The past couple of weeks I’ve had an itch to go to Cades Cove during the day… mostly because I wanted to scope out some places to go back to when it is dark and the stars are out (it is, after all, not as convenient when you can’t see anything and you’re on a bike)… but also because it has been so long since I’ve been there during the day that I’d almost forgotten what it looks like! Anyway, yesterday Holly, my nephew Andrew, and I went up there to goof around a bit. I had it in my head that everything was going to be brown and not very conducive for pictures… but what the heck, I’ll take my camera anyway (because really, the time you don’t a black bear would roll around in the street for all to see). The weather was cool-ish and mild as winters can be here in East Tennessee… and low and behold, there were patches of buttercups blooming everywhere. Several of the famous spots were full of other park-goers taking family pictures amongst the beautiful display; however head down any of the side roads and there were lots that were free of other people. We seized the opportunity and took some pictures and it reminded me, that even though they’re calling for snow today… and I’ve had Spring flowers blooming in our beds since before Christmas… Spring is just around the corner!
Maybe if it is cold and nasty out next week we’ll go somewhere warm and sandy for next week’s Picture of the week!
A couple of weeks ago when I started this series, the picture was of a Moai and the title was Rano Raraku (if you sound it out, you’re pronouncing it correctly). Rano Raraku is a dormant volcano on Easter Island and is referred to as the “birth place of the Moai” as it is believed that most of the Moai (save one or two) were carved here. When you stare up at the side of the volcano you can see chunks missing everywhere… BIG chunks… where the Moai were removed from the cliffs. It is absolutely remarkable.
From Rano Raraku, you can see Tangariki; this week’s picture of the week. Tangariki is easily the most impressive site on the island. Fifteen Moai standing watching over the island, the largest of which weighs 86 tons. Mind boggling.
Something I wasn’t prepared for when visiting Easter Island was that most of the statues are no longer standing up. Civil war on the island between 1770 and the 1830s led to the tribes knocking over the statues. No one is quite clear why, but it is shocking to see. The only statues that are standing today are ones that were either never completed at Rano Raraku, or at sites that have been restored by archeologists. This particular site was hit by a tsunami in the 1960s after a huge earthquake hit Chile. In the 1990s a Japanese led team put the site back together, however a few Moai still lay strewn on the ground where the waves left them.
Last week I mentioned that Easter Island is my happy place, and this week’s picture shows a little bit of why; there is nothing there… well… almost nothing. This picture was shot from Orongo looking back towards Hanga Roa, the only town on the island. Outside of that, there are a couple farms towards the other end of the island… the “big heads”, and that’s about it!
Holly and I had bummed around most of the day and she wasn’t feeling well. Knowing that I couldn’t sit still, she sent me on my way without her. I caught a cab up to Orongo by myself and managed to fumble through enough Spanish to get walking directions from the driver on how to use trails to get back to the hotel instead of walking the road. By the time we arrived, the attendants had all left as well as the tourists… there wasn’t a soul around (interestingly enough, most of the tours on the island are finished by 5 or so, so if you rent a car or catch a cab, you’ll have the different sites all to yourself!). It was so AMAZING. The sun was getting low in the sky and I remember feeling so energized and excited to be there. I literally ran around the rim of the now dormant volcano… snapping away with my camera. I jumped off of and over rocks… I think at one time I may have ran with my arms out as though flying. I felt like a kid. I was truly living a dream.
That “nothing-ness” I mentioned a minute ago came up while we were trying to line up the trip. Our travel agent, Judy Rouse, says it was an adventure just booking the trip! She had consulted with someone else and had mentioned that we wanted to stay for a week. This consultant said that most people stay two days… three days tops. We insisted that we wanted to stay longer, to which the person that Judy was speaking with replied “Do they realize there is literally NOTHING there?”. Yep… and that is exactly why I wanted to go. Nothing but a small piece of land in the middle of the ocean… with a bunch of stone carvings that no one can quite explain… and a dream.
Everyone has “that place”. You know, that place you’ve always wanted to go to, or maybe you’ve been and you’d love to go back. Given the opportunity, you’ll kick your heals up and take a quick trip there in your mind. THAT place.
Easter Island is that place for me. Why Easter Island? I really couldn’t tell you exactly. Maybe I saw those Time-Life “Mysteries of the Unknown” book series commercials a few too many times as a kid, or maybe I was a little too fascinated with aliens and extraterrestrial possibilities; or it could have been all of the above. In any case, the Moai of Easter Island captured my imagination the first time I laid eyes on them. Being able to walk up to one and touch it was literally a dream come true.
For the next couple weeks I’ll share some pictures from my favorite place on earth. Where is yours… and more importantly… when are you going?
Anti-Christian Icelandic heathen bastards… why in the world was I searching for that on Google? …I’ll get to that in a second.
While I was researching things I wanted to see in Iceland I happened to stumbled upon this amazing time lapse video created in Iceland. One of the scenes in the film depicts the airplane above… and that was enough. I had to see it and take pictures of it myself. Now, I know when you see this picture you immediately think Iceland… I just can’t help it though. I see things like this and I just have to see them for myself. Anyway, after quite a bit of research I found that the plane wreckage was in the Sólheimasandur area of Southern Iceland and found some rough instructions on getting to it. After Holly and I visited the Solheimajokull Glacier (don’t worry, I can’t pronounce it either), the weather had mostly cleared up so we decided to give our navigation skills a test and we set out across the “black sand desert” in search for our DC3 carcass.
