There’s a mailing list called ContemporaryLandscapes, where a bunch of landscape photographers shoot the shit. I joined because I like to shoot landscapes, and I thought I might gain some inspiration. I’m a total lurker, however, due to an excess of humility about my skills and authority on the topic.

There’s one guy in particular, though, who has an interesting online gallery called Portraits of the American Dead. Basically, they’re unintentional portraits taken of people in cars that happened to be in frame when he was photographing other things. He’s blown them up and presented them as art. Quite interesting.

Nerds write travelogues, too. I say this affectionately.

PublicLands.org, a multi-agency website of public lands, mostly useful to find a place to park your RV. That’s mean. I shouldn’t say that; there’s more, and it’s plenty useful, but still. One potential downside is that it only includes western states, west of a line that doesn’t include Texas or North Dakota.

I got to publiclands.org after discovering there’s a whole complex of campgrounds north of Steamboat Springs, CO, near Steamboat Lake. One in particular is called Seed House campground, and it’s at 8,000 feet, in the Routt National Forest, and right on the border of Mt. Zirkel Wilderness Area. On the site is a 4-hole outhouse built of logs in 1935 by the CCC, and some folks are trying to get it recognized as an historic place. I love this kind of story, for a few reasons. First, it mandates that I drive down US highway 40 on my way to Boulder, so I can visit this outhouse. Second, I’m curious about it because I have a growing interest in the Great Depression and the New Deal. Third, I’ve camped out before in the Routt National Forest, along the highway through the mountains south of the wilderness area, and wondered what was up there. Fourth, it’s a freakin’ outhouse historical site.

Anyway. PublicLands.org and Byways.org are first class examples of putting a flexible user interface on a whole lot of data.