It all started back on March 10^th when I received an email from my now teammate Shannon.  At the time, I was working in Sweden and she asked me if I was interested in discussing joining the Furies out of Skydive Chicago.  I kindly turned the offer down due to the amount of traveling it would be to Chicago.  I just didn’t think I could do it.

Two weeks later while at a photography workshop in Arkansas, Chad was discussing the possibility of being a videographer for another team.  I started thinking about the Furies again.  I emailed Shannon and she said that they still needed a fourth.  I talked to Chad and he said he would support me 100% if I wanted to do it.  After that, everything seem to be set, I started traveling to Chicago.  I ended up making about 10 trips to Chicago for training which totaled about 140 jumps and we had 3 tunnel camps at Paraclete XP in Fayetteville, NC.

I have been competing since 2001, but winning 4-way advanced at Nationals has been my goal since 2006 when I was on Carolina Ice team out of Skydive Carolina in Chester, SC.  Being on the Furies this year gave me another great chance at reaching my goal.  I even told the team early on in the season that I truly believed we could do it.

After each training weekend, you could actually see that we had improved.  Sometimes it’s difficult for teams to see improvements, but it was definitely evident for us.  We had two regional competitions to prepare us for Nationals.  At our first meet, we averaged 13.7 points for 10 rounds and at the second meet we averaged 14.7 for 10 rounds.

Nationals this year was held at Skydive Spaceland in Houston, TX.  Texas being my home state, I was very much excited.  My parents were also able to join me at Nationals.  This was their first year to see Nationals and how big the event really is.  I was so glad they were able to come!

Friday:

We arrived in Houston on Friday evening around 6:30PM.  We weren’t supposed to arrive until 7PM, but we were lucky and caught an earlier flight out of Greensboro.  It’s always a concern whether or not our bags will be there especially this trip since we checked all of our skydiving equipment, but when we got to baggage claim, our bags were already on the carousel.  What a relief!

We then picked up the rental car (mini van) and headed for the hotel.  Our hotel (Springhill Suites Marriott) was a great place to stay.  I would say out of all the Nationals I have been too, it was by far the nicest hotel.  Plus all the cool teams were staying there.  It’s like a family reunion at every Nationals, because you get to see friends/jumpers that you haven’t seen in a while.  After checking into the hotel, Chad and I decided to have a nice dinner at Johnny Carino’s Italian restaurant.

Saturday:

Saturday morning at 9:30AM, we met up with the rest of the team downstairs in the lobby.  Chad finally got to meet the team!  I had been talking to Chad about my teammates all season, but only now did he get to meet them in person.  My teammates are from all over the country.  Shannon (tail) and Charles (video) are from Michigan.   Anabel (outside) is from California and Karyn (point) is the only one from the Chicago area.  Also, I need to mention our coach Brian who is also from California.  Brian was with us every step of the way.  Thank you Brian for all your guidance and support.

The forecast for the Houston area was not looking very good for the day and for the next several days, so we were all starting to wonder how the competition would play out.  Typically the 4-way event is completed in 2 days, but 4 days are planned if weather is a factor.

We were planning to go out to the DZ to make a couple of practice jumps, but since the weather was bad, we decided to hang out at the hotel until around 2PM.  We kept ourselves entertained by walking the dives in the room, watching an Airspeed video, then making a quick trip to Panera for lunch.  Special thanks to Kevin for going to get us a cable so that we could watch the airspeed video on the big TV screen instead of our small laptop.

Then at 2PM, we headed out to the DZ to get registered and to try to make a practice jump.

The weather remained awful, so no practice jump, but we did have a good dinner at Olive Garden!

Sunday:

For Sunday, the weather didn’t cooperate either for practice jumps.  We spent most of the day at the hotel again until around 4:30 when we went to the DZ for the briefing and the draw.  Chad had already gone to get my parents at Hobby Airport.  I couldn’t wait to see them.  The briefing started at 6PM and my parents arrived just in time!  I was thrilled to see them!  Once we got the draw, we walked the first 7 rounds, creeped the first round and then headed back to the hotel to have pizza and a good night’s rest.

Monday – First Day of Competition:

The day finally came…the first day of competition!  I have been waiting for this all year.  Chad and I woke up at 5:50AM to check the USPA Nationals website for an update.  The DZ told us the night before that there could be a weather hold.  Sure enough, we were on hold until 10:30AM.  Again later at 9:30AM, there was another weather hold until 2:30PM.  Brian actually made a comment comparing this Nationals to 1999 Nationals held in Florida during a hurricane.  To pass the time, we walked all 10 rounds, and then we would walk the first dive once every hour to keep it fresh in our minds.

