cross country road trip

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If I could go back anywhere in the US from our epic cross country road trip last year, it would have to be White Sands National Monument. Hands down, no questions asked. I need to spend more time in this place. We only had one night here. So we were able to shoot sunset and early morning. Park authorites were pretty strict about making sure that everyone left right as the sun was setting so I didn’t get to spend as much time as I would have liked here. Plus they didn’t open at sunrise and I had to wait later in the day to get back in the next day. I didn’t go on any of the hikes or trails. We basically just parked our car, walked up to the highest sand dune and took a few pictures and sledded down the sand dunes. That was so much fun all on its on.

What first attracted me to visiting this place were all the beautiful lines that the wind created in the sand dunes. I thought they were so interesting and would be great for leading lines. But when I arrived, I quickly found out that you probably have to walk more than just the sand dune that was in front of your parking spot because those lines are probably covered by other people’s foot prints. LOL. To be honest, I photoshopped some of the footprints that are in this image because there are just sooo many of them. But the best part about this park is that shoes are pretty pointless. Unless you are wearing sneakers or something and plan on doing some serious hiking, it’s totally normal to be walking around barefoot. I love it!

My camera settings for this image is 1/40th of a second at F7.1 and ISO 160 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm lens.

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Happy Happy New Year!!! YAYAYAYAY!!!! 2018!

In 2017, I set a goal to travel for photo at least once a season. Mission accomplished. Here are my favorite travel images from 2017 in chronological order.

Click on the pictures to read my original blog post.

hofn, beach, sunrise, water, black sand, iceland, south east, town, Höfn í Hornafirði, fishing town, mountains, fog, clouds,

Iceland, you beautiful country. I love you. I’ll see you again soon, k?

black sand beach, reynisfjara, vik, iceland, travel, europe, western europe, nordic, socks, waterproof, waves, how to dress, cold, beach,

Captured in the middle of the day with my 10-stop neutral density filter. I love that thing. I keep it in my camera bag at all times.

iceland, vik, south iceland, black sand beach, sea stacks, birds, waves, water, cold, europe, travel, blue, mood, rocks, nordic, island, viking,

Took this one just a few hours after the previous image but on the other side of the sea stacks. Crazy how the different point of view changes so much.

iceland, travel, horses, icelandic, island, travel, wind, winter, rain, airplane, golden circle, Reykjavik, fences, road trip, driving, short, hairy, 16-35mm, wide angle, 70-200mm, zoom, sony

One of my favorite parts about Iceland, the horses! They’re so sweet.

I’m not sure if you noticed or not but once I got back from Iceland, I decided to work on my blog even more. Yes, I still post new images every weekday, but I’m taking the time out to write longer and more thoughtful blog posts. I just thought that an interesting change from this trip that I wanted to note.

meadowlark botanical gardens, nova parks, northern virginia, vienna, va, koi fish, gazebo, pond, blossoms, spring, flowers, cherry blossoms, koi, japanese fish, swim, bread, feed, food, outdoors, afternoon, walk, stroll, visit, see, camera settings, motion,

I captured this image in Virginia at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens. That counts as travel, right? My favorite part of this image is that little ripple the fish on top is making with his tail.

utah, moab, arches national park, devils garden, trail, trail head, rock formations, sunrise, shrubs, nature, landscape, mighty 5, hikes, research, plan, travel, vacation, southwest, america, usa, national park,

Arches National Park in Utah. This was one of the first images I captured at sunrise. I just love how the sun burst balances out the red rocks on the right hand side.

colorado, co, visit, travel, rocky mountain national park, antonios pizza, estes park, sunset, dinner, pizza, hike, trail, lake, sprague, tripod, camera settings, neutral density, nd, filter, tripod, reflection, mountains

I fell in love in the spring and it was with Colorado. Man o man, I gotta go back in 2018.

Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, co, travel, visit, sprague lake, sunset, mountains, trees, national park, trails, hike,

Rocky National Park is one of my favorites. It’s so hard to take a bad picture.

Falling Springs, Covington, VA, virginia, road trip, cross country, waterfall, landscape, blue water, rest stop, rest area, water, trees, leaves, branches, east coast, america, hike, rope swing, summer

The beginning of our epic cross country road trip. That was one adventure that I’ll never forget.

covington, va, virginia, road trip, travel, visit, waterfall, views, summer, swim, hot, alleghany county,

Taken on a tripod and a 10 second timer. I must have looked crazy constantly running back and forth in my flip flops. LOL oh well. Wasn’t the first time.

Saguaro, cactus, national park, tucson, arizona, mountain district, signal hill trail, east end, mountain district, cactus forest drive, desert, landscape, foreground, green, heat wave, photographer, photography, sunset

My first time seeing saguaro cactuses in real life. They are amazingly beautiful and so big. Now that I think of it, I should of taken another self portrait like I did in the previous image here.

Cadillac Mountain, Acadia National Park, sunrise, maine, bar harbor, north atlantic, east coast, highest point, october, chilly, wind, weather, temperature, clouds, clear sky, photographer, photo, photography, visit, national park

Visited Maine for the first time in October. I love how spacious and airy this image is.

Bass Harbor Head Light, acadia national park, maine, east coast, sunrise, neutral density filter, long exposure, climb, tripod, sony, a7ii, southwest, blue hill bay, mount desert island,

It was hard to find this perspective but once I did, it was totally worth the early morning wake up call and the climb down slippery rocks.

That’s it. Those were my favorite travel images of 2017. Can’t wait to capture even more in the new year.
In case you missed it, I did the same thing with just Washington DC photos. Click here to check them out.

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Before we left on this road trip, we had all our stops planned. But the original plan was to stay in Roswell, New Mexico because Sue’s bananas over aliens. But days before we left I was on tripadvisor.com and everyone was saying how Roswell was very disappointing it was. Skrt Skrt– change of plans.

Luckily we were able to adjust our plans to stay in Santa Fe instead. In hindsight this new plan was a 100x better. Not knocking Roswell or anything but we drove through it and the 15 minutes that we spent in the town was all we needed. It probably would have been cool at night time but for us to get the most out of the trip, Santa Fe was a much better idea.

I was so excited to be visiting. It’s one of those places that I’d heard of before but never thought I’d ever visit. My mind immediately went straight to the Georgia O’Keeffe museum. One of my all time favorite artists. I just admire her paintings, creativity, and boldness so much. I could not wait to visit!

georgia okeefe museum, exhibit

Thats me looking at some images of the artist. I swear I’m wearing shorts!

We ended up staying one extra night in Santa Fe so we spent the next day in Tent Rocks National Monument. I guess I was still thinking about O’Keeffe’s flower images while walking the trail because I see some of those abstract qualities in the image above. I took the image while we were walking through the extremely narrow slot canyons. Everyone was concentrating on what was ahead on the trail, I ended up just looking up.

I can see why O’Keeffe loved New Mexico so much. It’s a such a beautiful state and I’m so glad we got to spend extra time traveling and sight seeing. I really look forward to visiting again.