Category Archives: Photography

European’s journey to the USA, part 1

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As I mentioned in the monthly summary post, I traveled with my parents to see my Uncle in the USA in the second half of October. And there was a lot to see.

I’ve touched the flight there in the monthly summary. We landed shortly before midnight, so pretty much all we did after we reached him home was to go to sleep. That said, my usual curse – struggling a lot the first night in an unknown bed – made an impact and I was tossing and turning most of the night, eventually getting up feeling drowsy and tired the other day.

In the late morning, we went to the beach for a while, enjoying the warm day for a while, then we went shopping to be ready for the upcoming trip to the hills. Thus, a good part of the afternoon passed. By the end, we went to the USS North Carolina warship museum but arrived 10 minutes after the ticket office closed, so we just watched from outside and decided to return after our stay in the hills. Instead, we went for an ice cream (the scoops served there are HUGE compared to what’s common in my country) and, shortly after, returned to uncle’s home. I fell asleep shortly after and let my body catch up, waking up after 12 hours of sleep.

The second day, we were allowed to rest a bit more during the day – the plan for the evening was to see an ice hockey match, which involved a 2-hour drive from the shore. And I guess this was a good show of how the USA differs from my country. To mention a few things:

  • Traffic. In Europe, there’s a lot of emphasis put on safe distance. The density of traffic on the highways in NC was just crazy and I still don’t understand how we managed to not see a single crash during the two weeks. Plus, Europe has a global 80 km/h limit for trucks (even if the road allows higher speeds for other vehicles), which isn’t the case in the USA so trucks were using just any lane instead of sticking to the right. Buses were nowhere to be seen, pretty much.
  • Traffic signs. Those are much more… verbal, so to say, in the USA – a lot of them use words. In Europe, they’re just signs as much as possible – which makes sense as Europe is a continent of several languages.
  • Churches. Not only it seemed like there are churches almost on every corner (and I honestly didn’t know there are so many branches of Christianity), but many of them would, at the first glance, look like an office building or a warehouse. Uncle told me it’s because of ease of construction. It still felt strange.
  • Bread. Getting REAL bread (not the toaster excuse they call “bread”) isn’t easy in the USA.
  • The Nothing. Europe is densely populated and it shows – if you take a highway, you’ll keep seeing towns and villages. Taking a highway in the USA often leads through endless miles with no permanent population in sight. I could say the same about the mountains – on some of the peaks we ascended, there was simply no village in sight.

Anyway, we departed quite early and, once we reached the stadium’s parking lot, several people – which included my uncle – had a portable grill and decided to make a BBQ right on the parking lot. Other families with kids were playing around, giving it a different atmosphere than is typical for events in my country. Also, things went very smoothly when entering the stadium, even with going through metal detectors (on a hockey stadium, of all places – that surprised me). Turns out the event organizers in my country are severely incompetent.

The atmosphere at the stadium was surprisingly sleepy. As far as I’ve heard, it was only the fourth match of the season, and it seemed like not just the players but also the fans were still getting warmed up, to the point it felt more like being in a theater rather than a sports match. Especially with nothing much happening in the first part. Once the goals started falling, the crowd became a bit more active, but it was still not nearly as passionate as football (soccer, if you’re American) matches here in Europe. At least the Hurricanes won.

The following day, we left the shore behind and traveled to the hills. With a few stops on the way to see a couple of friends of my uncle, we arrived in the hills shortly after sunset.

Early in the morning, we set out to see the sunrise on a nearby mountain. Getting there wasn’t easy – some roads were still facing the damage from the September storms and were either closed, or re-opened so recently the GPS still considered them closed, so we were weaving through narrow roads for quite a while. But, fortunately, we made it in time.

The colors just after the sunrise painted the landscape in a reddish tint that looked quite charming.

After finishing this short loop around the mountain, we returned to the chalet, though we stopped by one waterfall and a lake on the way.

