Category Archives: travel

Theme parks.  Crowded, noisy, hot, and expensive . . . and that’s just the parking lot.  How someone can with a straight face charge you $18 to use their parking facilities—just minutes before they hit you up for another $64 per person at the entry gate—is beyond me.  What brass!  Then, on top of that, the prices of food and even a bottle of water?  It’s enough to make a grown mouse cry.

But we’re not even talking about the theme park a cartoon mouse built.  We’re talking about the theme park a mediocre beer and some stately looking Clydesdales built.  We’re talking here about Busch Gardens Europe (Europe by way of Williamsburg, Virginia, that is), and at prices that would make Rick Steves swear off “European” travel for good.  Yep, I’d just love to see ol’ Rick survive in Busch Gardens Europe on a buck eighty-seven a day.  He’d never get into the parking lot!

But a true photographer can find interesting shots anywhere, and that was my assignment for this past Saturday—trying to make a theme park actually look like fun.  So, I ignored the very rude, very young teen with the family friendly T-shirt (“Disrespect me and I’ll smash off your #@&%ing face”—But, hey, at least it was grammatically correct in that it avoided the normal split infinitive).  I even ignored the same little twit when he deliberately dumped his lunch trash on the ground directly in front of the trash bin— in front of his parents I might add—and then walked away while laughing about it.

Note to Busch Gardens—Want to attract more families?  Then this is the kind of scummy little trash you want to keep out of your parks.  And his parents, too.

Anyway, we did enjoy some of the animal exhibitions, especially since Little Mr. Disrespect wasn’t there to pull the wings off the barn owls to the delight of his ever-doting parental units.  We also rather enjoyed the rhythmic, harmonious crescendo of terrified screams cascading over us from the roller-coaster riders all around hurtling toward the ground at Mach .87.

Someday I’ll return to Virgina.  Some day I’ll go back through the Shenandoah.  Someday I’ll revisit the incredible Outer Banks of North Carolina.  But someday will never again come for Busch Gardens Europe.  I have all the pictures I need of that place.

And I’ll bet you thought all my travel blogs were fluff pieces.  After today you’ll not think that again.

Well, we did Shenandoah National Park . . . partially, before we got rained out.  We did the Outer Banks—great for lighthouses and other scenery.

Today, we discuss and view Colonial Williamsburg, which Ursula and I actually visited on Friday.  We opted to not spend the extra money that would have afforded us unlimited entrance into the various buildings where we could watch craftsmen performing their arts.  I was much more interested in the exterior architecture and the outdoor sights, and all that is free.

Fortunately, the weather held for most of the day with only intermittent cloudiness marring some of the building shots (I much prefer photographing buildings against mostly blue skies with just a hint of interesting cloud formations to interrupt the monotony.

Just outside the more touristy areas, in Merchant Square, are some really neat shops, including a Williams-Sonoma for kitchen gadgets, a great little camera shop (Massey’s) with some surprisingly good prices (I purchased an Omni-Bounce at Massey’s for my Canon 430EX flash unit—the owner was very knowledgeable, helpful, and friendly; call him for equipment prices and you might be pleasantly surprised), a nifty little gourmet restaurant for lunch called the Blue Talon Bistro (playing old episodes of Julia Child’s The French Chef on the television—one of my favorite shows as a child, and a rather pleasant break from the normal ESPN/Sports Bar combination), and the charming and very well stocked College of William and Mary Bookstore (actually run by Barnes & Noble, and where I had an interesting conversation with a fellow author who specializes in illustrated children’s history books—very, very clever stuff; unfortunately, I cannot recall his name).

Educational, historical, fun, scenic, and lots of great shopping.  That’s a combination that’s pretty hard to beat.

Ursula and I arrived in D.C. on Monday and from there, via rental car, drove west to the Shenandoah National Park.  We only got about half way through before darkness fell and we were compelled to stop for the night in the town of Luray.  Unfortunately, heavy rain and fog the next day precluded a safe continuation of the rest of Shenandoah, so we exited onto Interstate 81, and then Interstate 64 heading east.

From there we made our way down to North Carolina’s Outer Banks, spending the night in the town of Frisco on the Island of Hatteras at the charming Breakwater Inn.

The next morning we ferried over to Ocracoke Island.  What a delightful place to spend a few hours and have a nice lunch along the Silver Lake Harbor, after the obligatory visit to the Ocracoke Lighthouse, of course.

Indeed, if lighthouses are your photographic “thing,” the Outer Banks is a place you need to most definitely sightsee.  We visited four lighthouses altogether this trip, three of which you’ll see photographs shortly.  I’m saving one lighthouse for another blog.

Meanwhile, interspersed among the shots that follow are photographs of the Ocracoke, Bodie Island, and the unbelievably tall Cape Hatteras Lighthouses.  I’ll post pictures of the Currituck Beach Lighthouse at a later date.

One last teaser:  Remember the 2008 Richard Gere/Diane Lane movie Nights in Rodanthe, based upon the Nicholas Sparks book of the same name?  Recall that gorgeous house on the beach?  You’ll see that house in one of the following shots as well.

Frisco on Dwellable