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Yesterday I traveled Baird's Creek Rd. to see how the fall was coming along. I saw several political signs, but missed this one. It probably was there, yet it escaped my attention. Today I saw it, did a double take, then backed up on the curvy road to get the shot. Ok y'all. I chuckled at the sign. This is hillbilly independent awesome.
While walking around campus today I stopped at the Duck Pond to witness the waterfowl frolic, or whatever it is ducks do 'neath the golden canopy. Their webbed feet made this kinda cool pattern in the water. If someone could make this into a ring or bracelet, I'd buy it. Maybe.
Speaking of things which amuse me: Meet Thalia. She posts a current news story with a classic poem almost every day. The connection made between Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Prozac is not only clever, but points out our weaknesses. The hardships and human suffering we face today along with our politics and follies are nothing new . She shows us, through the use of poetry, that we've been here before.
I fell out of bed early Saturday morning. Without brushing my teeth or hair, I pulled on Friday's pair of jeans and stumbled into the Jeep and steered towards the Parkway. I headed north at Blowing Rock and quickly turned around because the cloud cover wasn't going to allow for a striking sunrise. I traveled south and hit Price Lake.
That's where I met the first photographer. The light was dull and I briefly considered bagging the trip and going back to bed. But I figured while I was out there, I would do a bit of leaf reconnaissance so I would know the better areas to go to at a later time. I ventured to the boat area at the lake. That's when Mr. Sun decided to do his little thing. It was fairly magical.
After 20 minutes I packed my gear and drove to Grandfather. By the time I got to Rough Ridge I had already passed at least 20 photographers. As I crossed the viaduct, add at least 50 more lens slingers to count. I think this section of the Parkway most be highlighted as 'the place to shoot autumn,' in some landscape photography magazine. I'm gonna look for a different spot just to be rebellious.
For those keeping track of the leaves, peak on the top is just days away. Barring a major windstorm, autumn will stay around a while. It is gorgeous everywhere and you won't be disappointed.
Bring your camera.
Note to self: Your bogen tripod is tired, in fact, it is dead. Time to get a new one.
I'm not sure exactly who is responsible for this fierce Jack-O-Lantern because it just showed up the other day sitting upon a rock near the Valle Crucis welcome sign. A mystery pumpkin with a glowering face. Strange how it looks just like my husband's face did this afternoon soon after my youngest called to say she had just rear-ended a car...
(She's fine, but her car is not. And I don't even want to imagine our next insurance bill)
Score! A barn, a mower, an outhouse and autumn leaves all in the same photo. It's this hillbilly photographer's dream come true. All are found on the Dutch Creek Trails property, formerly known as the Baird homeplace, in Valle Crucis. As you can clearly see, the autumn color is forming, but peak is at least another week or two away at the 3,000 feet mark. Gnumoon told me her visit to Beech Mountain over the weekend was looking mighty fine, yet still at nearly 6,000 ft above sea level, the leaves had not reached their finest. Here is the official fall foliage report from VisitNC website. The Fall Color Guy is ASU professor of plant physiology Howard Neufeld. He knows his leaves.
My advise: Come up the mountain sooner rather than later. And don't worry so much about gas availability. From what I can tell, the fuel crunch, though still an issue, is diminishing.
Remember the Valle Country Fair and Wooly Worm festival happen on Oct. 18th.
And here's a tip: If you can possibly arrange to visit the area during the weekdays instead of over the weekend, you will avoid the worse traffic. But do come to the Valle Country Fair and say hello to me.
These are two images of nearby barns taken only a few moments apart. In the mountains, a minute difference in elevation often makes a drastic change in the mood of a photograph. The second photo is of the barn near the Mast General Store in Valle Crucis. A couple of miles away as I rode up the foot of Rock Crusher Hill, the clouds began to lift as the sun made its way above the ridges. A gorgeous scene unfolded and of course I stopped. It turned out to be a stellar morning for making photos.
Too bad I lost them all. Really, I did. My camera started acting wonky. I took out the battery and rebooted it in the field. I confirmed that the images were on the card. They were. Then, when I got to the office and tried to upload the images, they had disappeared. There were no images on the card the computer could read. After numerous attempts I resigned to failure and I wept for my loss. Sadly I reformatted the card in the camera. That's when a friend told me to try to find a free card recovery program on the web. I did. I found the Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery program which searched my compact flash card and found both my jpeg and raw images. How? I do not know. But for $39 bucks it promised it would retrieve them from the grave. I gladly paid the money and now own my personal version of the software just in case this happens again.
For those of you following ASU football, I added more images of yesterday's game against the Citadel to the photo album on the sidebar. Just scroll down and you will see the newer images. And, I think my new favorite SoCon team to play is the Citadel. It is a class program with great fans who leave the battle on the field. Even then, I witnessed several acts of kindness towards opponents by both teams' athletes. I admire and respect good sportsmanship.
And look what else I found: an awesome blog called Cloody and Frank . If ever there was an argument for age being no excuse for not embracing the new, then this blog is it. 81 year old Frank and his beloved wife live in a retirement village in Arkansas. Check out his sidebar, not only has Frank had fun with Photobooth, but he also reveals the secret of Copiah soup. Cloody and Frank is a feel good blog. Go visit and smile, y'all.
I have very little power in my life. But I have my blog. And so when I promised to post these images on my blog last week and then got a little lazy...these ASU fans may have been disappointed, yet forgiving. At today's game, I encountered the same group chanting, "Blue Ridge Blog, Blue Ridge Blog." The sweeties.
Nothing will get your face plastered on my blog faster than that fellas.
I do have more images of today's game against the Citadel. Appalachian won with a convincing score of 47-21 but they will have to wait till tomorrow. 'nite.
This shot is straight from the camera as is today's Daily Annie shot. The Canon 16-35mm 2.8 len, when used wide open, has a bit of edge distortion and vignette which most photographers may find annoying. I find it charming.
This is the view from my driveway when I stand on top of my Jeep...
And this is the view of Annie as I chased her on my driveway today...
The leaves are changing. It isn't even close to peak, yet it is cold up here (windy and in the '50's during the day).
My favorite photo of the day was of Zelda. If this isn't worthy of Cute Overload, I'm not sure what is....
I'm liking short sentences today followed by dots...
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