Hey Everyone! Hope you're having a great week. Well another week has passed and I just got back from another trip. Boy it really feels good to say that. It feels like I haven't been anywhere until a few weeks ago and now I've been on another trip. In a couple of weeks I'll have another trip to tell you about. So the year is starting to turn out better now that spring has arrived. This week's blog is about a trip that Robert (my photography wingman) and I took to do some fly fishing for trout and some photography and videography.  We planned this trip a month or so ago and went ahead and made our lodging accommodations. Once that is out of the way we could plan our days. The plan was to be on the water very early in the morning ( O' Dark Thirty) and fish to about noon or so get lunch and then photography and videography. Robert was the videographer and he even added a drone to the mix this trip so we spent a lot of time taking video footage and I wandered around taking photo's. Of course there was rain in the forecast . It seems like there always is when we take a road trip. I remember one time took a trip to Indiana for a bike ride and Hurricane Helene followed us all the way there and it rained the whole time we were on the trip until we were about a half hour from the house. Here is the link to a blog I wrote about it. Indiana Road Trip Hurricane Helene. It was 5 days and 7 states of rain. LOL  Anyway back to this trip. 

Our Trip. We had planned to stay in Damascus Va. Commonly called "Trail Town USA" the AT (Appellation Trail) goes right through the main street of town. The week before we arrived they had "Trail Days" which is a week long festival and the towns population goes from less than a thousand to 25000 in a week. By the time we got there the masses had left. This is a quaint little town geared toward tourism as the main income. It has all sorts of cute Air B&B places to stay and little diners, coffee shops. The area is big on
hiking, bike riding and of course fly fishing. The Virginia Creeper trail goes right by the town. This is one of Americas favorite Rails to Trails this is a trail that had been converted from a train track to a foot and bike path. Now during our bike trip that I talked about earlier Hurricane Helene Devastated this area . It flooded the town eroded roads away and washed away bridges. Over 40 bridges (that used to be train trestles) on the Virginia Creeper Trail. I thought that they would never fix the
trail but I was wrong. After they had fixed the roads they started on the trail and bridges there is a lot of construction and are planning on having the trail open by October. So hopefully I have painted a picture of this town. We had reservations for Thursday through Sunday. Robert wanted to get there the night before so he got reservations at a small hotel in Sparta and we were to leave Wednesday afternoon then the next morning drive 45 min and could
be fishing Thursday morning instead of driving. So that's what we did. We left Wednesday after lunch and drove the 4 hours to Sparta where we had a room booked.  Had a great meal at a Super Mexican
Restaurant. The next morning we headed out and arrived in Damascus and headed to our first fishing spot. We got our gear together and headed to the water. We fished it until about noon and we both caught fish. Robert had the first and the largest fish of the day. We went to a burger joint in Damascus for lunch. We then went to a grocery store and got snacks, fruits and stuff for the Air B&B. We got in touch with the owner of the Air B&B and he let us check in early. After we got settled into our place we went and did a photo walk
around Demascus. I took photo's and Robert took video and flew the Drone. We ate at the apartment and the next morning we were up early before the sun came up and headed out to fish. Let me tell you the photography went much better than the fishing did. We fished all morning. Now when you're fly fishing standing in a stream where trout are it's usually a very rocky bottom with baseball sized or larger rocks covering the whole stream bottom. This means you're slip sliding around the whole time trying to keep your balance trying to keep from falling in. You use a lot of muscles that you haven't used before so you get very sore quickly. We tried a couple of locations and by noon I was very sore from slipping and sliding and casting. So I headed to the car while walking down the road I looked at my wader boots and the sole on both of them were coming unglued falling apart. A little later
Robert had showed up and I told him about my shoes and he said that was nothing because the backside of his waders had blown out with a huge hole.

We had a good laugh. We went back to the apartment got cleaned up and went off to Bristol Tennessee to check out downtown.  We went there had some BBQ at a Delta Blues BBQ joint. We then walked the downtown area. It was pretty worn down but that made for some interesting photos. The next day it was photography and Video only no fishing. We started at the Archway into Damascus on the AT and then started doing some country exploring and found some good shots. It was suppose to rain in the afternoon so we tried to shoot in the morning and do editing in the afternoon.  We got some really cool shots of the landscapes old barns and churches. That pretty much rounded off that day doing editing and getting ready for departure in the morning. The next morning we headed out and went to Boone NC for breakfast and then headed home. 