By 1:30PM, there were no more updates on the website, so we traveled back to the DZ.  With the weather still crappy, we didn’t think we would be making any jumps.  At 6PM, we decided to load up the car because we were expecting the meet director to call it for the day.  However, with no more than minutes after loading the car, they put us on a 20 minute call.  We couldn’t believe it!! There were still a lot of clouds and we didn’t think we would actually go.  We got ready though; we creeped our dive and walked it again at the mockup.

Right before getting on the plane, all of a sudden, we had clear blue skies.  We now just hoped that we would jump before sunset!  We were going to be first out of the plane. 

We did our normal routine to get ready in the plane.  On jump run, Charles did something I was not expecting which was very nice.  The plane was wet from all the rain and he dried off the floor next to the door and the bar so that none of us would slip on exit.  It was really great and something that I will remember.

The dive for round 1 was 3 blocks and we smoked it!  We should have actually got a 12 on round 1, but there is some kind of limitation with the new scoring system that doesn’t allow the last freeze frame to be judged.  We did have 12 points though and not 11!  Oh well, as long as we knew the scoring system was the same for everyone, we were ok.  After round 1, we were in 1^st place!  What a great day…

Tuesday – Second Day of Competition:

We woke up again at 5:50AM to check for a weather hold, but nothing was listed.  So, we got ready and left the hotel by 6:30AM.

Throughout the day, there were several weather holds.  It was very hot and the day seemed incredibly long.  We all were tired.  I even fell a sleep for a short while in the hangar.  We only got 3 rounds in and we didn’t perform at our best.  I (and I believe the rest of the team) expected better scores.  I think we didn’t perform well because we were tired and we were thinking too much about our competition/other teams.  At the end of the day, we were 4 points behind and in 3^rd place.  The entire team was extremely frustrated and it was known by everyone.

A team meeting was called at 8:30PM to discuss the situation.  Brian had each one of us tell what we thought went wrong.  Then we made a plan for the next day.

1) We decided to stay out of the heat.  The DZ had an air-conditioning room, so we choose to hang out there between each rounds.

2) We said we were going to have FUN and not worry about other teams and our standings.

3) Focus more on us and what we know we can do!

Wednesday – Third and Final Day of Competition:

We left the Hotel a bit earlier at 6:15PM.  Based on the weather forecast, it looked like we were finally going to have a good day of jumping.

When we arrived, we went straight for the air-conditioned room to drop off all of our gear.  I could tell immediately that our attitude was different.  Thanks to Charles, the theme song for the day was “All I Wanna Do Is Have Some Fun” by Cheryl Crow which was perfect for the day.

For our first jump which was round 5, we posted an excellent score of 14.  Round 6 was even better!  It was an all random skydive and we were hoping for a great score.  We received a score of 23 which was the highest score for the round out of all the advanced teams. 

It put us in 2^nd place, two points behind the lead team.   We also learned that for just a short time for Round 6 (16 minutes to be exact based on my friend Brenda’s calculation) we held the World Record for the most points in 4-way by an all-female team.  Spaceland Blue, a female team out of the open class, took it away when they posted a score of 26.

We were all looking forward to doing round 7.  It flowed really nice and we knew we could do a good job.  We got a score of 14 which put us in 1^st place ahead of everyone by one point!  I need to mention too that the score was originally a 13 until Kevin, our packer, found a mistake in the scoring system.  Our round was somehow scored twice, but the 14 was the correct score.  The chief judge (Judy) reviewed everything and fixed the problem.  Thank you Kevin for looking out for us!  One last thing about this round, I somehow hit my arm on the back of the plane on exit.  At the time, I didn’t think it was that bad, but later I found out that it was going to be a terrible bruise! 🙂

For round 8, we scored 12 points which was the high score for the round and put us in 1^st place leading by 3 points going into the last round!!  I actually didn’t know at the time that we were ahead by 3 points.  I only knew we were in 1^st place and we just needed to hold onto our lead, but then we all found out what round 9 was going to be.  It was a slot switcher for everyone and very difficult for me to get in my head and remember.  We decided to take the round slow and make sure we had no busts.  We did just that, we had a great round and kept our three point lead going into the final round.

Preparing for round 10 was a little different for us because we didn’t have our coach there at first.  Our coach was an alternate for another team and he had to go fill in for them.   We knew, however, if we could just keep it together and have a good dive, everything would be ok.  That is exactly how it worked out!  We had a good round 10 and won 1^st place in the advanced class!

