Saturday, February 18, 2012

Breweries and Beautiful Views

It's been a while since I started a new post, but here are some of the wonderful times that we've been having as the wacky weather continues to totally confound us NYers.

Sam and I hit our 1 year mark near the beginning of February and took a little trip to celebrate the milestone. A weekend of Vermont style fun was in order. Breweries, Antiques, Beautiful views, and TEDDY BEARS! :)

We headed over to Vermont on a Thursday evening so that we could get there that night and have our entire long weekend away from home, and not have to get up on Friday and still drive out to the destination.

20/365
A happy moon provides.

We headed out around 8 at night, so we were driving in the pitch dark of February, but the moon was exquisite that night, this picture doesn't do it justice, but it was the best that I could get (I'm definitely saving for a new camera to take better digital pictures)



21/365
Reflections of a time gone by
This picture was crazy to me, because I was trying to get the old church from inside the car (it was cold, I wasn't rolling down the window) and the ambient light from the street light was enough to cause a refracted reflection that makes it look like there is a street right above the church, which really was on the other side fo the street. I didn't even realize how cool this photo had turned out until I got home and started editing the pictures on the computer, at first I wasn't even sure what I was looking at until I blew the picture up.


22/365
The man in his element.
This was the first brewery that we toured over the weekend, Long Trail brewery in Vermont. It was a self guided tour on a walkway above the brewery floor. Though they weren't brewing at the time, Sam was in heaven just to see it.



23/365
The babbling brook over beer.
So Sammy loves beer (I do too, but it's a no-no with a gluten allergy), I love brooks. I could play in a brook finding neat stones that are water polished and beautiful. I took some pictures out back of Long Trail of the wonderful brook that flows right out the back door of their facility. I think Sammy would have been happy if it was a river of beer more though.....


 24/365
Distorted bubbles.
Had to take some up close pictures of the way the water was rippling that was making the smooth stones under the surface seem to sparkle. Wish it had been a sunnier day for catching all the beauty, but at least thank goodness for photoshop helping out with that a little!

25/365
The cover over.
So on the way from our lovely visit to Long Trail along the way to the next of many destinations, Sammy stopped the car on the side of the road for me so that I could take some photos of a wonderful covered bridge that caught my eye as we drove by, he knows me too well.


26/365
He flies high to keep this thing in place.

I was enamored, I don't know if this was a new bridge, as we were in an area hard hit by hurricane Irene and the horrible floods that ensued, but at least the pilings for the bridge were. I hope this was at least in part the old bridge that they saved, but even if it wasn't, they did a wonderful job to make it beautiful and artful, I'm totally in love with it's country charm. 

Well it's late and tomorrow is another day, so to sleep I must go as the computer is almost out of juice and I don't have it plugged in to charge. Will try and upload the rest of the fun from our trip and all the other wonderful pictures tomorrow!

Love reflected in the window pane of my soul.

Raylei

A Day Without Sunshine

So when you work a minimum of 9 hours a day, 5 hours a day on the weekend, and are trying to get together the resources to start your own business, and want to do project 365, something falls to the wayside. Unfortunately it was the project 365 posts. I was able to sit down for 2 hours the other night and edit photos from a day at the zoo, so we had a wonderful assortment of pictures to use to get caught up on the photos, so even though I haven't taken a photo every day, when I go to the zoo and take 200+ photos and end up with 15 edited photos that satisfy me (though I'll admit, towards the end, I wasn't nearly as picky or artistic as I usually am when it comes to editing and experimentation with photos) So without further pomp and circumstance, hopefully I can get within a few days of totally caught up here.


9/365
Big T and the big T. Around the Zoo in Syracuse in a couple places there are these little statues, this one wasn't dirty, it was just worn out from everyone doing the same thing that we did. Try and sit on it and take a picture. This one was too tall for us, but as you'll see below, the tallest of our group didn't have the same problem at the pachyderm pen. 



10/365
Warm Rock reprieve. So upstate NY, mid-January at the Syracuse zoo. who would have thought that there wouldn't be any snow and it would be almost 50 degrees out. I don't know what I think about global warming, but I know this was crazy. And the tigers were enjoying every little bit of it that they could. This was one of the cubs that was born this year enjoying the mid-afternoon sunshine on the heated rock that the zoo has provided them to encourage them to come near enough to really get an up close and personal view of them, it was truly amazing, and his stripes had me drooling from a photographic standpoint.

 11/365
A Farm study. 
I totally just wanted to steal this baby pygmy goat dang it.



10/365
Flamingos in January
I love that the flamingo's knees were so pink, had to make sure to get that. To see Flamingos, outside, in January, in upstate NY, didn't think it was something that I would ever see.

11/365
Just hanging around.


12/365
Happy Kitty. This is a rarity, she actually laid there and let me take a pic while snuggling and kinda posing. Too cute not to love.

13/365
Check out this back bend.
Awesome penguins, totally love.
14/365
The man and the city.
He shines, all the lights of the city pale in comparison. My love.

15/365
The pachyderm duo.
 Fun and sun in the Syracusian sunshine
16/365
The camera turns back.
On our trip to NYC Sammy took the camera from me at dinner to document the happy time that we were having from his perspective, he didn't do too bad of a job I'd say.
17/365
I'm watching you watching me
I'd never seen a duck with these markings before they were such a pretty reddish brown that I had to take a little time with this guy and let him know he was handsome.
18/365
Whoooooos hanging around?
The barn owls were wonderful, wish I'd had a better camera/angle to get a closer in picture not obscured by the wire fence.
  19/365
The very next day.
So we drove to 'Cuse for the day, had a wonderful time, celebrated Jay's day, enjoyed the loveliness of the zoo, had a wonderful dinner, came back home, and woke up to this. I hope that the animals at the zoo are all bundled in today!

I have more photos to upload, I started this post almost a month ago, so I'm waaaaaaaaaaaay behind on the uploads/editing/taking photos.....I'm such a slacker. 

Love looking out from the pane of my window.

-Raylei