This past Friday I took the day off to go meet my brother and nephew in Columbia to camp out and spend the day riding dirtbikes at Carolina Adventure World. That place was incredible to say the least. Trails were from beginner to expert. We accidentally went on an expert trail once and it wasn’t too bad. In fact some of the intermediate trails were more difficult. I didn’t get a lot of photos because I was busy riding or crashing. Yeah, we all took our share of spills and I feel like I was in a three day brawl. My brother took the hardest hit with a jump that didn’t go so well on the enduro track. He’s fine though. I wish I had taken one of my old film cameras so I could have gotten some more shots from the trails as it was too risky to take my digital gear down there considering the dust, mud, trees, and tendency for my face to meet the ground in less than 2 seconds. Oh well…next time I’ll bring the K1000 (The “tank” of SLRs).

So here are a few snapshots.

Campsite at Sesquicentennial State Park

Tasty dinner. Garrett dropped a couple of those in the coals…extra crispy.

Garrett gets hydrated before the dirtbiking commences.

My bike for the day. XR250

Look how dirty my shirt is. This was after about two hours of riding.

We were so hot and tired and this trailer kept taunting me with the ideas of frozen treats.

-JG

Oh boy…

Goodnight.

-JG

So get ready because there are about 15 photos below that need to load. This past week I have been photographing several parties with Leigh for a VIP’s 50th Anniversary. She mentions it in her latest blog post, but there are not photos of anyone…only details etc. as to keep everything private. I will say that these were some really beautiful parties. It’s hard to beat the settings on Kiawah Island and downtown Charleston. Mingo Point, William Aiken House, and The Sanctuary are all perfect places to throw perfect parties. Some of my favorite detail/setting photos are below. More to follow once I finish editing what I shot earlier tonight. Well technically last night I guess…

Mingo Point

William Aiken House

-JG

You probably didn’t notice, but I wanted to let you know just in case you did that I have changed the layout of the blog a little.  I made it a 1-column layout to have more room for my landscape/horizontal oriented images.  The vertical photos are all large and in charge, while the horizontals have been fairly small in comparison.  Now they’ll be bigger and a better match to their vertical counterparts.

Looking for the archives and the search function?  Check the bottom of the page.  I have limited the number of posts per page to 5 to help keep you from scrolling forever as well.

So there you have it…nothing major, but a nice little tweak I think.

-JG

It was inevitable. Everyone that blogs has to mention gas, or gas prices, or a gas “crisis”. I don’t care to go political on this blog. There are so many things I can grumble about and point to as being horrible about this country, but I choose not to because I am still 100% thankful to live in the United States of America. Not in the “better than thou” way, but in the thankful for what I have way. Patriotism aside…

I decided to start trying to ride my motorcycle to work more often to save on fuel costs and emissions. I get something like 50 miles per gallon. I haven’t actually done the math yet, but will on the next fill-up. There is no gas gauge on my bike. I just know that I need to buy gas every 100 miles. I could go farther, but the idea of sputtering out of gas is not one I relish. My house is exactly 48 miles from my preferred parking spot, so that’s a fill-up per day when biking it to the office.

The money saved is great, but there are always drawbacks. One being the obvious drawback of southern summer weather. Rainy afternoons and blistering days. Lately, I’ve avoided biking to work because of the thunderstorm forecast. However, every day when I leave it doesn’t end up raining, so today I decided to fugeddaboutit and rode the bike. Now I have successfully allowed the Sun’s UV rays to rain hell’s fury on my white Scots-Irish-American arms. Result = more freckles than a redhead convention and a lovely short-sleeved shirt farmer’s tan (read burn).

Skin cancer as a fair trade for savings at the pump maybe?

mebbeh.

-JG