Hao's Travel Photo Journal

Our New Born

2008-01-31T08:24:00.000-08:00

Our baby girl Rhee-Chen Liu (Rhee pronounced as "Ray") said hello to this world on 6:48pm Jan 28 Monday. She weighted 7lb 7oz, and was 22 inches long. The mom and the baby came home yesterday safe and sound. The little thing quickly adjusted to home, started to eat a lot, and sleep a lot.

A great night

2006-12-27T19:14:00.000-08:00

I had several drinks with Sgt. Jarkman, a old folk from "A Gaming Bortherhood". Jarkman (David) is working with Ritz-Carlton in Tyson's corner. We never met, but we had a great time together, like we were a long time friend.

After we came out of the restaurant and said goodbye to each other, I came to my car at the top fo the parking lot. The winter is mild, but night's breeze is cool and refreshing. I looked out to the lights and noises of Tyson's corner-the lights of Ritz Carton hotel and Pricewaterhouse, and the lights of our firm Deloitte & Touche, which is shadowed by the PWC building now. The traffic and headlights of I-495 emitts a rythem like the one of an ocean, a heartbeat, a source of life. It's when I was looking at this ocean of lights and rythem, I remembered somethings that was deep in my memory, something that I had dreamed at very young. It was a picture can not be depicted by a still picture, or a plain song, or a cinametic piece. It's a world that your are a part of-not as an audience, but part of-and dreamed of. It's a picture of life, a picture of success, and picture of a human went through the labor and bitterness, and see through to the hope. It's the picture of tomorrow.

Star clouds from outer space?

2006-06-04T05:31:00.001-07:00

No. It's the bubbles of boiling water. :)

My Patio Garden

2006-06-04T05:31:00.000-07:00

My War against Squirrel!
Squirrels had devastated my little patio garden in the spring. They smelled out the fresh soil in my garden from half a mile away, and digged out most of my lily bulbs the next day I planted them. They found lily bulbs tasted like sh*t and then littered the broken bulbs all over the patio. I was outraged to see the aftermath and declared war against squirrels!

In the above pictures you see the anti-squirrel measures I took. First I installed a motion detector, then I spread tremedous amount of fox urine powders (the white stuff on the floor) on the pation and in the pots. That do not work! Urban squirrels never saw a fox, nor did they fear noises from the motion detector. Again don't waste money on those fox or wolf urine powders, the squirrels don't have "natural fear" of them. I then ordered a piece of barbed wires from California and tied them to the rail where squirrels came in. Is it working? I am afraid the effect is limited as squirrels are too tiny for anti-personnel barbed wires.

I had seriously considered electric fence, but I am living on the third floor of the apartment. When it's raining, there's a risk my neighbors downstairs got electrified!

The small plant in the middle has very special growing system. It thrusts bold branch up first, and leaves grow out of a tiny flower-bulb like thing at the elbow of the branch.

A tomato is turning color on my tomato plant. More baby fruits are growing.

The comparison shows the benefit of sun for full-sun type plants. I placed a penny to make the sizes comparable. The plant on the right actually started out early than the one on the left. However, the plant on the right was shadowed by low growing ivy and grew quite slow, and was soon passed by the plant on the left that enjoyed full sun.

Key West Trip

2006-04-30T20:07:00.000-07:00

April 23, 2006, Sunday 6am
Dulles Airport, Northern Virginia

We rode the first morning flight out of Dulles Airport. When you go away traveling and break away from daily work routine, the first few hours are one of the most exciting experiences of the whole trip - the cool morning air, the dark but brightening sky, the orange lights and busy trolleys of the airport, and the anxiety of the plane plowing into the end of the runway (I believe humans are meant to stay on the earth otherwise they should be born with chicken wings)

After the plane reached almost 40,000 feet (13,000 m), we are allowed to use electronics so I fired up my camera. The sun rised in the mid air, and we start to see some fabulous clouds when we were over South Carolina. This photo is the cumulus-type clouds just 2,000 feet (700 m) above the sea level. The highlighted place was the ocean surface reflecting the morning sun. From where we were, the gap between the cloud and the sea surface seemed diminished and unremarkable.

This photo is the cumulonimbus-type clouds that accumulated to very high altitudes.

