The Road Well Traveled

It occurred to me today that my husband and I drive many roads that are well traveled as we head out to find beautiful vistas to photograph. We usually pull up a map of the general area or destination to get a good idea on what is in the area. Once we make our decision, all bets are off that we stay on the well-traveled roads.

Today while we were driving around Lake James in North Carolina, we took a couple of turns that took us to a road that gave us a great view of Table Rock Mountain. Not the typical view right up at the mountains edge, but one that was at the end of a dead-end road. There was a beautiful old farm at the end of the road and an area where we could turn around. To one side, the farmer's cows were out grazing in the fields. To the other side, there was another pasture with a sweeping view of the mountain. The fence provided a nice way to frame the mountain that was highlighted by the beautiful blue sky with white puffy clouds. We chose Table Rock Road because of the name, we had no clue where it would take us, we did have hope and were rewarded with a beautiful vista.

Later in the day, I took over driving and passed an old general store that was set back in the trees off of the road and in disrepair. It isn't easy for me to pull over and take shots at the same time so I had to pass it by. Craig offered to drive and go back to the store, but I knew there would be more opportunities ahead. We always look for small signs that point out hills, churches, stores, etc. Sometimes the names of the churches tell the potential photo op you may get. We turned right on a street that had a sign telling of a mountain park. We knew we would lose light soon so decided not to drive too far back into the countryside. We were rewarded about 2 miles down the road with a field full of cows with the foothills behind them.

We had our map app open on our phone and it was shouting out directions. The phone was quite active as we had already taken two turns that were not in its instructions to get us home. At one point, it told us to turn right onto a street and then told us to make a U-turn. We ended up in someone's driveway but were able to quickly recover. The phone gave more directions and we seemed to be going in a big circle. When the directions brought us back out to the main road that we had strayed from, there stood the old general store directly in front of us. I was able to pull over and take a few shots without leaving the car.

When I got home, I found that I had several wonderful shots from the day's drive and I knew I had many unique shots that were not from the road well taken.

Until next time!

Karen

Click Here for More Information