It is really incredible how we turned things around on the last day of the competition…coming from behind by 4 points.  What a sweet victory for us all!  This is something I have been wanting for a long time.  I have now reached my long awaited goal of winning 1^st place in 4-way advanced!!!  So, what’s next?

Rhonda

P.S.  Check out all of Chad’s great pictures below in the gallery!!

Friday:

When we arrived in Bismarck, both Cindy and Cris were there waiting for us.  It was great to see Cindy again and to meet Cindy’s sister Cris for the first time.  We got our luggage and then we were off to see a little bit of Bismarck.  This was my first time to SW North Dakota, so I was excited about the trip.  Cindy drove us around town and down by the river.  Next Cindy took us to a local restaurant called “The Walrus” for a late lunch.  It was a nice bar and grill.  We sat near the window and I noticed a bunch of what looked like white cotton/feathers flying around outside.  I was curious what they were, but didn’t ask.  I learned later that they were seeds for the cotton wood trees that were everywhere in the area.

We then went to Cindy’s home and got settled in.  First thing Chad and I noticed was Cindy’s beautiful garden in her back yard.  It was absolutely amazing.  Chad said there was nothing in her backyard last time he was there.  Cindy told us she had been working on her garden for over a year and it looked great.

For dinner, we went to a very nice restaurant called the Pirogue Grill.  This was high-end local restaurant in town.  It’s so great to go to local hangouts instead of chain restaurants.  The Pirogue only serves food from North Dakota.   They had some amazing foods and interesting tastes.  If you are ever in Bismarck, this is the place to go.

That evening we got to see Cindy’s school, the North Dakota Capital, and then hung out on Cindy’s deck for a little while.

Saturday:

Saturday morning, Cindy cooked up a great breakfast.  We had blueberry pancakes, bacon and eggs.  Chad had a special way of preparing the blueberries, so he took over cooking the pancakes.  Cris and Cindy watched Chad curiously as he counted a specific number of blueberries into each pancake.

After breakfast, Cindy had a day trip planned up to Washburn.  We took a scenic back road there that ran next to the river.  Our first stop was at the Double Ditch State Historic Site.  This is a historic site where a community of Mandan Indians lived between about 1500 and 1781.  The community had two large ditches dug around where they lived for protection.  The ditches at the time the Mandans lived there were filled with water and acted as motes.  You could still kinda visualize where the two ditches use to be.  Also there were a lot of mounds in the park that were covered in burlap.  We think the burlap was there to protect some of the artifacts left from the Indians.  We found a bunch of interesting things.  Chad was lucky and found some bones, teeth and a piece of old pottery.  Cris said that there were pieces of handmade pottery all over that area.  She actually found one large piece that had a design with red paint in the stone.  I was informed though that we (I) could not take anything with us like the pottery pieces or the bones and that if I did, I would be taken away and would remain in ND for the rest of my life.  So, I decided just to take a simple rock from the area as a souvenir.  After doing that, I seemed to have started something because I picked up something at just about everywhere we visited.  Details about each item will come later! 🙂

After Double Ditch, we continued on our drive to Washburn.  Along the way, Cris said she spotted a bald eagle.  I thought to myself, no way did she see a bald eagle.  She must have been hallucinating and just thought she saw one.  Anyway, Cindy turned the car around which I thought was a waste of time and sure enough, there it was!  A beautiful bald eagle was perched on a dead tree sitting there just for us to see!  I couldn’t believe it!  Chad captured a few blurry photos of it before it flew away.

Next stop was to tour the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center in Washburn which provides an overview of the Lewis & Clark expedition.  There was a lot of information of their time spent in North Dakota at Fort Mandan during 1804-1805.  Inside was an actual wood canoe carved from the trunk of a large cottonwood tree!  It must have taken a huge amount of time to construct just one canoe!  This was a great place to visit.  I bought a couple of arrowheads since I didn’t find any back at Double Ditch! 🙂

Before visiting Fort Mandan which was included in the tour and just a short drive away, we decided to stop for a picnic at a park nearby.  We had the entire park to ourselves.  It is here where I learned about the white cotton/feathers flying everywhere.  Chad took some time to get a good artistic painting photo of the cottonwoods and I found another souvenir which was a turkey feather!   After lunch, we went to see Fort Mandan.  It is an exact replica of the fort Lewis & Clark and their men built and lived in for 5 months during the expedition.  It had about 10 rooms and they were all furnished the way it was in 1804.  After the tour, we took a short walk down by the river where I picked up my next souvenir which was a small smooth river rock!

