I don’t make enough trips to Virginia. I’m not sure if it’s because of the 6.5 hour car drive or the lack of things to do in the small town, but I only make the trip up north once a year – twice if I’m lucky.

I’m never in town long enough to really slow down and take in the small town feel, because the moment I start feeling relaxed and my mind starts to take it easy, it’s time to head back down to the “big” city again.

I’m going to miss driving around at 25mph, cooking with my dad and not keeping track of what time it is and where I need to be.

The little brick building below used to be a piano/music school, where I took my first piano classes.

And this is what used to be my parents’ restaurant. They started renting the building out to another Chinese restaurant business, which recently went bankrupt (horrible people, by the way), so now we’re remodeling the building – hopefully will be ready to be rented out again sometime next year.

More on family business and food tomorrow!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas weekend!

For a few more photos of the town and a quick (I promise!) history lesson on Radford, visit my photography blog.

When I finally got that (Facebook) invitation to my 10 year high school reunion (about a month before the event, a month!), all of those stereotypical thoughts rushed into my mind:

“Are we really that old?”
“Ugh. I’m not ready for this yet.”
“What have I done with my life (so far)?”
“Great. This is catching me in the middle of a career change!”

Then I remembered that I received the reunion invitation via Facebook, so everyone attending already knows that I’ve gained at least 20 pounds since high school and that I spend most of my days sitting at my computer or running around with a camera attached to my hip.

How things have changed for us, thanks to social media.

After a few weeks of debating, and although it would be nice to visit my hometown again. I do make a trip there at least once a year, usually around Christmas time, to spend time with my family. But, I rarely visit during the fall, or any other time of the year. It’s just been easier for everyone to gather at our home in Atlanta. Bigger city, bigger airport, more things to do… you know.

Thanks to Facebook’s event page, I could see exactly who was going to be there and when I saw that most of the people who I was actually friends with in high school would not be able to be there, I decided at the last minute that I really didn’t want to make the 6.5 hour car drive up to Virginia to see people that I barely even talked to while we were still in high school.

I figured, if we didn’t talk back then, are only friends on Facebook in order to stalk each other and (still) don’t have anything in common… then this reunion wouldn’t be much fun for me.

Again, thank you, social media.

But, the travel bug in me wouldn’t stop biting. Since Paul had a trip down to Auburn planned for the weekend. I decided to tag along for one evening. In my mind I had visions of photographing a sea of RVs, a shrimp boil and just some good ol’ Southern football tailgating.

This is where the “Lessons Learned” comes into play. We got into Auburn on Friday evening right at sunset, and by the time we got to the RV park the sun was well on its way down the horizon. I was able to catch this shot of the sun setting with some gorgeous Auburn U colors in the sky.

And this was the shooting conditions that I was left with after the sun had set.

Dark, dark and dark… with a little bit of light from the RV to light up the area. I couldn’t help but feel only feelings of despair when looking around and trying desperately to figure out what in the world I would be able to photograph in these conditions.

Turns out, not much. Or perhaps, I need more practice shooting in the dark with not-great sources of light.

So, I ended up putting the camera away and just enjoyed visiting with some great friends in Auburn.

Although it’s unfortunate, sometimes we I have to make mistakes as a photographer in order to learn or reinforce some important photography lessons:

Plan ahead. By this I mean, really plan ahead. Especially if the assignment or project involves travel.

What went wrong for me in this instance?

1. Poor timing. We left Atlanta for Auburn after Paul got off of work, and arrived right at sunset. Which left us no daylight time.

2. Not enough planning. The shrimp boil didn’t start cooking until after sundown. So, all hope of getting any great photos of the prep, cook and serve were out the window (or down the horizon with the sun).

3. Get a dog sitter. Since this was a last minute trip, I had to bring all three of our dogs along. Having three large, excited, energetic dogs on leashes while trying to photograph in the dark is no easy task.

Next time, I will be planning for a weekend trip to Auburn that will last for 3 days instead of 3 hours so that I will be able to get some shots in during the day. Oh, and get a babysitter for the furry babies too.