Especially by the waterfall and the lake, the morning air was quite crisp – but the day eventually warmed up nicely. We departed for another shorter hike in the afternoon – this time, a location my uncle and my parents visited 10 years ago, but we took a bit different trail.

This trail led us to the waterfall above at first, then up to a nearby peak with quite a charming view and a palette of various plants growing on its slopes.

We then took a trail down the hills and intended to walk up the next hill but the trail was nowhere to be found in the dense shrubbery, so we took a detour using the lower trail. The steep wall of the mountain loomed above us though the forest often blocked the view.

After ascending the longer trail, we made it to the peak from the other side and enjoyed the view on one of the lookouts before making our way back to the parking lot, though the end was tricky as the trail in one area was also a bit too overgrown.

The second day in the hills turned out to be more a road trip than a hike I’d be used to – uncle improvised a fair bit on the go, taking us to some waterfalls that were along one of the mountain roads. Which was often quite a view as we folowed the Cullasaja river. The first was a relatively small waterfall right next to the road.

The second was a much larger waterfall (~20m) with three lookouts to see it from different angles and a footpath passing right behind it.

And just a short distance along the road was a set of smaller cascades.

Then, some distance down the road, we stopped by another waterfall. This one was a bit obscured by the foliage and the road passing above it, but we made our way closer on a tricky footpath to enjoy it from up close. The set of waterfalls is quite huge – as I looked it up, sources mention either 60 or 77 meters as the total height of the cascade.

We then spent quite some time on the road again, stopping in Cherokee for another waterfall.

On our way back to the main roads, we saw several reindeer massing around the visitor center and the surrounding area, some even chomping on foliage by the road.

Given that it was well into the afternoon of an autumn day, we decided to finish our day in the area and drive to the nearby mountain with a lookout. Taking the highway up the mountain pass was relatively smooth, but the parking lot at the mountain was quite crowded. Eventually, instead of waiting, we parked it at one of the nearby lookouts and walked the rest of the way to the parking lot and then the mountain itself.

The walk from the parking lot to the peak itself was gentle and easy – aside from small patches of snow and ice at the very peak – and the trail was quite crowded. Eventually, we decided to wait for the sunset. The temperature started dropping noticeably once the sun went down but that didn’t stop us – and there were many people around. As the sunset neared, more people with heavy-duty cameras gathered at the parking lot with a good view of the sunset, many planning to stay long into the night to take photos of the comet that could be seen during October. We eventually saw it as well before we left, but it was too faint for phone cameras.

I’ll wrap it up here for now and return to the rest of my journey in one of my next posts. There was still much to see, even with our options being quite limited by the recent storm.

May hiking: a windy weekend

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At the beginning of May, I went for a 5-day hiking trip. This one was relatively easy when it comes to the terrain but I like to see new places whether they’re high or low.

After sleeping through the first four or so hours of the bus trip, I woke up when we were passing through rolling low hills and woods, and it was right away visible that it’s going to be a windy day – or several days. This wasn’t that bad at the lower portions, but ascending the first hill meant we’d get quite a taste. Especially as we climbed the lookout tower, where standing at the spot against gusts of wind was quite a challenge. The view was decent, though.

Leaving the hill, we could see the fluffy clouds flying at quite a high speed. We took a few turns around the hillside to reach a pond below it.

Then, we continued for a while through the woods until they gave way to fields. There, again, we were a bit more exposed to the wind but, away from the peak, it was refreshing rather than annoying. The trail led me around quite a large set of pastures with probably the largest horse farm I’ve seen so far with maybe two hundred animals across several fenced-off sections of those grassy plains.

The final destination for that day was a town that hosts a museum of curiosities. The location itself, in a tower, is already a curiosity as the displays are spread over 6 floors with relatively small rooms. Models of almost anything made out of almost any material were often the spotlight, such as a chateau made out of chocolate…

…wooden, life-sized motorcycle model…

…or Battleship Bismarck made out of coins.

Given the cramped space, taking photos was challenging.