It was a fantastic trip and we had lots of fun. We had some things go wrong My waders leaked and my wading boots were coming apart. Robert had a broken rod tip, scratched a GoPro lens pretty bad, and his waders blew out.  But over all we had fun , we laughed, we fished, took some good photo's and got some good video. Like all of our adventures we enjoyed ourselves . I hope that if you're into photography that you have a chance to get out with your friends and have an adventure. So until next week " Get outside and shoot" and have an adventure. If you would like to  see a video of this trip here is the link Fly Fishing Damascus . 

Hey if you want to check out my photography go to my instagram account Max Stansell Photography there are over 2000 posts there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link

Hey Everyone! Hope you're having a great week. Me? Not too bad. Thanks for asking. The title of this photo is "Visiting a Historic Photograph." I would love to say that this adventure was my idea but alas it was Robert my photography wingman that came up with this idea. He had done a presentation to our camera club of famous photographers. During his research he came upon the works of Dorothea Lange. She is known for her Great Depression work that she had done for the FSA (Farm Security Administration). This was one of the programs of the New Deal that president Rosevelt had started to bring the country out of the Great Depression. He employed hundreds of thousands of people to build things like the Hover dam the Blue Ridge parkway and many other things for the country. He had commissions that employed artistic folks also. He had painters painting murals in Bus and Train stations and photographers going around the country documenting things like the Dust Bowl migration of farmers to California and rural life all over the country. Famous photographers like Gordon Parks, Ben Shahn and of course the most famous Doretha Lange one of the most famous for her "Migrant Mother" series of photographs. All of the photo's that they took in the decade or so when these programs were in full force can be found in the National Archives website. And let me say they are stunning and amazing photographs that really tell a story. They were in every state of the US documenting what was happening in this terrible time. It is well worth a look. I have spent hours looking at them. The famous photograph that we were going to visit was in North Carolina in July of 1939 by Doretha Lange. She took a series of photos of a Rural Store / Gas Station in Gordonton NC.  The photo shows what life was like at a country store in rural North Carolina which was mainly an agricultural area with cotton and tobacco being king. It shows farm workers enjoying a relaxing moment at the local country store.

Our goal was to go visit the store and take photo's of it . We brought two 8x10 photographs of the famous photo's that I had got printed at my local Walgreens. Robert had all the info of the place where it was at. I hadn't really done much research on it. I was familiar with Dorothea Lange and the photograph but didn't know where it was at or what condition it was in.  I really didn't think that the porch would be there but I was game to go and explore the site.  The ride through the country side was nice after we got off of the interstate and all the large roads. Rolling hills and small farms were on either side of us until suddenly we were there. The porch was still on and even one of the signs that was on the original photo was still in the same place. The modern road that goes right beside it had ditches on both sides that I know weren't there in the original photo. Just a dusty dirt road. Now as I didn't think this trough too much and when it came time to shoot a shot I didn't bring the correct lens. Nothing wide enough. I only brought a 35 and 50mm for some reason. I guess I was thinking that's what she would have used. Well I was wrong and without standing in the road I couldn't get a good shot with the whole store in the frame. Robert had done better with his choice. I ended up using my phone and got some shots. We took some shots with the photographs to show the connection from then to now. Eighty Seven years have passed since Dorothea took the photograph of the guys sitting on the front porch of the store resting out of the hot sun of summer. This was not the only photo that she took that day just one out of a series of photos that she took.

I really didn't know how going to the same place as a famous photographer had been would affect me. But it really was something to experience. I know folks go to famous places all the time like in Yosemite where Ansel Adams took so many landscapes and people try to replicate the shots but I hadn't really done one of a famous person before. I did try to replicate a photo that my Grandfather took in the 40's and that was cool but that was a family photo only known really by me. But these photo's were published in magazines and newspapers all over the world. The building is in bad repair and don't know how many storms it will withstand before falling down. When we left we heard some creaking and squeaking as we walked away. Maybe a cat or squirrel was running around the old store but maybe it was ghost from the past saying thank you for visiting. Maybe Doretha herself was watching us take selfies with the old building. It was kind of eerie . Well that's enough jibber jabber for now until next week " Get out and Shoot" and find some history to shoot.

Hey if you want to check out my photography go to my instagram account Max Stansell Photography there are over 2000 posts there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link

Hey Guy's! Hope you're having a great week. Me? Pretty good! I just got back from a week long trip with the MAV (Max's Adventure Van). It was the first real trip with the MAV. I've taking it out on over night trips but not on a week long trip. I drove about a 900 miles on this trip. My wife and Forrest the wonder dog came along. We learned a lot on this trip about how to live and travel in a small van with two people and a dog. It's a little more difficult than you think.  So let me tell you the details of the trip.