If you visit Grand Cayman, if you’ve never been before and if you have a limited amount of time… visiting the Stingray Sandbar is a must-do.

We were planning on going on a dive while in Grand Cayman, but a fellow diver on our Belize dive told us how incredible the stingray sandbar was. So, we booked the excursion and off we went.

Stingray Sandbar in North Sound in Grand Cayman was formed because of the natural movement of the ocean. It is located in the middle of the ocean just north of the northern coast of Grand Cayman.

When fishermen would fish far off of the coast of Grand Cayman, then they would anchor off of this sandbar to clean the fish before returning to shore. The fishermen would discard parts of the fish that they didn’t want (bones, guts, scales) into the ocean next to their boats. The stingrays started to learn that the sound of the (fishing) boats meant that there would be free food.

Although these Southern Stingrays are wild animals, they are so accustomed to people being around, handling and feeding them that when they hear the boats approach and anchor, they swim up and start begging for food like puppies.

What a truly amazing experience.

I love the ocean. Now, don’t get me wrong I do enjoy being in the mountains, but I just don’t get that simultaneous feeling of both serenity and exhilaration when I am in the mountains.

We have taken two trips out West this year and I was afraid that I wouldn’t get to see my beloved ocean until next year. I guess that comes with being married to someone who has your typical 9 to 5 career. But thanks to Paul finding a new job and being suddenly gifted with two weeks of vacation, we decided that a cruise was in order.

During this trip we had the opportunity to dive at two locations: first in Cozumel, Mexico then in Belize. It felt so great to get back in the water after a year away from my beloved ocean.

We got our open water certification a year ago on a cruise to the Caribbean, and it was on that trip that I fell in love with the ocean and promised myself that I would somehow find a way to be near the ocean as much as possible. However after coming home from vacation, “real-life” hit me like a freight train (as happens to most of us upon return from vacation… ) and I was swept back into the whirlwind of endless web and graphic design projects and lost sight of my promise to myself.

Slowly the feelings of not feeling fulfilled and overwhelming stress starting taking over my mind once again.

You can imagine what a welcome relief it was to escape on a cruise…

… if you’ve been on a cruise, you know that there is no internet on the ships, unless you’re willing to pay an arm and a leg for it. So, I ended up with plenty of time to reflect on the order of things.

Specifically, my career path and doing what makes me truly happy.

I always get on my friends who complain about not liking their jobs and yet, don’t do anything about it. So, why am I not doing something to change the fact that I’m not completely and totally loving my job with my whole heart?

I know some of you may be thinking, “Uhm, Melissa… You work for yourself. Why the hell are you complaining?”

It’s because for the past four years, I have worked 50 to 60 hour weeks on a business doing something that I was good at and liked enough. Not all that time was spent on client work, it was also learning how to run a business, how to find new business and trying to balance life and work all while working from home.

Although I am going to be taking a slightly different route now, I do not regret the time I have spent building a web & graphic design business. I have learned SO much.
1. How to run a business
2. Client relations
3. Marketing & PR for a small business, both traditional and social media methods.
4. And my absolute favorite: Incredible friends that I have made who either began as  a client relationship or through networking.

But, sometimes you just know that it’s time for a change. Maybe because you’re not happy anymore, because you’re burnt out or maybe it’s just time to move on.

It has taken courage for me to post this publicly, because of…
- The fear of not getting any work in the short term.
– The fear of not knowing.
– The fear of change.

What do I love with all my heart?

After putting much thought and soul searching into this, due to the lack of internet on the ship, the things that I love with all my heart:
1. Photography: Capturing images & stories
2. Food: No further explanation needed here *grin*
3. The Ocean: The water, the sights, the smells (yes, the smells) and the animals.
4. Storytelling: Whether that be through words, still images or moving images.

What do you love? Are you in a career that fulfills you? It takes some courage to discover what this truly is and sometimes, even more courage to decide to go for it.

I am happiest when I am near the ocean. I’m in pure bliss when I am on a boat jetting towards my next dive location.

What is your paradise or bliss? What does it look like? (Leave a link to a photo if you have one. I would love to see!)