April 23, 2006, Sunday 2pm
Miami Beach, FL

Our detour to West Palm Beach wasn't impressive. The rich people's properties along the beach were nice, but hey we don't live there. Then we head back down south and stopped by Miami Beach. Miami Beach is so crowded that the sand is saturated with tourists' dried sweat. They were doing speedboat racing just 500 feet off the beach as you see in this picture. TV station's helicopters were chasing the loud boats with camcorders, and made the whole area even more boiling noisy. I was very happy when we got back in the car and moved south again.

April 24, 2006, Monday 6am
Hawk's Cay Resort, Marathon, FL

This is the resort call Hawk's Cay Resort ( http://www.hawkscay.com/) where we stayed. The location is in the middle of island chains; 2.5 hours from Miami, and 1.5 hours from Key West. In 1950's a Canadian mining millionare bought the duck key island, and built the resort on it which became the Hawk Cay Resort. The picture above is the sunrise at the Lagoon which is the natural sea water swimming pool.
Before we go, we had read on the web how expensive the resort's restaurants are. However, we found out the restaurants were not any expensive than other restaurants on the keys. On the contrary, the food quality at the resort restaurant was very impressive. The breakfast buffet is fresh and has a lot of assortment(love the oat meal, egg benedict, and on-demand omelet). And we eat quite often at the resort's italian and the carribean style restaurants too.

The Resort has a dolphin pool. You can play with the dolphins if you can dish out $400 for half an hour.

Me back from a Kayaking trip at the resort's marina.

April 24, 2006, Monday 12pm
Broadway Walk, Key West, FL

A tarpon fish at the harbor. When we were walking on Broadway Walk at Key West, we were surprised by number of giant fishes in the water just under the sidewalk. I estimated the fish's length is almost my height. They carelessly swam in and out of the shadows of the boats and the sidewalk. Later a bit internet research I found out Tarpon is one of the great saltwater game fish. In Florida, a special fishing permit is required to catch the fish and you can only keep one at a time.

Key West harbor. You can see a small fish in the close water. It wasn't swimming, maybe either drunk or got too much sun.

April 26, 2006, Wednesday 10am
Dry Tortugas National Park, Key West, FL

The skipper (aka the capitain) of the "Fast Cat"( http://www.sunnydayskeywest.com/fastcat.htm), the catamaran (the type of boat with twin floaters) that ferried us to Dry Tortugas National Park ( http://www.nps.gov/drto/). Dry Tortugas is a must-go place of Key West. It's located 70 miles west of Key West, so you can get there by either boats or seaplanes. It was an island discovered by Spanish about 500 years ago, and named after the huge number of sea turtles found around the island. Tortugas in spanish means "turtle". Before and during the Civil War in 1860's, American build Fort Jefferson on the island, and once had 3,000 soldiers stationed in this tiny place. The fortress was abandoned after the war, and eventually became a national park.

The sea plane at Dry Tortugas(http://www.seaplanesofkeywest.com/). The plane ticket costs about 50% more than the boat, but it worth it as you can save 2 hours in the trip, and see the ocean from above.

At the snorkeling area of Dry Tortugas National Park. The first natural white sand beaches I had been too. There are some white sand beaches on the keys, but they are all man-made with coral stones taken from some offshore coral islands, and are mostly rough and uncomfortable. Dry Tortugas white sand are corals that had been grinded and polished by the sea into powder. It felt so nice walking on it.

Emerald water seen from the top of the fortress. One of the scene I will never forget in my life.

Outlook from the Fort Jefferson

Snorkeling pictures! A Queen Angelfish at some pink corals.
I used a disposable underwater camera, so the picture quality was not so good. Yes I mean the real fish is 10 times prettier than what you see in the picture!

The Beauty and The Beast. The same Queen Angelfish with a puffer fish.

Some small coral fishes.

The water was super

A boat parked nearby the bird sanctuary

Fly fishes we spotted on the way back

April 26, 2006, Wednesday 6:30pm
Mallory Square, Key West, FL

Mallory Square of Key West is where people watch and celebrate the sunset. There are quite a number of chickens walked around the place, probably local restaurants' resource for fresh chicken soup?

Sunset at Mallory Square

A juggler among one of dozen other performers and several thousand of tourists.

April 27, 2006, Thursday 2pm
Vizcaya Garden Museum, Miami, FL

A Sentry statue. She looks great! :P

Vizcaya (http://www.vizcayamuseum.org/) was built by agricultural industrialist James Deering, who wintered on the property from 1916–1925. Today, the extraordinary European-inspired estate includes a Main House filled with art and furnishings, ten acres of gardens on Biscayne Bay.

