Just feel like blogging tonight

I'm not sure why but after reading some others' posts tonight, I just feel like putting in an entry tonight. I am watching Biggest Loser tonight. Sometimes I wish I could go on the show, but I don't think in this economy and the way things are that I could take the time from work. And heck, who knows if I could get even get on. I lost a bunch of weight years ago, and was down to 150 pounds. Then, well, life happened. I regained memories of traumatic events in my childhood, and I ate for comfort. I still eat for comfort. But also, weight loss requires money. Eating healthy is not cheap. Any kind of work out that I am interested in costs money, and well we don't have it. At some point, I think I will make an effort again to lose it, but well that time isn't now. For now, I am mostly just trying to get out a little more. Stay active enough to not end up entirely out of shape. And maybe sometime soon, I can get that Wii and at least get a little bit of daily exercise in.

And now, I just thought I would post a few of my favorite pics from trips I have made in the past.

This is from my 2007 birthday trip to NYC. It was a really great trip. I saw 5 broadway shows, and took in alot of the sites. This photo was taken at the top of Empire State Building. That is Central Park behind me. I would not have gone there. It was last morning and I had a ticket to a taping of Good Morning America. But all the hosts had flown out for a shooting, and only Sam the weather guy was going to be there. So I went to the Empire State Building instead. I was quite happy, if quite cold, with the choice. It was really just a great and fun trip.

This is from a November 2007 work trip to NYC. I love it when I get to travel for work. I took this inside Central Park. I just liked how it turned out with the tree framing the right side of the photo and the building peeking in at the background. I used this as a desktop background for quite awhile.

This is from my birthday trip in 2008. I went to Disney World for my 33rd birthday. This was when my mom and I swam in their aquarium. It was an expensive but totally awesome experience. You stay on the top of the water with scuba equipment for breathing so you can just look in the water the whole time. There are tons of fish, some non-lethal sharks, and turtles. Right before the end of our time, I had a huge turtle swim right under me. I think it was less than two feet from me. I think it was coolest experience I have ever had.


For my 34th birthday, money was a little tight, so we just came here to the Smokies from Nashville. While here, I went on horseback ride. These are my favorite two pictures from that trip. I love riding a horse. If I had a way, I would go every day. I took a horsemanship class in college. It was one of the best classes I took while in college. I really just plain love horses. But it too is just one of those things that cost money, so my opportunity to enjoy them is very limited. We also went to Dixie Stampede for my birthday. A fun show that has a lot of horses. The food is also very good. It is probably my favorite show in Pigeon Forge, which is saying alot considering how many options there are for a show here.





















These three photos are from my work trip to Phoenix, AZ in July of 2009. (Yeah, not the best time of year to visit Phoenix, AZ.) I spent my own money to rent a car and take an afternoon and evening to drive out to the Grand Canyon. It was a totally awesome trip. My pictures do not even come close to capturing the beauty that I saw and felt on that trip. I love living here in the Smokies. But if I had to pick another place I would like to live, it might be Flagstaff. It's too hot in Phoenix for me, but Flagstaff was like 10 or 15 degrees cooler. And there is just a magnificent beauty all around it. A different beauty than here in the Smokies, but just as beautiful nonetheless.

So I have satisfied my urge to blog. I hope you have enjoyed the reading and the pictures.

Quiet Walkway #2 on Cades Cove Road - Part 2

So here is part two of the quiet walkway that I went on Saturday morning. When I left you on the last post, I had crossed to about the center of the creek to the largest rock. I stopped there to take a few photos.

And yes, I made it across the river. I didn't get wet at all. I actually had no problems getting across. I did almost slip on the way back, but still didn't get wet even then.








A little ways down the trail there was a fallen tree that had not been cleared. This was entirely possible to climb over though. For me, I basically throw one leg over and then...












Well, of course, I stop and take a picture. Actually I stopped and took several pictures. I just didn't like how the others turned out. So this is the only one you get to see. But eventually, the other leg is thrown over, and I continue on down the trail.







I just liked the look of this fallen tree. I don't know why but I just thought it was interesting looking how the tree had broken when it fell. I think this tree fell longer ago than the recent storms. The parts of it that were on the ground were more broken down. They had the broken down by nature look, not the taken apart by man with a saw look.





Right about here is where you could start to see a very old stone wall. That is actually what the tree had fallen and broken on.


Here is a shot of the stone wall where it was still standing. It was actually on both sides of the path, but was more intact on the left than the right. It was really kind of neat to walk along the path. It just seemed like this path with the stone wall had been there for a long time. It made me wonder what it might lead to. Would there be the remains of an old turn of the century house? So I kept walking along it and looking around for where this might lead to.


What I first saw was this metal on the ground. It kind of look like it might have been a tub at one point. I wondered if it once been a still from back in the prohibition days.


As I looked around more, I thought more of a still that had exploded. There were metal parts just all about. I tried to think what else it could have been, but couldn't think of anything else. Do you know of anything else that all these metal parts could have been from?
This was actually where I decided that the trail petered out. At least I could not see a discernible trail after this point. So I turned around and started making my way back.

I was actually hurting quite a bit by the time I was done with this trail. This is a shot of the car at the first point I could see it again. See that little red bit at the center of the photo? At this point I was thinking, "Dang that car is still too far away." But what can you do, you just have to keep walking.