I will leave you with a quote that kept replaying over and over in my mind every time I looked out at the ocean during my trip:

“Now, bring me that horizon.”

I am ready.

We are finally back from a 10 day vacation! We spent the first part of it in Orlando, and the second part on a 7 day cruise to the Western Caribbean.

Carnival Cruise Lines aren’t exactly known for their food, they are known to be the “Fun Ships.” And that they are, with daily schedules jam packed with activities throughout the day. It really is a great cruise line for families with children. Or young couples who are cheap poor frugal like us.

I would like to think that I’m more interested in the dive excursions rather than the food, but the food blogger in me wouldn’t let you down. So, here is a quick recap of the food aboard our cruise ship: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

The Good.

Here we are with our wonderful wait staff. Having a great wait staff is my favorite part of cruise food, there’s just something great about seeing and chatting with the same servers every day.

I was also thrilled when our wait staff found out that I am a food blogger & photographer and humored me when I snapped away with my camera.

This was one of Paul’s favorite soups: Chilled Mango Soup with Ginger, garnished with Basil.

And below: Strawberry Bisque.

I was especially fond of the appetizers at dinner. There would always be one item that was more unique that they almost dare you to try, including frogs legs, alligator, oysters and for the less adventurous – sushi.

Another great thing about dinner on cruises (or at least on Carnival) is that you can order as many appetizers, entrees and desserts as your stomach can handle.

Paul ordered four crab cakes one evening – Four. This was in addition to his other appetizer, entree and two desserts.

The left photo was a nicely plated crab cake that our server brought out for me to photograph, on the right is Paul with the four crab cakes piled on one plate.

The dinner entrees were – okay. Especially the vegetarian entrees, they were okay. I did appreciate that there was at least two vegetarian entree options every night, but let’s just say that the meat eaters on the boat had a much better selection of food than the vegetarians.

Below on the left is Paul with his filet mignon, and on the right is the vegetarian selection for the evening: Squash, Pumpkin, Cheddar Pie.

The Bad:

The desserts, especially the diet desserts, like the diet pumpkin pie below on the left. According to Paul (I didn’t even want to try a taste), the whipped cream and the strawberry sunset on the side of the plate was much tastier than the pie itself.

The Ugly:

I’m going to spare you photos from this category – ha!

But, I will leave you with a few parting words:
1. Chocolate covered pineapple
2. Chocolate covered melon (cantaloupe, honeydew, watermelon)
3. Food poisoning: For Paul, not me. Let’s just say that you may not want to order the smoked salmon bagel on the last day of the cruise.

So, there you go, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of the food on our cruise. If you’re still hungry for a few more cruise ship food photos, read about our Caribbean cruise that we took last year. But for me, I am glad to be home and looking forward to cooking again, even if I’m kind of dreading the whole cleaning up part afterwards.

Disclaimer: If you haven’t visited The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, are planning to and don’t want any spoilers… Please click away from this page. However, if you’re aching for a glimpse at the food and drinks at this theme park, read on! Lots of pictures in this one.

Okay, now that’s said and done – and you can’t blame me for ruining your Harry Potter experience…

Hogwarts Castle! Majestic, isn’t it?

Call me a nerd, but I almost teared up when we walked through Hogsmeade and came upon Hogswarts. This structure was home to one of the rides, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey.

But, enough about that. On to what I was really excited about seeing.

Let’s start off with Honeyduke’s Sweet Shop, the layout of the shop itself was just your typical candy-store-in-a-theme-park, but what made it really special were the signage on the outside of the shop, the window displays, the details painted on the walls inside the shop and of course, the candy.

The graphic/packaging designer in me just couldn’t resist snapping photo upon photo of the great packaging designs.

I was very happy to see Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans, and adored the packaging. I skipped out on buying one of these and settled for photos of the packaging instead (at $11 per box, the price was a bit steep for my taste).

Peppermint toads. I was very impressed with how organized and well stocked the shelves were. The store employees were really on top of it!

