We’re Back!… Mountain Trip

After another inexcusable break, we’re back with another post!  We’re really going to try to keep this more consistent.

Two weeks ago we took a trip with Sarah’s parents to mountains, specifically the area where Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina meet.  Sarah’s dad John and I both enjoy photography and there isn’t a better time of the year to take pictures in this area of the country.

Sarah’s parents came up Friday night to our house so that we could get an early start on Saturday morning.  Come Saturday morning, we loaded up our stuff and hit the road…. first stop Whitewater falls.

After a quick stop at Whitewater falls, we drove a few more miles up the road to see Rainbow Falls, Turtleback Falls and Drift Falls.  All 3 falls were on a single trail, which we were told was about 1.5 miles long.  This didn’t sound too bad but what the park ranger failed to tell us was that we would have to cross a creek along the way that was a few feet deep.

Here’s Sarah crossing the creek on the way.

Despite having to wade through cold water a couple of times, the hike was great and all 3 falls were definitley worth visiting.

When we got to rainbow falls, there was a clearing where you could see the falls, but the water was so strong because of the recent rain that walking by it was like walking through a rain storm.

When we got to the top of Rainbow Falls, the view was pretty spectacular, here’s a panoramic of it.  (This tiny version doesn’t really do it justice, if you have a widescreen monitor you should really click on it.)

On the way back through our creek crossing I decided to be a good husband and played horse.

I don’t think we could’ve taken our trip at a better time, the leaves were absolutely at their peak.

After our hike, we grabbed a bite to eat in Toxaway and headed through Cashiers towards Highlands, NC to take the drive along Highway 64.  The great thing about this stretch of highway is that you can see a number of waterfalls in a short period of time without venturing far from the car.

Here’s a shot at Dry Falls…

There are 3 “real” stops along Hwy 64… Bridal Falls, Dry Falls and Cullasaja Falls.  I think the best part though is just parking on one of the pull over areas and exploring the rapids.

This shot was right along Hwy 64 and is probably my favorite picture I took the whole trip.

Our last stop on Hwy 64 was to see Cullasaja falls.

After a busy day of hiking a checking out the falls, we headed back to Clayton, GA where we stayed for the night.

When we got up in the morning, we had some time to kill before meeting up with Sarah’s Uncle Randy so we drove around Clayton.

We drove up into Black Rock State Park and between the morning sun and the fog that was rolling in the valleys, it was a great photo opp.

After we drove through Black Rock park… we headed up to Sky Valley where Sarah’s Aunt and Uncle have a house.  Sky Valley is the northernmost city in the state of Georgia and probably the highest city.

Randy had planned a few hikes for us, the first stop was to Angel Falls.

Randy had recently gotten a new lens for his camera so we chatted photography for a while.  After the first hike, Randy and Patty hosted a picnic for us.

The next stop was Minnehaha falls which is right near Lake Burton.

Our last stop of the day before heading back home was to Mud Creek Falls,  probably my favorite waterfall, which is only a mile or so from Randy and Patty’s place.

This is the second time we’ve done this trip with Sarah’s parents, and it continues to be one of my favorite events of the fall.

I’ll leave you with this picture… on the way home we passed a store called “Goats on the Roof”, they really have goats on the roof.

Journey and Flooding

This past weekend Sarah and I celebrated the 4 year anniversary of our first date by going to see Journey.   The concert was incredible, but with a few interesting highlights.  At one point after Night Ranger had played and we were waiting for Journey to come on, the woman behind Sarah grabbed her ponytail and said something to the effect of “you’re a baby” with glossy eyes while her 10 and 12 year old sons watched in confusion next to her.  Shortly after Journey started playing we noticed she had called it a night and went to sleep in her chair.  Another interesting exhibit at the concert was an overweight man in the aisle who came to the concert by himself with cuffed jorts, a red polo and a sweet gold chain.  He put on as good of a show as the bands on stage… he danced to every song and I think I saw him dancing between songs as well.

I was having a really hard time taking photos with my point and shoot, but this turned out okay.  This was the intro to “Open Arms”…

I thought I might break out some video for this post so here’s a little clip of Journey playing “Don’t Stop Believing”… sorry for the fuzziness, again… my little point and shoot couldn’t seem to focus.

