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. 😉
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.
I’ve never been to New York City. I know it’s a really big city but have no concept of how truly huge it is. Many of us who live in Charlotte like to think Charlotte is a big city, but it’s it’s just a small town with lots of people. An article in yesterday’s New York Times had a comment that underscored that point for me.
Pete Wells, the Times’ restaurant critic, was writing in “Restaurant Dining Is Back, if You Can Find a Table” about how restaurants responded to being able to open for outdoor seating. He indicated that the new rules went into effect on a Monday, and that by noon on that Tuesday 4100 restaurants had received approval for outdoor dining. 4100 restaurants! North Carolina probably doesn’t have that many restaurants in the entire state if you exclude fast food. Amazing!
Blacksville, SC is another one of those “along the way” places we passed through. This old store is across the street from the train station, which now houses the town library and will likely be the subject of another post. 🙂
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! 🙂
We’re headed back to our home base today, after a refreshing week at the beach. A little photography, lots of sun, sand and surf, and even a few dinners out made for a nice break from all the hoopla at home. It sounds like we’re returning home for the possibility of a bit more pandemonium, but after a little break it will hopefully be easier to bear.
With luck we’ll be headed out again in a couple of weeks for Ohio and perhaps beyond. We’ll see what develops during that time. Trying not to look farther ahead than the next journey!
I have always loved the look of a wide angle lens but feel like I struggle to come up with wide-angle photos that I love. I forced myself to carry my 10-24 with me yesterday afternoon, expecting to find some long shadows in the afternoon. I was not disappointed! It’s especially hard (in my opinion) to use a super wide focal length without a tripod, because it is virtually impossible to get the framing I intended. Some of these came out OK!
So far, so good with our little “experiment” of being away from home. We visited our favorite Hilton Head restaurant yesterday evening, and it marked the return of their Wednesday night live jazz, which is main reason we like to go there on Wednesdays. It’s “the beach,” so everyone is fairly relaxed anyway, and things aren’t a lot different now. We’ve seen very few masks on the beach, but when we went to the grocery store about 75% or more of the people were in masks. We’ve only been to three restaurants. At two of the restaurants all of the servers had masks, while we haven’t seen a single guest wearing one.
We’ve overheard and had several conversations with people about where they are from and how those places have been coping, but very little “hand-wringing” or negative talk. It seems like most people are doing what makes them comfortable without a lot of judgement. Although sometimes you hear a comments about “anti-maskers” or some such nonsense.
I’ve taken the camera to the beach at some point just about each day, although I have not tried to make photography my main goal. I do think I’ve gotten some pretty nice shots, though. And I’m learning more and more about how to make this new camera do what I want it to do.
