The Trail Dames!

Not Dames.  A Great Dane!

It’s all good. ~ Donna

P.S. – I left the 24-70 lens at home this time and carried the 50mm 1.8 so much lighter!

On April 18th, I met the Dames, signed in and hopped in car with three lovely ladies that I had never met and started out on a 2 hour drive to the trail. When we stopped at Starbucks I knew this was a good thing for me! My first hike with the Trail Dames was to Springer Mountain and we climbed up to the Southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. The climb itself was .9 miles up and back down. Not a long distance but so fun and so beautiful! This hike was an anniversary hike for the Dames celebrating their 3rd Birthday. Springer Mountain was the first hike for the group so every year they go back there to celebrate. Celebrate we did! We popped the Champagne and had chocolate, and strawberries when we reached the top of the mountain. Really! How awesome is that?!

On the road!

Getting out our gear.

The Appalachian Trail goes all the way to Maine! 2,160 miles!

The trail starts at Springer Mountain and ends in Katahdin, Maine.

Pretty flowers in bloom.

Rocky Trail. Trekking poles really help and I highly recommend using them!

Hello Butterfly!

On the trail I carried my Canon 40D and with my 24-70 lens. It was a bit heavy but not so bad and I was glad to have it.

Dames on the Trail.

View from the top!

Champagne!

Strawberries and Chocolate!

Cheers!

Dames enjoying the great company and the view!

This is Sterling. He started the trail and is hiking solo all the way to Maine! He was so kind to take a group photo with all our cameras!

Trail Dames! This photo is from April’s camera posted on the Trail Dames Meetup site.

Happy Birthday Trail Dames! Yes, we had cake after we walked back down to the bottom of trail. Sweet! Just for the record. They usually do not have cake, champagne, chocolate and strawberries on every hike. I did ask!

So Happy to be a Trail Dame!

It’s all good. ~ Donna

We arrived in Munich at 8:30 am Friday, January 15th. We took a train to our hotel and left our luggage since check in was at 3:00pm. We headed out for a walk towards Marienplatz.

We saw many bikes along the way. A popular form of transportation.

The temperatures in Munich were 30-32 degrees during the day. Snow covered the ground and the skies were white. We saw the blue sky only a few times. But we really did not miss it. The change of scenery for us was beautiful!

The New Town Hall (German: Neues Rathaus) is a town hall at the northern part of Marienplatz in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. The city government including the city council, offices of the mayors and part of the administration are located here. It was built between 1867 and 1908 by Georg von Hauberrisser in a Gothic Revival architecture style. It has 400 rooms.

This spiral staircase leads to the different office floors.

The details in the building of the Neues Rathaus are magnificent! This photo was taken inside the inner courtyard.

The Glockenspiel is located in the middle of the clock tower of Neues Rathaus. At 12pm it sprang  to life and more than 40 bells started ringing. The top level shows a French jouster fighting a Bavarian one. This is a reenactment of  the tournament held in 1568 for the wedding of Duke Wilhelm V and Renata von Lorraine. Below that is  “Schäfflertanz”, a jig traditionally performed by Munich’s red-coated coopers which commemorates the end of the plague in 1517.

You will see many people starting to gather and stand around looking up at the clock and waiting. It was awesome to see the movements and hear the bells ring!

Below is a short video clip I took using my point and shoot.  I am no Videographer as you will see in the camera shake!

Inside Neues Rathaus is an elevator to a viewing platform. There is a small charge to ride the elevator. (1-2 Euros) The views of the city are beautiful!

Marienplatz was lovely and a great start to our journey. More to come soon!

It’s all good. ~Donna

Planes, trains, and automobiles. I will be keeping a journal of my adventures and will have lots to blog about when I return.

Of course this baby is coming with me! I bought a new 32gb card to go along with the 4gb I already have.

See ya later USA!   It’s all good. ~Donna

 Our ride was a little over an hour and Roger took us off onto a new trail he is clearing. I attempted to “run” the horse which lasted a whole 10 seconds at most. I had my heels pointed up, leaned back and held onto the reins just like I was supposed to but it felt like I was going to bounce right off! Roger asked me to not yell like a girl if I needed to stop and for me to say Whoa if I needed to stop. Um. WHOA! My heart was racing but it felt good. I tried to run the Horse a second time for another whole 10 seconds then another WHOA! Great fun but perhaps velcro is in order next time to keep my behind from bouncing off! I highly recommend visiting Georgia Frontiers ! It was a wonderful experience and I am looking forward to our next ride!