Now, the intriguing thing to me about this plane was partly the wreckage itself, and partly the surroundings it sits in. Lots of the pictures I found of the plane appear to be almost black and white images because the area is so devoid of color. The ground is totally black and on an overcast day, the sky is basically white / grey. Definitely other-worldly. This DC3 sits about 2 miles off the main highway and all this coarse black sand slopes gently down to the ocean… to the point when you’re out there, all you can see is black, ocean, and mountains WAY off in the distance. A little freaky. So Holly and I park the car a little ways off from the plane and proceed to walk to it. On the way out there we can see that there are other people already there. I immediately think “great… these people are going to be in my way”. As we get closer we notice that there is a girl there wearing a long white dress, which has now turned black at the bottom… and there is another person there that appears to be wearing a long red robe of some sort. Okay… well that’s a little strange. The closer we get, the weirder it gets. This dude that’s in the red robe is also not wearing a shirt… and it’s freezing outside… and he’s got what appears to be blood all over him AND his face is painted red with a white stripe across his eyes. To make matters even more interesting, there was what looked to be a coffin laying in the sand not too far away. Holly is obviously thinking they’re going to kills us and drink our blood by now and is suggesting… quite insistently… that maybe we should just leave. I, on the other hand, am a little less moved by the situation and bound and determined to get my shots, and… I recognized these people.
The previous night Holly and I had walked into a local dive in Vik that was a gas station with a little diner in the back. If you’ve seen our pictures on Flickr or Facebook, the picture of me eating a hamburger with a fried egg on top; well, that was this place. As soon as we walked in I had noticed a table full of people. They all had a punk rocker look about them and were apparently having a good time. One of them was obviously American and the rest, I guessed, were Icelandic. When they got up to leave I looked and the back of one of their shirts said “Anti-Christian Icelandic Heathen Bastards”. Nice. As a Believer my mind began to wonder what kind of place I had stumbled in to. As fate would have it, our paths would cross again… these people with fake blood all over themselves… were the same group we had seen at the diner.
They didn’t kill us… in fact they were quite nice. I didn’t ask what they were doing, but it was obvious they were shooting a video or movie of some sort. I could see that some of the shots they were doing were going to turn out pretty cool, so I’ve been curious ever since then to find out what they were making. Well… it got the best of me yesterday and I started Googling. A MySpace page led to a Facebook page… which led to a music video… of a girl dragging a coffin and this very plane in one of the scenes. Crazy the world we live in isn’t it? Sólstafir is the name of the band, and while I wouldn’t really recommend them, I must say this video turned out pretty cool. The song isn’t bad either… but that may be because I can’t understand what they’re saying. The really cool thing is we visited all the places in the video, and when the crazy painted up dude with the long fingernails and stringy hair smiles in the video… I was standing right behind the guy holding the camera… clicking away as I do when surrounded by such beauty; and sometimes weirdness.
Last spring when I started working on star trails photos in Cades Cove, the first cabin I shot was the John Oliver cabin. It’s the closest cabin to the entrance, and being in Cades Cove at night was something new (and a little scary / creepy)… so that was a plus. The first time I went I convinced myself that the picture would be best from the other side of the cabin, and I spent four or five different nights trying to make it work. For multiple reasons it was hard to get a composition that got enough sky in it to be interesting for star trails and I was forced to do portrait orientation; something I’m not generally a fan of for scenic shots like this. With the camera more or less on the ground, I tried it over and over… and finally gave up. I moved on to the little Methodist Church and instantly got results I was pleased with, and so it was, I just rode by John Oliver’s place every other night on the way to somewhere else… thinking to myself, surely there is a shot there.
Well, a couple months ago I convinced my nephew Andrew to tag along, and not wanting to kill him on our first night out I decided to just stop at the Oliver cabin. I sat the shot up much the same way I had on many other nights and let the camera go to work. I had just attended my first Night Photography class at the University of Tennessee and the instructor mentioned that one night we would try out making ghosts in our pictures. Basically what you do is setup a long exposure shot, and have someone stand in the shot for only part of the exposure… the end result is that you can see the person… but you can see THROUGH them as well. Kind of neat. I wanted to make the night entertaining for my nephew (Holly had long sense gotten bored of coming with me, and she wouldn’t let me go alone… so I needed an accomplice), so when I had gotten enough pictures to do the star trails I started taking pictures of us in the shot as ghosts (you can see one of them here). We kept coming up with different things to try and it occurred to me that it might be super creepy to do a ghost type shot of someone standing in the window of the cabin. We moved around to the other side of the cabin and I did a couple test shots… that’s when it hit me. I had been shooting the cabin from the wrong side the entire time! It was too late to start another stair trail shot that night… but I had the composition figured out. Three weeks ago the conditions finally worked out and so I returned and captured this image. THIS was what I had been after.
The cantilever barn at the Tipton place is, in my opinion, the most iconic structure in Cades Cove. When I started shooting the buildings in Cades Cove at night, I quickly decided I wanted to do a picture of the barn; but I wanted to wait till after all the leaves were gone because of all the brush around… so this weekend it finally worked out. The moon was BRIGHT, but the sky was really clear.
While my nephew and I were hanging out waiting for the image to complete (about an hour), we had a pretty interesting experience. We were sitting around in our lawn chairs and the coyotes started howling away as they usually do. Out of nowhere though, one starts howling right on top of us! In the Cove it is really hard to gauge where and how many coyotes there are, but when you can hear one breath in-between howls, you know it is CLOSE. My nephew and I both stood up, startled, and the coyote proceeded to start barking at us. You know that bark, when you’re walking next to a fence and the dog on the other side is none-to-happy for you to be there… yeah, that was it. We never actually saw it, but it definitely knew we were there. It went on for about five minutes or so and then gave up and went on its way. A little hair-raising at first… but pretty neat as well.
So this morning I spent a little time thinking about 2012 and what all I wanted to accomplish and I also took some time to think back over 2011. This week instead of doing a new picture for POTW I decided to do a collage of some of the things that happened over the last 12 months… a sort of year end review.
