Mountain Lake - One Location for Dirty Dancing

On Saturday (8/25), instead of going tubing on the New River, whose water level was significantly lower than usual, Jenni, Jason, and I went up to Mountain Lake. When we arrived, there was a wedding in progress, but we were able to pay $2 to park and just stay out of their way. The lodge is absolutely beautiful...the outside is done in stone work.

Remember the movie Dirty Dancing and where Baby and her family stay during the movie? Mountain Lake is where that was filmed. The Gazebo that Johnny's old partner gives dance lessons on was actually the altar for the wedding that was in progress.

Water levels at Mountain Lake have been at an all time low since 2006, according to the literature that we were given at the gate. So, when looking at the pictures, be sure to keep that in mind. If you see the dock that stretches out, imaging the water level holding it up. :) In the first photo (at the top of this post), the water actually used to come up to the base of the gazebo...and in the photo, you can't even see the lake!

This second photo is from behind the first, and gives you an idea of where the water level is. Isn't it crazy to think that the water used to come up to the bottom of the gazebo? I like this shot because of the framing along the top of the trees that we were walking under. I also like the wispy clouds. :)

The other cool thing about this place is that they had a life-like sized chess board and checker board (in two seperate locations). I'd never seen one of those before and it was very cool to experience. If only I knew how to play chess!

As always, comments are welcome.

Trip to Virginia - Cascades Waterfall

I headed out to Virginia to visit my best friend from High School, this week. Jenni's a Grad Student at Virginia Tech and had lots of things planned for us while I was there for the long weekend (Thursday-Sunday). We went on a very HOT four mile hike (two miles up, two miles down) to the Cascade Waterfalls on Friday afternoon. There weren't many people on the hike, which was cool. It was a pretty steep climb, and it was way warmer outside than I'm used to, so we took lots of breaks on our climb up.

Anyway, both of us took our Digital SLR's with us. Jenni has a Canon Rebel and I have a Canon Rebel xTi...can you tell that we're Canon snobs? :) Jenni carried her full sized tripod up to the waterfall and I used my GorillaPod for this shot. I love that little guy, such a good invention.

The technique is called silky water, and it's generated by using Shutter Priority (which is Tv on a Canon)...somewhere around 0'3" (that's three seconds). I could generate the technique on either side of this setting, but the three seconds produced the effect that you see here. It was a little windy (caused by the water), so I won't be able to enlarge the picture very much (leaving the shutter open that long catches the moving of the trees and makes them slightly blurry) but all in all, I'm impressed with the outcome. I'm so glad that I was finally able to figure it out!

I'll write another post soon of another one of my favorite photos from the trip....where part of Dirty Dancing was filmed, so stay tuned!

New Quilt

So...this post is a little out of the ordinary when it comes to my blog.

My mom has been working on a quilt for me for about 6 weeks, now. It's a Log Cabin that's been repieced to make fading V shapes. I picked out all batik fabric at a fabric store in Newport in April. The front of the quilt (as pictured) is done, she just needs to cut the backing and batting, then send the three pieces to her machine quilter friend, who is also in her quilt group.

Over the years, mom has made me three quilts (not including this new one). I have a full sized trip around the world, a twin sized trip around the world, and a lap sized friendship quilt (in a log cabin pattern) that mom made for Suzanne, Sandi, and I while we were at UMaine.

Any thoughts on the colors chosen for the front?