This doesn’t exactly qualify as a photo of Fort Collins but it was taken during an excursion into the countryside with my good friend Monte Stevens. We had fun exploring the grasslands north of the city.
Postcard from Fort Collins, Colorado
Tag Archives: 2019
Where To Next?
One of my favorite questions from friends and neighbors is “so, where are you off to next?” One of our neighbors is certain that we’re trying to spend all of our retirement dollars on vacations, but since we like having a place to come home to, we only spend part of it! 😉 I guess we’ve developed a well-earned reputation, and one that we’re just a bit proud of. 🙂
In a few days Kathy & I will be setting out to bag a few more states on our path toward 50. We’re looking forward to cooler temperatures and meeting up with some friends along the way. I plan to send “Postcards” from the road as we go, although they likely won’t be daily. Stay tuned!
A Visit To Cape May
The third “new” state on our recent DelMarVa excursion was New Jersey. We debated how to do New Jersey, realizing that the state is very diverse in terms of urban vs. rural, city vs. shore, crowded vs. not so crowded. At first we were thinking in terms of Atlantic City or Wildwood, but then we discovered (or remembered) Cape May.
While just barely in New Jersey, and the very southern tip of the peninsula, Cape May represented “enough” of New Jersey for us to say that we had visited. Nothing wrong with visiting the rest of the state, but we like to do things our way, and finding a town where we could park the car and leave it for a few days suits us. And Cape May fit that bill just fine.
Cape May is recognized as the country’s oldest seaside resort, and the beach has been recognized by many “Top 10” lists, including the Travel Channel. Beach Avenue is lined with amazing homes – hilariously called “cottages” although they are often huge! – and hotels. Very little to no chain restaurants or hotels. They don’t even have a McDonald’s, a Starbucks or a Walmart! Our kind of place.
Other than the fact that our hotel was full of families enjoying one last hurrah before school started, complete with loud, misbehaving children, we enjoyed our visit very much. The great part is that we spent most of our day walking around town while they were at the beach or the pool, and by the time we got back and showered for cocktails and dinner, all of the noisy families were headed off to dinner. Ahhhh!
Three days in New Jersey were plenty, we’re glad we went and glad to say we were there. And here are a few photos to prove it!
A Quick Stop in Delaware
One of the challenges of deciding to “visit” all 50 states is defining how much is “enough” to qualify as a visit. As an example, I’ve been in both New Jersey and Texas before, but only saw the inside of the Newark and Dallas airports. That hardly qualifies as a “visit.”
In order to keep this project from taking another 20 years, Kathy & I decided that in order to count a state as visited, we needed to have a representative grouping of photos from that state. It doesn’t mean that we have to (a) hit all of the Chamber of Commerce sites or (b) create a photo essay worthy of National Geographic. It just means that we need to be there long enough to come back with some representative photographs.
I’ll be the first to admit that spending a few hours in a state like Delaware is hardly enough to satisfy either of those above requirements. And while 3 days in New Jersey was plenty, thank you very much, there are states that, out of necessity, we will only get to spend a few hours. We’ll try to keep those to a minimum of course, but that is what we’ve decided.
The other part of the equation is that there will be states where we don’t get to the Big Name places. In Indiana, for example, I’d love to get to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. But we’re going to find something else, partly because that’s our style, and partly because we need to keep it simple from the standpoint of time and money. As much as I want to go to Glacier National Park, I’ll probably make do with something like Little Bighorn. For now!
So anyway, here is a collection of photos from Delaware. If you are from the Delaware Chamber of Commerce – sorry! Otherwise, enjoy!
A Day In Maryland
The main purpose for our recent visit to the DelMarVa area was to cross Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey off our “states visited” list. While I’m pretty sure I have been in Maryland previously, we hadn’t counted it under the terms of our “50 States” project, so it was time for a do-over. We spent a day traipsing around part of the state, visiting Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Historic Site, Hooper’s Island and Crisfield.
Hooper’s Island had been mentioned to us by a guide at the Blackwater visitor center, and that made for an interesting and unexpected detour. A place – not exactly a town, although they have a Zip code – called Hoopersville sits literally at the end of the world, accessible by a narrow strip of land and an interesting bridge over the Honga River. There wasn’t much going on out there besides some fishing, and it was a very scenic and quiet place
Crisfield we had heard about previously. Self-proclaimed Crab Capital of the World, it is a nice quiet town on the edge of the Chesapeake Bay. We had dinner there before calling it a day and heading back for some rest. Because the following day we were to conquer Delaware and head for the Jersey Shore!
Marina Reflections
I posted this photo on Instagram a few days ago but forgot to post it here.
A Second Set of Eyes
Sometimes I rely on my sidekick to find photographs and I just shoot them. This was a scene in a restaurant we visited in Carolina Beach. It was behind me so I probably would not have seen it, but Kathy has a good eye!
The Sky’s The Limit
Reflections of the sky and clouds in cars that I found while on the Cape May Ferry from Cape May, NJ to Lewes, DE. I was standing on the deck above the cars.
Postcard from Carolina Beach
Kathy & I are finishing up our time in Carolina Beach, North Carolina before heading up the coast with visits to VA, MD, DE and NJ. This is just a sample of the photos I have found from our visit. More to come!
A Weekend With a Fuji X-T3
For our recent visit to Waynesville I rented another camera – the Fuji X-T3. It’s the latest version of my existing camera, the X-T1, and I wanted to see how it compares. It was an interesting experiment, with mixed feelings. The Folkmoot photos from my previous post were taken with that camera, and here are a few more.
All in all, the camera would be a worthy upgrade from the X-T1 if I happened to be in the market. But I’m not. The obvious reason would be cost, because in addition to the camera itself I would need to upgrade my memory cards, buy new batteries (my current batteries fit but have a lower power output so will supposedly not last as long), buy a new L-bracket and eventually – because of the 26MP files vs. my current 16MP – I would need to buy larger hard drives. Sorry, that would cover the cost of a nice vacation!
Another, albeit minor, negative would be the slightly larger size of the X-T3 body. In my opinion the X-T1 borders between just right and a little large (weird to say since my initial impression 4 years ago was that it was tiny compared to the Canon 5D!).
On the positive side, the files were quite nice, although I wasn’t blown away by a huge difference between the newer camera and mine. There is definitely a slight improvement in detail, and I found that with files almost twice as large, zooming in to 50% instead of 100% is far enough. Any closer than 100% just accentuates the flaws, and I don’t need to accentuate them any more, thank you!
The menus are a bit more complex, necessary due to the customization the camera allows. But it wasn’t impossible to figure out, probably because I’m already used to the setup. I liked being able to see blinking highlights in the viewfinder, which I can’t do with my current camera. That’s not a big deal but it is helpful in certain situations. The EVF is nice and bright, and contains all of the information found on the main screen.
One of the things I should have paid more attention to is the ability to set different autofocus parameters based on specific shooting situations. I tried tracking subjects in the parade but found a lot of missed shots because I didn’t have it set up correctly. That’s not something I usually do, so I didn’t think about it until after the fact.
So, no new cameras for me – yet! Although those new Canon point & shoots are due out any time…hmmmm! 😉