Holly and I got to go to some cool places in 2011. Earlier in the year we went out to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. We were excited and amazed by what we found there and really underscored for us just how truly blessed our Nation is with beautiful parks that we can all enjoy. Holly and I also discovered the Megabus this past year which led to two trips to Washington D.C.; one of which was just a weekend getaway to check out the museums and one was a way to cut down on trip costs… that trip of course was to Iceland. Iceland was a truly unique place and I can honestly say that, had you asked me 10 years ago if I ever thought I’d go to Iceland, I would likely have told you no. Our horizons and dreams are constantly changing, who knows where 2012 will have us.
Photography was something I spent a lot more time doing this past year. Between taking classes and just general goofing around, I spent a lot of time behind my camera. I also fell in love with night photography and have become somewhat of an addict. I’ve spent the weekend checking out weather reports and trying to decide if I’ll get to go out night shooting at all. That’s just kind of how it goes here lately.
2011 also had its emotional highs and lows. Holly and I said goodbye to a very dear friend this past year, Dale Young. Dale was a great man and a true friend; the kind you don’t find too often. I’m positive we will continue to miss him in 2012, but are blessed to have such great memories. One thing we will NOT miss, however, is cancer. On the other end of the emotional spectrum Holly finished up all her treatments and we celebrated multiple times her victory over breast cancer. I think we both came away with a more tuned appreciation for life and all that God has given us. Here’s to never forgetting that.
Yes… we’re that couple. LOL You know… the ones that take pictures of themselves with their cat in front of the Christmas tree. I think we did it the first year sort of poking fun at other people that did it, and the pictures were so funny because the cat never cooperates that we made it a tradition. Oscar starting kicking and biting at Holly about 2 seconds after this shot; you can tell he’s none-to-excited to be participating. I do, however, think this is the first year we’ve ever published such a photo.
Here’s hoping for another cancer free and fun filled year; from our family (cat included) to yours, Merry Christmas.
I think every guy, at some point in their life, is infatuated with airplanes. Whether it is dreaming of being a fighter pilot after seeing the movie Top Gun, building model airplanes, or checking out every book the local library has on them… it seems we all go through it. Most of us don’t go on to become ‘Maverick’, but I’d imagine that we all still get a little excited at the thought of sitting in the pilot’s seat or getting full access to a plane on the ground… at least I do anyway; so I was totally thrilled to find out that the last field trip of the University of Tennessee’s ‘Night Photography’ class would be held at Island Home Airport. Turns out that instructor Steve Chastain is good friends with a couple of the good people over at Remote Area Medical, and they got us access to the hangar where their planes are kept. Yep, totally cool. This was BY FAR the most fun I’ve had in any photography class (no offense to my previous instructors… but this was super cool)… there was just so much to shoot. The moon was full and the planes were shiny. It was awesome.
Last week I started a series of photos I took while attending Steve Chastain’s, Night Photography class, at the University of Tennessee. This week’s picture is a little out of the ordinary for me as I’m not generally in to taking pictures of people (especially people I don’t know). Despite my former instructors’ best efforts, posing people is still kind of awkward and having an idea in your head for what you want the picture to look like is hard for me… with nature photography (or cars or whatever), the objects are immovable and what you see is what you get. The picture is good, or it isn’t, based on where you put yourself and most importantly what kind of lighting you have. Anyway, this week’s photo is one that I was happy with from all those exercises. I really liked the high contrast of the image… the heavy shadows and overpowering highlights. He’s thinking about something… its up to us to imagine what that is.
A couple weeks ago I wrapped up a night photography class that I had been taking at the University of Tennessee led by Steve Chastain, and so I thought I’d take a couple weeks and share some of the images I took. This class was a little different from the previous ones I’d taken at UT in that the assumption was that you understood how to use your camera… so we just went out and shot… which was awesome. The second week of class we met down to Volunteer Landing in Downtown Knoxville and did some shooting along the boardwalk there. The time hadn’t changed yet so it was a great time to catch some late evening light. Henley Street bridge has been under construction (destruction?) for quite some time now and made for some interesting photos. It almost looks like something out of a war zone with just the towers and arches remaining.
As many of you know, night photography has become something of a passion of mine (some have called it an obsession), so this class was right up my alley. If you’re into photography, I’d recommend this class as it covers a lot of the challenges that shooting in low light situations present… AND, you get to go to some interesting places to learn. Fun stuff!
The past two times my family has gotten together, some old board games have made their way to the coffee table. The last time we all faced off it was a very spirited game of Monopoly and on Thanksgiving we decided to try our hand at Candyland. My nieces, Maria (pictured) and Sophia are masters of the rules of seemingly every game imaginable; which always yields some entertaining commentary on the intricacies of gameplay. It’s a good reminder that no matter how much technology advances, there are some classics out there waiting to be played… and subsequently foster more conversation then a TV screen. Here’s hoping you and yours had a wonderful… and interactive, Thanksgiving!
Holly and I have been fortunate in our travels to have seen several glaciers and I am constantly amazed by their sight. The enormity and power they represent is just genuinely impressive. While we were in Iceland, Holly and I got to see the two main glaciers and were encouraged to make a stop by Jökulsárlón, or as it is often referred to, the glacier lagoon. The first thing that jumped out at us about the glaciers we saw in Iceland was their color. The most brilliant shades of blues… we both just couldn’t get over how beautiful they were, and topping over the little hill to look down on this lagoon was just breath taking. The picture being panoramic you kind of lose the sense of scale, so I’m including the satellite image of the place below so you can see just how big this place was… but the chunks you see floating in the picture were just massive.
At the far end of the lagoon sits the Vatnajokull glacier (which happens to be the largest glacier mass in all of Europe) and as it calves, the chunks fall into this lagoon where they slowly fall apart and get flushed out to the ocean. The place where I was standing to take this picture was right next to the river they float out to find the ocean and it was so neat to watch these things moving around and then get pushed out to sea… only for some of them to be shoved back to the black sand beaches by the force of the tide. Spectacular stuff!
If I ever write a book, which I can’t imagine what it would be on, this will likely be the cover… I don’t know why other than when I look at it I think “book cover”.
