things to do

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The Mount Vernon Trail is one of the best places to go for those who enjoy being active outdoors but doesn’t want to deal with the crowds in Washington DC. The 17 miles trail spans from Rosslyn, VA to President George Washington’s home in Mount Vernon but along the way provides some of the best views of the nation’s capital and then some. The trail itself is protected by the National Park Service and can be accessed year-round from 6 am- 10 pm.

Here’s a great map of the trail.

For a majority of the time, the trail is sandwiched between the Potomac River and the George Washington Parkway.  This makes it really easy to hop on and off the trail at any given point. But it also provides some very beautiful waterfront views.  In other words, you don’t have to walk the entire 17 miles in order to see the best of the best, here are some personal favorite points of interests and places where you can hop on and off the trail:

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The Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, and Arlington Memorial Bridge are seen from the Mount Vernon Trail in the middle of autumn.

Theodore Roosevelt Island

(L) the footbridge leading to Theodore Roosevelt Island (R) Theodore Roosevelt statue

Let’s start with one of my favorite places along the Mount Vernon Trail, Theodore Roosevelt Island. A great place to begin your outdoor adventure. I love it because it’s not like any other place along the trail. Park your car in the parking lot and cross the footbridge. You’ll be greeted by Theodore Roosevelt himself. Walk within the island for a bit more solitude than you would get along the Mount Vernon Trail. No bikes are allowed on the island but there’s a bike rack by the bridge so you can leave your bike and walk 🙂

Once you are back on the Mount Vernon Trail, you will see beautiful willow trees, and about half a mile away from Roosevelt island, you’ll start seeing some of the best views of the Washington DC Memorials. Its one of the only places where you can actually see the top 3 landmarks (Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, and the US Capitol) all lined up in a row. There is not one spot, in particular, you should go to see them. The more you walk, the more the perspectives will change and the view from across the Potomac River is like no other. If you walk a little further, you’ll start seeing the Thomas Jefferson Memorial as well. Enjoy these views or the memorials anywhere from Roosevelt Island to the Navy Merchant Marine Memorial.

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July 4th firework celebration

If you can, my favorite time to go here is on July 4th for the firework show. You basically get front row seats all along this part of the trail so you don’t really have to go early to claim your spot. If you do decide to go, then driving/parking may be a hassle. The best way to do it is to take the metro and get on and off at the Rosslyn stop. It’s a little more than half a mile walk but you’ll be saving so much more time by using the public transportation route. I have been on the George Washington Parkway when there are fireworks and cars will literally stop in the middle of the road to watch it. At that point, traffic gets super backed up!

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If you’ve never been to the Neon Museum, I’d highly recommend it. Out of all the times I’ve been to Vegas, I can’t believe I’ve never been before. It’s a really cool place with lots to see and reminisce on what used to be.

My mom and I used to go every summer while I was growing up. Her sister and family lives there so we would go and visit them all the time. I loved it. But what I didn’t realize was how family friendly Vegas was trying to be in the 90’s. At that time there was Circus Circus, Excalibur, Luxor was just built and for those super hot summer days, Wet and Wild was my favorite place to be. It wasn’t until I took the tour at the Neon Museum where I realized that that was happening and I was actually happy I grew up in the era of the “family friendly Vegas”.

Now it’s the total opposite of that but it’s still really cool to see these vintage signs. For example, this sign of the Stardust. I totally remember visiting the hotel and casino but even more so I remember watching the the building blow up on TV. My cousin told me that her and her friends were sitting on top of their car and watched it in person. Pretty cool if you asked me.

So if you’ve never been, I’d highly recommend the art talk provided the the Neon Museum. It was entertaining to listen to and learned a lot of cool facts. To be honest, the “boneyard” itself wasn’t big. I actually did a whole lap around before I found out about the art talk, attended the art talk, and then did another entire lap around the property. It worked out well because I challenged myself to keep the same lens on for each lap I did and could only switch when I was done. It definitely challenged me to be more mindful of things and I probably saw a lot more detail than I would have if I was just constantly switching the entire time. In case you’re wondering, 3 laps around the boneyard took me about an hour.

My camera settings for this image is F14 at 1/250th sec and ISO 160 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

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One of the places I was looking forward to the most while visiting Joshua Tree National Park was the Cholla Cactus Garden. From the pictures, I could tell that they were like cacti that I’ve never seen before. What surprised me the most was that some of them were taller than me! Andrew is 6′ and it looked like some of them were almost as tall as him! That’s insane.

One of my favorite parts about the garden was that it was right in front of these beautiful mountains. They made for an amazingly beautiful background at sunrise. More of those images soon but while I was looking through my images, I was really drawn to this one. I really liked having the photographers in the middle capturing the scene but still being able to see the cacti in the foreground and mountains in the background. The depth of this image is really interesting and perfectly describes what it’s like being in the garden.

