35th Annual BalloonFest : Statesville, NC

I made an idol comment about a hot air balloon ride one day,
which initiated a search to find places near us that offered balloon rides.



What I stumbled upon in the process was far better than what I initially expected.
I came across the 35th annual BalloonFest taking place here in North Carolina!



Imagine my excitement once I realized that it was only an 1 hr and 45 min away from Boone.



We didn't get there until after noon, but we made it with enough
time to settle in before the mass ascension took place.
It was more like a sporadic ascension, although still exciting.



I never did make arrangements to go for a private balloon ride,
mostly due to the $200 per head charge - maybe another day?!
For now, I will settle for walking amongst the behemoth balloons.



At a whopping 5' 3", it's not hard to dwarf me,
but I felt so minuscule standing next to those grand mammoths.



I watched as pilots and passengers were man-handled while trying to take off.
Not everyone made it in the air that day. But when they did, cheers & applause followed.
I loved being a part of these little celebrations, it was quite exhilarating.



Another thrilling part of the festivities were the food vendors.
We had so many options in front of us, it was hard to choose what to go with.
What do you do when that happens eh?!?! Sample everything!


~Cheesecake dipped in Chocolate~
~Deep Fried Snicker~


~Meat on a Stick~

As wonderful as all that yummy food was,
the truly magical didn't really take place until the sun went down.



By then, the balloons were returning to the valley to put on a special twilight show.



The roaring flames were as loud as the oohs and aahs as the valley began to glow....
you could hear the "ALL BURN" announcement followed
by everyone lighting up the night in unison.



It was a wondrous sight.



And like that the fire fizzled, it was time to go back home.
We had a great time.....

Posted in Wordful Wednesday

A Journey Through Time

High Museum of Art Atlanta

The sort of place where you make new discoveries each and every time you visit,

where every unhurried step is to be made with the utmost purpose.



As I walked through the halls and corridors of the museum,



I became overwhelmed with a sense of kinship as I pondered the many works of art.



Works of art crafted by those who have also
felt that undeniable urge to share and create -
no matter what the medium.



On many occasions, I found myself completely
awe-struck as I made my way through the galleries.



If not done in the flesh, I think that it would be virtually impossible
to fully appreciate the scale of these massive works.

The bright and spacious, Modern and Contemporary Art wing was among my favorite.



For hours, we wandered around the many levels housed within the High's walls.
Initially, we only planned to spend an hour or two exploring,
in retrospect, that would have been unthinkable.
It's better to have 3 or 4 hours.



I was extremely inspired by my journey through
time, and I left with a great sense of gratitude.
More visits to galleries are in order!

When is the last time you walked through a gallery?

I loved your takes on Mondays.
Some of you I related with,
while others had me wishing
that I could adopt the same
Monday morning philosophy.
Good News.....
Mine wasn't all that bad!

Atlanta Botanical Gardens

I will skip all of the other fluff, and get to my most favorite part.
The glass encased Fuqua Orchid Center, filled with fragrant,
blooming orchids from around the globe,
was hands down my favorite section.

I sniffed and shot my way around the room as slowly as I could.
And while Cody eagerly pointed out the most unique smells for me to enjoy,
I scrutinized the most interesting looking blossoms -
a couple of which you've already seen in previous posts.

Not all of the blooms had an enticing aroma,
as a matter of fact, some of them stunk to high heaven.
I even recall someone using the term "rotting corpse" to describe one!


(this wasn't the stinky flower)

No matter how putrid they may or may not have been they were gorgeous.
After going through the photos I decided to put together a semi-slide show.
Click on the individual photos to run through the slides - it doesn't cycle itself.
*The first three photos are from other areas of the gardens.





I wish I had the time and energy to give you more details about the gardens - forgive me,
but if I didn't get this done now, I would have put it off even longer!
Besides, I've still got a bunch of other birthday trip stuff to show you.
And this is on top of what Cody and I got in to this weekend.
At this rate, I'm likely to never get caught up.
But I'm not stressing :o)

Posted in Today's Flowers

Hearst Castle

California : San Simeon : Hearst Castle

It's been a while since I've posted any photos from our vacation in California.
I've done a few posts, but haven't quite finished; I took a TON of photos.
Maybe it's the fabulous weather we are experiencing that's
making me reminiscent of our nine days back in April.
Either way, I would like to share the tour of Hearst Castle we took while in California.

View from the Esplanade

"La Cuesta Encantada" or "The Enchanted Hill",
is perched atop the hills of San Simeon overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
The palatial mansion was built by William Randolph Hearst,
and was designed by architect Julia Morgan.

The estate has 56 bedrooms, 61 bathrooms, 41 fireplaces,
19 sitting rooms, and 127 acres of gardens.....



It's a lot bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside......
just kidding......this is the old school house, you can see the castle in the background.

There are several different tours to choose from while visiting,
although Cody and I only took one. The first one actually.
The Experience tour is one recommended to first-time visitors.
It lasted approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes.