At the water front of the museum

Outlooking the mason from the water front

The garden

A girl chatting with her photographer, one of the six groups that were taking artistic pictures in the garden during the hour. They were all soon-to-be-married hi-spanish girls. It seems they have the same custom as Chinese that the bride capture the last halo of her single life before she takes someone's hand and heads into the kitchen. :P The picture below is another group.

April 2006-Cherry Blossom

2006-04-03T19:10:00.000-07:00

Cherry trees don't grow very high, but the bark of the tree shows its age. The 2006 festival marks the 94th celebration of the original gift of the 3,000 cherry trees from the city of Tokyo to the people of Washington, DC in 1912.

April 2nd weekend is the peak weekend of the cherry blossom. Cherry trees that line up the bank of the Tidal Basin lake attracted millions of tourists from near and far each year. Washington Monument is further out from the lake.

Blooming cherry trees and fresh greens backdropped by Thomas Jefferson Memorial

March 2006-Baltimore Aquarium

2006-04-03T19:09:00.000-07:00

One of the few photos that worked! I had taken tons of photos inside the National Maritime Aquarium, just as I did at Virginia Maritime Science Museum in 2004, and few that worked! The problem was I didn't want to sacrifice the photo quality with a film speed below 400, but I didn't have the opportunity to use tripod in the dark indoor either. Most photos were ruined by either shaking hands or moving objects, in this case the fast swimming fishes.

During the dolphin show, a dolphin was identifying the children's hand signals that was taught by the instructor (the guy in the blue/black diving suit). Bottle-nose dolphins' average lifespan is 20 years, but the two dolphins there were 33 years old and 26 years old respectively. And the 33 years old one had a baby last year in the pool, as shown in the video. Poor baby dolphin, the first and only thing he knew about the world is a pond that he can swim across in 2 seconds, instead of the endless ocean!

March 2006-Baltimore Inner Harbor

2006-04-03T19:08:00.000-07:00

The day before National Aquarium, Yu's parents and us visited Baltimore on a cool but sunny day. The photo was taken on Federal Hill that overlooks the Inner Harbor, where in the war of 1812, Americans beat back British attackers. We were leaning on the cannon with conqueror's smile.

There must be several thousand people on the Inner Harbor water front. A juggler put up a show at the water front. Those jugglers, including the one I saw at Maryland Renaissance festival, were excellent artists, not for their juggling, but for their reckless effort to "recruit" audience and ability to keep their attentions all the way through the show, last but not the least, to make them laugh. The guy "borrowed" a young boy to collect money for him. The dollar bills quickly filled up the firefighter's helmet the boy was holding. I was interesting to watch the subtle "push and pull" after the show between the boy's father and the juggler. The juggler was ecstasy about the income and tried to hand a few dollars to the boy, but the father apparently didn't want the boy to get acquainted with money at that early age.

February 2006-Washington DC

2006-04-03T19:07:00.000-07:00

The lamps at the gate of US Environmental Protection Agent in Washington DC. The golden leaf ornaments and the cap worked splendidly with the base black paint.

At the foot of awesome Washington Monument. The monument can be considered the pin of politics that marked the national capital.
http://www.nps.gov/wamo/

February 2006-Last Snow before Spring

2006-04-03T19:06:00.000-07:00

A few days before Yu's parents returned to China, we had a 6-inch snow in the Washington DC area in February. We took the picture outside our apartment. Too bad the snow was in the weekend, otherwise we don't need to go to work. Hehe.

December 2005-NYC Trip with Yu's Parents

2006-04-03T19:05:00.000-07:00

The following pictures taken in the trip of NYC, the must-see city of America for foreign visitors. Of course we gave the tour to Yu's parents. We arrived NYC after Christmas, and left before New Year when local hotel price started to skyrocket.

Vivid statues and colorful flags at Rockefeller Center

The paronoma view of Downtown Manhattan from south

UN Security Council Chamber. The chamber is usually closed for meetings to visitors throughout the year. We were lucky that there was no meeting going on when we visit. I felt privileged to sit in the room where the most significant matters of the world was motioned, discussed, and voted. For war and peace. For Life and Death.

November 2005-Fall Colors

2006-04-03T19:04:00.001-07:00

A sign of amateur photographers is to like taking pictures of their own feet. Here we go - here are my wife's and mine in the fall leaves.

We didn't go to the mountains for the fall color this fall, but the leaves at a nearby side street were equally splendid.

We made an excursion to the Burke Lake park. Several gooses leisurely looked for their snacks in the shallow water, while the color of fall burned fiercely over the silent water.