Don’t Stop Believing

Journey was the highlight of what was supposed to be a busy weekend.  For those that aren’t in Atlanta and don’t follow the news, we’ve been getting pounded with torrential rains.  Tennis and my date with the back deck had to be postponed.

I went outside briefly last night to let Brooks go to the bathroom and I heard the rushing of what sounded like a massive white-water river.   I couldn’t see anything but confirmed today that infact a river had formed behind our house.  My next door neighbor has video of it when it was much much higher than it was this afternoon when I took the video below.  I think this is normally dry or perhaps a tiny stream…

Flooding

Short Delay: Photographic Difficulties

We’ve really been slacking here on the blog, but I’d like to take this opportunity to throw out a mildly pathetic excuse to help justify the tardiness.  In the efforts of trying to keep the quality of our content up to par I’ve decided to not create any posts without pictures.  So while there are probably 5-10 cameras in the McElroy household, my favorite lens has taken a trip to the lens surgeon because I had a little fight with him while trying to get a filter off and the DSLR has mostly stayed packed up.  Not to worry though, UPS has notified me that the lens in question will be returning home on Wednesday.

Since our last post, I’ve taken on the large task of washing and staining our deck and fence.  I wish we had pictures from this weekend, because in the process of trying to figure out how to use an airless sprayer I managed to cover… repeat cover… myself in stain.  I looked like I had just slayed a brown monster.  I successfully finished the fence though and so next weekend is the deck, blog post to follow.

The other update is that my next door neighbor has lured me back into tennis.  I finally restrung my rackets (searched online and can’t figure out if it’s racquet or racket) that haven’t been restrung in 8 or 9 years and replaced the grips.  When I was at the store getting the grips replaced, the guy that worked there was just laughing at me as he slowly pulled off the mumified grip… it literally was crumbling as he pulled on it.  So anyways, I’ll probably be playing my first match this coming Saturday which should be interesting to say the least.  Stay tuned, I’m sure this should be the source for some interesting posts from Sarah’s perspective.

In the efforts of keeping my promise on posts with pictures I have included a few pictures I took with a non-favorite lens the other weekend.  I’ve gotten some new lighting equipment and so I took some time to play…

Honeymoon Part IV: Paris

Day 11 – Getting to Paris

Our last stop on the honeymoon was to spend a night in Paris… not to be confused with the Emmy award winning film.  We had the choice of an 8 hour layover or a 20 hour layover in Paris, so we opted to spend the night and check out the city.

We sort of got lost when we hopped off the metro and ended up getting screwed by a taxi who charged us 10 euros to drive us 3 blocks, but oh well.  When we checked into our room it was pretty cool, much more modern that the hotels we stayed at in Italy.

After we got settled the first thing we did was grab a cab and head to the Eiffel Tower…

After the Eiffel Tower we headed back towards the Louvre and walked around.  I would’ve loved to have gone in, but by this point is was probably 6 o’clock and we wouldn’t have been able to see anything if they even let us in.

We then swung by the Notre Dame de Paris where I was hoping to see the Hunchback posted in one of the archways, but then Sarah explained to me that it was a fictional movie…

After that we walked around some more… overall I thought Paris was a really beautiful city, far cleaner than Rome.  I tried to remember some of the French I learned in middle school, but with little avail.  I found that while French people were not as rude as I would’ve expected, they definitely don’t know as much English as the Italians do.  We were pretty ready be back home by this point in the trip but overall Paris was a worthwhile stop.

That night we discovered a hidden gem within the hotel room.  When I turned on the shower I noticed that the head lit up green, then after a few minutes it turned blue, then purple then red when it was hot.  INCREDIBLE!  Ha, it’s amazing how such little things can get us so excited but I’m definitely considering one of these at home… not sure our decor is modern enough though.

Day 12 – Going Home

The next morning we boarded our plane home, and while I wish vacations never came to an end, we were ready to get back to our animals and sleep in our own bed.  We had a great trip that we will always remember.

Honeymoon Part III: Capri

This is a bit overdue… I’ve been slacking, but in my defense I had to scan a bunch of negatives to pull this one together…

Day 8 – Getting to Capri

At this point in the trip, even though we had really enjoyed touring around, we were looking forward to posting up by the pool and just being.  So we got up as early as we could bring ourselves to and hopped on the train to Naples.  Upon getting to Naples I decided it would be best to get to the harbor via bus since I had heard horror stories of the taxi drivers in Naples… this may not have been the best idea because when we got off the bus we had to trek a few hundred yards across streets with our luggage.

