The South Carolina and Steve Donley Incident.....

Ok i know it took me forever but as promised here is the post on our short road trip from NC to SC. Ill keep this short as theres a ton of photos. We went to NC to visit my brother and his wife for thanksgiving, while there my brother was gracious enough to let us borrow his car so we could travel to SC. As luck would have it my good friend Steve had just recently come back from living in Romania and was living in NC not to far from my brother. Steve had lived in SC for a while and knows a bunch of people down there and he was willing to be our tour guide and found some friends that graciously put us up for the night. I always love seeing Steve as he and i have the same weird sense of humor, so were always laughing at something. The drive was a little over 3 hours and it was beautiful! We unfortunately missed the peak of the fall colors but there were still some patches here and there so that was a treat. We got to listen to some tunes, talk and just relax on the way down. Once there we drove around a ton, we only had about a day so landscape photos just werent going to happen this time around. It was fun to have Steve show us around, Jen wanted to see the Atlantic sooooooo that were we headed 1st.......






Jen leaves her mark on the sands of the Atlantic












I have a whole sequence of Steve doing this monkey walk......if i get some time ill do an animation of it cus its hilarious




Sweet beach houses!!


After checking out the Atlantic we decided that we needed food. Steve proceeded to take us to this place called Poes Tavern. The whole decor of this place is based around the great poet Edgar Allen Poe, i didnt really have a lot of expectations for the food. I mean really how much better can their burgers be right?! How good was it? Lets just say that Gods Holy Spirit descended upon my burger in the form of a dove.........eating it was a spiritual experience.


Jens burger


Steves burger


My burger..........destruction soon ensued


The aftermath!


Jen got a small sample of sweet tea....


she liked it. I think its gross.....but when in rome.


Steve enjoying his tasty meal.


This was the bathroom....yes i take my camera everywhere! It was really cool, the walls are lined floor to ceiling with pages of Mr. Poe's poems.


After dinner, we drove around some more enjoying the scenery. Ill tell you now, SC is absolutely beautiful! Cool looking swamp areas, bunch of little islands connected by some sweet bridges and Charleston!! Its so much to take in, we went to downtown Charleston that night to walk around and get some dessert. Downtown Charleston was so cool!! There were some parts of it that was like going back in time, im a big history buff so seeing all these historical places were the civil war took place was awesome. Narrow brick ally's cobblestone roads, incredible old houses that were like going back in time gas street lamps........it was truly incredible. So after walking around in the cold for a while we went to get dessert and it was mmmmmmmm delicious.




The inside of that little dessert and coffee shop.


MMMMMMMM Fattening


Jens girlie drink......way to sweet for me.


Mine on the other hand was bitter and had booze in it........it was sooo good!


After that we were tired and called it a night.The next day we didnt have a lot of time as there was a storm heading in and i didnt really want to drive in the dark and in the rain. So we headed out, picked up one of steves friends and got some lunch at a sweet Thai food place in downtown Charleston. After nlunch and dropping of Steve's friend We headed for a place called Angel Oak. I didnt know what to expect, i knew from talking to Steve that it was a big tree. I thought.....ok big tree lets go check it out. OH MAN!!! This thing was MASSIVE!! Its 1500 year old Oak that words just cannot describe and my pictures do it very little justice. It was a lot of fun to be there and shoot......











Steve is a big guy, very few things dwarf him.........we finally found one.


After this we made a quick stop to the photography studio that Steve worked at before moving to Romania. After that we hit the road and i had to drive in a torrential downpour and in the dark. I will say this though, after driving through a South Carolina rain storm the heaviest Southern California storm is like child's play. Well, thats it i could write much more but who wants to read it. I would like to extend a huge thanks to my brother Daniel for the use of his vehicle, to Steve for showing us around and finding us a place to sleep for free and to Steve's freinds for putting us up for the night. Our visit was awesome! Cant wait to go back.

North Carolina Raptor Center...

The day after Thanksgiving Danny, Marci, Jen and myself all went to visit the North Carolina Raptor Center. I really enjoyed this place because i LOVE birds of prey. The center is dedicated to rescuing injured raptors and nursing them to health so that they can be released into the wild. They also take time to educate people about these amazing birds, about their habits, the areas that they inhabit, and what they can do to save them. The birds that are at the center are all birds that for one reason or another had injuries that they could not fully recover from and therefor cannot be released into the wild. While it was somewhat heartbreaking seeing these incredible creatures injured and caged it was fascinating to see them up close. We also got a real great treat while we were there. They had a raptor show in their little auditorium, the show consisted of all owls but while they were preparing there was one of the volunteers there with a hawk. She was answering questions from the audience and before she left she asked if we wanted her to feed the hawk. It was unanimous that we all wanted to see the hawk eat something, it was pretty gruesome to see this hawk literally tear its food apart but i could watch it all day long.........jen on the other hand didnt enjoy it all that much. The owl show was awesome because these guys were so much fun to watch, they have such fun personalities and do the funniest things sometimes, it was really entertaining. Most of the birds i had to photograph through a fence which was a little difficult but i still managed to get some stuff i was happy with. After that we went to a place called the Whitewater Center, its an olympic training facility and they have a TON of activities there which include whitewater rafting , kayaking, mountain biking, zip lines, rock climbing and others that i cant remember. We walk some of the trails and went down to the river to catch the sunset, i only shot a few photos there, some of which i am still working on but i will post more when i get them done. Like i said before one of my favorite things from this excursion was watching that hawk being fed, so we will start with that.........ENJOY!!