If you’ve never been, the garden is a little bit out there but worth the drive. Probably 15-20 minutes outside of the other trails and attractions but I liked it so much that I actually went twice on our trip. One time with just Andrew when we went out for a solo sunrise adventure. The second time was when our cousins joined us later on in the day and I wanted to show them what it was all about. The sunrise adventure was a little bit better. Andrew and I were the only ones there and I loved when the sun rose a little bit and you could see the sunlight poking through the spikes of the cacti.

My camera settings for this image is F6.3 at 1/800th sec and ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom.

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I’ll be honest, since being back from Norway I haven’t gone out to shoot that much. I’ve woken up for a few sunrises here and there but nothing too serious. So last week I was getting that itch to go out shooting again.

I met up with my friend, Birch and we headed to the Memorial Amphitheater in Arlington National Cemetery. It’s been on my to do list for a while now and I’m so glad we made it out there. It was a beautiful, sunny day after days and days of rain. It felt so great to just be outside and enjoy the crisp autumn air.

When we had made the plans, I immediately had a vision of what I wanted one of my shots to look like. Although this one isn’t it, I love the way that it turned out. These two were just sitting there. They weren’t really talking, they just looked like they needed a little break from walking around. So they were the perfect focal point to break up the repetition of the seating area and the columns behind them.

If ever plan on visiting the amphitheater in real life, I think you would be immediately impressed with the grandness of everything. I love the beautiful lines and the light that reflects off of the white marble. Everything just seems so bright! I definietly want to come back when the leaves start changing in the Washington DC area and photograph this place again. The Arlington National Cemetery is a beautiful place to capture the leaves changing.

My camera settings for this image is F7.1 at 1/2000th sec and ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and my 70-200mm zoom lens. I think next time I come back to this spot, I may shoot more with my wide angle 🙂

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One of our goals for the trip was to get in a little hiking in while we were in Norway. After our camping adventures in Lake Tahoe, Andrew and I were looking for beautiful scenery but not too strenuous of a hike. Well Ramestreken was half of that. It was one of the best views we saw the entire trip, but the hike was probably one of the hardest I had ever done.

For the most part, our trip was very rainy. It wasn’t consistent rain but it rained everyday. However  the weather gods were in our favor when we woke up on one of the last days of our trip to an amazingly beautiful, sunny morning (it rained in the afternoon). It was meant to be that we planned this hike on one of the best days that we were there because I don’t think it would have been possible to do it in the rain. The whole thing is 550 meters (.35 miles) which doesn’t seem like a long hike at all but it’s straight uphill the entire way! If it were raining it would have been way too muddy and slushy everywhere to even hike up. Some of it was paved, but for the most part you’re walking on tree trunks and dirt. In the image you can see a little piece of the decline. This was when we had already reached the top and we were headed down. This part of the hike had steps which made it a little easier but Andrew isn’t that far ahead of me when I took this image. Seriously, the most vertical hike I’ve ever experienced! We have definietly broken in our hiking shoes this summer.

But the strenuous hike was totally worth the views. I’ll post more about it later but it’s absolutely breathtaking. Highly recommended if you’re willing to test your endurance.

My camera settings for this image is F5.6 at 1/1000 ISO 250 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

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There are certain things you can almost always guarantee when you’re visiting the National Mall. 1. its stunningly beautiful 2. the monuments will always have you looking up 3. there will almost always be puddles so once in a while you should look down. For some reason, even if there has been no rain for days, this puddle will always be there. They are on the set of stairs that’s closer to the Reflecting Pool than the Lincoln Memorial but it creates these amazing reflections.

Sometimes I’ll find inspiration in this puddle, this time I thought it was really cool how that guy was looking out towards the Washington Monument and I love how I was able to catch that in the reflection as well.

If you’ve been catching up with the blog this past week, this is the 4th image in the hour that I spent at the National Mall photographing the sunrise this past month. I thought it would be real interesting to show the importance of making sure you aren’t stuck in one place and you keep walking around to find multiple compositions.

This image sort of reminds me of the first one in that there is a space in the reflection between the actual subject and where the reflection starts. I love how there is that peek a boo of trees just coming out. Everything just seems to line up real nicely in this image.

Click here if you missed the second and third image.

As far as Andrew and I? Today we’re in Geiranger, Norway. Out of our whole trip, this is the place that I’m looking most forward to staying in. We were able to get this cute cabin right along the water. I’m really looking forward to waking up and walking right out to this amazing view. Can’t WAIT!

My camera settings for this image is F7.1 at 1/400th of a second at ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens handheld.