September 2005-House Plant

2006-04-03T19:04:00.000-07:00

The hanging plant in our apartment bathed in the morning light. It has grown a lot since I bought it a year ago.

July 2005-Summer Flower

2006-04-03T19:03:00.000-07:00

The full bloom of red Impatiens on our porch throughout the summer. Everyday they lighted up the moments when I left home for work, or arrive home from work.

William & Mary

2006-04-03T19:02:00.000-07:00

May 2005

Looking out from inside the Wren building towards Duke of Gloucester street, Colonial Williamsburg, VA. The Wren building is the hallmark of the College of William and Mary.

NorthEastern Trip with My Parents

2006-04-03T18:58:00.001-07:00

May 2005

The first sight of NYC at Penn Station.

Knight's armor at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC(http://www.metmuseum.org/).

Spring flowers at South Harbor, NYC.

A mystic stone engravement on Wall Street

Insiders and Outsiders.
Several NYSE traders taking a lunch break on the steps of Federal Hall across the street of NYSE. On the top of those steps on April 30, 1789, George Washington took his oath of office as the first President of the United States.

With my parents at the where-first-timer-in-US-must-see-lady-who-came-from-France.

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

A boat named "Eventide" bathed in the sunset at Hyannis Harbor, Massachusetts. "Eventide" means evening, the latter part of the day (the period of decreasing daylight from late afternoon until nightfall).

A church on the campus of Havard University, Boston, MA

The rocky shores of Maine.
Even in May, it's still chilly in Maine. On the way to Portland, Ogunquit is a sweet tiny town where you can rest your horse and pick fresh lobsters.

Udvar-Hazy Air Space Center

2006-04-03T18:58:00.000-07:00

May 2005

Inside the flight-hangar style Udvar air space museum of Smithsonian (http://www.nasm.si.edu/museum/udvarhazy/) at Chantily, VA. I brought both my parents and Yu's parents there during their stay.

Washington DC

2006-04-03T18:56:00.000-07:00

April 2005

A war memorial on the independence Avenue in spring.

My dad and me's image in the inferior red camera, probably in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. Different colors represent the difference temperatures on the body surface. This is also what saw by many wild animals that have inferior red sensors.

Another piece of wood was gone

2006-04-03T18:55:00.000-07:00

April 2005

During the first few days of my parents arrival, I took them to the old apartment we used to live in Fairfax. Across the street, what used to be in the picture before 2005, was half an acre of tall trees.
They are gone, amid the new development of already over-devleloped Fairfax county, and amid the housing boom that started at economic recession and spread to a dozen metropolitan areas of US. Any place in Fairfax county that has wood is being cut down to build houses, primarily condos. Condos that has few buyers when they are completed because the housing market is going down. About time. As I am writing this, it's the May 2006. No one doubts about the reality of housing downturn any more.

A wild flower by the steps near the apartment

2006-04-03T18:50:00.000-07:00

April 2005

Random photos on my way to work

2006-04-03T18:48:00.000-07:00

October 2004

I worked at Springfield, VA for two years, and one day I decided to bring the camera with me to work. The first photo was taken at the intersection of Fair Lakes parkway and Fairfax County parkway (route 7100). The second one was on Fairfax county parkway. This is my daily commute.

Digital SLR: Nikon D70 vs. Canon EOS 300D

2004-10-27T14:27:00.000-07:00

DPreview (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond70/) talked enough about it, the good and the bad, but how does it affect a poor guy that spent over $1500 and wanted to justify the worth?

D70 beats EOS 300D in almost every category, EXCEPT ONE. EOS has ISO 100, D70 doesn’t.

Amateurs don’t carry their most expensive cameras everyday. When they did, they mostly took still pictures – landscapes, portraits, and close-ups. Unlike Ansel Adams who spent the whole life in mountains pursuing a unique angle, amateurs don’t have time for angles. All they got was the image quality. Then what’s making the different? The ISO sensitivity.

