ANGELA B. PAN

This summer has been so good so far. I’ve been to more new-to-me places in the United States these past few weeks then I ever have in my whole entire life. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! So grateful.

And our trip to Colorado seemed like it was so long ago but it really wasn’t. It was just the jump off to so many amazing adventures. I had a blast just driving around and checking out the sites. Beautiful mountain ranges at every turn. I remember purposely staying awake in the car so that I could see more of Colorado and once we hit Utah, I was out like a light bulb. LOL.

So this image was taken at one of our many pull over stops. I have no clue where it was but I just really enjoyed the cloud formations and the way the light was hitting the mountains. Can you imagine seeing this on your daily commute? That’d be bananas. I feel like after this trip, I am much more in awe of snow capped mountains than I am of any beach or anything like that.

I really don’t know what it’s like in the winter time but if it weren’t too bad, I’d definietly consider living in Colorado for a little while. That’s how much I liked it. So if you’re reading this and you have experienced the winter in Colorado, let me know! Is the snow just ridiculous? Would I have to get a SUV? What do you do in the winter time besides ski? These are the questions I need answered before I move.  The weather while we were there in the beginning of June was absolutely perfect! The air was so crisp and clean. Perfect weather to walk around or enjoy a meal outside.

So here it is, the deer story! As Andrew I were walking around Sprague Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park around sunset, we noticed about 3 or 4 deers drinking the water. I thought it was the cutest thing ever and from a distance, I started taking pictures. Then we noticed some other people even closer to the deer walking towards them. The deer didn’t seem to be scared or anything because they didn’t run away, so after witnessing that, I wanted to go closer, obviously.

We slowly walked closer to them and noticed that there were so many more than just 3 or 4. There were like at least 10 of them! AND there were some baby deer too. They were sooooo cute. Pretty soon there was a big group of us people surrounded by all these deer! I’ve seen deer before but not this many at one time and never this close up and calm. All of us were taking pictures but moving really slow to not scare the deer. But eventually, after standing there for about an hour observing the deer, the sun had set and it was getting dark fast.

Andrew and I decided to break away from the pact of people and continue on to the trail to walk back to the car, but the deer had another idea. As soon as one of them saw us walking past them, he started CHARGING AT US!!! OMG scariest ish EVER! So I ran towards Andrew, looked behind at the deer and he CHARGED AT US AGAIN!!!! By the third time he charged at us, Andrew and I had ran so far down the lake that we put everyone else in between us and the deer. At one point, we heard this lady scream “Stop Running!” In my head, I was like ‘lady, are you crazy?!?!’

After freaking out for 20 minutes, I confessed to Andrew that I had made eye-contact with the deer and that’s probably why he charged at us. Oh man. Never again deer! So we ended up back tracking and taking the long way back to the car.

The best part is that I got the beginning of the first charge on video! It will be up on youtube soon but I stopped recording as soon as I realized what was happening. Biggest regret- turning off my camera 🙁 Oh well, I got a little bit of it that I will share soon….

We arrived in Estes Park, right outside of Rocky Mountain National Park around dinner time. So naturally, our first stop was to get some pizza. OMG you need to try this place called Antonio’s Real New York Pizza. The pizza was outstanding! And believe me, I’ve had a few slices in my day and I really liked this pizza. And to walk off all those calories we headed to Sprague lake right after dinner in Rocky Mountain National Park.

It’s a super easy walk around the lake thats about a mile long. It was perfect because each side of the lake provided some amazing views. Good thing I had my neutral density filter with me because the sunset wasn’t actually as vibrant as this image makes it look. The clouds were looking very nice but the longer exposure by the ND filter really brought out that extra umph of color that it really needed. It also helped that it was a very calm and peaceful evening with not a lot of wind to create ripples in the water. So if you’re a fan of reflection shots, Rocky Mountain National Park has tons of them. From all the lakes to puddles. Everything is just so reflective and beautiful. You would love it.

The settings for this image was F5/6 at 1.6 seconds at ISO 400. I used my 16-35mm wide angle lens to try to capture as much of the scene as I could. I didn’t have my tripod on this one but I managed to find a good ledge to balance this on. The key is to try to get your camera body and lens to stabilize on something to make sure theres no extra shake. If your lens isn’t leaning against something or supported somehow, it probably won’t work out as well.

