Saturated Saturday: Parking lot

How would you like to park here.

Click the photo to see it larger

Parking lot for the grist mill at Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Thirsty Thursday: North Carolina creek

Taken last fall  on my camping trip

click the photo to see it larger

Photo Friday: Smoke gets in your eyes

I was out raking and burning leaves when I looked up at the smoke going through the trees. I shot 6 frames and liked this one the best. I opened it in Lightroom 3 and adjusted then sent it to Silver efex for the B&W conversion.

Click to see larger

Scenic drive: The Blue Ridge Parkway

We only rode part of the Blue Ridge Parkway, from Asheville to Cherokee, and would have loved to see it all. During the fall it is spectacular but expect lots of traffic and delays. The problem is it is so awesome you want to stop at every pull off. There are 15 tunnels on this short section of the parkway. I can only imagine the difficulty in building it. We were fortunate to travel it on the 50th anniversary of it’s opening.

Click the photo to see it larger

Looking Glass rock

The Graveyard fields and second falls

Second falls

The Graveyard fields

Maple tree

The Graveyard fields

Highest point on the parkway

Curve in the road

To travel the parkway is to experience the Blue Ridge mountains

Photo of the week: Reflection

Sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you get semi lucky. I have attempted for several years to catch the waters of Bayou DeSiard calm and a fall reflection. yesterday I came around DeSiard street in east Monroe and saw the water was extremely calm. You can’t pull over and stop in the curve so I rounded it and to the public access. It was dead calm, except for one small band of rippled water.

click to see larger

I waited and took several more photos, however the moment was gone. So I got semi lucky LOL

Trip preps

It is less than 2 weeks till Beth and I leave for Tn/NC for our photo vacation. We will be taking a two room  tent, two air mattresses, folding chairs and tables, cook stove and lantern for our camping and cooking. Our food box has mostly easy prep food items to keep cooking to a  minimum. Since this is a photo vacation we want to maximize the time spent taking photos. We plan to camp in the national forests and the national park, especially the ones that offer electricity and showers. We will be taking 5 gallons of water and a solar shower for when there are no shower facilities., along with 5 gallons of emergency gas.

We will have her laptop and my netbook along with a portable HD to back up photos too. We both run Lightroom 3. I am taking a 12V rechargeable battery pack and a small inverter capable of recharging the laptops and cell phone. This will come in handy the latter part of the trip as the camps don’t have power. I can recharge it during the day from the cigarette lighter in the van.

Our first travel will be just slabbing it to Cleveland, Tn. and will be at night. from there we will make a giant loop around east Tn. and west NC and even dip down into northern SC.

Hopefully we can find some wifi along the way to update the blog.

I am keeping up with the fall colors through two different sites. The first covers the eastern part of the US. The foliage network the second is for NC only and is done by regions with biologists reporting. Visit NC. It is amazing what you can learn from the internet. I have spent countless hours planning our route and searching for places to visit.

Speaking of research if you love to drive and take photographs there is one tool you must use. I am talking about google maps and specifically using the street view feature.

You just left click and hold on the little yellow man and then drag him over on the map. The roads that can be viewed will show on blue

click to see larger

Drop him on the road you wish to view.

click to see larger

Then use the compass arrows to orientate in the direction you wish to travel you can also left click and drag the photo in the direction you want. Then you can double click the road ahead to travel along it.

There is even a full screen mode if you want to see it larger.

click to see larger

There is a 360 degree view by clicking and dragging the photo around.

click to see larger

This is very useful to check driving or road conditions, photo ops, scenery and determine if this is the road you want. I find it very useful as I love old barns, bridges, streams and colors.

I made changes to our route based on what I saw on these roads. I compared several back roads for inclusion. I could tell Beth to check out a certain road to see if we wanted to travel it. I could also check out roads to see if they were suitable for the mini van to travel.

If you are planning a driving trip these should help you.

Photo of the week

I actually have two this week. The first is my very first Monarch butterfly.

Click the photo to see it larger

I chased this one all over the yard to get a photo.

The second is the harvest moon shot on the evening of the fall equinox.

Click the photo to see it larger

I hope you enjoy these. I haven’t been doing much due to the heat and drought conditions we have had.

A little color

This time of year, The NE Louisiana landscape gets very ugly, so I try to look for the last bits of colorAs always click the photo to view a larger version