I hope to take you on more of these little walks in the future. Let me know if you like them.

Oh, and Happy MLK Day!

Quiet Walkway #2 on Cades Cove Road - Part 1

Subtitled: A Path Diverged in the Woods

So here was my second quiet walkway trip yesterday. At first I didn't like the look of this one and I almost turned back before I had gotten very far. In the end though I was glad that I pressed on. Due to the number of what I deemed to be good photos on this one, I decided to break this up into two posts.
Sometime in December there was a storm with really strong winds. These winds wrecked havoc in the lower mountain areas. There are a ton of downed trees. Many of the trails and walkways were blocked by the downed trees. Most of this one had been cleared though thankfully.

This was my first stream crossing by rock. The previous ones have all had logs to cross on. I'm kind of glad I had this one to start on as if I had come to one the size of the next one first I might have just turned back. But this one was easy with rocks close together and all of good size. The stream itself was very small and not very good for photos though.






A path diverged in the woods...and now one must choose which way to go. This actually doesn't happen too often on these walkways. The way to go is usually fairly obvious.


I chose the path to the right. It was smaller and just looked more interesting. At some point, I may revisit this walkway and see if the way to the left leads anywhere. It was actually a rather tight squeeze and I was often running into branches. But the path stayed going onward. I really kind of liked how intimate the path was. It just really felt like more a trek with the branches occasionally hitting you.





After a little ways I came to a much larger creek.
(Does anyone else ever wonder when to call something a stream, creek, river or whatever? It seems such a subjective thing.)
But this would be my second crossing by rock, and here the rocks were much further apart. But it still seemed quite doable.









I decided to aim first for the large center rock. It looked big enough to just stand on, and like a good place to take pictures from. This turned out to be easy enough, and it did make a good place to take photos from.


This photo was looking up stream while standing on the rock. I think it turned out well. I really like the bits of snow/ice along the edges of the water at various points. This was actually the some of the only snow left on this walkway, besides a bit you'll see in the next post on a fallen tree. The larger trees in this area were further apart and the sun had melted most of the snow.





This is one of my favorite photos from this walkway. I like how the flowing water looks behind the ice. I took a number of photos with various settings. I think this one turned out the best with the best definition in the water. The definition in the water is still not as great as I have seen by some others, but the light wasn't that great on this day and I couldn't have too fast a shutter speed without having lighting problems.
This photo just seem like fun to me. I originally pointed down to just look at taking a photo of the water running between the two rocks. But when I saw my shoes in the photo, well,... I just liked it. These are my new hiking boots mentioned in the last post.
So this is where I am going to leave you for today. Did I make across the river? Did I fall in? Did I give up and turn back? You shall have to check for the next posting to find out.

Quiet Walkway #1 on Cades Cove Road

So this morning I went on a couple of walks on quiet walkways. If you don't know what these are, well it's basically just a small and usually fairly short trail into the woods. There are alot of them in the Smoky Mountain National Park, and they are usually much easier than the regular full blown trails in the Park. So basically at my current fitness level, or lack of a current fitness level, the quiet walkways are more my speed. I hope to eventually work my way up to more.

So this post will be about the first one I went on. I shall have a second post later about the other one. This was the first quiet walkway on Cades Cove Road as counted from the Sugarlands Visitor Center. The photo (also on Zazzle here) shows the first small stream crossing along this walkway. By comparison to later crossings in the day, this was definitely the easiest one. I just kind of find these little crossings to be fun. Not sure why, maybe it's just my general love of flowing water. but it's fun to be able to stand over the stream and watch it flow.


The trail was a fairly open and flat one, and easily walked. There was still a bit of snow around from the big snow last weekend. As there were no tracks in the snow that was still there, I think I might have been the first one on this walkway since the snow. I'm a big fan of snow. I left Texas because it was too hot for me. I stayed in Tennessee because you get to see snow, but there is not so much that it causes many problems. I really love living here near the mountains because you can get out to snow more, but it doesn't impeded the daily living further down in the valley.




The second crossing was more a river crossing than a creek crossing and a much longer log. It also felt a bit more dangerous as there was some ice on the log, but for most of it there was a handrail. Near the end though part of the handrail had been taken out by a fallen tree. I made it across though with very little problem. This area was not so scenic though because of the fallen tree debris in the area.






This was at the end of this short walkway. It was a nice small creek. The full size unobstructed image can be seen on Zazzle here. I was actually kneeling in the mud to get this photo, but I liked how it turned out. I got new hiking boots weekend before last, and this trip was my first real trip out with them. They worked well. My feet stayed warm and dry.


I took a number of other photos. But I think the one below is probably my favorite for this walkway and maybe for this trip. I particularly like the leaf trapped in the ice, and the shadows of the trees in the water are also neat. It is also posted on Zazzle here, where it looks better with out the copyright stamp.

Happy New Year 2010!

Wishing you all a blessed, prosperous and Happy New Year.


This is one of my photos with my new Nikon D5000. I am loving it. More photos and posts from my playing with it will come later in the year. If you want to see a non-copyrighted version, there is a poster here on Zazzle. I will probably make notecards later, maybe some postage.