ANGELA B. PAN

If you know me, I love a good road trip. Especially the ones that make you feel like you’ve hopped on an airplane and you’re miles away from home but in actuality, you just jumped into your car. So if you’re like me, I created a list of my favorite summer destination that are 3 hours or less from Washington DC with a variety of adventures waiting for you. So if you like being in the outdoors, this list is for you:

Great Falls Park:

Great Falls Park from the Virginia side

I’ve mentioned this place a hundred times on my blog so it’s definitely a favorite. Less than 20 miles outside of Washington DC, find some peace in Great Falls Park. From the roaring falls, to plenty of space to roam or have a picnic, Great Falls is kind of an unexpected gem outside a major US city. The great part about Great Falls is that there’s a Virginia and Maryland side. You can see actually see the Maryland side while in Virginia and vice versa but they are very different.

Virginia has a better view of the falls and in my personal opinion, the park just feels a little bit more open with wider fields and more viewing spots of the falls. It’s a great place to have a picnic or go on a hike with friends.

Maryland allows you to be closer to the rocks but I personally enjoy the views on the hike on the Maryland side much more.

Don’t be surprised if you see kayakers navigating the rough waters or blue herons fishing for the dinner on either side of the park.

Alexandria, Virginia

Old Town Alexandria at sunrise

Specifically, Old Town Alexandria. Old Town Alexandria is just 8 miles away from Washington where you can enjoy a day by the Potomac River. Surrounded by cute shops and even better restaurants, it’s shouldn’t be a surprise if you find yourself smiling while walking around the neighborhood. If you of age, The BRÜT Wine Bar is a personal favorite if you like bubbly adult drinks. Waterfront Park is a fantastic place for kids to run around and to experience free outdoor art. I can’t express how much I enjoy this cute little town every time I visit.

But Alexandria is also a great central point for many other excursions. Hop on a scenic water taxi that will take you the National Harbor in Maryland or to DC destinations such as the Wharf, Georgetown, the National Mall, and Nats Stadium. It is also along the Mount Vernon trail that gives you access to Dyke Marsh Wildlife Preserve and Huntly Meadows Park, both wetland areas with boardwalks that make it fun for birdwatchers and photographers to enjoy the views.

Shenandoah National Park

Shenandoah National Park along Skyline Drive on a foggy early morning

Shenandoah National Park is beautiful summer, fall, spring, winter, whenever! Just 70 miles outside of the District, it’s the best place to get a great hike in. My personal favorite is Old Rag Mountain Trail and Hawksbill Mountain Trail. Both give you an unbelievable view of the mountains and surrounding areas. Just know that both of these hikes are steep but Hawksbill Mountain Trail is significantly shorter, so plan accordingly with the time you have in the mountains.

If hiking isn’t your thing, I highly suggest finding a rental company where they’ll take you down to the river. You can rent canoes, rafts or tubes to float your way down the river. It’s so relaxing.

But if you just want an easy way to enjoy the views, Skyline Drive has stunning views from multiple overlooks along the way.

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For me, Thanksgiving is really about family and friends being together and celebrating all the blessings we have in life. In no particular order here are a few things that I’m grateful for:

• Family, friends, Andrew and Frankie
• My health
• My warm bed
• The kindness of people I’ve never met before
• The internet for connecting people all over the world.

So in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I hope you have a wonderful day however you are celebrating and I’m so grateful for you.
<3 Angela

I didn’t exactly believe this the first time I saw it, but Capital Weather Gang was right. It’s look like it’s going to be a snowier winter than normal. Well, at least that what it seemed like last week because we got snow. In November.

I woke up for sunrise Thursday morning and looked out the window and barely saw anything. So I went back to bed thinking that we probably got as much as we were going to because we never get snow in November. If anything, it usually starts in January but holy cow. I fell asleep for about another hour and when I woke up the sidewalk, grass, roads, everything was covered. I was so excited.

I love snow.

So I got up, ate breakfast, walked Frankie and was ready to head out the door. I decided to go to the tidal basin because I love photographing the snow with white memorials. I love the monochromatic look. Even when it’s full on color, it still looks black and white 🙂 But since it was fall and the leaves were changing, I thought it would be interesting to photograph the contrast.

The image above was taken from across the street at the George Mason Memorial. I love it because it still had some flowers and color. It was really the look I was going for to photograph the snow with fall colors.

