Palmer Water Tower

Palmer is the borough seat of Matanuska-Susitna Borough (similar to counties in the lower 48 although bigger as the Mat-Su Borough is roughly the size in land area of Scotland). Wasilla, the town I live in, is larger but has less charm and history than Palmer. Palmer is really the only town in Alaska with a core agrarian heritage (rather than fishing, mining, hunting, or oil). During the Great Depression, the federal government funded the establishment of the Matanuska Colony comprised of 203 families from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan to farm the area. The area's Colony Barns are a standard design that was used at the time. Many public buildings, schools, and businesses contain the word "colony" in their name as an homage to the original settler's heritage.

Mrs. Scintilla and I went to the Vagabond Blues restaurant in Palmer for lunch. The proprietors and most of the clientele seem like they were more likely to be found in Berkley or Boulder rather than among among stereotypical gun toting pick-up driving Alaskans. They have a wicked good Hungarian mushroom soup that I can't resist even if it means I forgo meat for a meal.

I tried out a neat feature on the new camera for this shot. With the camera on my tripod, I framed the composition through the viewfinder, then I turned on "live view" such that I was seeing the image on the rear lcd. Then I was able to magnify the image real time and move an auto focus square over the area of interest and that spot was focused perfectly (in this case, the water tower). I can't wait to try it with a macro subject. I was a little concerned about have some buyers remorse over this camera given the serious coin it cost, but it's so sweet I don't think any regrets will set in.