Skip to main content

Anniversary Weekend

This past weekend my husband and I celebrated our 1st Anniversary. We celebrated by going down to a little bed and breakfast in Vesuvius, VA.  Which is in the county of Rockbridge (not Rock Ridge) but there was a railroad slated to go through Rockbridge but was never completed.  We stayed at SugarTree Inn, in their small cabin. The cabin itself was nice and spacious and had a Jacuzzi tub and large stall shower. (I’m so installing a Jacuzzi tub when I get a house.) The inn was in a pretty secluded spot on very curvy windy mountain road that would probably be fun on a motorcycle or a high end sports car.  Now the driveway, which seemed like a mini road, was ‘fun’, it had a steep incline and some very tight curves.   However the down side of the location was there was very little to no cell reception thus really no internet. Also I have had better breakfasts at Hampton Inns. The breakfasts were on the boring side basically eggs, grits, ham and baked oatmeal every day and only served for one hour in the morning. The other bed and breakfasts I have been too offered a better variety of food and a longer breakfast time.  While place was nice, I don’t think we’ll go back to that particular bed and breakfast.

Monticello (rear)
Over the weekend we stopped at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home.  Jefferson’s home is interesting but is smaller than Mount Vernon.  You could take pictures of the grounds but not inside the house itself.  Overall I would say it is nice but is a bit overpriced for the depth of the tour and what you actually get to see of the house. 






One of several waterfalls
Now since the government was closed, it meant the National Parks were closed. This changed our vacation plans, since we wanted to drive and hike along the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Thankfully we did find a few things open in the area. We did a hike at Crabtree falls.  The hike was a 1.7 mile hike up the mountain with several little waterfalls dotting the trail.  The trail had several switch backs, I would consider it a moderate hike. The trail was an up and back trail so it was a total of 3.4 miles round trip. There was a beautiful view of the valley when you got to the top.  

We then went to see the Natural Bridge, which honestly should not cost 20 dollars per person to go see. I realize the admission
included the butterfly garden, Indian village and wax museum. But most of the stuff was not well maintained or and was kind of pitiful.  It defiantly fell under the category tourist trap.  




The next day we went to Cyrus McCormick Farm and the fall festival (it was free). The farm is a historical farm, and was the birth place of Cyrus McCormick which invented the first mechanical grain reaper.   We walked around that for a little bit then went into the town of Lexington, VA to wander around. In Lexington we stopped at a small private war memorabilia museum. It was owned and operated by a nice little old lady. It was a pretty extensive collection of items, which were collected by her husband.  She gave a very nice 45 minute tour.  After that we headed up to Rockbridge Winery for their fall festival and tasting. It wasn’t much of a festival but we did get to taste all their wine. I was surprised Jim actually tasted some wines and liked a couple of them.  That was the last thing we did on our weekend getaway.

Cyrus McCormick Farm
Overall it was a nice weekend, just wish we could have enjoyed the National Park. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Pumpkin Barron

On October 12th, I had the pleasure of working with the marvelous SunnyRae .   The general theme for the shoot was pumpkins but with coordination on outfits with SunnyRae theme evolved into official portraits of an 18 th century Pumpkin Baron. For this session, I used: Photography Equipment Props/Miscellaneous Cannon R6 24-105 mm Lens Transmitter/Trigger 2 Phottix Strobe 1 Westcott Strobe 1 rectangular soft box 1 strip box 1 6x6 silver reflector 2 C-stands 1 light stand Boom arm Color checker clamps Sandbags Backdrop stand Rough canvas backdrop Pumpkins Rough canvas drop cloth Flowers Old trunk Books Letters Wooden crate Fake leaves Chair Tri-level plant stand     The set up I wanted to keep this set up a bit rustic yet give the feel of staged aristocratic painting of the time.  I started with a plain rough canvas backdrop then placed an ol...

Night Queen

On September 28th, I did a session with May.   This session’s theme was designed around a Halloween headpiece I made a couple of years ago but never got to shoot.   The vibe of the overall shoot was dark queen. For this session, I used: Photography Equipment Props/Miscellaneous Cannon R6 24-105 mm Lens Transmitter/Trigger 2 Phottix Strobe 2 rectangular soft boxes grids 2 C-stands Sandbags Backdrop stand Fuzzy grey backdrop Spyder Color Checker Card A-clamps 2 trilevel plant stands Fake candles Goblets Fake flowers Black fabric Silver fabric Large Styrofoam block Dowel Rods Skulls Fake moss Dry ice   The set up I tried to keep this setup simple in nature.  I started with the base of a fuzzy grey backdrop to which I added a “throne” made from a large Styrofoam block, some dowel rods, and a piece of black fabric.  To that I added two flower pot hol...

Belle Island with Central VA Cosplayers

On October 19 th I drove down to Richmond, VA to attend a Central VA Cosplay Photoshoot meetup on October 20 th at Belle Island.   I wanted to go to this event because it was in an interesting location, and I wanted to meet some new cosplayers.   For this session I used: Canon R6 2 Speed light Trigger 1 Light stands 24 - 105mm lens Gels Camera Settings: For this shoot, I was transitioning back and forth between being inside an old, dark, abandoned building to bright, sunny woods.  Due to the transitions, my settings varied greatly.  I mostly shot at ISO 100 except for when I accidently bumped the nob to “Auto” and didn’t notice, so I also took shots at ISO 2500, 3200, 4000, and 6400.  The shots at the high ISO actually look fairly decent, and not as grainy as one would expect.  My shutter varied between 1/100s to 1/250s with the most common shutter speed being 1/250s.  My aperture varied between F5 to F11 with the most common ap...