Sometimes you just have to snap the picture...

The Coast Starlight leaving Portland with skateboarders along tracks., a photo by Dornoff Photography on Flickr.

There is times you just have to snap the picture even though you know it will not come out perfect.

In this case I was waiting to take pictures of Amtrak's Coast Starlight when I saw these two people walking down the tracks and then starting to skateboard down the crossing. I was already focused on the train so I went ahead and took the picture.

While the skateboarders were not perfectly focused it gets the point across. Hopefully these two learned their lesson about a five seconds after I snapped the picture and the engineer of the train blew the whistle. These two obviously not paying attention freaked out and then started running and started screaming "there was a train coming" over and over as they cross and started walking down the street.

Pike Place Fish Company

Pike Place Fish Company
Originally uploaded by Dornoff Photography

Here is another picture from the vacation my wife and I took back in November of 2007.

We flew down from Salt Lake City to Long Beach on Jet Blue, spent a couple of days with family, then took Amtrak's Coast Starlight up to Portland then the next day we continued onto Seattle via Washington State's Cascade service Talgo.

The day after we arrived in Seattle, we took Sound Transit buses to downtown and spent the day in the area until our next train depart at 4:45pm to Seattle.

We took a long walk around the downtown area before ending up at one of my favorite places Pike Place Market. We look around before I stood in front of the Pike Place Fish Company for a few minutes taking pictures.

The Pike Place Fish Company is famous because of the way they throw around the fish when someone buys one. Well I waited several minutes but was not able to get a picture of them throwing the fish. My wife was getting hungry so we left and headed back towards King Street Station and the International District in order to have lunch.

Here is the best of the fish company pictures. You can see several people looking at the fish but none of them bought any while I was there.

Long Dead but still around

Fedco Sign in Colton, California
Originally uploaded by Dornoff Photography

In November 2006 when my wife and I were on extended vacation in Southern California to visit family plus hit some sights, we passed this sign but we did not have the opportunity to stop since we were on our way to visit my Uncle.

In October, 2007 we made another trip down there before taking Amtrak's Coast Starlight up to Seattle so I made sure to have a few minutes to get a picture of this sign.

So what's so special about this sign.

Well for those that are not familiar with the company, Fedco was a chain of stores (I think there were similar to a K-Mart of the time but I am not sure since I never was in one). However, this chain died probably 20 or 25 years ago.

So the fact that this sign which is near the San Bernardino/Colton on Mt. Vernon along what was US Highway 91 is still around is amazing. A friendly reminder of retailing history much like the old Woolworth store in Bakersfield, California that is now an antique store but still has the Woolworth sign and trim.