ANGELA B. PAN

So after yesterday’s update at Shenandoah National Park, I figured I’d give an update at Great Falls Park. I used to come to this park a lot. When I was first getting started with photography in high school AND after I graduated from college (I sort of dropped off while I was in college), I’d come to this park a lot to practice. Since then I think I just got distracted with Washington DC images that I haven’t been back in a long time. It was probably last October since I’ve been back and it felt so good to hear the roar of the water again.

But I may have seen one or two trees that have already changed colors, other than that the park was mostly green. I find this to be good news though because it gives me more reasons to go back in the near future. If you’re looking for some great fall foliage shots, the falls and the Billy Goat trail are awesome to shoot.

Another reason why I sort of stopped going to Great Falls Park was that it started to close it’s gates at night. That meant I couldn’t get in for sunrise. Luckily, sunrise is around 7:20a now and I was at the gate for about 5 minutes before someone showed up to open the gate up at 7a. Pretty perfect timing if you asked me. The parking lot is pretty close to the first overlook which is where I shot this particular image. I had plenty of time to set up for this shot.

My camera settings for this image is F5.0 at 2 seconds ISO 640 with my Sony A7II and my 16-35mm wide angle lens. I also used my neutral density filter to slow down the image and create those awesome water lines on the bottom middle.

Last week, I published the video from our road trip. Did you see it? I’m super happy with the way that it turned out. If you haven’t already, click here to watch.

The most surprising comments and questions that I got was in response to the waterfalls in the very beginning of the video. It was surprising to me because it seemed like not a lot of people knew about it. To be honest, I didn’t know about either until I started researching the for the cross country road trip. There was tons of information about it on tripadvisor.com. I’m so glad we stopped here. It was the perfect rest stop for lunch and to stretch out our legs a bit from the drive.

So this waterfall is calling Falling Springs. It’s 80ft tall, so it’s pretty massive. My favorite part about it is that you can walk behind the waterfall and get some cool perspectives. We didn’t do it this time because I was afraid to get wet and then have to sit in the car all the way to Nashville, TN in wet clothes. I’ll be more prepared next time I visit. Second favorite part was the area above the waterfall. As you could see in the video, the water was super blue. Almost like we were in Puerto Rico or something but super surprising since we were only in Virginia. Next time I visit, you better believe I’ll be the first person on that rope swing!

I also go a few questions about trespassing. Apparently, people aren’t allowed to go near the waterfall and you could actually get tickets for jumping the gate. I did see a sign for trespassing while we were there, but it was kinda hidden behind branches and leaves. But the funny part was that the sign was right near the entrance to the waterfall and it was wide open. We didn’t really think much of it and just went right on through. There were plenty of other people enjoying the water too, so I don’t know…

If you plan on visiting, I’m sure you’d love it. But if you get in trouble for it, you don’t know me 🙂

I’m home! and I’m exhausted. Who knew driving over 3,000 miles would wear a girl out so fast. But in the past 10 days I created memories that would last a life time. So many great adventures and sights. In the end, looking back at all 7 states we drove through I could honestly say that I would not have changed a thing. I had a freakin’ B L A S T!

This image was from our very first stop in Covington, VA at Falling Springs Falls. Upon arrival, I didn’t know much about it. I just knew it was a huge waterfall really close to the road and on our way to Nashville, TN so it was the perfect pit stop to get out and stretch our legs. Little did I know that it was SO beautiful. My favorite part was being able to see the waterfall from the very top of it AND the very bottom. All you had to do was climb a couple of rocks and you were there! It kind of reminded me of Slijalandsfoos in Iceland because you can actually walk behind it too. Too bad we weren’t wearing our bathing suits or I would of wanted to jump in.

I definietly want to come back here on a hot summer day with Andrew and Frankie. It’s only 3 hours away from where we live. Frankie doesn’t like getting wet but I’m sure he’d enjoy the trail and hanging out outdoors with us.

I still can’t believe we drove all the way to California. There’s a lot to catch up on so be sure to check out the blog for the next few days and I’ll be uploading a youtube video as well. I don’t even remember half of what I filmed so that should be very interesting. HAHA!

If you plan on visiting Iceland, you gotta do a road trip. Reykjavik is cool and all but the best part of Iceland is the country side and being at one with nature. So if you’re really into the outdoors than you gotta go. We rented our car from Lagoon Car Rental and they were amazing. They picked you up from the airport and everything was so easy-peasy.

This is a basic break down of how we spent our 4 days in south Iceland:
Slept on plane so we could hit the ground running.
Day 1: Fly into Keflavik International Airport at 5a. Drive the golden circle. Stopped at Laugarvatn Fontana for a quick geothermal bath dip and then ended at Gullfoss, this AMAZING waterfall.
Day 2: Drive to Höfn but make an exceptionally long stop in Vik for the black sand beach and waterfalls along the way.
Day 3: Spent the morning in Höfn and Jökulsárlón then drove to spend the night in Vik.
Day 4: Early to rise so we could drive back to Keflavik but made one last stop at the waterfall, Skógafoss

But if I had to do it all over again, I’d spend a couple more days in each of these cities and made sure I:
-preordered tickets to the Blue Lagoon (they book up at least 3 months in advance)
-researched more of the hidden/off-the-beaten path waterfalls
-checked out the abandoned DC plane on Sólheimasandur
-cleared the cloudy/rainy skies so I could see some of the northern lights
-cleared the weather so we could finally go on an ice tunnel tour
-maybe see what’s in the northern part of Iceland?

Obviously, I have no regrets from this trip. It was one of the best trips ever. But I know there is just so much more to see. I can already feel the itch.

When visiting a new country, I always try to learn as much as I can about the food, people and language. It’s the best way to totally immerse yourself into your new surroundings. In Iceland, it was a little difficult to learn the language. First off, everyone speaks english. Really good english too! So being able to listen to the Icelandic language was really limited to just locals in a restaurant or people talking quietly amongst themselves. But I did manage to learn a few words. “Foss” means waterfall. So if you notice all the waterfalls in Iceland end with the term “Foss”. This image was taken at Skógafoss which is in a small town called Skógar. You add foss to the end of it, you have the Skógafoss! Pretty cool huh? Another important word to know is “Kaka” which means cake! Who doesn’t love cake right? So if you wanted to say chocolate cake, you would say “súkkulaðikaka”.

Now that we’re talking about food, the food was great. Expensive but the overall delicious. I don’t think we had one bad meal. I ate a lot of smoked salmon, at least once a day. There aren’t very many vegetable dishes. It’s all very meat/seafood oriented and to our surprise, a lot of pizza. I’m not sure if that was just a tourist thing but almost every restaurant we went to had a lot of pizza options. We noted one day that the pepperoni pizza was cheaper than the vegetarian pizza.

The people are very nice as well. Super helpful when you have a million and one questions about travel. Even when they knew you were a tourist, they didn’t look at you funny or treat you differently which was much appreciated. However, I did notice that a lot of them weren’t originally from Iceland. Many were from different parts of Europe that just fell in love with the country. I can totally see why minus all the cold temperatures.

I’d like to say that this was a long and strenuous hike to get to this waterfall. I think it’d make the image seem way more epic. But it wasn’t. It was a  pleasant 20 minute walk where I stopped every few steps to take pictures of the beautiful trees. It was an awesome afternoon.