On the drive back to Bismarck, we stopped at Smith Grove where Cindy said there were some big trees.  I didn’t think North Dakota had any big trees and not many small ones for that matter.  As it turned out, these trees were huge.  I couldn’t believe my eyes.  They were about 8-9 feet in width!  I really enjoyed seeing them.  We walked through several trails and Chad got some great pictures.

When leaving Smith Grove and piling in the car, I noticed a tick on my lower leg.  I thought, on well, no big deal.  Then I found two more and thought, ok, we may have a problem.  Then everyone started checking themselves for ticks.  Cris went in front of the car to check in more detail.  We found a few more on each of us, and then decided we were good to go.  After traveling just a couple of miles down the road, Chad felt one crawling up his leg inside his jeans!  Well, that was it for me; Chad and I jumped out of the car and walked to the back, dropped our pants and started inspecting.  It was actually mid-day and thank goodness we were in the middle of nowhere.  Chad and I found quite a few on us and I actually found one in the elastic of my underwear!  After getting back in the car, Cris’s friend Colleen called her on her cell phone and the first thing she asked was “Are you having fun?”  We all then started busting out and were anxiously waiting to hear just what Cris was going to tell her!!  Cris tried to tell her in between the laughing that we were checking each other for ticks and then all of a sudden her cell signal got disconnected.  A few minutes later, Colleen called back and said, “I just wanted to call back and to say, “Carry on!”.  That said it all!  We spent the entire trip back to Bismarck finding ticks and flicking them out the window.  Every time Cris found one on her, she would squirm, and ask someone to get it off of her.  The funny thing was when there was one crawling on her face, and she said in the calmest voice ever, “Can you get this tick off my face”.  Chad later even found one in his hair!

After getting home, both Cindy and Cris went straight to the bathroom.  Cindy found 7 more on her!  Cris found one more and Chad and I found a few that we killed by burning them!  We all had never seen so many ticks.  We had about 50 combined on all of us.  What an experience!

We finally got cleaned up and had great spaghetti dinner.

Sunday:

We had a little bit later start on Sunday.  We got some good rest and then started getting ready for our trip to Medora.  We kept joking about having ticks, but hoped that we would not see anymore.  It wasn’t too long though (we didn’t even get out of Bismarck) when Cris thought she felt one crawling on her.  We made a quick stop and sure enough, she did in fact have one!  We think possibly there were some still left in the car.  Hopefully that would be it!  We took Old Hwy 10 for most of the trip.  It was a nice drive and we made many stops along the way to get some good photos.  We stopped to see an abandon grain elevator which was cool.  This is where I found my next souvenir which was an old railroad stake lying next to the railroad.  I thought it would go well with my old railroad sign at home! 🙂  Other pictures taken were of an old tractor, some flowers, and much of the landscape.  Chad and Cris took some great shots.

Next we went to see the Painted Canyon just outside of Medora.  This was my first introduction to the Badlands.  It was truly amazing.  We had been driving along seeing rolling hills, and then all of a sudden there it was…a beautiful canyon.  I wondered how the Badlands got its name because it was so beautiful, but I found out that it was due to the difficulty to travel across.  Painted Canyon is located in the upper part of the Badlands and has some magnificent panoramic views of all the colorful layers.  While we were there, we decided to take a one mile hike down into the canyon.  One of Chad’s goals on the trip was to get a good shadow picture for his next photography club contest, so I kept looking for something that would be a good shadow picture.  We soon realized that a shadow picture is very hard to come up with.  After the hike, Chad had an interesting piece of grass in his shoe.  I learned that it was called needle and thread grass.  I had not seen anything like it, so it sounded like another good souvenir to keep! 🙂

In Medora, our first stop was to have dinner.  We ate at a popular restaurant in town called the Boots Bar and Grill.  I was quite impressed with the little town of Medora.  It looked like an old western town and was very unique.  Medora was founded by Marquis De Mores who was a French nobleman that arrived in Medora in early 1883.  He named the town after his wife Medora Von Hoffman.

We spent the last part of the day taking a short tour through the first part of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  Theodore Roosevelt also arrived to the Badlands in 1883.  He fell in love with the land and ended up owning two ranches near Medora.  Our drive through the park was kinda quick because it was getting dark, but we did see a great sunset, some deer, buffalo, and even a herd of elk!  The park is truly fantastic.  I have never seen anything like it.  Many areas of the park look like they are from a different planet.