The first time I use ISO 100, the depth of color and the levels of light stunned me. It was at Natural Bridge of Blue Ridge Mountain in September 2001. I shot from inside the shadow of Natural Bridge directly at the sun. The print gave me clear-contoured sunray outlined by the dark dome of Natural Bridge. If I used an ISO 200 or higher film, the direct sunlight would have blown out the highlights. Confining the highlights is the most important virtue of still pictures, especially landscape pictures. Professional landscape photographers like Peter Watson (see book “Light In The Landscape: A Photographer's Year” by Peter Watson) frequently use low sensitivity films like ISO 50 and Graduated ND filter to keep highlights in bay. Another example was the winning picture of San Diego Union-Tribune, May 12th 2002, by professional photographer Ken Rockwell (http://www.kenrockwell.com/hawaii.htm). The article claimed “The camera has nothing to do with it”. Yeah right. If he used an ISO 400, the golden walls with tremendous detail would have been all blown out.

Low ISO is capable of high exposure, thus gives more room to maneuver the shutter speed. Because D70 can only go as low as ISO 200, I only managed a 1/3 second maximum shutter speed in shooting the waterfall in the “Hiking in Shenandoah” post(http://familyjournalofharryliuhao.blogspot.com/). If I have ISO 100 or 50, I could get a 1 second or even 2 seconds, and the water fall would be even smoother. Peter Watson even used a 20-second shutter in a waterfall shot.

So why I still bought D70 while cursing so bad of it? If EOS 300D had ISO 50 too, my choice would have been Canon, but it doesn’t. The closest product that offers ISO 50 was over $4000, way over my budget. There’s always trade-off too. CMOS sensor gives 300D an edge in lower ISO, but is less consistent in higher ISO. At higher ISO, 300D’s CMOS generated more and conspicuous blotch than D70’s CCD sensor.

I do have reasons to stuck with the D70. Shooting aerobatics with a D70 is ecstasy. The instant power-on, twice the speed in continuous shooting mode than 300D, and consistent image quality in high ISO put D70 second to none. With the finger on the snap, the shutter went off like a .50 caliber machine gun. What a joy! The one more level of ISO sensitivity gives 300D some edge, but not that much in general after all.

Kodak just pushed the ISO limit to ISO 6 with KODAK PROFESSIONAL DCS Pro at $3000 range, but I am not in hurry, nor am I rich. If I get rich enough this life, I will go for a low ISO camera with carbon tripod – just for still pictures.

Chesterfield Airshow

2004-10-26T18:44:00.000-07:00

Oct 23, 2004 Saturday 1300 hour
Chesterfield Airfield, Richmond, VA

When we about 4 miles away from the airfield, a group of T-28 propeller planes emerged over the tree line and banked. The weather couldn’t be better. It’d been raining, cold, and overcast all week, but today it’s sunshine, breeze, and sky dotted by piles of white clouds. A perfect day for the air show.

We met Kirk (aka Flycutter), his wife Laura, and their two daughters by the Blackhawk. I had known Kirk from AGB since June 2003, but this was the first time we met in person. I arranged a “piss-up” dinner for guys in VA/MD area in September, but mistaken the place myself and missed the chance to met a few other AGB gangs. *Sigh*, long story.

Kirk Family

The Blackhawk was still in full service, and just flew here from nearby military base, but you can climb into the driver seat or the cargo seat and do whatever you want. Kids were going nuts with the joystick, control panel, and sliding window, but no guards came to interfere. For a few minutes three Blackhawk crew walked up. They just stood by the Blackhawk, chatting and watched the aerobatics, so relax like it wasn’t their helicopter. I persuaded Yu to take a picture with Blackhawk:

PBY, B-25, and Corsairs flew several pass after T-28s. On April 18, 1942, sixteen B-25 airborne from USS Hornet for the famous Dolittle’s Tokyo Raid. Sixteen of those giants packed nose to ass on the flight deck of Hornet was quite a view, and a navy instructor was sent to teach army bomber pilots how to take off using the short flight deck. Laura loved the rolling thunder of the B-25, and said it’s the best part of airshow for her.

B-25 taxi out

Iron Eagles and Patty Wagstaff were the highlights of the aerobatics, intermitted by a cosmetic “flying farmer”. The slick sport planes packed over 300 horsepowers, and were the “Porsche” of airplanes, said Kirk. Kirk is taking flight lessons, and gave me some tips for a “discovery flight”. Patty (http://www.pattywagstaff.com/) was a renowned aerobatic pilot and an attractive woman (even more so in the limited number of female pilots). I wonder how does it feel being “pwned” by a female l33t pilot like her in Battlefield.

close crossing by Iron Eagles

Patty Wagstaff

Airshow crowd

The aerobatics ended around 3:30, and then we walked around taking some photos. Kirk and I got signed photo from Howard Baugh, A member of an elite and historical fraternity -- the Tuskegee Airmen, America's first African-American military airmen.(http://www.martinsvillebulletin.com/Archive/2004/March)

When we left, the sun set to the west, leaving T-28s, like a line of silent warriors, pondering their glorious past.