Once on the island we grabbed a taxi, which were these crazy half limo/half convertible cars, and took the long and windy trek up to our hotel.  I wish I had a picture of it, but these roads are literally carved out of the side of the cliff and probably not more than 10 feet wide.

We got to the top of the island and found our hotel–not sure if you can see it on this picture but our hotel is at the very top of the cliff…

When we walked into the hotel I was immediately floored… this was hands down the most amazing place I had ever been.   We couldn’t check in yet but threw on our suits and grabbed some chairs by the pool.

The pool was a two level infinity pool overlooking the ocean… incredible.

All we did the rest of the day was relax and hang out by the pool, enjoying the incredible view.

That night we did ourselves up real nice and headed down the restaurant at the hotel to grab some dinner.

Day 9 – Exploring the Island

As amazing as our hotel was we knew that we needed to get out and explore the island.  We spent the morning by the pool but then in the afternoon we headed to Faro Beach.   Its not a typical beach in that there isn’t any sand, but they’ve built rock platforms leading down to the water that you can sprawl out on, we stuck to snorkeling.

After a few hours at Faro Beach it was getting close to 6pm, which was the time we heard is best to head to the Blue Grotto.  Normally there are tiny boats that you pay 10 euros a person to be paddled in on, but if you go after 6 when the boats are gone you can swim.

Unfortunately all I had was a cheap waterproof disposable camera, but you can kind of get the idea from this picture, it was really cool…

The opening is really just a tiny hole in the side of the island that you have to navigate through as waves come in, however if you go under water you can see that there is a much larger opening below…

After swimming around the grotto for a bit we headed back to the hotel and I caught a few pictures of the sunset from our balcony.

We had dinner again at the hotel, but Sarah thought it was too “froofy” so she made me promise that we would go somewhere else the last night.

Day 10 – Big Seas, Tiny Boat

So one of the things that I really wanted to do before we left Capri was to rent a boat and explore around the island.  There are number of other grotto’s that you can only reach by boat and so it seemed like a great idea.   It was, minus one failed observation, there were probably 3-5 foot seas and we rented a 10 foot boat.  I should add that Sarah gets sea sick pretty easily.  So needless to say our little “excursion” wasn’t as much fun as I thought it would be, Sarah was hunched over and I was struggling to navigate the 10 foot boat with what seemed like a 10hp engine.

After we finally got back on shore, Sarah needed a nap to recover and since she doesn’t like heights I decided to grab a quick ride on the chair lift at the top of Anacapri.

Anacapri from above…

When I got up to the top, the view was pretty incredible.

I got back to the hotel and was pleased to find that Sarah was feeling better so we relaxed for a while and then grabbed dinner at a restaurant in Anacapri.

Day 11 – Leaving Capri

We didn’t want our visit to Capri to end, we debated on just not coming back but then realized that probably wouldn’t be a good idea.  As we waited for the car to pick us up for the ferry we took a few last pictures on the island.

We took the ferry back to Naples where I reluctantly grabbed a cab for the Airport (fortunately I only had a little over 20 euros on me and told him that prior) and then caught our flight to Paris.

Last stop Paris…

Our Wedding Pictures Are Done!

As a quick update our wedding pictures are finally up!

Here is the link… or you can get to them via www.sarahandmatt2009.com.

Lake Weekend

This is a quick interlude before we continue the honeymoon posts…

This weekend we decided it would be fun to get a few couples together and host this summers first official lake weekend.   The Brandonburgs, Harrells (with their Boxer, Patton), Malones (with their lab, Jack) and MK’s sister Elizabeth and her boyfriend Cole all joined in for the fun.

We arrived on Saturday evening after making a brief pit stop at the grocery store for supplies.  As we were waiting for the rest of our guests to arrive I decided to bring it back old school on the trampoline.  Several of the cooler action shots displaying my kung foo like skills could sadly not be posted because I forgot its not lady like to jump on a trampoline in a dress–thereby inadvertently displaying your lady parts.

Here you can observe our children waiting patiently for their pre-dinner snack.