Monday:

Monday morning we had a great breakfast at the Cowboy Café which is another popular restaurant in town.  They had a bunch of old pictures hanging on every wall of ranchers that use to live there.  The place was packed full of people.  If you ever get a chance to go there, you must try their pancakes!

After breakfast, we spent most of the day in the park.  Inside the park there is a 36 mile loop that you can drive.  We took the drive slow and made stops along the way to take in the amazing view.  We saw a lot more animals too.  We saw some wild horses (and some tame ones too in the corral :)), deer, buffalo, and some prairie dogs.  We got to see most of the animals up close!  The buffalo would cross the road right in front of our vehicle.  So, Chad was able to get some close up pictures!  One of my favorites is of a prairie dog which was posing for Chad just outside of the car.   One the way out of the park, we stopped to get a picture of some red stone called “Scoria” which is seen throughout the park.  So, my last souvenir that I picked up was a red rock! 🙂

That afternoon, we took some time to look around the little town of Medora.  We went to a few shops and even saw the oldest Catholic Church in North Dakota!  After a while, the weather started to look questionable.  We had planned to see the Medora Musical that night and we were starting to wonder if we should cancel, but we decided to go and take our chances.  We had been very lucky so far during our trip, getting to see all the animals up close and everything in the park, so we said, “What the heck, let’s go”.  I am so glad that we did because it just so happened that the weather was perfect and the forecast had called for 80% chance of really bad weather.  Winds were 30-40 miles an hour, but when we arrived at the musical, the winds died down just for us.   The musical was awesome!  I really enjoyed it.  The musical is dedicated to Theodore Roosevelt and his time in the North Dakota Badlands.  It was mainly country music which I enjoy.  They had a talented cast, a live band and even some live horses!  It was a great show and very patriotic.

That night, you are not going to believe this, but Chad found another tick on his leg.  I had thought the ticks were gone!  No more ticks!!!

Tuesday:

Tuesday, we drove through the park one more time before making our way to Bowman to visit Cindy’s parents (Cy and Jan).  We took the scenic route to Bowman on East River Road.  We saw several storms along the way, which made for some good pictures.  When we arrived, I got to meet Cy, Jan, and Cindy’s oldest sister Gwinn!  It was great to finally meet them.  I remember Jan telling me multiple times that I was so cute!  It was very nice.  Also, I got to see some of Cris’s artwork.  Cris is an amazing artist and photographer.  Her latest drawing collection is of horses and it was fantastic!  We then had a great dinner and spent the evening visiting.

Wednesday:

The next morning we went to Cy’s for breakfast. Cindy had some bacon and eggs waiting for us.  Later, Chad and Cris went to the Mud Buttes south of Rhame.  Cris said the area contained a bunch of fossils and bone fragments.  Based on Chad’s pictures when they returned, they could have been on the moon.  The landscape was so different and foreign.  While Chad went with Cris, Cindy and I hung out with Jan and Cy.  Cy was also very nice to go get us some cheese burgers for lunch!

Before our trip back to Bismarck, we played a game of pinochle.  It was Chad and I against Cindy and Jan!  It was a fun game.  We will have to play again next time!

Thursday:

On Thursday, Chad and I slept in and then had a relaxing day before our flight back.

Our trip to North Dakota was truly awesome!  We are already planning another trip next year!  Thank you very much Cindy.

Rhonda

Rhonda and I were able to go to the rodeo last week. Here are a few photos from the stands.

This weekend I was able to go out with the Piedmont Photography Club to the Doughton Park Ice Wall. The field trip was led by Terry Hill. I think 15 people attended this years trip to the wall.

It was a warm day reaching into the upper 50s. That made it very comfortable however very slippery with the water freezing to black ice on the road.

Once we finished there we went to a waterfall in Daughton Park. There we spent about an hour looking for interesting subjects to artistically document. I think we found a few.

Finally towards the end of the afternoon while on our way out of the park we found a few curious deer to photograph. They were very young and for the most part not very afraid of humans.

We finished the day off by eating at the Basin Creek General Store in Elkin.

Chad

For Christmas, Chad and I traveled to Florida to spend time with my parents.

We arrived in Tampa at the airport on Monday a few days before Christmas and my parents were there waiting. It was great to see them. Mom had planned a bunch of activities for us for the week and our first stop was at a shopping center called Wiregrass which was about 30 minutes away from their home.

The Wiregrass shopping center was neat with many popular stores to see. The shopping center contained many narrow streets decorated for Christmas with music playing at every other light post. In the center were many large Christmas trees all lit up and a mini train for children to ride. Mom mentioned she wished I was small again as an excuse so she could ride with me!

