This random assortment includes failed cow petting attempts, pretty girls, Star Trek themed Christmas photos (just a joke; don’t kill me), and a few pictures of this new place called “Yosemite.” Maybe someday I’ll get around to posting photos of New Zealand, Louisville, Sedona, the Grand Circle, and other less random stuff that is just collecting dust inside my hard drive, which doesn’t actually make sense unless you’re a top-notch writer like me who also happens to excel in the art of go-kart racing, in which case dust on photos inside my hard drive totally makes sense. Also, run-on sentences are awesome.

For the last photo, here are some dinosaurs in a barn of sorts. Check back soon for an explanation and the rest of this set, and don’t forget: if you’re viewing this as a single post, feel free to take a look at the rest of my posts. Thanks!

He didn’t believe me I guess.

A few months ago I was on a business trip and had some time to kill. As I usually do, I went in search of abandoned places to photograph. I came across this ghost ship while doing research and decided to go looking for it. Since the shipwreck is apparently private property I’m not going to give out any additional information on its location, but I will say that in this particular state the mud is like molasses and mosquitoes and horses are in about equal supply. This river, a tributary of a much larger one nearby, is also pretty popular with kayakers apparently.

After a sweaty walk through dense forest and mud that was more like quick sand, I found her. As if the walk wasn’t bad enough, she was set slightly out into the river so I was going to have to get a little wet and super muddy to get aboard. Great.

Unfortunately, she was listing a little to starboard, so that made the climb interesting. Double unfortunately, the river looked like something evil and gigantic was lurking in it (and muddy! did I already say that?), so I was desperately hoping I didn’t fall. I quietly checked in with the patron saint of shipwrecks and climbed aboard.

Besides the first shipwreck forest I’ve ever seen, the vessel had several large holes in the deck, some of which were hidden. Falling through one would likely drown you. If you didn’t drown and didn’t have a friend to help you out, you would no doubt end up with a life-long fear of rivers: the hold was full of dark water, tree branches, and skeletons of long submerged equipment. In retrospect I probably shouldn’t have been there alone, but I’m pretty much Indiana Jones so it was ok. (I’ll give you a moment here to roll your eyes.)

The boat was pretty substantial in size, so photographing it took a while. After about 30 minutes I heard a noise in the distance which soon became a noise in the nearby. A man pulled up, killed his engine, and told me in no uncertain terms to leave (I’ve learned from experience that it’s usually best not to hide, which is how he found me). Even though I had intentionally parked far up river away from any houses and hiked in to avoid a problem just like this, one had found me.

I packed up my kit and rappelled down the side of the ship, almost losing a shoe to the sucking mud. After a few minutes of hiking it became apparent that he was crossing the river and headed my direction, so I stayed close to the water in thicker bush and stayed out of sight. (On the other hand, I’ve learned that sometimes it is in fact better to hide.) After he passed me I hustled out a little faster, positively coated the inside of my rental car with mud, and made my way out of the forest.

Below are some of the photos I took. Maybe in a future post I’ll put up a few more.

This was my view from the right side of the river as I approached. Because of how dense the forest is, the shipwreck just sort of appears out of nowhere. 

One of the holes in the deck. Note the submerged equipment inside just below the water.

Another view of the inside, including branches that would make for a very bad day if you fell in.

Since I almost never get to an abandoned spot before other people have, there’s inevitably graffiti on them (people suck). Luckily this wreck didn’t have much of it, and what was there was kind of interesting, like this piece.

A view looking towards the bow; note the trees.

Because I’m dumb, I thought it would be a good idea to stand up on the narrow edge of the bow and take a photo of the river. I’m pretty sure it was full of concentrated evil.

And here’s my opposite view, showing how tall the trees on the deck were.

This next photo was the last one I took after I abandoned ship, and will be the last one I bore you with. Thanks as always for visiting my littler corner of the Internet. Check back soon for more updates!

Milky Way and a shooting star (and my friend Kayla) at the Alabama Hills

The Milky Way at Mono Lake

Want more me in your life? Click here to see my prints for sale, or here to see the rest of my posts. If you’d prefer to stay right here and do nothing, click here.

If you’re viewing this as a single post, point your mouse here and then do a single click to see the rest of my stuff. If you’d rather click two or more times, you can check out my prints gallery over here. Thanks. :)

(Postscriptum: I’m also humble.)

Anyways, let’s stop with the jibber-jabber and look at my mildly interesting photographs.

First up, here’s a few photos from my wonderful friend Brittany’s wine and cheese party. It was fun. I fell down at one point.

Next up: I dig the moon. Sometimes I stand still and look at it and am amazed that there’s a gigantic ball of rock circling us (like during the blood moon eclipse). Then I go inside and play on my iPad and waste the precious time I have left on earth.

I have the accidental habit of going down to “the cemetery” at Corona Del Mar anytime someone I know passes away. The accidental part of it is that I usually don’t realize I’m doing it until I’ve arrived. My friend Christina was having a rough day and came with me. Apparently, the rocks wanted two visitors.

Here she is smiling.

Possibly the best photo I’ve ever taken of myself:

Finally, here’s four pictures I took near sunset at Mt. Baldy. I missed the actual sunset because I was trying to talk to some German girls inside. (Spoiler alert: I did talk to them. They were nice.)

That’s it for this one. Want more Jake Reinig? Check out the rest of my website, or see some of my favorite stuff in the prints gallery.