This was taken on my way towards the Jefferson Memorial. I love how delicate the snow looks on the bushes. Oh, have I mentioned that I love snow on greenery too? Totally reminds me of Christmas.

Thomas Jefferson and I both love a good reflection.

On my way back to the car I decided to check out the cherry blossom trees. Most of the leaves are gone and I can’t imagine the snow making it that much better.

So not to jinx anything, but crossing my fingers for more snow this year!

You may or may not have noticed that I had a busy week last week trying to capture the fall colors. Is it me or did they just pop out of nowhere. Literally one day it was all green and the next was so amazingly beautiful everywhere you went. So I’ve been busy trying to capture them all before they all fell. It must be all my cherry blossom training that I knew I needed to take advantage of the colorful trees as much as I could or you never know. Especially with Washington DC weather, you never know. Here one day and the next will be incredibly rainy and windy and they’re all gone.

So last week my friend, Birch and I met up at the Tidal Basin. It was a super cloudy morning and there was no real sunrise. We actually ended up just walking back and forth waiting for some light to appear before we felt like we were really able to capture the leaves in all its colorful glory. Also, it was a great way for us to just catch up on life 🙂

I know this image is a little different for me but I love the way it turned out. It was inspired by an image that I have seen from Brandon Woelfel where he captured something similar but during the springtime with flowers instead of leaves. Small little details like this is something I would like to work on more in the future. Often times I think big and wide but there’s something so simple about this image that I just love. Plus I love all the layers of the yellow leaves too.

My camera settings for this image is F5.6 at 1/80th sec and ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

The best part about fall colors is that they are everywhere. You don’t really have to go far to enjoy them. Often times taking pictures around your neighborhood is just as good as going to Shenandoah National Park or anything like that. For example, Andrew and I spent some time in Manassas, VA over the weekend. Obviously Frankie had to come with us so we had a little mini photoshoot in the woods.

Now when most people think Manassas, they naturally think of the battlefields. But this was across the street from there. It was a great place to go with a whole bunch of trees. Plus Frankie is so photogenic, how could you go wrong 😉 In order to capture this, I had to take the stick he was chewing on out of his mouth and dangled it in front of my camera for him to look like he was looking at it. I was shooting on continuous and sort of hoped for the best. So when I first saw this image on my computer, I couldn’t help but smile.

Immediately all the captions started running through my head. For example…

• ‘When they ask you if you want fries with that’
• ‘When someone brings pizza to the party’
• ‘When you’re sharing an ice cream cone and can’t wait for your next turn’

You get the idea. LOL.

Besides my furry model, I really enjoy looking at the shadows of this image. It was taken around noon so the shadows were extra long as the sun was right above us. I purposely had Frankie stand in the middle of two trees to help frame him and to make the image just a little more interesting to look at.

My camera settings for this image is F5.0 at 1/640th sec and ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

I’m still on the hunt for some fall colors in the Washington DC area but every time I walk out of the house it’s been a little disappointing. It’s so green still! According to this map by Vox, we should be peaking this week. I don’t see that happening anytime soon so I went to the local authority on this topic, Capital Weather Gang. Good news: CWG says that we’re still a week or two away, but I’m ready now. Hopefully that’s true and we get some nice colors soon.

So to prepare for the color change, I started brainstorming a list of places to go to photograph the fall colors in the Washington DC area and wanted to share it with you. Let me know if I’ve missed anything or if you have any other ideas. I want to keep this list growing to have it for future reference:

• Rock Creek Park: boulder bridge
• Great Falls Park/ Scotts Run Park
• Shenandoah Skyline drive
• Arlington National Cemetery
• National Arboretum 
• Dumbarton Oaks
• Manassas Battlefields 
• Constitution Gardens
• Tidal Basin
• Harpers Ferry

I actually wrote a guide to Autumn in DC a couple of years ago. Looks like this needs some major updating. I’ll be sure to do so soon!

But how great would it be if these weeping willow trees changed color? I think that would be amazingly beautiful! I captured this image last week when I was super early for sunrise. I met up with my friend, Zack and we were on the hunt to find cool places to go to capture the change. These particular trees are in Constitution Gardens and it has always been a favorite. Although the willow trees don’t change color, the trees surrounding the pond do. It’s the perfect place to go for a little bit of quiet in a busy city.

My camera settings for this image is F4 at 1/125th sec and ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.