This is one of my favorite pictures from Iceland. I remember exactly where it was. Holly and I had been driving for quite a while and we stopped at a fork in the road. The signs seemed to suggest that both roads would take us where we wanted to go… but one was substantially shorter. Substantially. We of course chose the shorter route. Just on to this “highway” 939, you pass a large warning sign stating that the road was not maintained in the winter and could be impassible… and seemed to suggest that if you got stuck, you might sit there until next spring when everything thawed out. Undeterred, we continued on. Surely it couldn’t be THAT bad, right? Not long after that we passed another sign warning of 15% grades. Is that steep? Not to worry, we’ve got a stunningly not-so-new Subaru Legacy with over 240,000 kilometers on it that claims to have AWD. We should be fine. Well, the road got narrower… and steeper; my knuckles got whiter… the pavement turned to gravel… and then to mud. Funny smells started coming from the car that I’m quite certain was the smell of transmission fluid… hot transmission fluid. The car nudged from one side to the other as we mushed down a road that had obviously frozen and thawed several times since the last time it was graded and the steering wheel provided some interesting feedback.
I’m not sure Holly and I said two words to each other… other than her asking me what that smell was as I stopped on a decent spot of road to take pictures and give the car a much needed break. I lied and said I had no idea and assured her it was probably fine.
After rejoining the main highway again we started back down the mountain and on the way down I spotted this house. Literally in the middle of nowhere. The fresh snow on top of the tree-less mountain; the river between it and me. This encompassed the Iceland countryside for me. Maybe it was that my heart was still racing from the spirited driving we had just done or maybe it was the fact that I couldn’t get over how what I was looking at looked more like a painting then it did something real. I took the picture and checked the back of my camera to make sure it looked the way I wanted it to. I said to myself… I’ll blow that one up. Hopefully it tells the same story to you as it does me.
Okay, well I’m sure everyone guessed that this week’s picture of the week would be from Iceland (I actually thought about throwing a curve ball and posting a car picture or something LOL). You may have also noticed that I’m kind of into night photography these days, so I thought I’d combine the two for this week’s POTW. One of the cities that Holly and I visited on our recent trip was the nation’s capital, Reykjavik. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from this town… I never do from capital cities. Reykjavik was actually quite nice though. The streets around the city center are all a little narrow and all the buildings have an old feel to them; and it was just a pretty city.
We stayed in an apartment just around the corner from this church (if you look behind the church you can see a white castle wall looking thing… that’s the place) and there was a school apparently near by. In the mornings all the school kids would be walking by and people would be running through the park. The city really had a “homey” feel to it and the people we spoke to all seemed genuinely nice. It was of course cold and windy… I mean, you don’t exactly go to Iceland looking for a tan… but it was definitely worth the stop.
Last weekend was the annual Susan G Komen Race for the Cure event here in Knoxville and it was just an amazing time as usual. It’s fun to see all the survivors interacting with each other and celebrating life together. There is such an energy about downtown during the event… it really is something awesome to participate in.
For this week’s picture of the week, our team “Holly’s Hooters” posed for a quick picture before starting the race. Thanks to everyone who came out and everyone who has, and continues to support Holly and I.
This weekend we finally got to meet a couple who have grown very dear to us during Holly’s fight against breast cancer. Lisa Kavanaugh and her husband Bob drove down from Columbus, OH to participate in the Race for the Cure with our team. Lisa has been such a great support to Holly through everything she’s been through and was a wonderful encourager during the chemo phase. Lisa is herself a breast cancer survivor and actually finished up her treatments a few months before Holly started hers.
This week’s picture of the week is of Holly’s mom Delores, Lisa, and Holly… all strong women; all survivors.
This week’s picture of the week has a slightly differently look and feel than last week’s. This particular night was almost a full moon night and it was incredibly bright… not something you would normally go for when doing night photography, but it was a fun night. My nephew and I were just hanging out in the parking lot waiting on the shot and coyotes got to howling and it truly sounded like we were surrounded. A little un-nerving, but definitely a neat experience… and one that you’ll only have in the middle of the night. Throughout this process I’ve really come to appreciate Cades Cove at night… it takes a little more effort because you have to go on foot or bicycle… but if I’m honest, I’d say it is my favorite time to go right now.
For a couple of months now I’ve been talking about going to Cades Cove at night to take pictures, and for the next couple of weeks I’m going to be sharing what I’ve been working on. Towards the beginning of the year I saw some night pictures that just really inspired me and so I decided to try my hand at it. There was a bit of a learning curve to the whole thing, but I’ve gotten a few pictures that I’ve been really happy with.
This week’s picture of the week is of the Methodist Church in Cades Cove (part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for those unfamiliar). The picture itself represents about an hour long exposure which causes the star trails in the sky.
This weekend has been an amazing weekend! Holly and I have been wanting to celebrate being done with cancer in a big way with our friends and family who have been so supportive; and Saturday was the day. Holly and I got the Pearson Springs pavilion and had little shindig complete with BBQ and more desserts then you could shake a stick at. I never got an actual count of how many people showed up, but it was a really good turnout despite the cold. Being able to have fun and say thanks to everyone was just awesome and was a great way to kick off Breast Cancer Awareness Month!
Speaking of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, today was the American Cancer Society’s first Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk here in Knoxville, and Holly and I attended. The event had a really good turnout and it was fun to run into some of the healthcare workers that we’ve gotten to know over the last year and a half as well as some friends we’ve made. One of those friends who Holly has met through all this ‘cancer stuff’ is Ashley Roback. Ashley got to share her story (which you can read here) to all the walk attendees and really did a great job. She has been such an inspiration to Holly and I’m sure many others. This week’s picture of the week is her giving her speech.
