Thank you so much for a wonderful year!  I’m looking forward to all that 2010 has in store

Most of these were taken on our little detour to Clingman’s Dome…

I thought the contrast of the yellow and orange foliage against the stark white bark of the bare trees was really eye catching!

I borrowed Nancy’s “fisheye” lens for this image.  That is why the ground looks curved.  A really fun effect!!

This next series of images are my first few attempts at doing this type of landscape panoramic.  It was a lot of fun to experiment with the technique!  I hope they give you an idea of just how lovely the scenery was.  EVERYONE should see this at least once in their life!

This one little valley was absolutely VIBRANT! 

Of all the images I captured, I think this is my favorite!  This was taken in the parking lot at Clingman’s Dome (we didn’t even walk up to the actual dome!)

I’ll be home from my FINAL road trip of the year tomorrow.  After all my “jet-setting” this month, spending the last week relaxing on the beach with my family has been the perfect ending to a month of fun.  I’ve got some lovely images from the Gulf Coast to share once I get things settled back at home.  Then of course, it’s back to work for me!

(yes, the URL “Idon’tknowwhotookthispicture.com” is a joke.)

Kimberly, can I hire you to pose me and direct the lighting in my everyday life?  You know, you could just follow me around and reposition me and all the light sources so I can always look this good.  Thanks bunches ladies!  You sure know how to make a girl feel good about herself!!!

The conference was a blast, but the hours were a bit odd for me since I’m an early bird.  I was up at about 6:30 every morning and I had nothing to do until about 10 am.  Tiptoeing around while my roommates slept is not my idea of a good time.  So I grabbed my gear and headed out on my own.  It was so much FUN!   Just me and my gear, photographing anything that struck my fancy.

On Saturday, I spent about an hour at Myrtle Beach State Park.  Here are a few of my favorites…

This is a really cool texture.  I just couldn’t resist!  Any guesses on what it is?

And of course, I just HAD to stick my toes in the ocean

On Sunday Morning, I spent a couple of hours at Huntington Beach State Park.  The wildlife was really cool!  And the sunrise!!  Ahhh!!!  I was in HEAVEN!

There is a really cool “castle” at Huntington Beach State Park.  I couldn’t resist this panoramic.  I would LOVE to shoot a session here!  All the colors and textures were a photographer’s paradise!

The boardwalk over to the beach area had the prettiest flowers alongside and the sky was AMAZING…

I found another cool texture at this state park.  This one should be easy.  Can anyone guess what this is?

On Monday, Nancy and I headed back to Tennessee.  We were traveling along just fine on I-40 when my phone rang.  It was my husband calling to let me know that I-40 had been CLOSED at the NC / TN state line due to a landslide.  Oy.  No problem, because I know a place on the NC side where we can get on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  So with Nancy navigating with the road map, we wound our way through a small town to the Blue Ridge Parkway onramp.  We shouted with glee when we found it only to have our hopes immediately dashed by a sign that read, “Parkway closed 8 miles ahead.”  Apparently a bridge was out.  Ugh.

To make a long story short, we found our way to Cherokee, NC and took the road across the mountains into Tennessee.  We ::cough:: had to take a slight detour to Clingman’s Dome for a photo-op because the foliage was STUNNING!  But, those images are a post for another day.  I promise to share SOON!

I have one more road trip on Friday, and then I am finished!  I can’t wait to be home again!

But, was it worth it?  Yes!  I saw some of the most spectacular scenery I’ve ever seen.  Unfortunately, I only took a few snap shots along the way because I knew that we would be hard pressed to hike out by dark.  I had a single purpose— to photograph Piney Falls.  This is the only waterfall in the park that is not clearly visible.  Here is a snap shot I took of it from the overlook a couple of years ago…

We went in January just to take pictures of Piney Falls hoping that we would be able to get a better view with the leaves off the trees.  We were very disappointed.  If you decide to visit Fall Creek Falls State Park, this is all you will see of Piney Falls.  I know, I know.  It’s not very impressive from this angle.  But I KNEW there had to be something spectacular hiding behind all those trees.  I just had to get there to photograph it so everyone else could see it too!

