The Weekend in Black and White: Water Ballet

I love to watch geese swimming in graceful groups.

Click for the weekend in Black and White.

SkyWatch Friday: Remembering Winter to cool off

We've had a lot of gray rainy skies lately and I didn't get any good sky shots this week.

Unfortunately the rain hasn't cooled us off enough to speak of.

Therefore, I thought I'd go to winter shots I haven't used to at least cool myself off visually.

I am so ready for cooler weather I wouldn't even mind if we went straight to winter.

I particularly like the way snow looks against blue skies.

There's even a little blue poking through the next shot.

I always think snowy trees against a blue sky look like the trees have been frosted with icing.

I like the way the trees in the next shot still have some fall leaves as well as a little snow.

I don't know if the sky is really bluer in the winter but sometimes it seems to be a richer blue than during other times of the year.

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ABC Wednesday: C is for Chapel Hill

C is for Chapel Hill.

C is for Cancer.

C is for the Carolina.

C is for the Cancer Hospital at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill which is where all these shots were taken.

Clearly these are spring shots not browning summer ones. Click for the home of ABC Wednesday.

That's My World Tuesday: Update on the NC Mountains to Sea trail

One of my first That's My World posts (November 4, 2008) was about the North Carolina Mountains to Sea trail.

Since writing that post more than 500 miles of foot paths have been completed on that trail. They have been working on them for decades so that's the total number of miles including ones already completed in 2008.

With temporary connectors on bike routes and back roads serving until all the hiking sections are finished, it is now possible to hike from the mountains to the sea in North Carolina. Of course that's assuming you can hike 500 miles plus the additional miles on the temporary connectors.

After the mountain to sea trail is completed there will be 1,000 miles of hiking paths from Clingman's Dome in the Great Smoky Mountains to the sand dune, Jockey's Ridge, on the outer banks. Note - on my first post the official site I was using said there would be over 700 miles so clearly the plans have expanded since they now say 1,000 miles. Also, other sites that are done by hikers say 900 miles so it looks like every so often the projected mileage of the completed trail is adjusted.

My photographs are not from the actual trail except in a few cases where we hiked on part of it.

What I have tried to do though is show the parts of the state the trail covers. I have also concentrated more in the mountains on shots from hiking trails rather than views of the mountains.

The trail begins in the southern part of the NC mountains (great smoky mountains) and goes north into the northern mountains which include part of the Blue Ridge mountains.

Heading east across the state it includes part of the foothills and then goes towards the NC Piedmont.

You will probably notice that the seasons are all mixed up in this post.

I haven't tried to stick with one season but have pulled from shots across my state through the years and seasons. The little white dots in the shot below are gulls on Falls Lake near where I live in the NC Piedmont and part of the land surrounding that lake includes paths that are part of the mountain to sea trail.

I also haven't included any city shots since the point of the hiking trail across state is to stick more to the natural areas and places that aren't covered in concrete.

The photographs I'm including of wildflowers are heading east from the piedmont. The butterfly on water in with the mountain shots is on a river in the northern NC mountains.

I guess I should have done a better job labeling but the first shots are all in the mountains (some southern and some northern part of the NC mountains) until the one where you can see a hill or mountain backdrop (8th shot). That shot is in the foothills. Then the 9th and 10th shots are in the Piedmont.

From the Piedmont until it gets to the beach shots, the photos are heading south east as the trail does moving towards the sand hills and then to the coastal plain.

Basically after heading north in the mountains the trail goes south east until it ends up on the southern part of the NC coast.

Then once it reaches the coast it heads north up the coast line until it ends in the north east part of the coast.

The photographs have basically followed the pattern of the mountains to sea trail for the most part.

In order to end with a shot heading north up the coast line, I am using an old shot of Ocracoke since it's north of Atlantic Beach which is where the other beach shots I'm using are from. The poor quality of the shot below is due to it being taken with my first digital camera. I used a monochrome version of this Ocracoke lighthouse shot for another post which worked a little better. I should also mention that the coastal part of the trail doesn't look like it goes to Atlantic Beach or Ocracoke although I have trouble understanding some of the literature. I'm aiming for regions as opposed to the specific places the trails are, except for a few cases where I have shots taken on hikes that happened to be at places that are part of the mountain to sea trail. The point is this trail crosses the state and I am using regional photographs to get across some of the diversity of the state.

Click for the home of That's My World Friday.