The next morning we were up bright and early to start boating, skiing, wake boarding, and tubing.   After breakfast we all head down to the dock sans Steve and Brian.  They had left earlier that morning to drop the jet ski in the water–and still almost an hour later were not back.  After waiting several minutes we finally saw them making the long descent from the lake house to the water–and they did not have pleased looks on their faces.  Apparently they were unable to start the jet ski and while Steve was in the midst of trying to use his mechanic like skills–a huge water moccasin decided to have a little Harrell for breakfast.  However Brian was there to save the day–and in a Chuck Norris like fashion he threw a large  ‘rock’ to try and slay the evil water serpent.  Much to their dismay the snake overcame the attack and decided it was Brian he was after– stealthily it curled itself into Brian’s 4Runners wheel and waited.  At this point both Steve and Brian decided to give up on the jet ski and head back to the lake–but not before spinning the tires and flinging the snake to a safe distance.

Here is Brian enjoying a nice beverage to calm his nerves. Note the strap on koozie.

After several failed attempts to try to wake board we decided to give skiing a try. Katie got up on the first try.

As did I–but not without a look of determination…

and shear fear of crashing onto my face.

Steve was way to cool for two skis–inside he decided to slalom.  Which was quite difficult considering there were nine people weighing down the boat.

Later in the day after MK’s wakeboarding blisters had healed she tried her hand at skiing.

Matt was a showoff–what’s new.

We decided to head back to the house for lunch–and Steve being the determined person he is decided to try and fix the jet ski.

He recruited workers.  I was in the kitchen and noticed that most of the other guys were missing, only to walk outside and see Steve soaking in sweat, head burried in the Jet Ski, with TJ watching as though he managing the repair effort.   Cole later joine, and the 3 of them sat around the Jetski for the better part of an hour, touching various things under the seat and saying stuff like “Hey whats this?  Think we should tighten it?”  It was clear that they weren’t getting anywhere with it.

After one more failed launch attempt with that blasted jet ski–we headed back out to the lake and boated for the rest of the day.

Matt found a big rock for us to jump off of.  Here is Brian displaying his cat like skills.  I should note that everyone jumped off the rock except for Steve and Sarah, Steve because he was making sure the boat didn’t crash into the rocks, Sarah because she was scared.

The weekend was a lot of fun–minus the jet ski (don’t  mention it to Steve).  We can’t wait to do it again.  Hopefully there will we do lots more boating by the end of the summer.

Honeymoon Part II: Rome

Day 5 – Getting into Rome

We got to Rome at about 9pm and had to trek through the train station with our enormous bags to find the taxi line.  Upon getting to the taxi line I noticed an Italian man that seemed awfully friendly walking towards me.  I generally am turned off by people in a foreign country who are over eager to help me, I’m fairly certain his true motive was not to “help” me.  He asked if we needed a cab ride and the first thing I could think to tell him was that we were waiting for friends.  After he wandered off to “help” someone else I quickly hailed a cab and hopped in.  Sarah told me as we drove away that the “helpful” Italian was staring me down. And by staring Matt means yelling obscenities under his breath–when he watched us enter a cab alone.

We got to the hotel, which was right at the top of the Spanish steps, found our way to a little restaurant for some food and then hit the hay.  In the southern part of our great nation you never experience eating the way you do in Italy–especially Rome.  It seems that all of the restaurants are crammed into teeny-tiny streets–’alleys’–and that your table along with twenty other tables are competing with vespas, motor scooters, and giant delivery trucks for road privileges.  End result:  Food garnished with a light hint of car exhaust.

Day 6 – Ancient Rome

We got up the next day and the first thing we did was head to the Colosseum.  It was probably in the upper 90s and when we got there the line was wrapped around the place, fantastic!  We waited for about an hour and half and finally got in.   One of my favorite things about being in other countries is seeing things that were built hundreds and hundreds of years ago… this place was awesome.

It’s really amazing walking around the Colosseum and trying to imagine it as it was nearly 2000 years ago; makes me want to watch Gladiator again.

After we toured the Colosseum we walked right across the street to the Palatine and the Roman Forum.  Again, it was incredible to look at what was left of 200o year old structures and try to imagine it as it was in its day.

Here’s an aerial view of the Roman Forum

After a full day of walking around “Old Rome” in the sweltering heat for hours–developing an amazing tan we headed back to the hotel to cool down and relax.   That night we walked around the city a little bit but took it pretty easy.