The beginning of the Hearst Castle Tour took us to
the promenade in front of Casa Del Sol.
It's an eighteen room guest house that faces the Pacific coastline.
Tour one allowed us to view 4 of the bedrooms, and 4 of the bathrooms.
But that came after this.......

The Neptune Pool.

The Greco-Roman style Temple front was bought in Europe and transported to the grounds.
I've read that, the Neptune pool was rebuilt 3 times before Mr. Hearst was satisfied.



Afterwards, we headed up to the Esplanade,
one of the most beautiful sections of the grounds.
It featured many marble sculptures, and flowers.




Continuing on the tour, we were lead through a few rooms within Casa Del Sol.



From the outside in, everything was lavishly decorated......
I am sure that I missed some details along the way.



From the ceiling to the floor, pure extravagance.



I stayed in the back for most of the tour,
since I was more interested in taking photos.
It was hard to do so surrounded by a group of people, but I managed.



Casa Grande (the main house) and the three guest houses were
done in a Mediterranean Revival style.



The towers of the main house are modeled after a 16th Century Spanish Cathedral.
This was the main stop of the tour taking us through five rooms of Casa Grande's ground floor.

The Assembly Room which is the largest of the four sitting rooms and once a gathering place for Hearst's guests, the Refectory which is the single dining room at Hearst Castle, the Morning Room which is a magnificent sitting room filled with Spanish antiques and Flemish tapestries, the Billiard Room which is a game room featuring two 1920's billiard tables and a Gothic "millle fleurs" tapestry, and the Theater which is the largest room in Casa Grande.



The end of the tour brought us to Casa Grande's indoor Roman Pool.
For me, this was definitely the highlight.



The Roman Pool is decorated from ceiling to floor with 1″ square mosaic tiles. These glass tiles, called smalti, are either colored (mainly blue or orange) or are clear with fused 24 karat gold inside. The intense colors and shimmering gold of the tiles combine to create a breathtaking effect. The designs created by the tiles were developed by muralist Camille Solon.



Still curious to see more, we loaded the bus to go back down to the the visitor center.
We could have paid another $24 to go on another tour, but decided not to.
Instead, we took advantage of the free ticket to see the movie
"Hearst Castle Building the Dream".

All in all, I'm really glad that we added the castle tour to our itinerary.
I would have been kicking myself later had we missed it.
To see more photos that I haven't shown here, check out this link.
Flickr Set

Sorry I wasn't more in depth, but it was enough work getting this together!
For more information about the history, check out this link.
Hearst Castle History

Hope you have all had an enchanting weekend!

Ashe County Disc Golf Course

I've played with Cody and one of his friends before when we were visiting Atlanta.
That course was very different from the one in Ashe County.
The objective, for those who are not up to speed, is to launch a frisbee-like disc toward a goal.
See photo below of Cody hurling his disc, oh and, he wants to make sure that I tell you he didn't hit the tree that it appears to be headed toward.

What you see below is one of the baskets.
The sound of chains clank when you've managed to score.
Now, like 'real' golf, the holes or baskets still have a par that you shoot for.
The averages for most were par 3, which by the way, I didn't come close to maintaining!
Good thing no one in our group was interested in keeping score anyhow.




The valley that the course was nestled in was simply beautiful, and very serene.
Even with a tournament going on.
Of all the days we could have ventured to the disc-golf course.....they were having a competition!
They basically told us that we could play as long as we stayed out of the pros way.
We slipped in behind a group after they blew the air horn.




We weren't rushing, but we wanted to stay a hole or two in front of the group behind us.
We did really well with staying out of everyone's way, until we reached hole 9.
Number 8 took us up a hill, and into the woods where we were stopped by two groups waiting to throw.





When it was finally our turn to go, we walked over to the concrete pad and looked out
through the gap between the trees.......the basket was waaaaaaaaay down there!
I had no idea how the heck I was going to get my disc down there?!?!
It was 553 ft away, only a yellow blip amongst the green lawn.
The little sign cautions you to WATCH FOR PEDESTRIANS!
If you hit someone it's your fault + responsibility.
They have a sign, it's had to have happened at some point!





Here is a zoomed shot of the basket, it still looks far away!
We watched a group of guys that were competing take their turns.
Once they were done, we took our turn......
I'm only going to say we were no where near hitting a par 4!
If was definitely fun to try, I almost didn't, but they talked me into it.





We hiked down to the bottom to fetch our discs.
Throwing until we all reached the basket.
From the end it looked just as distant, if not further than what we remembered.




I'm glad we were coming down that path!

After getting stuck behind two groups at another hole, we decided to pack it up.
The area was very pretty, I think Cody will have no problem getting me back out there some time soon.




Just for fun, here's a photo of Charlie.
I didn't have time to select my settings, so this motion shot was taken.
It makes me laugh :o)


Ever play disc-golf?
What sorts of games do you play outdoors?