Here he is:

The reason he’s famous is because he’s the inventor and “curator” (I guess?) of the Dothraki language spoken on the Game of Thrones TV show. He also does the language work for SyFy’s Defiance, writes books, speaks at conventions and seminars (including Comic-Con), invents languages, and once upon a time had a pretty decent three-point shot. You should watch those TV shows or buy any of his books so that he can continue to be famous and maybe someday introduce me to a beautiful young starlet.

Plus, I mean, isn’t he just a dream boat?

Now that things are sufficiently awkward, let’s move onto more random stuff. Here’s a photo from the time I went to Mars.

This is Amanda, a lovely young lady from our planet who I might be taking more photos of soon.

Let’s get even more random now. I was bored and decided to take pictures of numerically significant groups of items at the beach. Bet you didn’t think you’d be seeing this today, did you? Well, here you go:

I decided that this is the metaphorical equivalent of what it feels like to be in your house when an earthquake hits:

Bam! Random red panda! P.s. these are probably the best animals in existence.

Since I really need to use the restroom, I’m going to shut up and leave you with a few pictures of other random things. Oh, actually, one last thing: if you haven’t already noticed, I relaunched my prints gallery, featuring work by myself and other artists, including my talented brother Nate Reinig. Take a look if you have 23 seconds. If you’re my friend on Facebook, hit me up and I’ll give you a limited-time discount code if you’re interested in anything.

Otherwise, thanks for stopping by!

Want more photos? Head to the home page and scroll on down.

First, some photos from the ol’ abandoned Griffith Park Zoo. Built in 1912 and closed in 1966, the zoo was probably a terrible place to raise your animal family.  According to Wikipedia, it was constructed in the “caves-with-iron-bars style,” which as we all know is how most animals in the wild have built their homes since the discovery of iron in the 15th-century.

This is the view looking up from inside one of the iron cages. The view out the front was pretty much the same sad thing.

It’s hard to see in this shot, but that thing at the bottom is a gigantic wolf dog. Members of a wolf dog rescue group were at the park with several of these magnificent animals, one of which was apparently curious as to what I was doing.

Up next is a random road-side display I found when visiting a friend. I really hope the owner of that car didn’t have a run in with a drunk driver, although seems to be somewhat common these days unfortunately.

To close, a few beach photos.

I wanted to take some photographs on New Year’s Day, so I figured that a good way to start off 2014 was to visit my “memorial rock” and do some reflecting on the past. I said hello to my lost friends, took some pictures, and headed home thinking of the future. As always, thank you for visiting.

Anyways, I’ve been traveling to Catalina for years to scuba dive, but had never actually photographed it. So with my trusty camera in hand, I headed over.

The weather was pleasant and the island quiet, so I had a fairly relaxing day (more on that in a minute).

The first thing I did was head over to the Casino to take the walking tour of said building, which I had never been inside of.

Catalina was at one point quite famous for its “Catalina tile,” which is still used extensively to decorate the island. The next few tile mosaics (?) are on the walking path to the Casino.

This one shows what I think is Sugarloaf Point in the distance, before the large rocks were destroyed to make room for buildings, including the current Casino.

As I waited for the tour to start, the young woman selling tickets took a call on her cell: “Please tell me you’re not calling with bad news….She…didn’t make it? … Oh $&*#…Oh $&*#….” I was the only one who heard her in this very private, very sad moment. I felt like I should say something or try to comfort her, but what do you say to a total stranger in a situation like that? In a moment she had moved into a side room and the tour started, so I never found out what I may have tried to say. I hope she’s doing ok.

Back to the tour, I’ll say that the inside of the Casino is incredible. The Wrigley family spent an obscene amount of money making it about as ornate as was possible at the time. The waiting area just outside the movie theater has a roof filled with 22-carat gold-leaf stars. I don’t have a photo inside the theater, but trust me when I say that it’s breathtaking.

View of an island traffic jam from the second floor of the building, which is actually about 10 stories up.

This is the chandelier…thing at the center of the formal ballroom on the top floor of the Casino. The piece is quite large and can be rotated.

In the entry way to the theater are a number of beautiful mosaics and wall paintings. These pieces, which are the originals put up in the 1920s, are still impressive to look at.

In the event that your workplace doesn’t like au naturel, 85-year-old mermaids painted onto the sides of large public buildings, I’ve decided to make this one small. Click to see it full-size. This mural was the only one completed as originally intended using Catalina tile. With opening day around the corner, the Casino’s designer was told to paint the rest directly on the concrete facing of the building. This piece is one of the prettiest works of art I’ve yet to see in California.

Earlier, I mentioned that the day was relaxing. That is, with the exception of hiking to the top of the cliff just above the Casino. What a trek!  Walking to the cliff-face directly over the building, I came across this structure set into the ground. By the looks of it, it was buried for some time and was recently uncovered when the dirt was washed away. Decorated with a tile cross and about the size of a child’s grave, I couldn’t help but wonder if it wasn’t just that. I’ve not been able to find any information on it though.

No idea what this is meant to be, but I found it looking out from a house on the hike back down the hill.

I got a late lunch whilst waiting for the sun to get lower and took some pictures of various tile installations around town. It’s quite interesting to see the large design variety on  structures and buildings. Below are two such examples.

Carrying all my gear up the hill again didn’t sound very appealing, so I hired a cab to take me part of the way. The sunset wasn’t spectacular, but the waning daylight still made for a great view.

To close off the post, here’s a shot of Avalon harbor just after dusk. Thanks for visiting!

While I go look for budget knife throwing classes, feel free to browse the photos below, all of which were shot in multiple states not beginning with the letter C and none of which ended with X.