Day 7 – Pantheon and the Vatican

We started the morning off at the Pantheon.  I knew the name of the building well but honestly didn’t know much about it or why it was so famous.  Upon walking into this building I quickly figured it out.  Here was a building that had been around for 2000 years and was still in amazing condition.

After the Pantheon we hopped in a cab and headed to the Vatican.

St. Peter’s Basilica is huge and every inch of it is covered in art with meticulous detail…

Then we walked through the Vatican museum and the Sistine Chapel…

The Sistine Chapel was impressive but much smaller than I imagined it to be.  I wondered as we walked through the Vatican museum why Michelangelo is so famous but yet the hundreds of other artists who painted other frescos aren’t.

On our way back to the hotel we swung by Piazza Navona.

Overall Rome was our least favorite city on the trip.  Don’t get me wrong, it was amazing to see all the historic sites that we did but outside of that it was hot, crowded and we felt like we always had to watch our backs.

After 2 hot days of site-seeing we hit the hay to get some rest for our early morning train ride to Capri.

Next post… Capri.

Honeymoon Part I: Florence

We’re back!… unfortunately.    We had a great trip and while it’s nice to get back to the comforts of our own home, I don’t know anyone who is ready for a vacation to end.  I know this might be surprising, but I actually took a couple of photos on the trip and since we were gone for 12 days it’ll be less overwhelming to write separate posts about each city we went to.   I’m making Sarah collaborate on these posts, anything she writes is in italics.

Day 1 – The Luggage Incident

Unfortunately we had to make 2 stops on the way to Florence, first in Washington DC and then in Paris.  As is typical these days, our flight out of Atlanta was delayed by a little over an hour which was a huge problem since we only had an hour and a half layover in DC.  We landed in DC and literally ran to the next gate which was probably a half-mile away, Sarah loves running by the way.  Word of advice–don’t try to run in an airport wearing tiny slivers of what can only be described as “fashionable” sandals because your shin muscles will separate themselves from your shin bone–and stay that way for the remainder of your trip. We got to the gate with about 10 minutes to spare only to see an enormous line… the flight was delayed, sweet!  As we boarded the plane I asked the attendant if she thought our bags would make it on the flight and she said they already stopped loading luggage… crap!

Since we are big money ballers and all we got great seats in the economy section of the ’sky bus’ right in the  middle row!  Seriously, this was the highlight of the trip–however did I end up so lucky?!  So shortly after consuming two different types of motion sickness medications I was ready for take off.  What I wasn’t ready for was my two feet of leg room turning into 1/2 a foot of leg room when a very large man–whom I named Harry as in Harry Potter ( a 300 pound version)–reclined his seat fully back right as the flight gained the proper amount of altitude.  And for the remaining eight hours it stayed that way.  Needless to say with the lack of leg room and Matt’s arms jerking about in his coma like sleep– I was awake for the entire delightful plane ride…YAY!

Day 2 – Frustration

We got to Paris, which by the way is probably the most unorganized large airport I’ve ever been to, we had a “scenic” walk to our next gate… walking through a parking lot and then waiting for a bus.  I went to check to see if they knew which flight our luggage ended up on.  The woman surprised me by saying that the bags would be on our last leg to Florence… this seemed odd but for whatever reason I bought it.

Halfway to Florence the captain gets on the intercom and says that it’s too windy to land in Florence and so we’ll have to divert to Bologna and then take an hour and a half bus trip to the Florence airport… I never have airline troubles and it yet everything was going wrong on the honeymoon.

We waited at the Bologna airport for an hour and half for the luggage to come out and sure enough as everyone else’s luggage appears… ours isn’t there.  We take the hour and half bus ride to Florence, talk to the lost and found folks there and they inform us that our bags just landed in Bologna on the flight right after ours…. fantastic!  They assured us they aren’t lost but that we’ll have to wait at least until the following morning to get them and they will be delivered to our hotel.

There’s really nothing left for us to do and we (really just Sarah) had been up now for about 36 hours  so we took a taxi to the hotel,  grabbed some dinner and decided just to hit the hay and hope our bags arrive in the morning.

