I have spent the last week working on post processing the photos that I took on my recent trip to North Carolina and Georgia.  My current goal is to post relevant photos in the appropriate pages with some brief commentary when necessary.   I will strive for quality rather than quantity to refrain from boring you with the mundane.  However, my excitement may be your mundane.  I have not made up my mind yet to create a separate posting for the Travel page, but that may come at the end of this process where I may choose to use photos not selected in the first round.    I was able to post a number of photos today.  Enjoy

My trip began on a Monday afternoon on April 7 with a five hour drive to Hagerstown, MD for a first night respite from driving alone.  I learned from my Wisconsin trip the previous year that driving 14 to 15 hours alone without an extended recovery time in between was not wise for these aging bones.  It was wise move,  I was able to see a good portion of the Connecticut-Kentucky NCAA Mens Basketball tournament where the Huskies were successful.  

The next morning, I did the seven hour drive to Asheville, NC where I planned to spend a  couple of days revisiting an earlier trip there in early 2012.  I was hoping to find some flowers in bloom and a more interesting spring time environment compared to the wintry one I was in the first time.  I spent the time after arrival on Wednesday strolling in downtown Asheville capped off with a great dinner of lobster carbonara at the Lobster Trap Restaurant.  I met some wonderful people who were transplants from the Atlanta area.  We talked about Atlanta and why they had chosen Asheville for retirement.  They liked the mountain climate and were willing to travel during the winter doldrums to warmer areas of the country.  It was great to sit at a restaurant bar as a loner and make conversation with them and with a younger couple from eastern Tennessee.  After the delightful meal, I returned to my hotel and watched the Connecticut Women defeat Notre Dame in the finals of the Woman's Tournament.  The next morning, I took an early trip to Hendersonville, about 15 miles south of Asheville to visit the delightful main street area I had discovered on my earlier trip.  There were flowers in bloom, interesting people walking the streets, and a delightful refurbished pharmacy that served as a breakfast haunt and included an old fashioned soda fountain with the soda attendants (not "jerks") to boot.  I have included three photos that help to describe that early morning venture.

When I returned to Asheville from Hendersonville, I decided to make another visit to the Biltmore Mansion  to see the outdoor gardens in bloom.  In 2012, I was only able to enjoy the colors of nature's palette in the Conservatory.  Today, it was another story and I will offer in this posting a brief sample of some of the flowers I saw both outside and inside.  My visit to the gardens came at the conclusion of another tour of the mansion itself.  Since I had been there before, I mostly walked through the rope guided tour without the benefit of a guide or a ear phones.  I enjoyed seeing the various rooms and the many different parts of the mansion that housed both the Vanderbilt family, the invited guests, and the servants.  You are not allowed to take photos in the mansion, so I was anxious to get to the floral extravaganza that awaited me.  I also new that I would get some exercise navigating some of the terraces that surround the home.   I will be adding additional photos to the Flowers page of this Website taken both outside and in the Conservatory of the Biltmore Mansion.

The next morning, I continued my vacation jaunt to Cumming, GA where my son and his family have just moved.  I was anxious to see my three year old granddaughters, Chloe and Skylar.   I arrived around 10 AM on Thursday morning and began a two day visit that was quite delightful.  I will shortly distribute photos about this phase of my trip in the various pages on the Website with special attention to some photos of the twins placed on the Informal Portraits of Life page.   Here is just a sample of the delightful and beautiful Voss twins.

This shot was taken with my iPhone on the last night of my visit.  The girls had a good time playing on the playground in the ballpark and just exploring the entire facility.  This was one of those random shots we took when the Team Mascot was walking by.  The majority of the trip was spent visiting parks in the area and trying out all of the climbing structures found in the various locations.  And so, the photos I took of the girls are mostly of them in action with an occasional pose for the camera.  I also caught a beautiful sunrise on the second morning of my visit and a couple of other candid shots you will find in Informal Portraits and Landscapes.  We had fun eating pizza and other fun filled sandwiches in our visits to a couple of local restaurants.  This two day visit was a highlight of my trip.  It is just plane fun watching these two play and interact with each other and with their doting parents and grandfather.  They already know how to push the envelope and I pity my poor son and daughter-in-law when they hit the teenage years.  What a joy to see them in action.  At one point at a rather tense couple of moments of disagreement with their parents, Chloe was articulating a rather strong philosophical argument about fairness--and at the age of 3.  Skylar was adding moral support.  I will leave it to you to guess who won and how.  

Early the next morning I was on my way to St. Simons, GA for a rendezvous with the two couples from Ridgefield, CT.  I would share a beautiful 3 bedroom condo with them for a whole of week of hoped for sunshine and relaxation.  Here is a view from our deck.

We had a delightful week of conversation, walking the beach, riding our bikes, balancing eating in with visits to great little restaurants--the ribs place was outstanding.  The weather was great for the first three days, rained on the fourth and sixth, and was cool and windy on the fifth and seventh.  Nevertheless, we had a great time because during the downtimes we we could read, talk, and just chill out.  We joined together with another couple, Skip and Nancy, who had rented a place in St. Simons for six weeks.  They are long time friends of the Ridgefield group.  They acted as our guides for a majority of our bike riding time.   In addition, they told us where to eat, shop for food, and what to see.   We were also guests for a wonderful brunch at their condo on the last full day of our visit. I plan to share many of the photos of the St. Simons phase of my trip on the Landscape, Flowers, and Portraits of Life pages of this site.  Take a look and enjoy  (Still in Progress as of this posting).

We left for home at 4 AM on Saturday morning.  Peter and Mary rode with me, and Peter and I shared the driving.  As a result we made it home by Saturday night.  It was an action packed thirteen days of travel and I owe a bow to my comfortable and reliable 2013 Ford Escape for making the trip so special.

A Visit to Lasden Park
On this Thursday, April 3, 2014, the sun was shining, there were few clouds in the sky, and the temperature was hovering around 50 degrees at 11:00 AM when I pulled into the driveway of Lasden Park Gardens and Arboretum near Katona, NY.  It has been such a long, cold, and dreary winter, I thought perhaps the park, which is naturally beautiful in the warm summer, might have a head start on showing some springtime color.  I was wrong.  The place was mostly brown with some green Pachysandra making its usual encroachment.  You could just begin to see some of the bulbs beginning to rise from the ground, but there were so  few colors.  I was lucky to find the purple flower all by its lonesome blooming in a very brown patch of mulch and early spring growth.  Although green does not always appeal to my camera, I found a leaf shot that caused me some interest.  There are many ponds and quiet areas for sitting and contemplation around the park, but the one shown above was the only one that suggested a spring time ambiance.  The photo of the China Pavilion demonstrates how little color was present in the park, but the reflection of the pagoda in the water does provide some subtle hues.  I also experimented with a ten second timed "Selfie" where I perched the camera on a stone bench aimed at the wooden bench in the photo.  I ran the 20 or so feet to get comfortably seated on the bench, just as the camera released the shutter.  I have been to this park when the colors are brilliant and the walk along the paths calming and regenerating.  There were not so many colors today, but I still felt a calmness and the assurance that Spring would once again renew the beauty of our surroundings.