Good Morning, Ms. E’Squared. Your Mission …

Saturday, 12 May

Isn’t that how the famous line from the Mission:Impossible TV series started out?  Of course, the mission was directed at Mr. Phelps and he was given the choice to accept or not.  Well, I had a mission today, and I accepted the challenge.  Am I satisfied with the results?  Eeehhh!  Let’s just say that I need plenty more practice.

Anyway, we had a great day today, even if it is ending on a bit of a sour note.  Why?  Because we’re holed up inside the Phaeton where the double-paned windows at least mute the noise generated by 10+ young boys camped in the site next to ours.  You can imagine the cacophony, can’t you?  All talking at the same time; each speaking louder than the other to get himself heard.  This has been going on for several hours now and there’s no hope of the noise dying down until quiet hours begin at 10:00p.

There is a group camping area in another part of this park.  According to the camp host, they did have reservations for sites down there.  Why they are here?  Why they were allowed to change those reservations for this campground, which is mostly for individual/family camping?  Why the chaperones put all of the boys in the site next to us and then dispersed themselves to three other sites?  We asked the questions, but didn’t get a straight answer from the camp host.  One thing’s for sure, should we return to Shenandoah River State Park (SRSP) for post-retirement camping, it will be during the off season or during the week.

Onto more pleasant things.

The map to the right shows the drive we took today.  Just so I could accomplish my mission.  You see, I bought a new lens not long ago and I need to figure out before the end of the month if I am keeping it or not.  The 300mm prime lens takes tack-sharp pictures — in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing.  Unfortunately, I am not one of those people.  I was happy enough with the practice shots I took with the camera sitting on the tripod, but I anticipate having to hand-hold this lens most of the time for wildlife photography.  So, that was the mission — take hand-held pictures of some four-legged critters (birds to be practiced on later).  Well that, and also figure out whether I can even lug the lens around for a couple of hours at a time.

With that in mind, we headed to Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park where I was guaranteed to find some white-tailed deer.  Yeah right; they must have heard I was coming and went into hiding!  Anyway, it was still quite cool — only about 50F (11C) — when we entered the park around 9:00a, and it just got cooler as we drove the 51 miles (82 km) to Big Meadows.  Fleece jackets were the uniform of the morning.

When there’s no wildlife to photograph, you make do with other subjects.

Unfazed by the lack of wildlife, I donned my cotton carrier vest and we set out on a walk around the meadow to at least decide if the lens was going to be too heavy to carry around for any length of time.  You might recall seeing me wearing this vest in some photos I’ve posted in the blog.  It’s THE BEST THING I’VE DONE FOR MYSELF when it comes to my photography hobby; worth every penny I paid for it!  In no time at all, I knew carrying the 5.17 pound (2.35 kg) lens was not going to be a problem.  Around my neck or on my shoulder, I would have been unable to carry the lens for long, but using the vest — no problem at all.

images of the cotton carrier (from a different photo shoot).
Top left: vest with optional holster for second camera.
bottom left: angled camera hub to attach the camera to the vest or the holster.
middle: camera hooked up to the receptacle on the vest.
right: all geared up with two cameras; the fanny pack is for extra memory cards/batteries.

Then the lens gods smiled on me.  Just as we were heading back to the car sans deer photographs, I noticed movement in a thicket of trees in middle of the meadow.  Looking through the viewfinder confirmed that it was a small herd of deer — two does and three bucks.  Alrighty then.  Following the deer trails through the grass, we slowly approached them and I went to work clicking the shutter, making adjustments to my ISO and other settings, and clicking the shutter some more.  The deer turned out to be willing subjects.  They were more interested in grazing than the woman wandering around with a big lens in her hands, and I kept a respectful distance so as not to spook them.

The lens has a very shallow depth of field, which is great; but it’s going to take a lot of practice before I get the hang of using it just right.  The photos from this afternoon are a little ‘soft’; something else I need to work on improving.  At the moment, I am leaning towards keeping the lens, but a few more outings won’t go amiss in the coming weeks.  I’d already started working out with hand weights to build up my upper body strength; now I have even more reason to do so.  Of course, if I go out on frequent photo shoots and just heft this lens for a couple of hours each time, I won’t need the hand weights :-)

Mission accomplished, we left Shenandoah National Park through a gate further down on Skyline Drive.  It made our drive back longer, but we were able to make better time with higher speeds once we exited the park.  Finding a picnic table along the way, we stopped to enjoy an al fresco lunch before returning to the campground to enjoy a quiet afternoon.  Which we did — until the kids showed up around 4:00p.  At least they took off for a swim in the river and we were able to take advantage of an hour or so of quiet time to dine in our screen shelter before taking refuge in the Phaeton.