We snagged some pumpkin juice from Honeydukes as well. The packaging of this drink was just calling out to me. Luckily, the drink was pretty tasty as well. It was sort of an apple cider with spices. Would probably feel more appropriate if it wasn’t a humid 95˚F outside.

The restaurant in the Harry Potter section of the park was the Three Broomsticks, which is an inn and pub in the all wizarding village of Hogsmeade in the Harry Potter books. The food that was served was traditional English fare, including fish and chips, shepherd’s pie and rotisserie chicken.

We took this chance to get our first serving of Butterbeer, this time we choose the cold version.

The verdict: Tastes just like a butterscotch version of cream soda. Paul is a huge fan of cream soda, so he loved the Butterbeer. I have learned to like cream soda over the years, so I was pretty happy with the Butterbeer.

Paul enjoyed the Butterbeer so much, he went to a Butterbeer stand a few hour later for seconds. This time, he tried the frozen version, kind of like a butterscotch version of an Icee.

Have you visited The Wizarding World of Harry Potter? What was your favorite part? Or, what are you most excited to see?

Boulder was named the foodiest town in America last year by Bon Appétit. So, as you can imagine I was beyond excited about visiting this place.

Did it live up to the hype? In a word: Yes.

Starting off with Atlas Purveyors, a coffee shop on Pearl Street that was right down the street from the bed and breakfast that we were staying at. I started my day off at this shop almost every morning while we were in Boulder.

Aside from their awesome staff, what I loved about Atlas Purveyors: they served rice milk and boba. I’ve been trying to reduce the amount of dairy that I consume, so I’ve been making my lattes at home with rice milk (unfortunately, I have a slight allergy to soy milk).

The drink that I got pretty much every day: ice green tea with rice milk and boba, sweetened with agave.

On our first night in Boulder, I wanted to stop in at Zoe Ma Ma. I had read and heard great things about this little restaurant, but I was pretty much sold on the idea of eating here as soon as I saw that they served Taiwanese street food. And knowing how uncommon it is to find an actual Taiwanese restaurant, at least in Atlanta, I was pretty darn excited.

Even though I didn’t grow up in Taiwan, in fact my first visit was when I was 23 years old, having Taiwanese food just makes me feel at home somehow. And oh is Taiwan famous for its street food. Commonly found at the night markets, primarily in Taipei, street food ranges from stinky tofu to noodle soup to bubble tea.

One thing I loved about Zoe Ma Ma… their vegetarian and vegan (and gluten-free) selections. Finding vegetarian meal choices in Taiwan can be difficult sometimes, the Taiwanese do love to use meat in their dishes.

I chose the vegetarian noodle bowl for my dinner, fresh organic egg noodles with fresh vegetables, tofu, mushrooms and your choice of a combination of sauces. I selected the house recommended blend of sauces, to me, that’s always the way to go.

During day one of the Food & Light workshop, we were given an assignment of “go to lunch and take photos of what you eat.” I love assignments like this. Oh, if only school was this fun back in the day!

After some careful consideration and a bit of debate, I headed on over to The Mediterranean Restaurant with two new Food & Light friends,  Kimberly and Erin.

The lovely folks at The Mediterranean were nice enough to let us snap away with our cameras. Below on the left is Erin’s paella, and bread with olive oil on the right.

Of course, knowing me being on assignment. I wanted to get the best photo possible. So I asked our waiter, “what is the prettiest dish on your menu?”

He looked dumbfounded at first (way to go, Melissa), but then said, “Let me take a quick survey, be right back.”

The final verdict: the seared tuna. And boy was he right, this was one nice-lookin’ dish. Mighty tasty too.

One restaurant that I was not going to miss while in Boulder was SALT Bistro. Mostly because of all the raving reviews that I heard from various Twitter friends, and partially because SALT Bistro was nice enough (via Twitter) to make special reservations for me and Paul – they generally only do group reservations.

So, I was already loving this place before I even stepped foot in their door.

