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| Near the summit of Myrtle Hill Cemetery |
As the title of this entry would suggest, I got out and about this weekend and had a nice time playing with my camera while exploring some new (and some familiar) places. Both yesterday and today were beautiful days to be outside, and I took advantage of sunshine and warm temperatures and had one of the nicest weekends I’ve had in quite some time.
Yesterday, I left early and headed up to Rome, GA, to visit Myrtle Hill Cemetery. A quick Google search of this place yields the following, accurate, summary:
Monument to (I think) Nathan Bedford
Forrest at the top of Myrtle HillOne of the most beautiful cemeteries in the nation sits atop Myrtle Hill at the confluence of the Etowah and Oostanaula Rivers. Offering an unimpeded view of downtown Rome, Georgia, to the northeast, the Etowah Valley to the east, and the Appalachian foothills to the south, the cemetery boasts spectacular vistas and historic significance which combine to make it one of the most unique in the world, and a “must see” stop on the Blue and Gray Trail.
As promised, the views from the cemetery are incredible. Good enough so that I almost didn’t feel terrified while looking through my viewfinder at graves and realizing that there were 200-foot drops immediately behind me. The monuments in the cemetery are also quite interesting, and the sky – an amazing cerulean color boasting a very bright morning sun – added some great contrast to my shots.
I spent probably three hours at Myrtle Hill before heading back towards Atlanta. I took a roundabout way home, stopping first at the Georgia National Cemetery (a truly boring place), after which I took a side road looking for the Sweetwater State Park. The campground was closed, but I found an interesting little cemetery near it and spent another hour looking for shots there. It is called, I believe, the Fields Chapel United Methodist Cemetery, and one of my favorite shots from yesterday came from there.
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| Betsy and I test out my wireless shutter release |
Got to bed fairly early last night, but woke up for no reason at around 1:30 and couldn’t go back to sleep. I must have been giving off vibes, because Chris called me about 5 minutes after I woke up and we talked until close to 3:00 this morning. I finally fell asleep at around 4:30, then got up two hours later to tend to the cats. At about 9:00, I decided that I wasn’t going to sleep, and so went grocery shopping and had a massive breakfast at a buffet near the grocery store.
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| Euphoniumist extraordinaire. You wouldn’t believe the sound this horn made coming off of that crypt. |
After I got home, I got an invitation from Betsy Jones to join her at Rose Hill Cemetery and take some shots of her with her euphonium – she’s headed back to school this year and needs some publicity shots, I guess. Since it was a gorgeous day and Rose Hill is one of my favorite places, I headed down to Macon and spent all afternoon goofing around there before Betsy treated me to sushi and hot chocolate (not at the same time) and I ended up getting back home at around 9:00 tonight.
Not sure what’s planned for work this week, but I’m actually sort of optimistic about it. I made some good strides with jQuery last week and am looking forward to seeing what else I can do with it. Also hope to jump back into Android development, which I’ve pretty much abandoned for the last month.
We shall see how it goes.
TWD