more snow as the elevation increased...but the road was not accessible

My traditional picture

Now, that's a strange place for a chair

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Hi  Pentaxian friends.

My daughter, Marisa,  is visiting from Florida this week. I tried to bring her to the San Bernardino Mountains with my Jeep but, with all the rain (snow at high elevation) we had recently, it was nearly impossible to get to the top. We tried several different trails but each trail was either completely washed down or had fallen trees or rocks across the road. However, we did take some pictures with the Pentax K-x and the K-7. I just wanted to share these with you all. She used the K-x in Auto and in JPEG and it produced well exposed pictures everytime. As for me, being the "expert", I used the K-7 manually and I humbly admit that not all my pictures were properly exposed.

Thanks for reading,

Yvon Bourque

We support this site by selling e-books for the Pentax Digital SLR cameras, including the K100D, K10D, K20D, K-7 and the K-x. This site does not ask for contributions. We sell real tangible merchandise that can improve your photography. Our free Auto-focus adjustment charts have been downloaded thousands of times by Pentaxians as well as Nikon and Canon users.

The K-7 goes primitive camping and rock crawling with us. Very rugged camera.

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Hi Pentaxian friends.

My Step-son and I went camping and rock crawling this weekend in the Big Bear Lake area of the San Bernardino Mountains. I tested the K-7 against humidity, dust and cold and it did just fine. The pictures below are samples of the weekend. I was too tired to add captions last night but here are some now. I also took some video and once stitched together, I will post the whole video experience here. It was impressive.

Thanks for looking,

Yvon Bourque

We started out from Lucerne valley and drove south to the San Bernardino Mountains.

At Elevation of 4,000 ft, we decided to air-down the tires so that we could get a better grip and it would be needed later on rough roads.

We stopped at the summit of the first mountain to take a few pictures and ...


to change our altitude!

The first part of the trip took us through mostly rocky terrain.

We reached the top of another mountain, About 6,000 ft elevation, where we thought we could set up our base camp. As it turned out, from there we could see a better spot in the distance at about 2,000 ft higher.

We left this rocky area through...

a newly paved road.

From there we drove East to the next mountain that showed as being 8,300 ft elevation on our map.

We finally got to a nice spot, surrounded by boulders and flat. We couldn't go any farther as the rugged road came to an end. The elevation was 7,604 ft and it was very peaceful except for the cry of coyotes in the woods behind.

We set out tents up and relaxed for a while.

The camp all set up, we were hungry.

We carved some meat out of a wild deer we caught...not! We did have some steaks and some Johnson bratwurst and some canned chili.

Looking around for wild game, I saw this enormous chipmunk crossing the trail. It must have weight at least 1 or 2 ounces. I figured that shooting it with a 12 GA shotgun wouldn't leave much meat to eat! I spared the little guy. Actually, I only shoot animals with my cameras. The shotgun we brought was more for safety reasons.

Steaks started grilling.

Steaks ready to eat.

The sun went down and temperature started to drop.

The sky turned out pink and purple and made the scenery ideal for silhouettes.

Donny got a little carried away with the starting fluid!

Now that's better.

There is nothing like watching a John Wayne movie in the wilderness.

A hot fire to warm your feet and the hike-in

movie theater was great.

Morning came and I can still smell the bacon cooking...yum!

We are starting our trip back home via the longest way we could find amongst the various trails.

The roads were not all that friendly, but really fun for driving with a Jeep.

We had to run on the tire sidewalls at times. That's why a good set of off-road is a must when riding on boulders.

It took us more than two hours to drive through this 3 miles long road.

The efforts paid off as we came to a nice water hole...

that even had tons of trouts in it. Next time we will plan to camp there one night, fish for our dinner and take a fresh and very cold bath.

Words of advice: If you camp in an area that goes below the freezing point at night, regular toilet paper does much better than "Cottonnelle wipes" which frozed to a block of ice. :(

The K-7 did great, it got water on it, a lot of dust, shot a around 20 Degrees F, and it got tossed around in the Jeep. This is one tough camera.