I would guess that anyone that has hung around me for even a small amount of time will have noticed that I’m a bit of a car nut; specifically muscle cars… that go really fast around corners. Well this weekend was the one event I never miss and its called ‘Run Thru the Hills’ (RTTH for short). It’s sort of the anti-car show, car show. The car show for guys (and girls) that don’t want to just sit around in a parking lot and look… they actually want to drive their cars… and do so competitively in a friendly environment. The event is complete with a cruise and multiple chances to hang out, an auto-cross, drag race, and a speed stop challenge (think drag race, but at the end you see who can stop the fastest… good times!). It is a TON of fun to watch, and I’m sure even more fun to compete in.
One of the things I’m always impressed by is how awesome the vendors are. I’m not sure you could find nicer people then the owners Detroit Speed, Kyle and Stacy Tucker. They are both usually at the event, and they’re always competing… but most importantly they hang out and talk, and are more than happy to toss ideas around about how to make your car better. The comradery is definitely one of the draws to the event.
This week’s picture of the week is actually of Stacy’s 1969 Camaro as she’s auto-crossing it. This has been one of my favorite cars to watch since the first RTTH (and ride in a couple times as well) and is really one bad machine!
So week before last my wife gets a text message from one of her good friends stating that her and possibly some other of her friends wanted to take her to a “secret location” this Friday to celebrate her having her port taken out. Holly of course quizzed me to see if I knew anything about it… I did not. Holly, not being one to like surprises, then quizzed her friends about what it is that they were going to do. She got responses like “It’s G rated, but you’ll need to wear walking shoes and dress semi-redneck or you’ll feel over dressed. That’s all the info you’re getting!” LOL Then on Friday she gets this text message “Clue for tonight… dress warm and comfy… I will be wearing a HHS sweatshirt. We will be revisiting our high school days (No, its not a football game)”. Funny stuff
Turns out they were taking her to the Tennessee Valley Fair where Boys II Men would be performing… and lots of funnel cakes would be eaten. They had an awesome time (and subsequently ‘Motown Philly’ has been stuck in my head all weekend) as evidenced by the fact that she’s been talking about it all weekend. If you’re on Facebook, be sure to check out the rest of the pictures and stay tuned for some video as well.
This past Tuesday Holly finished the last of her treatments and we had a totally awesome day! She had told me some time ago that she really wanted to celebrate when she was finished… and also mentioned something about a cookie cake from Great American Cookies, so I surprised her with a giant cookie that said simply, “Done!”. The good folks at Tennessee Cancer Specialists had a surprise up their sleeve as well and sang their own rendition of ‘Hit the Road Jack’ (they sang “hit the road Holly”) while dancing around in funny costumes. It made for a great ending to her treatments. Later that evening I also surprised her with a trip to The Melting Pot where we were met by members of our church small group. Sept 6th, was definitely a day all about Holly!
As a side note, we have sung the praises of Tennessee Cancer Specialists on multiple occasions on this blog, but we really can’t say enough good things about them. That the nurses would all dress up and sing to Holly and join in the celebration of beating cancer is just totally awesome. Throughout this whole process they have just been amazing. They prayed with us, they cried with us, they laughed with us, and I believe truly cared for and about us. They do a really good job of making a bad situation as good as it can be.
There’s a joke here somewhere, and I think it starts with “You know you’re at a geek-fest when…”
This past week myself and three other coworkers had the opportunity to go out to Las Vegas for the VMworld 2011 conference. For those not in the know, VMworld is a huge technology conference focused specifically on virtualization with VMware and is full of tons of vendors, breakout sessions, keynote speeches, peer panels, hands-on labs (which are totally awesome, by the way)… and oh, by the way, you’re in Las Vegas to boot. This conference is where lots of new technology is announced and is an excellent learning opportunity. Needless to say, we all had an absolute blast.
One of the things that VMworld is known for is the blowout party at the end of the conference. There is always a popular band that plays, free drinks and food, and generally a good time to be had. This year the band The Killers played and I couldn’t help buy laugh when they went on stage and I looked around me and noticed all the cell phones in the air of people either taking pictures or video. Apparently cell phones are the new lighters… for geeks anyways.
You may remember from a couple months ago that Holly had made a vow to herself to ‘come out of her shell’ a bit and try some new things. That manifest itself first with her going ziplining despite her fear of heights. Well, next on her list of things to do was go rock climbing with me.
For those that really know me, you know that I’ve been rocking climbing for a really long time. It is just something I really love to do, and is great exercise on top of that. Holly has, in the past, gone and watched… but has adamantly refused to try it… until now. She decided that as part of her concurring her fear of heights, she needed to give it a try. …And try she did! Unfortunately though the port she gets her treatments through is still in and was “feeling weird” as she was climbing up the rock, so she called it quits before making a lot of progress; but I’m just proud that she actually tried it!! She has promised to go again once her port comes out (which should be Sept 16, by the way), so stay tuned for another picture of Holly climbing!
If you’ve ever been to PF Chang restaurant, you’ve undoubtedly seen a replica of one these guys standing around in the restaurant. This week’s picture of the week is of one of the Terracotta Warriors which can be found near Xi’an (she-ann), China… and is hands down one of the most impressive man made things I’ve ever seen in my life; second only to the Moai of Easter Island.
The Terracotta Army is funerary art, created by slaves of the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, and were placed in his tomb to guard him in the afterlife. What was utterly fascinating about this was this emperor literally spent his entire life having these created so they could all be buried with him… and there are thousands of them! The archaeological site is now housed in these huge hangars with all the soldiers standing in the pits where they were found. It is truly an amazing sight to behold. The general thought is that the bodies were all made from molds, but the heads were all hand made… no two are alike. Archaeologists believe that the creators of the heads likely used each other as models, so what you are seeing here is the face of a man who lived over 2000 years ago (around 210 BC)! Pretty crazy stuff!