The second day was a bit looser with the planning, given that the start and end were at the hotel, which meant a bit more freedom in when to start. I, preferring early starts, set out shortly after breakfast. The trail led around a large reservoir first.

Once I reached the far end, it took me away from it to a town with a chateau that was left to the ravages of time for a long time, but a new owner started to renovate at least some portions with the plan to open it to public tours.

The front side was already in a decent state, but the (probably older) backside was still thoroughly ruined.

Leaving the village led me across the exposed landscape, with the wind being my company. Some of the fields had potatoes planted while others were still being prepared, and I was glad that the wind blew the smell of… fertilizer… away from me. Eventually, I reached woods that were noticeably damaged by the wind, and then it took me towards a valley to get on the other side.

Unfortunately, some genius decided to put on fences to protect the planted tree saplings with no regard for the trail, so I had to improvise in quite a tricky terrain, made even trickier by the fact I expected an easy walk and set off just in sandals.

This tricky part of the trail was, fortunately, very short, and I was soon back above the shallow valley, with the fields to either side and the wind blowing across the landscape, causing the trees to sway noticeably.

The third day was to be a bit lighter hike. We were dropped off in a nearby town which had some museums and landmarks, but my main goal was the castle ruins above the town. On the way there, I passed some solitary rock formations.

I reached the ruin some 20 minutes before the opening time, so I was glad to have my Kindle with me and took the time to read for a while.

The ruin itself was, in the courtyard area, a bit messy – obviously, some repairs are going on there. The interesting part was the tower – to preserve the state in which the ruin was stabilized but also show the full shape, the missing parts were filled in by metal grates.

Shortly after leaving the ruin, a light rain shower arrived. This one was, fortunately, quite short, so I finished my loop around the town. I then visited one small museum dedicated to an old movie. A good part of our group had a tour of the brewery scheduled at 16:00 with an expected duration of two hours, so the departure was set at 18:15. I had over four hours to that point, so I decided to walk to the hotel, which I expected to take a bit short of three hours.

A moment after I left the town, the rain returned. Again, relatively weak, but much more persistent this time. The trail soon descended to follow a river, which meant not just the rain, but also damp grass, and I soon ended up with soaked pants. At least my rainproof jacket kept me dry in the upper half. I adjusted my pace to keep myself warm but not too fast to risk slipping (given that I knew there was a chance of rain, I took boots instead of sandals) but it wasn’t the best weather for enjoying the scenery.

The fourth day was, fortunately, free of rain. The trail for that day was, for the most part, following a river valley and connected with the trail I took the day before a short distance before reaching the reserve pictured above.

After the previous day, it was a bit damp, but nothing that would bear trouble. It was a bit sparse on sights, unfortunately.

Here and there, some exposed rocks jutted from the sides of the valley, at some points, chalets were built through the valley, which made me wonder whether those people don’t fear floods at all.

And, because everything seems to be happening a month earlier than usual this year, I also noticed a couple of “broom bushes” already in bloom.

The fifth day was a shorter hike to give us enough time to get home. We were dropped off near a set of abandoned and flooded quarries, which are a landscape that has its own charm, but most of them had the surroundings quite overgrown already, so there wasn’t an opportunity to take photos that would let me play with reflections a bit. A better view was near the ponds below the town.

The village itself was once a fort around a castle, and in one place, there’s a visible hint where the gate once stood.

From a small hill opposing the village, the view of the castle was quite good. The castle was abandoned long before that, but a series of lightning strikes in the early 1900s or so led to the collapse of the main tower and the roof of the guest hall being destroyed in a fire, giving it the current appearance with only the last corner of the tower still standing.

The courtyard itself is in a decent state, as is the newer portion of the castle. Inside, several panels mention methods used over time to keep at least some warmth in the castles, from wooden siding and woolen tapestries to the first uses of actual heating systems.

So, that’s my five-day trip from early May. It was another part of my country that I haven’t seen yet. I’ve been seeing more places during the month, but those will get their separate post later. In the meantime, I hope the spring is treating you well.