I was less than thrilled about the fact that we had no bags–because no bags doesn’t only mean no makeup, toothbrush, clothing, etc.–but no clean underwear.   The lovely folks at delta were kind enough to provide us with teeny tiny toiletries and an XXL delta shirt–but no undies.   So I proceeded to spend the first night on my honeymoon washing and drying my one pair in the bathroom sink…SCORE! (Burg’s, if you’re reading this… there wasn’t a coffee maker in the room)

Day 3 – Let The Honeymoon Begin!

The next morning we slept in hoping to hear a knock on the door with our luggage but by about 10 we hadn’t heard anything and decided we should at least go walk around for an hour or two…  I’m sure we looked pretty stellar in the clothes we had been wearing for about 48 hours now.  After a few hours of walking around we headed back to the hotel, again hoping to be greeted by our bags… nope.

At this point it was probably 2 and I was getting really upset by the whole thing and decided to hop and a bus and head back to the Florence airport.  Sure enough when I got there they had the bags… thanks for delivering them.

I got back to the hotel with our bags, and you’d have thought I just brought Sarah 10 kittens… finally the honeymoon could begin.

After a shower and change of clothes we began to explore…  we checked out the Duomo, saw the Statue of David and had some Florentine steak.

We were much happier by this point…

A view of the Ponte Vecchio from the River Arno…

Day 4 – I Can Make Pasta Like No One’s Business

We got up and walked around the city some more and I made Sarah take the long trek up to Piazzale Michelangelo where we took the next two photos, the view was incredible…

To give you an idea of how far we walked, our hotel is across the river on the left side where the last buildings meet the trees…

That evening we had a cooking class in the city and learned how to make some typical Tuscan pasta dishes.  We made fettuccine, ravioli and bowtie pastas with different sauces.  We were taught by a local woman who also teaches language classes and used to be a lawyer until she realized it was too “serious”.   Sarah was in charge of making the pesto sauce, which was really good.  At one point I mentioned to our teacher that I love to put pesto on fish (which is excellent by the way)… she looked at me like I was nut, ha.

Here I am rolling the pasta… I’ve got to get one of these machines, it was awesome…

One of my ravioli creations…

One of Sarah’s bowties…

Day 5 – Tour of Tuscany

Our last day in Florence we got up early to be greeted in the lobby by Carlotta, our private tour guide for the day.  We left Florence and drove through the Tuscan country side which is absolutely beautiful.  Our first stop was this small fortified town called Monteriggioni.

This was a small chapel in the city…

We left Monterigionni and headed to Greve, a small Tuscan town where Giovanni da Verrazzano was born (he found New York Bay… and was later eaten by cannibals).  The drive through Tuscany is just as you can imagine, with vineyards everywhere.

I took this shot as we were driving around…

After a quick stop in Greve we headed to our wine tour at Verrazzano’s family vineyard called Castello de Verrazzano.

This was the view from the vineyard…

Our guide took us around the cellars and told us about the history of the vineyard, they make a number of wines (Chianti Classico, Super Tuscans, etc).

These are vintage bottles that they’ve held onto, our guide informed us that while some people have this idea that aged wines are better… after about 5 years the taste diminishes quickly.

They also make balsamic vinegar, although I learned that true balsamic vinegar can only come from Modena, Italy.

After the tour we had a 3-course Tuscan meal paired with various wines and balsamic that they make, I bought a few bottles to bring home.

After the wine tour, we headed to our last stop… San Gimignano.  Which I couldn’t pronounce correctly the first 300 times I tried, but I think I’ve got it now.  Sam Gimignano is a medieval town that is also surrounded by 2 fortified walls.  The story is that in the middle ages, wealthy families would build towers on their homes as a status symbol.  Over the years most of the towers fell, but 14 of them are still standing.

The entire city is made of stone and is so perfect looking that it seems like it’s out of a movie.  We grabbed some gelato and walked around.

View from the city wall…

We had a great last day in the Tuscan region and after we got back from our tour we hopped on a train to head to Rome.

Next post… Rome.

Italy or Bust!

Sarah and I have waited a month now for our honeymoon since she was wrapping up a semester of grad school, but today we head to Italy!

We’ll post about our trip when we get back but I thought I would show off the quickly improving yard… aka “my child”… I guess.  It’s not 100% yet but it is quickly recovering from the 5 tons of topdressing material I laid.