Virginia Gold Cup

To anyone who hasn't been to a horse race like the Virginia Gold Cup, May 7th was a day of pastels, hats, and grass stains. What a fabulous display of preppy clothes and great times. I've never been to a horse race like this before. All previous times were spent in a glass box, watching horses sprint around a oval dirt track. This was a huge grass track with water jumps and hurdles. There were beagle races and hat contests. Junior rider races and gold cup champions. I've never seen so many elaborate tailgate set-ups. Flowers and ribbon and finger sandwich platters. People playing corn hole and drinking from small beach pails, while wearing everything from a polka dots seeksucker suits to some of the largest and tallest hats I've ever seen, on both women and men.

Spring is Here

I can't say I have a favorite flower but I certainly like them when my path crosses with them. From surprise bouquets to highway-side landscaping, there really is nothing like a flower to brighten up the area.

It's only unfortunate that they don't last. DC is beautiful without its pink blossoms but what isn't better with some rose petal tinted glasses? The Cherry Blossom Festival was beautiful this year and it's over but on that same token they've moved aside for the tulips of the flower beds outside my building and the clover buds in the kickball field.

Food is Beautiful

I have no idea why I like taking pictures of food so much.

Maybe it's because I think entirely with my stomach. I'm out with my friends getting a drink, I snap a shot of the condensating glass in the dimmed candlelight. I'm out with my boyfriend and make us both wait to diving in in order take a picture of the cheese sampler. I love food. And I also think it is beautiful. When a photo is so well done that you can't help but salivate at first glance, it's done its job. Not to say that these will do that for those who weren't there...which would be all of you. But for me anyways, they preserve the senses of the moment for that much longer.

The twinge of the cheese. The spray of a bursting sparkling wine bubble. The clink of fingernail on glass.

It's a Wizarding World

Tucked neatly between Honeydukes and Dogweed & Deathwood, across the street from the Owl Post and the Dragon Challenge, lies the best place to have lunch, Three Broomsticks? The Orlando street is a peculiar combination of Hogsmead, Diagon Alley and the Hogwarts Castle, but with hundreds of people streaming through, one hardly as time to analyze. The excitement of those around you combines with your own and a child-like wonder finds your eyes

A sip of Butterbeer, pass the Pumpkin Juice, break me off a piece of that English pastey. This is the place where books come to life.

Our Version of a Lantern Walk

It was the last weekend of the Cherry Blossom festival here in DC this past weekend. My roommate and I set out at Noon for a blossom filled day celebrating these beautiful trees. This day, we hoped, would culminate at a Lantern Walk around the Tidal Basin around the Jefferson Memorial. Now when someone says "lanterns," especially after hearing about the lantern lighting ceremony, we assumed we would be lead around the basin through lanterns or to a grove of lanterns. Basically. we were imagining that glowing scene from Tangled. Massive amounts of lanterns. This, as you can probably guess, was not correct. And I will now concede that this expectation was unrealistic but still, lame. These walks "Lantern Walks" consisted of following a guide holding a single lantern around the basin. No grove, no multiple lanterns of any kind.

While this could be seen as a set back. We took it in stride and walked the other way around the basin, creating a tour of our own. Sadly not filled with lanterns, but had some beautiful glowing shots of the monuments, which made it worth it.

Confession: I'm an Addict

When I heard that my family was going to be taking my little sister to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, I knew I had to be there. Not because it would be a chance to see my family for the first time in months. Not because they were going to be visiting the sunny state of Florida. But because I needed to see, touch and experience a world that, until that point, I had been separated from by either screen or page. You see, I, am a Harry Potter addict.

I feel no sense of shame or bashfulness about this fact. It is something I have come to embrace about myself and something that has punctuated my life with many of its highlights. From the Half Blood Prince book release in Oxford, England to dressing up to the Deathly Hallows release in Wisconsin, I have had a wonderful time studding my childhood, and now early adulthood, with the characters of that series. But nothing has come close to the joy I felt upon rounding the bend in the Island of Adventure path and seeing the Hogwarts Castle rise up from below the treetops. My heart skipped a beat, my breath quickened and my trigger finger flashed to my camera. I have a feeling the next couple of posts will be sharing a few of my many favorite.

Enjoy the magic.

Scenic Stops

I find it funny how often a person elation at getting out of the gosh dang car when on a long car ride translates into the photos that they take at those stops. Even their shutter trigger fingers are happy to be stretched outside of clicking the "Next" arrow on the iPod or "Play" on the DVD player.

Here are two shots from my recent East coast car rides. I may not mind long car rides but it appears as though my shutter finger and photographic eye certainly did. Happy to be back on nonmoving ground once more.