It may be a dicey time to try and get out to other parts of the country, but Kathy & I are fixin’ to get back on the road again. We’ll be headed to Ohio and beyond for a few days. So I’m going to end the post-a-day I’ve been doing and concentrate on taking photos and spending time with family and friends. You may see an occasional postcard from time to time.
One thing I did do, for anyone who is interested, is post a gallery of photos from our recent trip to the beach: 2020-06 Hilton Head
Monte commented on my last post about having been inside having dinner when a nice sunset was happening. As it turned out, Friday’s sunset here was also pretty nice, but I missed it for the same reason. I’ve often told non-photographers that many of the best landscape photos are taken when people are either eating or sleeping. Of course, Kathy’s version of that saying is that a sunset is best observed through a glass. Albeit not a glass in the form of a camera lens. 😉
I had my camera all ready to go on Saturday night but it turned out to be a colorless mass of gray clouds. But I left everything out in the office to I would be ready last night. When the first hint of pink started in the sky I went inside, grabbed my gear and headed to the patio. But in the course of that 1-2 minute window the pink faded as fast as it started. I did manage to salvage a bit of the last remaining hints of color as it faded. First photo and last photo were about 12 minutes apart.
Transmission towers aren’t as nice a subject as palm trees, but they aren’t drift fences, either. 🙂
The ominous sounding Sahara Dust Cloud passed through Charlotte over the last few days, including (I guess) today. Yesterday afternoon was really hazy and smoky-looking, but it didn’t present the vibrant sunset that had been predicted. Supposedly the sunset on Friday was pretty colorful, but that might or might not have been a result of the dust. I was inside a restaurant having dinner anyway, so I can’t say. Things look pretty clear outside now, dust-wise, although it is pretty cloudy. The afternoon will show if there is any remaining dust in the air, and an air quality alert is in effect until midnight.
Happy Sunday!
We survived our first mask outing last evening, not that we expected anything different. We went to a local seafood place with some friends/neighbors and had a nice time. It was only our second meal out from home, and it was nice to “test the waters” some more. One thing’s for sure – it really clarifies the difference between cooking and eating at home and restaurant food, especially in terms of price and portion sizes. It’s a reminder to keep the restaurant outings to a minimum!
I have four of these little vignettes that I’m planning to post through Tuesday – still drift fences (sorry) but a slightly different view – then I plan to end the post-a-day routine. It’s been fun but it’s time for a break, so I’ll get back to my not-quite-daily occasional posts. 😉
Read on another blog earlier today:
“Wearing a mask is NOT a political statement. It’s an I.Q. Test.”
Needless to say, that’s a little harsh. Until now I’ve resisted the mask thing, but now our Guv’nor says we’re going to have to wear them for a while. Despite my resistance I do believe in the science. I’m just…stubborn. Fortunately we don’t go too many places where it’s an issue, so it won’t have a huge effect. Interesting how it’s easier to accept something when you’ve been told you need to do it, instead of just having it “recommended.”
Photo is another one of those irresistible drift fences on the beach. Sigh…. 😉
I mentioned this find in the previous post, and here are a few photos. The rotunda design reminds me a bit of the station in Hamlet, NC but that station is much larger. This station now houses the public library. I like to see these old stations repurposed and maintained as they should be, respecting their history.
There are rail lines all over rural South Carolina, and on our backroads travels we often find them paralleling the highway. Every time we go through a small town, we look for a likely spot for a train station. Many of them are long disappeared, but occasionally we come across one. As we passed through the town of Kline, SC we came across this old depot. Still in pretty good condition but could use a little TLC.
Kathy & I have caught up from being at the beach last week and having the boys over for dinner yesterday. I didn’t take any photos – the camera stayed in the closed. I couldn’t think of anything useful to say today, so I decided just share a quiet photo from the beach.
The photo in my previous post was processed using the “Vintage 01” profile in Lightroom. My default setting is usually an Import Preset I’ve developed using the “Camera Velvia” profile, with some of my own secret sauce. The Velvia version with that subject came out way too saturated, so I started messing around with a few other treatments. I created new Virtual Copies, changed to a new profile then made a few additional tweaks based on what I thought each version needed.
No verdicts or preferences at this point, but it was interesting to see what the different options can do.
Kathy & I like to joke that “no one turns a 5 hour drive into a 7- or 8-hour adventure like we do! Even going to the beach we like to take back roads and explore what we find along the way. For this recent trip to Hilton Head we decided to take a picnic lunch and stop at Barnwell State Park, located a few miles off our usual route through rural South Carolina. The route to Barnwell took us down a road we hadn’t been on before, and we passed this mill along the way. I didn’t stop, and kicked myself several times before we were too far away to turn around. I promised myself that I would stop on the way back, and I did.
I haven’t looked too hard yet, but have not come up with any kind of history on this mill. I did find some indication that the name “Murray” appears on a number of cotton mills in the area, but nothing so far that tells me more. I’m guessing that the mill is no longer operational, but I’ve seen places that look worse than this still churning out product once a year.
And yes, there is actually a town called North in South Carolina! 🙂