After looking around for a while, we went to an American grill for dinner. Dad and I got some great steaks which we both bragged on and told Mom and Chad we had the better meal. It was also happy hour at the restaurant, so we all were able to get drinks half price!

After eating, we watched a light show at the big Christmas trees where the lights were in tuned with the music. Chad took some pictures while we watched from the side. It was great to see.

When we got back to my parents place, we checked out their new home. Back in May, Mom and Dad bought a small house in a golf community. I think they like the warm winters in Florida!

Not sure what their plans will be next, but they like to move a lot and travel. I guess that is why I like to travel too.

On Tuesday, we went to a nature park where you could see all the animals native to Florida. We saw many animals some of which were manatees, alligators, turtles, pelicans, owls, a river otter, and the most popular…a hippopotamus called Lu. Lu is an honorary member of the park because he is originally from California. Lu was the main attraction especially when he was fed his routine meal of melons!

Later on, we had a late lunch at Crackers in Crystal River which is Mom’s favorite place. It was nice with a patio on the back right on the water. We took a few pictures, enjoyed the view, and had another good meal.

Wednesday, we drove down to Tarpon Springs which is the Sponge Capital of the World. It’s a Greek community with lots of small shops and Greek restaurants right on the gulf. Mom and I found us both a t-shirt that’s black and white, but in the sun it becomes very colorful. I also bought some spicy mayo at a spice store which is a favorite of mine these days. Chad bought some cigars at a small booth. Hopefully he will get to enjoy one of them once we get back home. We had lunch at a Greek restaurant call Mama’s. They served tons of food and it was very good.

To watch the sunset that evening, we went to a beech nearby. Chad got some great photos!

On Christmas Day, we woke up and the first thing we did was open presents. It’s a tradition in my family that we open gifts based on age…youngest to oldest, so I got to go first! I received everything I wanted and more. Mom and Dad got me a gravy bowl and plate that matches my china set. The items in my stocking were: warm cozy socks, Mickey Mouse snow globe which will remind me of my time in Florida and a snowman that Dad picked out that you wind up and it wobbles across the table. They also got me a snowman pillow, an IFR flight book which I will enjoy reading and $50 that is a special tradition for Dad to give! Chad bought me some black angle boots which fit perfect. Pat and Chris gave me a beautiful sweater poncho handmade by Pat and Grandma gave me a nice red scarf that she also made herself! These last two items will come in handy in Feb. for sure while I am working in Sweden.

Chad got a cigar ashtray which he has been wanting for a while, a blue shirt, a small camera backpack, socks, lens cloth cleaner, and $50!

Mom and Dad received two framed funny golf pictures, two books, and a golf ornament.

Overall, it was an excellent Christmas!  We had some great food and enjoyed the whole day. That evening we went back to see the sunset! While Chad took some more excellent pictures, Mom and I built a castle in the sand! Later on, we played some 42! Mom and I were partners for the night and we won! I remember last year Chad and Dad were the champions, so Mom and I got some revenge.

On Thursday, we went to see a movie. We decided on watching “Seven Pounds” with Will Smith. It was an interesting movie and kept you guessing the whole time. That night, we played another game 42, however this time we switched partners and Mom and Chad won! Oh well, maybe next time we will beat ‘em.

Chad and I had a wonderful time in Florida. Mom and Dad, we would like to thank you for everything.

Rhonda

Rhonda and I got to go to the Skydive Carolina Christmas party hosted at Dilworth Billiards in downtown Charlotte. Here are a few photos I took of the awards presentation. I would have taken more except my flash ran out just as Jan was receiving his Skydiver of the Year award.

See all of my photos in the gallery below.

Chad

This weekend I was fortunate enough to be able to photograph the 2008 Stokesdale Christmas Parade. My goal for this project was to make you feel like you went to the parade. At least that is what I would attempt to do.

Before I decided to photograph the parade, I wanted to check with the parade organizers to make sure it was ok with them. I found Vicki White-Lawrence, the parade chairman, on the Stokesdale web site. I sent her an email telling her about me and what I wanted to do. She quickly responded. After checking with the city, she informed me I could take pictures, but not stop the progress of the parade. That worked for me so I was now set to go.

I decided I wanted to photograph Stokesdale at sunrise before the parade. That way the streets would be empty. I wanted to see what it would be like with no one on the street compared with the whole parade later that afternoon. It was a cool morning starting around 6:30 or so. I found a few sites which conveyed to me what the empty streets felt like on this cool morning. Once I was done, I headed home to warm up and recharge the camera batteries.