This sweet kitty greeted us and was very friendly. Cat lover I am had to take a photo!

Justin up on Montego.

Photo taken by me on Chey.

This is what a photo looks like when you are taking it with one hand, holding on the reins, and bouncing up the trail.

View of the Georgia Mountains up from top of the trail.

This is Roger I processed using the Seventies Action from the Pioneer Womans Action Set  for Photoshop.

Seventies Action again. Thanks PW!

Point your heels up in these and yell WHOA to stop!

Why hello there my pretty!

Excuse Me? That’s not very lady like.

Oh, now you think that is funny? Silly Horse.

I learned how to make this cool collage in Picasa! I use Picasa to store my photos and make my web albums.

It has free photo editing software and as I just learned you can make collages!

See ya later! It’s all good. ~Donna

In my opinion they do not have the best Mexican food but one goes here for the experience. It is a popular tourist attraction since it is located a few blocks from the San Antonio Riverwalk but you will find loads of  locals who are regulars. My brother will sometimes go there in the wee hours of the morning for a cup of coffee and during my wedding week a group of us showed up in those wee morning hours for a snack. I do recommend that you  shop in the Market Square for jewelry and imported goods from Mexico and South America. (I still stop and shop there on my visits home.)

When you are done shopping stop at Mi Tierra and have a drink, order those chips, and request a song!

At Mi Tierra you will also find a  Mariachi Bar and a Panaderia. The Mariachi Bar has a magnificent carved oak bar. Really photo worthy! A great place to stop and people watch while sipping that margarita!

The Panaderia is….well….totally  delicious! They have cases and cases of fresh Pan Dulce (sweet breads). So soft and oh so yummy. Pan de Huevo “egg bread” and Empanada’s are my favorite! On my last visit home a few weeks ago, my mom, brother and I stopped by the Panaderia to pick up some Pan Dulce. How I miss this kind of bakery! I have yet to find anything close to it where I live. We were there mid-day and the place was busy and we took our number. The wait time went quickly since there  is so much to see!

While you will find the place on the loud side with lot’s of colorful distractions, you will also find this quiet place.

Light a candle and count your blessings. We have so many!

It’s all good.

~Donna

With thoughts of Apple Festival in my head and beautiful, colorful, surroundings the 2 hour drive was sweet.  Once we reached Ellijay, the Apple Festival was very easy to find with Apple Festival parking signs all around. There were hundreds of people headed to the festival so parking was not so easy to come by. We ended up parking at the local high school and I talked my husband Nitsuj into riding the free transportation aka School Bus down to the festival. The bus was packed with families so looking forward to what was ahead for the day.

I had visions of Apple Orchards with bushels of apples all around, and live music playing with bluegrass bands.  Well, not so much. They charged a $5 fee to enter. Not bothered by that but more by the fact that it wasn’t all that. There was not an apple tree in site, and the apples were bagged with no taste testing. Sure they had many different types of apples represented by many of the local Georgia Orchards but samples would have been nice so that I may have the opportunity to branch out and try different varieties.

There was little in the form of adult entertainment but the local pre-teen dance troupe were having a super time on the small stage and the many proud parents cheered on! They had giant inflatables for the kids. I saw pony rides and all I could think about were the poor ponies spending their entire afternoon, chained and walking in circles with small screaming children on their backs. They had a camel , two camels, both set up for children to ride and again, I just wanted to set them free! I did not take any photos of them. It felt wrong to me.

The festival did have lots of craft booths and if you are the country crafting type it would be heaven for you! I on the other hand am not into country kitchen and after awhile you find most of the booths sell the same thing. I do appreciate all the effort the vendors put into their craft. The pottery and jewelry were beautiful.

The deer hunting community had a lot of support there. I offered to buy Nitsuj a shirt but he was not having it.

A vendor sold homemade rootbeer in these pretty bottles. It was too sweet for me.

The Georgia Apple Festival  was really not what I had envisioned but we did have many a good laugh and the best part was

spending the time alone together, walking , holding hands in the cool crisp air, enjoying the beautiful scenery of the Georgia Mountains.

The fried apple pies were simply awesome! It is one of those events where you can say you went and experienced it.

See all those people standing in line at the bottom and middle of the photo?

They are waiting for the School Bus to take them back to their cars.

We walked back.

Look at these beautiful colors! How could we not smile and feel blessed?

It’s all good.

~Donna