We started hiking at 7:30 a.m. on Monday.  It was still twilight down in the gorge.  After two hours of hiking, the sunlight finally rose above the gorge wall and started peeking through the trees…

One quick snap with the trusty point and shoot camera and we were on the move again.  We hiked upstream for what seemed like MILES, sometimes hiking the creek bed – other times scaling the gorge wall depending on the depth of the water.  It was VERY difficult.  But there were a few times that we came upon a place in the creek that was so peaceful and serene…

Yep, another quick snap with the trusty point and shoot camera  Do you notice the ribbon tied around the tree on the right side of this snap shot?  All the scenery looked the same and we decided to drop part of our gear behind a bigger tree up the hill just a bit.  We brought camping gear with us ::just in case:: we were not able to hike out before dark.  We saw no point in carrying it the entire way, so we dropped it on some flat ground at a point we were sure we could get back to before nightfall.  I marked this tree with a ribbon so we wouldn’t walk past our gear on the way out LOL!  Also, it was an obvious sign that we had been there just in case we needed to be found (thank goodness that wasn’t necessary!)

For five straight hours, we hiked.  Since I had to drop my pack to pull out my point and shoot camera, and I did NOT want to sleep in this gorge, I decided to not to take any more pictures of the creek as we hiked.  After all, everyone has seen a creek before, right?  We kept pushing forward for HOURS.  Even when the creek went completely dry (as in, NO water in the creek) we kept going.  How can a creek downstream from a waterfall have no water in it?  Strange…

It was a joyous moment when we finally heard Piney Falls.  But God had one last joke planned for those foolish enough to make the trek to Piney Falls— boulders.  Scaling boulders the size of houses while carrying 25 pounds of camera gear on my back is NOT fun!  :-(  We would scale a few boulders, and I just KNEW we would be able to see the falls when we got over/around them, but nooooooooo.  More boulders.  They were never ending!!!  But finally, we came upon two, house sized boulders with a human sized “rat hole” between them.  I crawled nervously through this hole which revealed one of the most beautiful sights of my life…

Piney Falls

It was STUNNING!!  All the pain of the hike was instantly worth it!  But then we noticed something odd which explained the lack of water in the creek leading up to the falls.  Evidently there must be a cave in the pool at the base of the falls because all of the water was draining out and there was a visible whirlpool on the surface.  Now I understand why the park service has not made this waterfall more accessible.  The pool, which looked very inviting after a 5 hour hike, is DANGEROUS!  There is a current that can pull down trees – literally.  If someone decided to swim in this water, it would be a very sad ending to their life.

I spent 10 minutes photographing the falls.  Here’s a snap my husband took of me while I was working…

After 10 minutes of photographing, I packed up the gear and said, “Let’s go.”  One quick group shot of everyone else with the point and shoot camera and we were off!

(a little fill flash would have helped this, but I was on a mission – I wanted to go HOME!)

Yes, after 5 hours of hiking, we spent a grand total of 10 minutes at this beautiful location.  I did NOT want to sleep down there!!!  I pushed HARD to get home.  I bypassed things I said I would photograph on the way back (I’m kind of regretting that decision now, because there was about 30-45 minutes of daylight left when we got out).  I did not stop until I reached the spot where we had dropped our gear.  We spent 30 minutes eating and resting so we could make the climb out.  We had to climb a hill that averaged 60 degrees incline (80 degrees in places).  It was a climb of about 1/4 mile.  Walking on a relatively flat surface, I can cover a whole mile in about 12-15 minutes.  It took just over an hour to climb this 1/4 mile “hill”.  Unbelievable!

I’m not sorry I made this hike.  It really was worth it to be able to share the image of this beautiful place with the rest of the world.  However, I STRONGLY discourage anyone from attempting this hike.  There is no trail.  There are obstacles that you can’t even imagine.  The water is dangerous.  And it was downright HARD!  The park rangers don’t even go to the base of Piney Falls!  (very often anyway )  Besides, there is a picture of it now.  No one else needs to go there  And I will NOT go there again!  No way!!!

The leaves are really putting on their fall color in that part of the state…

We made our way around the one way road to a place called “Buzzard’s Roost”.  The fog and mist was THICK!!!  There were times we couldn’t even see 10 feet in front of the car.  I made my way down to an overlook and took this pull back image of the fog and clouds rolling up the gorge…

But this is the image I had in my mind…

Unfortunately, by the time I got the shot set up, the mist really started rolling in and I lost some of the color of the trees in the gorge.  No worries, I’m going back to this area on Monday to hike to another waterfall (and the weather is supposed to be SUNNY!)