The Trip. I have been planning this trip for a few months and was very excited to go. It was a multi stop and camp trip. We stayed at 4 different campgrounds and stayed a couple of nights with my sister. We visited 2 National Parks and 3 State parks on our trip. This was going to be a big loop starting in eastern North Carolina west to the Mountains near Cherokee then travel south to Greenville South Carolina then east again to Santee State Park then north to Carolina Beach and then back west back home. After packing the MAV up we departed our home and headed to our first destination Lake James State park. This state park was picked because it was about 4 hours away and that's about how long we wanted to travel in a day. I have stayed here before and was familiar with it. It was the first night that my wife and dog had slept overnight on a trip. It went well. The biggest adjustment for me was the room that my dog took up in the floor. Something I have to get used to. The next stop on our journey was to Cherokee NC. We walked around the town and had lunch then we went to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Oconaluftee Visitors Center. We checked out the visitor center and the surrounding grounds. We then went to our next campground which was in the National park Smokemont Campground. This was a very beautiful campground the prettiest of the trip. It had a small river that flowed thew it and people were fly fishing just across from our campsite. When we checked in the Ranger said that there could be Elk that roamed in the campground so be on the lookout. We didn't see any Elk that night but the next morning we went back to the visitor center and we saw some Elk on the way and at the visitor center there were a group of maybe a dozen Elk. The next stop was to Greenville South Carolina to visit my sister and two new grand nieces that I haven't met yet. We spent a couple of days there and had a great time. Next it was off to Santee State Park which is in the south eastern part of the state. I picked this park because it was about 50 min away from Congaree National Park which we went to visit. We stayed at Santee for two nights and had great sunrises each day. The next stop was traveling north to Carolina Beach State Park just outside of Wilmington North Carolina. We traveled up through Myrtle Beach to get there. After a quiet night at the Campground it was about 2 hour drive home. All in all it was a full week of travel with the MAV.

Lessons Learned- Now I have done a lot of work to get the van (MAV) ready for this trip. I had even taken it out for a couple of over nighters by myself to prepare and learned something each time. This trip with 2 people and a dog was a real learning experience. Things that went right.  The MAV performed wonderfully in every aspect. From Driving to Camping it did well. The power situation with battery life worked out great and we were never under mid 80's on power percentage. Driving and recharging worked great. Three of our four campgrounds had no power and one did. Water consumption was also very well. With washing dishes hands and such we only used about 2ish gallons out of a 5 gallon tank. So there was no need to refill the tank or empty a tank. We did wash dishes at a wash station the first night so we really din't use any water then. I did forget to open the air vents on the tanks so the freshwater tank walls kind of collapsed until I opened the vent and the dirty water leaked a little until I opened the vent on that tank. But that was all on me so make sure vents are open. We made a departure and arrival checklist of things to do. Like make sure the cabinets are closed and Locked. We drove off a couple of times with doors opening and slamming into something scaring us. I also figured out that unless we are driving or sleeping Forrest bed needs to be put away somewhere because it takes up too much floor space. I also learned that either me or my wife should be standing doing something like washing dishes or cooking at the same time because we just get in each other's way. The Starlink Satellite dish works best with a clear view of the sky which we had at two of the 4 campsites. One of the campsites we only had partial view and the wifi was weak but usable. The other site we had great cell coverage but no clear sky so it worked out.  The Fridge worked great kept everything nice and cold and frozen. We should have got some ice cream the fridge would have had no problem with it. Cooking went well we brought a charcoal grill but couldn't use it the first night because of a burn ban but we used a cheap one burner stove I got for the MAV and it worked great. The induction cooktop worked great and I made breakfast on it each morning and make coffee with it. Our biggest lesson learned its that being organized is important. Knowing where everything is and making sure it gets there. Before you leave a place make sure you put everything away for one it won't be falling everywhere and just looks neater.  Poor Forrest world was shaken up with the trip. He enjoyed the hikes we did but had to stay in the van quite a bit. I could monitor the temperature and had either the fan or the AC on to keep him nice and comfortable and those systems worked flawlessly. 

Over all it was a great trip where we went to 2 National Parks and 3 State Parks and I got to meet my two new Grand Nieces and visit with my Sister and her family. It was a good week and the MAV performed great. Looking for my next big adventure that will be in West Virginia. Until then get out and shoot and have fun! Here is a link to a video I made of the trip. MAV's first real trip

Hey if you want to check out my photography go to my instagram account Max Stansell Photography there are over 2000 posts there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link