Category: Travel Page 47 of 56
We woke up early our first day at Frisco and headed to the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse to get there before the crowds and the heat. We arrived and got our ticket to climb the 256 steps to the top. My view fromthe top is pictured below.
Later that evening, we came back for a night sky ranger talk on the beach. We used our experience shooting the night sky the night before and put it to use with the famous lighthouse as the foreground.
The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse has an interesting history. The original Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was built in 1803 but was too short to warn passing ships of the nearby Diamond Shoals. In the 1850s, the lighthouse was added onto, making it 150 feet tall. But, by the 1860s, the lighthouse was in dire need of repairs so the current lighthouse was constructed and was finally lit in 1870. In 1935, the lighthouse was decommissioned due to beach erosion and replaced with a skeletal steel tower. The lighthouse was then transferred to the National Park Service and in 1999 the lighthouse was moved inland to its current location to protect it from ongoing beach erosion (NPS).
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After visiting the Wright Brothers Memorial, we made our way to Frisco Campground, our home for the next two nights. This was our favorite campground of the trip, full of dunes and secluded spots. Since it was the middle of the week, there weren’t a lot of other campers, so we chose a spot at the top of a dune with a view.
Deer in the dunes at Frisco Campground
The Cape Hatteras National Seashore has applied to be a international dark sky park which means that it has a lack of ambient light nearby and is great for stargazing, and in our case, astro-photography. With our D3100s, we’ve never attempted astro photography, but we rented a D7200 for this trip and we had to take advantage of this combination! It was a fun learning experience! The above Milky Way shot was taken at our campsite at Frisco.
To learn more about Cape Hatteras National Seashore, visit the National Park Service. Thanks for stopping by! If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page, follow me on Instagram, and Flickr! To see inside my camera bag, check out my Gear Page. For information about our new Guided Photography Tours, visit GuidedPhoto.com.
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After exploring the Norfolk Botanical Gardens, we got back in the car and continued South to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Our first stop in the islands was the Wright Brother’s National Memorial. The monument is in Kill Devil Hills at the site of the first powered flight. The brothers chose this location because of the area’s steady winds as well as the isolation. Shockingly, in the early 1900s,
this area was not the tourist hub it is today. The granite monument was built at the top of Kill Devil Hill, where the brothers spent three years performing gliding experiments before moving on to powered tests at the base of the hill.
To learn more about the Wright Brothers and to plan a trip to the monument, visit the National Park Service. Thanks for stopping by! If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page, follow me on Instagram, and Flickr! To see inside my camera bag, check out my Gear Page. For information about our new Guided Photography Tours, visit GuidedPhoto.com.
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After leaving Williamsburg, we decided to make a stop at the Norfolk Botanical Garden and make use of the Reciprocal Admission Program. This is a huge garden that even has a river and offers boat tours as another way to experience the landscape. We decided to take the tram around the garden to get an overview everything they have to offer. The botanical garden is home to approximately 250 Crapemyrtle Trees, which is the official tree of Norfolk. They also have a rose garden made up of over 3000 rose plants (which you will see on this week’s Wordless Wednesday). For more information about the gardens, visit NorfolkBotanicalGarden.org.
Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to come back next week as we arrive in the Outer Banks and visit the Wright Brother’s Memorial. If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page, follow me on Instagram, and Flickr! To see inside my camera bag, check out my Gear Page. For information about our new Guided Photography Tours, visit GuidedPhoto.com.
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After our morning at Yorktown, we made our way to Historic Jamestowne. When looking to visit Jamestown, you have two choices, Historic Jamestowne and Jamestown Settlement. At Jamestown Settlement, you will see costumed re-enactors and get to experience how the first American colonists lived. We chose instead to visit Historic Jamestowne which is run by the National Park Service and is the actual site of the Jamestowne Colony. We got there just in time for the archaeology tour and I was glad we made it. The tour was led by a Jamestowne archaeologist and she took us through recent archaeological discoveries that were made right where we were standing. I was surprised to learn how much is still being learned about these people that lived over 400 years ago. Honestly, some of their discoveries are shocking and I don’t want to spoil it for you if any of you are planning on visiting Jamestowne. If I’ve piqued your interests, you can read about their finds on the Historic Jamestowne website.
This was the highlight of the trip for me and I would recommend that everyone should visit, especially if you are an American History buff. The photo above is a recreation of the original Jamestowne fort. They didn’t just look at drawings of the fort to put this together, they actually figured out where the posts used to be by looking at the color of the soil. That is some attention to detail!
I believe this will be my last post about our time in Williamsburg so I want to talk about the campground. We stayed at Chickahominy Riverfront Park which had tent sites right on the Chickahony River. This must not be a popular spot to tent camp during the week because everyone around us left on Sunday and we had the place to ourselves Sunday night. The park is a little drive from the Williamsburg sites, but I enjoyed our time there. They have a fishing pier, boat ramp, and a pool which is nice way to cool down in the Virginia summer. It was a peaceful place and I would definitely camp there again. For more information about the campground, visit JamesCityCountyVA.gov
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