Hiking in Shenandoah

2004-10-11T18:33:00.000-07:00

We went to Shenandoah National Park on Oct 9th, Saturday. It's still early for fall colors.

The golden time for the Skyline Drive (another name for Shenandoah National Park) is between Oct 10th and 20th, with the 13th to 15th the perfect when the color is the most saturated but not decayed yet. On the 20th the color would fade and the leaves fall off too much . On the 9th when we went, it's still too much green. In the early stage, turning leaf was like the brewing; the longer it takes, the bright and saturated the color would become.

But the weather was better for hiking than for siteseeing in early October. We went for the Overall Run trail at the waypoint 22 with several bottles of water and the camera.

Blue Ridges of the Skyline Drive

The trail was 6-mile round trip ending at a waterfull.

Yu and me over the waterfall

Overall Run Water Fall

September Vacation

2004-10-03T19:18:00.000-07:00

My wife and I made a 5-day trip in our vacation in early September. I was inspired by Villy's photo journal in Europe and thought I could make one like that using blogger. Here's some photos to share with you.

September 7th, 1600 hour.
When we checked in the hotel it was pouring hard, but 10 minutes later the rain was gone. The Tazewell hotel we stayed was only 3 blocks from Nauticus Marine Museum so we went for a stroll. When we turned around a corner on the Waterside Drive, holy #$%^, the gigantic bow of the monster battleship filled the sky.

It is huge. The biggest battleship of US Navy in WWII, the Iowa-class USS Wisconsin (BB-64), once the Killer Whale of Pacific, now laid peacefully on her starboard alongside with Nauticus Maritime Museum in Norfolk, Virginia. Her sister ship USS Missouri (BB-63) where Japanese unconditionally surrendered in 1945 laid 4,800 miles away in Pearl Harbor, big guns silent, as another attraction.

Here is another view from the starboard side of the gigantic bow. It dwarfed the 11-floor building on the other side of the harbor.

All Hands on Deck! I was standing at Wisconsin's 16-inch gun turrets, the battleship's main battery. You can see the size of the projectile in the picture below. The six white cylinders on the right were the gun powders used to fire one projectile.

Here is a picture from the port side of the battleship. The two "tiny" turrets on the side were 6-inch guns, which were the main battery for US Navy destroyers in WWII. On the super structure, you can see fire control radars.

USS Wisconsin's last service trip was 1990-1991 Gulf War, where she participated in 5 battles and sunk nine Iraq ships. For more information about the ship, the following website is very helpful:

http://www.nauticus.org/wisconsin.html

September 8th, 1000 hour.

We stopped at Virginia Aquarium on the way to Outer Banks, NC. My wife Yu was not interested in anything but Sharks! Yes they got some Sandbar sharks and Sand Tiger sharks. The aquarium staff fed the sharks every Tuesday and Thursday, so the sharks were not too hungry to eat those fat fishes in the same water tank.

This is Yu as a 2-second scuba diver. :D

That was a artificial pond in the Aquarium. When I got enough money, I will build a pond like that in my back yard, and sit by the pond in the weekends, and ... drink beer?

September 8th, 1500 hour.
After passing Kitty Hawk where Wright brothers made the first flight in the chilly December of 1903, we drove further south, crossed a bridge and reached the north tip of the Hatteras Island of Outer Banks. If I remember correctly, the two photos below were taken at northern tip of the island, where lays the most beautiful dunes of over 100-mile long islands.

September 9th, 0610 hour.
After raining all night, the weather on next day's morning was a bless for watching sunrise. Sky above was crystal clear with a few clouds sliding over horizon. The 10 minutes "window" before the first sun ray was the most precious time for photo. The sea was padding the shore with rhythm. The eastern horizon touched the night sky with a spectrum of mysterious light red.

September 9th, 0610 hour.
The sun had risen. The sky was on fire.

A sea bird was doing her morning stroll.

Two hours later, heavy clouds invaded from southwest, but the sun was still glorious above it.

September 10th, 0600 hour.
We arrived Williamsburg, VA. It still felt emotional when I walked inside the old school building where I sweat for two years. And it felt like home again.

Governor's Palace

Colonial Williamsburg

Colonial Williamsburg

Colonial Williamsburg

September 11th.
We were wet all day in Water Country USA. No photos.

Over.