Labor Day weekend is a wonderful time for family vacations.  One can still catch some of the heat nearing the end of summer, a perfect chance to take a break from everything before the kids start school again.  This year, along with a bunch of friends (about 8 families in total), we rented some cabins in the Sequoia National Park and made our escape.

One of the attractions in Sequoia, besides the giant redwoods, is the Crystal Cave.  The subterranean cavern is decorated with curtains of icicle-like stalactites and mounds of stalagmites, most of all, a real challenge for a M9 shooter that did not bring flash and tripod.  I set the ISO to 1250 while inside the cave, and tried to use the lighting provided inside to limit the exposure time to be around 1/4 of a second.  If I squeeze the trigger carefully, I felt that I was able to hold it just steady enough so the motion blur won't be too visible when sharing the images on the web.

I shot about 320 photos over the length of the weekend, and had the battery drain out on me for the first time.  I've picked a few personal favorites [HERE], and if you're interested, you can see more in the personal gallery [HERE], which contains more vacation snaps.