Tomorrow, we hope to go for a walk we kludged together from the trails running through SRSP; it will be a nice way to wrap up our stay.  No, the lens will not be going with us this time!

Fauna, Flora, and Water

Monday, 16 April

After relaxing at home on Sunday (post here), we woke up to a warmer day that allowed us to eat breakfast on the deck.  Yay!  Though we were tempted to laze about again, we decided to take an exploratory drive into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, specifically the Cades Cove area.

We’re just two of the millions of people that will be visiting the park this year.
With a  visitor count of 8-10 million, the GSMNP is the most visited national park in the US.

The drive from the Townsend Entrance to Cades Cove is 9 miles (14 km) of two-way, single lane traffic.  At this time of the year, we’re finding that vehicles are few and far between — except in the 11-mile (18) Cades Cove Loop.

The 20 mph (32 km/h) speed limit on the loop — 35 mph [56 km/h] elsewhere — and the curvy single lane road forces even those visitors who would like to whiz through the park to slow down and take it easy.  And if there is a wildlife traffic jam, then all bets are off — you’re not going to get anywhere fast.

But to really enjoy the park, one must stop and get out of the car.  There’s plenty of entertainment along the way — gurgling creeks and rivers; rapids and waterfalls; colorful wild flowers; birds, and bees, and butterflies; deer, elk, wild turkey, and everyone’s favorite — the American black bear.  Add to that the many, many hiking trails and you’re not lacking for things to see and do.

So, slow down we did.  In fact, we made so many stops and spent so much time at each spot that we only had time to see a few of the historic buildings on the Cades Cove Loop.  I’m going to leave the heritage sites for a separate post after we’ve completed exploring all of them, and focus on everything else that made up our day.

Here’s our story in pictures …

Just inside the Townsend entrance to the park, we make our first stop.

these waterfalls are easily viewed from the road; But that wasn’t good enough for us.
Scrambling over the rocks, we found this perfect spot to view the falls.

A short trail just before the tunnel gives us our first glimpse of wild flowers.
top:  Creeping Phlox; Bottom: daisy Fleabane.
[do correct me if I am wrong on any of the flower identifications.]

I was especially intrigued with this flower, which I believe is a Foamflower.

A close encounter with a millipede (aka thousand-legged worm) provides ample entertainment.

a White-tailed deer encounter during our short walk to the John Oliver Place.

Here’s your chance to see the very rare two-headed white-tailed deer (top left).
Just kidding, but the positioning of the two deer couldn’t have been more perfect.
the trio featured here were right next to the path and weren’t fazed in the least
by visitors walking to the john Oliver place.

Left: On the trail from the John Oliver Place to the parking lot.
Right: Mui with his trophy ‘ginormous millipede kill’ — that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

The lens needed to capture the wide open expanses has yet to be invented.
this is just a tiny portion of the meadow near the john oliver place.

We were alerted to this American black bear sow by a number of cars parked in
every possible spot along the road.  This bear was in a densely wooded area with lots
of branches and shrubs in the way.  She could have cared less about our presence …

… even though she had a yearling cub (top right) foraging a short distance from where she was ‘pretend-napping’.  The photos I managed to get may not be great, but they’re good enough.
After all, unlike some of the other visitors we witnessed approaching closer than was wise,
I had no desire to test mum’s patience and become bear bait.

You can see wild turkeys just about anywhere in the park.  This one  was one of two
that happened to be  foraging in the wooded area behind the cemetery at the Primitive
Baptist Church, another heritage site on the Cades Cove Loop.

Our second ‘close encounter’ with a black bear was after we exited the Cades Cove Loop.
Foraging for berries in a wooded patch below the road, this young adult was more
cooperative  in terms of providing us with a good photo op.

The ranger on crowd control duty at this bear jam told us that the national
Park service estimates the GSMNP black bear population to be around 1,500.

And on that note, we decided to call it an early day and return home to enjoy our campsite.  Comfy chairs placed near the railing behind the coach, we sat down to read, and in my case, process photos.  I didn’t make any headway :-) … hence the teaser post ;-)

I hope it was worth the wait.