Around 11:00 AM, I made my way back to town and started photographing people constructing their floats and getting ready for the parade. I ran into a large number of people. Everyone was very friendly letting me take their photograph setting up their equipment. Thinking back on this I should have had some paper and pen ready to take down names of people and the groups they were with. When I get the opportunity to do something like this again, I will make sure I don’t forget.

I met with Vicki soon after I arrived to introduce myself and say hi. She was extremely busy, but took a few moments to talk with me. After that, I spent the next 3 hours or so looking for exciting photographs.

About an hour before the parade started, Rhonda found me while I was taking a break and sitting down on some steps. I originally thought she was going to spend the day practicing flying, but she decided she could not miss a once a year parade.  So after our brief break, I headed out to the crowds to talk with them and to photograph what they were up to.

At 2 PM the parade started. The streets were filled with a large number of people. More than I imagined. It was great. Everyone from everywhere. I photographed most of the floats and groups in the parade as well as the spectators.

The first thing I noticed was all of the parade groups were throwing candy. Not just a little bit, but large amounts for all of the children in the crowds. I think it was probably better than Halloween since you just had to stand there and wait for the candy to come to you. I photographed many kids trying to catch candy flying by.

By the time the parade finished I felt I had enough for the day and headed home.

I think my goal for the next year is to photograph as many Stokesdale events as I can. I’ll also try to think of some sort of photo project I can do with Belews Lake.

I want to thank Vicki White-Lawrence the parade coordinator for her help in getting me permission to photograph the parade and identify subjects of my photographs.

See all of my photos in the gallery below.

Chad

The week of October 18th through the 24th, I was lucky enough to attend the Rocky Mountain School of Photography – Fall Color in the Appalachians at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Rhonda was able to come along and spend the week visiting Gatlinburg and Townsend as well a touring the park and attending a few of our critique sessions.

The week started on Saturday afternoon meeting together for a few hours and getting acquainted. Brenda Tharp taught the class and Eileen Kennan worked on the details of keeping all of us going and answering a large number of individual questions in the field.

This year the fall color was at about 25% and not predicted to get better for another 10 days or so. Because of this, our schedule was adjusted on a daily basis in order to give us possible opportunities for shooting the fall color as well as getting the best areas for fog, sunrises and sunsets.

The first thing I needed to do was to find someone to carpool with because Rhonda needed the car to go to town during the days. Eileen helped out by pairing us with people who were able to drive. I was lucky enough to be driven the whole time by Carolyn Andros and Bridget Ruiz riding shotgun. They were both in the Navy, very competitive, and have done very well in swimming, climbing and other sports. They traveled all over the world, found their husbands in the Navy, and squeeze in time to raise their children,. They have tons of great stories and do photography as a business and hobby.

The next morning we were out at about 6:45 shooting waterfalls on Tremont road just outside Cades Cove. It turned out to be a fairly good way to get into shooting and especially for Brenda and Eileen to be able to understand everyone’s skill levels and helping them get started.

After everyone returned from the field by 10:30 or so we worked on processing our photos and getting 10 of our own photos from our portfolio turned in for critique and also to show Brenda and Eileen what we were capable of doing. After lunch we spent the afternoon going through everyone’s photos. At that point I was concerned I had a lot of catching up with the group in terms of their understanding of photography and quality of photos. Eventually Brenda critiqued my 10 best photos and she did a very good job. The two photos she did not have much to improve on were the two photos which received recognition at my photography clubs competitions. She judged them perfectly in line with what other judges were seeing. It was good to get new ideas on how to improve my images.

That evening we went out to the end of Tremont road and took more photos of waterfalls and reflected light. While climbing down a steep bank, crawling over trees, getting poked by a thorn bush or two we found some great photos. Along the way Brenda caught up with us to see how were were doing. Afterwords she hiked to another area. While walking under a very low broken down tree, her backpack got caught on the tree and she fell backwards onto a very sharp rock. She hit hard. At that point I thought we were in trouble. I was concerned she had broken a bone. After a few minutes of regaining herself, she kept on going. I was surprised and relieved at the same time. I made a note to be a lot more careful while crawling around the banks. Once it starts getting dark, it can be difficult traversing the sides. Once this shoot was finished, we were allowed to go home, eat, and edit our photos for 3 critiques the next day.

The next morning we were up around 6:40 for Sparks Lane in Cades Cove. There we found no wind, an early morning fog, a bit of frost, and some good first light. We spent about 3 hours in the area doing our best to get some good ones.