Holly and I are both big animal lovers and when we travel, we always try and find some unique thing we can do with wildlife. As I was researching China, doing something with Pandas was extremely high on my list of things to do. Through my research, I somehow stumbled upon the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding (and subsequently saw Samantha Brown’s episode about it on the Travel Channel here), which is basically a good sized zoo of nothing but Giant Pandas and Red Pandas. You get the opportunity to see these really cool animals in almost every stage of growth; from newborns to elders.
Now, I realize you can go to lots of zoos in America and see Giant Pandas and Red Pandas… but what you can’t do… is touch one. Turns out that at the research center they have a program called the International Intern Program that you can sign up for and devote as little as a day to as long as a month of your time to lend a hand in caring for the pandas. You get to clean their cages (yeah, I know… totally worth it though), make their food, FEED them their food (totally awesome… and totally forgot about the cleaning part), and yes… you get the opportunity to pet one. Some people even get to hold them, but unfortunately the younger ones that they let you do that with weren’t feeling so well the day we were there. You get what amounts to a behind the scenes look at how the pandas live and you get to interact with them in a way that is just amazing.
I of course had my camera with me the whole time to take lots of pictures of the pandas (yes, I’ve got 100s), and this one was on of my favorites.
One of the things that was interesting to me about China was the ornateness of everything. You can appreciate all the structures from far off, and as you get closer, you find new things to look at. The detail in all their architecture is just astonishing. One of the places that really just struck me for some reason was TianTan, the Temple of Heaven. It was slightly less crowded than the other places we visited (hey look, there are only 11 people in this picture!) and the circular layout of the whole complex was just really interesting to look at to me. Very cool place.
So put the Great Wall of China on the list of places I always thought it would be neat to see, but never really thought I’d make it to. Prior to going, China just felt like such a monumental place to try to go. It is basically on the other side of the planet from the US, there is a huge language barrier, and a culture that seems very foreign to our way of thinking… and while those things are true, it is definitely a doable destination.
The Great Wall itself does not disappoint in the least. Holly and I visited the Mutianyu section of the wall, which boasts being one of the more remote / less crowded sections of the wall, and the section of the wall with such a heavy concentration of towers in a given distance (turns out… they all boast that once you get there LOL) and it was absolutely stunning. The wall strings out like a snake over the mountain tops in either direction and is one of those places you almost have to pinch yourself to remind yourself that you’re really there. As a matter of fact, while Holly and I were standing on top of one of the towers taking in the view, an American girl was standing next to us saying out loud to herself “I’m totally here… I’m totally here”. It was quite comical, but a good reminder… we were totally there.
The last two weeks have been dedicated to the animals Holly and I got the chance to see while in Yellowstone National Park (week 1, week 2) and this week’s is the last in the series (for now). Some friends of ours actually met us out at Yellowstone and one of them had heard a rumor that there was a beaver family living somewhere near the ‘Fishing Bridge’ at the eastern end of the park… so we decided to stop in and see if we could see any of them. While walking around we ran into a Park Ranger who said she had seen one of them just a few minutes before. As we investigated the area she had pointed out, she actually called to us from the bridge and was pointing down in the water below her. There it was! Holly and ran over and got to watch it chowing down on the bark of some sort of twigs for about 10 minutes or so. Very cool stuff!
Definitely the highlight of our trip to Yellowstone was all the young animals we got to see (and the animals in general… but especially the babies). Apparently the first of June is the time to go to see newborns. While not as young as the baby in last week’s picture of the week, this week’s was equally as cute! Holly and I had driven out to Lamar Valley to see what all kinds of wildlife we could spot and on the way back we came upon a buffalo jam as is normal for Yellowstone. This particular herd had lots of youngsters and this calf just happened to stop and pose for me at a small pond before crossing the road in front of all the stopped cars. While we were all stopped taking pictures, I struck up a conversation with the guy next to me and he mentioned that the locals referred to the bison calves as “red dogs” (apparently because of their reddish coloring). I don’t know why, but it struck me as funny.
While Holly and I were out in Yellowstone National Park last month we got to experience something totally amazing. As we were getting ready to leave the Mammoth Springs around, we noticed a small group of people all standing together with their cameras aimed in the same direction. In Yellowstone (or any other park for that matter) this always means there is an animal extremely close by and it is almost always worth a look. When we got over there we discovered a mother elk and her newborn baby. The other people standing around said it had been born within the hour; some of them had actually witnessed it being born! Truly awesome stuff. We stood around for a good bit and got to see it take its first steps and begin to nurse for the first time.
This is one of those truly unique moments and tender moments. It was a lot of fun to watch the mother caring for her calf. She would clean it and then rub her head on it while it tried to stand. Very cool experience.
Over the past couple of months I’ve been working on a personal photography project in Cades Cove that’s had me there well after dark. The other night when I was there, the night sky was just so spectacular I had to take some pictures… other than what I was actually there for. I wish I could capture the vastness of the night sky… but this will have to do.
This week’s picture of the week is also from Grand Teton National Park and was actually shot about a hundred yards or so away from last week’s. When we first arrived in Grand Teton, the weather was pretty crummy and the mountains were totally covered by the clouds. After bumming around the new visitor center (which, by the way, is totally awesome) for a little while, the rain stopped and we decided to go looking for a moose. Well, we ended up finding one… and while myself and another guy were taking pictures of him, the man starts to tell me about some coyote puppies that he had seen just the day before over on Antelope Flats Rd. Holly and I had nothing better to do, so we went and found the location he was talking about… but no puppies were around. After eating some dinner we decided to give it another go… still nothing. The next morning after all the pretty colors from the sunrise were gone we hung around… no puppies. Finally when we were ready to start heading back in the direction of Yellowstone, we decided to make one more stop by the house where he said they were, and sure enough this time they were out and about. We saw five total and they put on quite the show for the 20 or so minutes they stayed out.