I know I’m skipping around a lot. I just took so many pictures on our trip that it’s difficult to decide where to start. I’m all over the place when it comes to editing, but this one is another one from Rocky Mountain National Park. Can you tell it was my favorite national park that we visited? I really enjoyed the fresh air and the snow-capped mountains. Although you can’t even tell there was snow in this image. It looks like a beautiful spring day, which it was. And you know me, when I see a puddle, I have to check out what reflections I can see out of it. This one was a particularly awesome puddle. It was huge and so reflective. I got a few shots and decided it needed something else. So I asked Andrew to stand there and model for me. This is obviously his best model pose. LOL.

In case you were interested, this was on along the trail walking to Alberta Falls. It was one of the only trails we could confidently walk on. So many of them still had snow on them. And forget about making it to Emerald Lake. It was the ultimate goal but the elevation was so high and there was so much snow still on the ground that it was impossible. We only had sneakers on so we were slipping and sliding all over the place. Note to future self: Always pack hiking boots. Even when you don’t think you’ll need them, it will just make life so much easier.

The settings for this image are F/14 at 1/80th of a second at ISO 400 handheld. If any of you know of a tripod where you can shoot really low to the ground, I mean flush to the ground, please let me know! I’m always finding myself wanting something that can get that low but just haven’t found one yet.

Out of all the places that we went to on our trip to Colorado and Utah, Maroon Bells was my absolute favvvvorite. I loved it so much for many reasons. First of all, the walk was super short from the parking lot to this point of view. I’m not sure why that stands out so much in my mind, but it was awesome. Then once you actually see this view, you can’t help but to say ‘WOW’. I can’t even imagine what it’d be like to shoot this during the autumn time when all the leaves are changing. OR during golden hour. OMG I’d be the happiest person in the world. And if you put those two things together… mind blown. Unfortunately, we only had about an hour here before we were off to our next location. But we’ll be back soon and I’ll be sure to spend some extra time in Aspen just for this park.

But if you asked me what was my favorite moment of this trip, it was the simplest thing. We were walking around the lake and Andrew and I were talking about what it’d be like to swim in the water. Then we started wondering about how cold the water actually was. So we dipped our fingers in and the moment my finger tips touched the water was one of my most treasured memories. The water was just so crisp and refreshing feeling. I don’t know, it was such a simple act but it really made me feel connected to the environment.

We also saw 3 more deer in the parking lot of Maroon Bells. Deers seem to be everywhere in Colorado! I mean we have some in VA but not like how it is there. They move in herds!! But that’s not the deer story I was talking about in yesterday’s blog post 🙂 Just a little bit longer for that story 🙂 Hehe.

Shout out to Jason for telling me about this place.

I love Colorado. There I said it. I fell in love on our trip. Everything was absolutely amazing. As soon as I stepped out of the airport in Denver, I could definietly tell a difference in air quality. It was just so fresh and crisp. The weather was absolutely perfect the whole time we were there, 70 degrees with a little breeze.  I really think it’s something I could get used to but I don’t know if we were just lucky with the weather or if it’s always like that in the spring/summer. Either way, I was lovin’ it. (Like McDonalds).

At one point, Andrew and I were walking around after we had a big lunch and we saw this lady with her dog. We stopped to talk to her for a little bit and as we were walking away, Andrew said “I never realized how many nice people there are”. LOL! I thought that was hilarious but so true. I feel like everyone in DC is always in such a rush to get things done. You can definietly tell the slow paced, enjoying-life/nature type of of people in Colorado. Seriously, I can’t wait to go back.

This image was taken in Rocky Mountain National Park on the last day we were there. Andrew thought he “discovered a secret” vantage point however, it was just the parking lot of a museum. Moraine Park, specifically. We didn’t have a lot of colorful sunsets while we were there, but we did have some pretty cloudy ones which is really all you need. I shot this with my 16-35mm at F/10 for 4 seconds with my Ice Neutral Density filter. At one point we spotted a herd of deer running around on the grass in the foreground which was so cool to watch. But don’t worry, I’ll have more deer stories for you in the future. Oh man. HAHA.