After Sparks Lane we met in the classroom for our first critiques. It was amazing to watch the photos coming up for review in front of the class. Everyone saw something different even though we took our photos in about 2000 feet of shore line at each area. Along the way I learned some great ideas for future outings.

Later that evening we shot another river in the park near Chimney Tops. I chose one particular area that was a little bright and later on, learned it had too large of a leaf on the falls. Brenda eventually found me and made some great suggestions. She removed the large yellow leaf on my falls and replaced it with a better one. After a few more tries on exposure I got this.

After Chimney Tops we went to an area near Newfound Gap to photograph the sunset. Here we experimented with our neutral density filters and for a short time our polarizers.

The next morning we were up very early to see the sunrise in the parking lot of Clingmans Dome. We arrived to find very thick fog, very cold (Why didn’t I wear my underarmor????? Be prepared! It’s easier to peel off clothes than to freeze.) and winds from 10 to 25 mph. It was extremely challenging to find some great images, but we found a few in the early hours.

We met after lunch to go over critiques. After that we had the option of going out on our own to photograph. I was tired from the early excursions and late evening going over my photos so I decided to stay home, edit my photos and eat dinner with Rhonda. Even though I missed one evening, that turned out to be a good decision. I was very rested and ready to go for the next day.

The following morning we went to Clingmans Dome again to photograph the sunrise. Carolyn was driving Bridget and I as usual. Along the way we noticed the gas gauge was basically on empty. So, us three geniuses were trying to figure out if we should get out of line and go to Gatlinburg to get gas or take a chance and try to make it to the dome. We decided to go to the city. That turned out to be the correct decision. Once we turned towards Gatlinburg at Sugarland crossing, the gas warning light and sound went on. We quickly made it to a gas station across town. The first pump we tried was so slow. We could count the pennys of gas going into the tank. The irony was thick. We were in an extreme hurry to catch up with our classmates. Eventually we switched to a different pump and got half a tank and made our way to the dome. We got there just in time as everyone else was set up and just getting going. This turned out to be the best morning for a firey red sunrise and a light fog over the valley.

Once the sunrise was finished we made our way further south past the turn to Clingmans done. I tried to take some good photos in the brighter morning light, but it did not work out too well for me that morning. I showed Rhonda what I had done and her question was “Why?”. Ok, I left those out. Remember a great photographer only show you their best. (While Rhonda was away I did sneak one in on my painterly tries for critique and Rhonda was right. I should have used another, but I just had to find out.)

That afternoon we had more critiques and later on headed to photograph the churches in Cades Cove. After photographing the Methodist Church we took Hayatt Lane and headed to the Dan Lawson Place. While there Bridget learned how to photograph a deer jumping a fence. Unfortunately, neither of us had our cameras ready. I missed the shot and she at least got the focus working, but did not have time to take the camera off of manual. She did get a dark shot of the deer in mid air over the fence. Next time we’ll be more ready for drive by shootings.

At the Lawson place I took my infamous shot of the corner of a log cabin. Rhonda said don’t turn that in for critique, but I could not help myself. I needed to know. During critique Brenda was kind enough to say, “nice exercise”, but at that moment I learned I made a mistake. It reminded me of a bunch of years ago when a world champion skydiving instructor kindly said I had “issues” in front of my girlfriend at the time, Rhonda, and her to teammates Nicole and Lauris….after saying they had done great…

The next morning we shot Cades Cove in the Cable Mill area. Before getting into the park we had time to take some photos of the stars. Brenda taught us some ways to figure out exposure and a few of us got some great ones.

At the mill I found a few shots of the mill and then for about 40 minutes I worked with Eileen on getting one of a wagon in a barn using a fill flash. My experience with fill flash was zero and she had to try to teach me a lot. We tried hard, but my images did not turn out good enough to show. At least I now have the idea and with a lot more practice I think I will be able to use fill flash properly in the future.

That afternoon we had predictions of rain so we ended up taking the Foothills Parkway that afternoon and doing close up/macro photography. Brenda showed me what it takes to make a great photo after working with me for an hour on one tree.

The next morning we had a session on equipment and a short slide show of our best photos including face photos Eileen took of us during the week.

It was a great learning experience and I’m looking forward to my next workshop. See my photos in thegallery below.

Chad

Here are some of Chad’s photos from our trip to Fall Creek Cabins near Boone, NC on Sept. 6th.

Photos of Chad’s trip to Dubois, WY.