As I mentioned last week, Holly and I just got back from vacation in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks and had a wonderful time. One of the things on my agenda for our short time in Grand Teton National Park was to photograph some of the old barns on Mormon Row just off Antelope Flats Rd in the park. They’re neat old barns and have an awesome view of the Cathedral Group in the back ground, so its obvious why people love to go here. Holly and I were blessed the one morning we had in the park with this view at sunrise and this turned out to be my favorite picture from the entire trip.
While our friends here in East Tennessee were enjoying 90+ degree weather, Holly and I were out in Yellowstone last week… playing in the snow. There wasn’t snow everywhere… but where there was snow, there seemed to be a lot of it! Holly snapped this picture of me near the top of the Beartooth Highway on our way back to Billings, Montana. I was setting up to take some shots… which I’ll warn you that you’ll likely see a lot of them on Picture of the Week in the coming weeks, and had to climb up on this snow mound to get to a good vantage point. This highway had been closed until the day we left, so we were fortunate to get to take it… and were VERY glad we did because it was absolutely incredible!
This week’s picture of the week is from a little adventure we took over the Memorial Day weekend. Holly and I and two of our friends, Sarah and Jackie Mathis (pictured), headed over to Abingdon, Virginia on Sunday afternoon. After checking in to our hotel we ate dinner at a local Italian restaurant, who’s name escapes me at the moment, that the hotel clerk recommended to us. The food and fellowship were great!
The next morning we made the short drive in to Damascus where we had found a company called Adventure Damascus that rents bicycles and also provides a shuttle service. If you’re not familiar with the Virginia Creeper trail… let me just tell you that this is the way to ride bikes for the day! The company shuttles you up to Whitetop Station and then it is downhill for 17 miles on an old rail bed. You literally coast all day! We took our time with it and stopped a few times to look around and just generally dilly dallied all day and it took us about 4 hours to get down. Towards the end we stopped off and had a late lunch and ice cream and then finished the last 100 yards or so. You can actually continue on all the way to Abingdon if you want, however there is currently a bridge out so we called it quits when we reached the bike shop again. This is the kind of thing the whole family could enjoy! We would highly recommend doing it, and we plan on returning in the not-so-distant future!
Last weekend my good friend Kyle Bubp and his fiancé Hannah Seaman got hitched and I had the honor of being in the wedding. This week’s picture of the week is from their get-away. Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Bubp!!
Yesterday was a bittersweet day for Holly and I. On the one hand, I was in one of my best friend’s wedding and watched them start a new life together… and on the other, one of my other best friends passed away.
I met Dale Young about 16 years ago; he was caring for his mother who was ill and I was delivering medicine for a local pharmacy. Dale was one of those people who could carry on a conversation about anything. He loved to laugh and loved life. Along the way he ended up befriending myself and several other of my life long friends, and as our friendship grew we all adopted him into our families; my buddy’s daughter has grown up calling him ‘Gramps’. After he married Holly and I he used to joke that he had “tied the knot extra tight” with us, and we would certainly agree.
Dale was a good man, a man of great integrity and character. He was a mentor, a confidant… a friend. W. Dale… you will be greatly missed.
So this week’s picture of the week may feel a little out of place unless you know that one of my passions is cars. I’ve been in to cars for as far back as I can remember, and while I might not be as avid of a car guy as I used to be… I still get excited when I see a really cool one.
About a month or so ago I was fiddling around with my camera and didn’t have a subject that just jumped out at me, so I started taking pictures of my cars… this one being my 2005 Pontiac GTO. I share this today, mostly because this afternoon we’re meeting with an insurance adjuster to find out what its fate will be after the hail storm that came through a couple weeks ago left it looking like a golf ball. Poor car As much as it pains me to look at though, I’m reminded that we are truly blessed. My family is safe and my car was the only thing that got damaged… and cars can be fixed or replaced.
So this week’s picture of the week is going to be a little different as there is a video to go along with it… there is really just more to this story then just one photo can tell. Anyway, this weekend Holly and I went ziplining in Sevierville at a place called Wahoo! Ziplines… and it was an absolute blast! Now, this might not seem to crazy to some people… but was makes it funny is that Holly is seriously afraid of heights… like, seriously afraid.
Here’s the back story. I believe it was a couple days after Holly’s last chemo treatment that I get a text message from her saying that she wants to go ziplining when she gets to feeling better. I was in the middle of work so I saw it and thought to myself, “Sweet! That’ll be fun!”. A couple minutes later I get another text from her saying she also wants to go rock climbing. Okay… now I know something is up. In the (almost) 9 years that I’ve known Holly, she has NEVER wanted to go rock climbing. She has gone with me and watched a few times, but never wanted to do it because of her fear of heights. I think my exact reply to her was, “Are you drunk?”. I thought maybe she had started feeling a little sorry for herself and hit the sauce while she was at home by herself! Her reply explained everything. She had been doing some thinking and decided she needed to start living a little and stop being such a “scaredy cat” (her words). In her estimation, doing these things would help her, if nothing else, face her fears and do some living. So that’s exactly what she did.
I can’t tell you how proud of her I am. I can tell you this is something I never really envisioned her doing when I first met her. She never hesitated (she did scream a bit though, but that’s to be expected I think), she just walked right up to the edge… and jumped. Way to go baby!
This week’s picture of the week is another shot I got from the Spring Photography Workshop hosted at the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont a couple weeks ago and is of a White Trillium.
Easter Sunday is all about Christ’s love for us, and all about the awesome salvation story of His resurrection. It’s about new beginnings. A couple week’s ago, Holly really started getting irritated with wearing hats all the time and so she decided that Easter Sunday was going to be her day to stop covering her head… her new beginning. It hasn’t been easy for her; she said earlier that she felt like she had been stripped of all her dignity, but I see it differently. She looks beautiful to me. She looks like a survivor… a survivor who is moving on with life.
This weekend I’ve been attending the Spring Photography Workshop at the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont… and once again I’ve been having a blast. This morning we were privileged enough to get in Cades Cove before the gates opened and we headed over to Hyatt Lane after seeing the fog hanging in the valley. While there, I managed to get this shot. It was just an amazing morning!
