Brian's Blog

The Sunday before Thanksgiving, Starr’s Mill was revisited.  I went there about 2 years ago and decided it was time to get back there.  Knowing it was a little late to find trees with leaves in color, I could only hope for the best.

There were some decent photo opportunities.  The wind was still which allowed me to capture some reflections off of the water.  Click here to view the gallery page of photographs.  I hope you enjoy them.

April made for a great time to visit Amicalola Falls.  The web pages are ready, and in addition to them, a slide show you may view is available.  If you click on the link, it may open in your browser but may not automatically play.  I suggest that you right-click on the link and select Download, to place it on your PC.  After the download completes, double-click on the file and it should play in full screen mode.  After you give your permission for the file to play in full scree, the slide show will begin.

The web pages are done and available here.

About 2 weeks ago, a group of us flew from Atlanta to Rome, Italy.  We left on Wednesday, arrived on Thursday, and rode 2 trains to Sorrento, Italy where we stayed for 3 nights.  Day 1 is the trip and arrival in Sorrento.  For day 2, we hopped on a ferry to the island of Capri, where we took a smaller boat to the blue grotto.  It was very cool.  The dark cave and the glowing blue water made capturing photographs difficult.  Upon our return to port, we rode the funicular up the mountain, enjoyed what Capri had to offer, and then returned to Sorrento on the ferry.  Traveling to Pompeii on day 3 by train, we strolled through the city while listening to a Rick Steves audio tour.  I am in the process of creating a web gallery for the remaining days.  Stay tuned for further developments …

Day 3 lead us to Pompeii.  We saw a market area with depictions of what vendors would be selling there,  castings of people caught in the ash, cafe areas, a brothel with more depictions of services available, and a bakery.  Back in Sorrento as we walked through the streets with vendors we saw a couple of them selling tomatoes (without the smooth outsides) and very large lemons that are used to make limoncello (a liqueur).  We also wound up having a lemon cake dessert with frosting almost daily.  It became affectionately known as a ‘lemon boob’.

Our return to Rome on day 4 was by ferry instead of by train.  After checking in at the hotel, we walked around to see some of the sites.  One of them was Trevi Fountain, where I captured a few photographs, with my Olympus point and shoot camera, for a panorama .  Another was the Spanish Steps, which also had a fountain.  All of the walking left us parched so we stopped for refreshment, which is where I saw an older MINI. We went to an area that had restaurants around a plaza and in the plaza were vendors with items for sale, like paintings.  As night approached our travels lead us to the Pantheon, where we spent a little while before retiring for the night.

I added two panoramas from Pompeii that were captured with my DSLR.  The first one is near the center meeting area and shows Vesuvius in the background.  The second one is a view from just outside of the area that you have to pay to enter.