That being said, if you do get to visit SALT make sure to check out their Cocktail Element menu. You choose your liquor, fruit flavor and mixture. We weren’t in the alcohol mood when we went for dinner so we got virgin versions of the drinks. Mine was a blackberry with club soda, and Paul’s was a mango with club soda. Both were delicious, though I liked mine better.

And what would SALT Bistro be, without a wonderful display of salts? Two different types of salt were served with our bread and butter appetizer.

I should mention that SALT Bistro is a farm to table restaurant whenever possible. Their menus change with the seasons and they use locally sourced ingredients, which I found to be a very common theme while in Boulder.

Here is Paul ready to enjoy his Pork Chop. I ordered the Summer Vegetable Trio, which I will happily recommend to anyone, it was amazing. I will apologize that my photography of my own meal was not so amazing.

The final restaurant that I visited while in Boulder was The Kitchen Upstairs. This was lunch during day two of the Food & Light workshop. This was a very cool space with big windows overlooking Pearl Street down below.

Our menu for the meal. What a spread!

Family style meals are always a favorite of mine. There’s just something special about sharing a meal at a big table with good company. When the food is this delicious, that just makes it even better.

We made good work of the eton mess with strawberries. I know this will be on my must-make list when strawberry season rolls around again.

Now that I have eaten my way through Boulder, Colorado I can check this foodie town off my list.

What town or city is on your must-visit list for food and restaurants? Next on my list: San Fransisco. I have a feeling that San Fran will be this foodie’s dream come true. Then after that, the entire country of Italy is up next.

Boulder, I miss you so. And will continue to until we meet again.

Atlas Purveyors
2010 10th Street
Boulder, CO 80302

Zoe Ma Ma
2010 10th Street
Boulder, CO 80302

The Mediterranean Restaurant
1002 Walnut Street
Boulder CO 80302

SALT the Bistro
1047 Pearl Street
Boulder, CO 80302

The Kitchen
1039 Pearl Street
Boulder, CO 80302

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!

I’m not the most patriotic person out there, but I’m not saying that I’m not patriotic either. But America the Beautiful is literally the only thing that comes to mind when we drove Trail Ridge Road during our visit to Rocky Mountain National Park.

This first photo was taken at Forest Canyon, a definite must-stop location on the definite must-drive road (Trail Ridge Road) when you visit Rocky Mountain National Park.

Another must-stop location on the Trail Ridge Road is Rainbow Curve (which actually comes before Forest Canyon).  Here you get an incredible panoramic view of the park below. Click the photo for a larger view.

Our last stop on Trail Ridge Road was Rock Cut. After a tiring hike/walk up to the top, due to the elevation (12,110 ft above sea level), we had an elk herd sighting… which made the drive and the walk completely worth it.

This female elk just took her time and checked us out while we busily snapped away with our camera.

What beautiful, majestic creatures!

As happy as I would have been to have only seen a herd of elk, we also found these little guys hanging out around Sprague Lake. The chipmunks must be used to people being around because they literally came right up to our feet to say hello.

The next morning, we got up bright and early to catch sunrise over Sprague Lake. An easy 12 minute drive into the park, and 5 minute walk.

The sun peeking over the trees.

Even though I’m not a landscape or nature photographer, sometimes it’s nice to photograph something different from the norm. I wish I had an eye for landscape photography, but I guess that’s just something that I need to work on.

Where have you taken your prettiest landscape photo?
For me, it was at the Grand Canyon. Specifically, at Yaki Point.

On our way out of the park – I blame Paul, he needed to do some stuff for work – we found this big guy. So, we screeched the car to a halt on the side of the road, jumped out and grabbed a few quick shots.

The lighting wasn’t the best, but look at those antlers!

He was just chowing down on some plants, enjoying the morning sun. Didn’t even seem to mind that we were about 10 feet away from him.

I wish we had more time to spend at Rocky Mountain National Park. There is just so much to explore and photograph there!

What type(s) of photography do you enjoy?
If you’re here, I’m guessing that there’s a great possibility that the answer is food photography. But what else do you like taking photos of? I love photographing animals. They  hold a special place in my heart.

It’s early, but it’s off to bed for me! I have this workshop to get to tomorrow morning!