Dino Saga 070722 _ Mountain Drive

Dino Saga 070722 _ Mountain Drive

Time for another run above Santa Barbara. Had all kinds of plans to take the new camera on a Saturday run. The Zaca fire and the fog over the channel doomed those plans. Well, there are many ways to skin a cat. Punched up Google Earth and looked around. If you are careful you can get almost down to road level, tilt the scene and do pretty well. Tried adding roads and was under whelmed. Turns out that Google’s roads don’t line up with the photos and the naming is poor. Wondered what would be on Google Maps. Son of a gun, Roads still did not line up but were color coded and named very nicely. Between the two programs I got something I think will do.

Mountain Drive is the highest paved road going along the south face of the Santa Ynez Mountains. It is also the home of some of Santa Barbara’s freest inhabitants. The parties, the wine making, the airplane building, the general camaraderie has to be shared to be believed. But anyone can drive through the area, relish the road and admire the view. Best thing short of a helicopter to see the estates of Montecito without high power optics. The Pacific and the Channel Islands look pretty nice too.

The pictures start with a shot straight down from 40,000 feet. The mountain peaks are at the top of the frame. About 3500 ft at the ridge. The white spot in the upper left is the cover for Sheffield Reservoir and the marker for the start of the interesting parts of Mountain Drive. I like to run in the afternoon and have the sun at my back. A morning run should start way back toward Carpentaria. You will start and probably end on Hwy 192 which is on virtually all California maps. Just a short distance from Hwy 101.

Next frame has Hwy 101 and Hwy 192 nicely located. The reservoir pops right out. Then there is a series of overhead close ups with Mountain drive and other roads clearly marked. The first timers usually bail at Park lane but the intrepid can keep going to Romero Canyon. That is serious and once you start there is a long way down.

With the directions out of the way I tipped the world. Traveled along the mountain side and snapped some shots. Lots of interesting homes and gardens and estates and golf courses and…Turns are tight and views are great. Make sure to stop often. Bring binoculars and a camera. Enjoy.

Found out a few nice things about Google’s pictures. You can edit them so they look much better than the original on your screen. Google Earth’s pictures are 1024 pixels wide. I drop that to 800 pixels and then sharpen them. The Map pictures are smaller to start with so I raise them to 800 pixels and sharpen these too. Quite a big difference in the apparent resolution and contrast. Too bad that Google can’t add the sharpening to their suite. Guess that there is too much variability in computer screen pixels. My edits look good on 17” and 19” CRTs and Compaq laptops. Would like to hear comments from others who have played around.

John
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