So we have this giant azalea bush (and by giant… I mean huge. Like probably 16 feet tall, huge) next to our house that is always just beautiful this time of year, and next to it is a dogwood tree. The two have been the backdrop for countless family Easter photos over the years and has become a sign for me that spring is in full swing (even though it actually feels like summer outside today). Anyway, this morning as I was getting ready I just happened to look out the window and notice that the sun was really hitting everything nicely, so I ran out and took a picture.
This week’s picture of the week is the third in a three part series (part 1, part 2) and is of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Lake Tekapo, New Zealand (near the Mt. Cook region of the south island). Holly and I had seen pictures of the little church prior to leaving and decided we had to stop there to check it out. It was really quite stunning. The church is self is a beautiful stone building and the landscape surrounding it is as breath-taking as any New Zealand landscape. Directly behind the church is Lake Tekapo which is an amazing emerald green color from the sediment carried in the rivers from the glaciers on and below Mt. Cook. Absolutely amazing… you should definitely check it out if you find yourself on the south island of New Zealand!
Don’t ask me why, but when Holly and I started planning our trip to New Zealand, at the top of Holly’s ‘things to do’ list was shearing a sheep. Where she comes up with these things I have no idea… but she definitely wanted to do it (and I’ll admit I thought it sounded entertaining). Turns out if you’d like to shear a sheep, New Zealand is a great place to do it. Holly and I met up with John from ‘The Shearing Shed’ in a little town called Glenorchy (south of Queenstown) and headed over to his farm where we got to round up the mob, sort them out, and then shear a couple of them! Very cool experience. John took us through the process from start to finish and got to see everything from a video on the sheep industry in New Zealand, to how the wool is bailed and sent off to be turned in to all sorts of stuff. This week’s picture of the week is of Holly getting her hands dirty and shearing away with John’s assistance.
John and his trusty sheep dog ‘Glen’ were a total blast to hang out with and our day on the farm was WAY more awesome than we could anticipated. If you ever make it down to New Zealand, you should definitely look them up.
People ask Holly and I on a regular basis where our favorite travel destination has been, and without question, New Zealand is the first place we mention. The landscape is breath taking and the people are as friendly as they come. There has definitely been more than one discussion about going back there… and there have even been a couple light hearted discussions of moving there! It’s just that awesome.
This week’s picture of the week was taken on the road leading away from the Mt Cook region of the island. I had had my eyes open the entire trip for sheep to be in the road because I thought it would make a funny picture, and that morning we were blessed with just that. The herd was moving along, heading who knows where, and seemingly oblivious to the fact that we were creeping up behind them in our car. After snapping a couple pictures we let them have the right-of-way and changed lanes to go around (yes, they drive on the “wrong” side of the road down there).
March 21 – 23 of this year, bloggers from all over the world are dedicating their blogs to supporting New Zealand and promoting tourism there in an effort to help the country recover from the earth quake that hit Christchurch in February. If you’ve ever considered going there, now would be a great time to go. Not only would you get to experience the beauty of this island nation first hand, but you would be helping local businesses get back on their feet by spending your tourism dollars there. Another thing you can do to help is by following links you see posted this week with Blog4NZ tags and sharing them with your friends. It is a very simple and potentially far reaching way to help out.
I don’t know about you, but we’ve been enjoying these warmer days we’ve been having the past couple of weeks. We’ve had some really nice snows this year, which have been fun (well… except for when I couldn’t leave the house for a week because the driveway was frozen over), but I am glad to be heading in to spring.
It seems like every year since we planted our Jane Magnolia that when it blooms, we’ll either have a big wind storm that blows them all off, or it will freeze and turn them all brown. In light of that, I thought I’d snap a picture of one while it was still pretty before mother nature has her way with it. Happy spring everyone!
This weekend was the fourth annual Tremont Scavenger Hunt put on by the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont; and my sister-in-law, wife and I once again competed as ‘The Three Amigos’. This scavenger hunt is such a good time and great learning experience that we look forward to it every year (it of course doesn’t hurt that we’ve placed every year and have won it now the past two years). Teams are sent an email at 4:30PM on Friday evening with a list of questions and things to accomplish and then that list must be turned in on Saturday at 4:30PM. Holly and I are big fans of the TV show ‘The Amazing Race’, and so we always refer to this as the mini-amazing race in the Smokies.
This week’s Picture of the Week is one of the pictures we had to take while on the scavenger hunt. Teams had to take a picture of at least one team member in front of the Cable Grist Mill on the Cades Cove loop; teams also had to submit a picture of themselves holding a sign with their team name, so we decided to knock out both pictures while we were standing at the mill.
Will ‘The Three Amigos’ be able to pull off a three-pete? We’ll have to find out next year!!
I think that anyone who has ever heard of Knoxville, TN instantly thinks of the Sunsphere downtown in the old World’s Fair park. Whether it be from The Simpson’s episode (and no, it isn’t really full of wigs… that I know of) reference, or just having seen it while visiting; that giant gold ball in the sky is a notable landmark.
I had been meaning to get down there and take some pictures of it for a while because I think it is pretty much a requirement for anyone in Knoxville who plays with cameras to have a couple dozen pictures of it. Well, last weekend while I was downtown with my photography class I took the opportunity to take a few. So… here ya go. My tribute to Knoxville and the memory of 1982, when the world came to Knoxville.
had little shindig complete with BBQ and more desserts then you could shake a stick at. I never got an actual count of how many people showed up, but it was a really good turnout despite the cold. Being able to have fun and say thanks to everyone was just awesome and was a great way to kick off Breast Cancer Awareness Month!
American Cookies
As much as it pains me to look at though, I’m reminded that we are truly blessed. My family is safe and my car was the only thing that got damaged… and cars can be fixed or replaced.
at a place called 
