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Dove Inn, Golden Colorado | Travel Photographer

January 14, 2020

If you know me, you know I love to travel! I love big and small trips! There is so much to explore close by where we live! It has been such a long time since I visited the Denver area, and it was time to get back and take a little three-day excursion to visit Golden, Colorado. Golden is located about an hour away from the Denver International Airport, 30 minutes outside of Denver, and an hour and a half to the entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park.

We stayed at the cutest place; The Dove Inn is a recently renovated 1866 Victorian Mansion. The details inside were soooo amazing! They restored it wonderfully! The Dove Inn is a mix between a Bed & Breakfast and a Hotel. The service happened behind the scenes; we had self-check-in and checkout; the continental breakfast was ready to grab when we woke up. We had excellent service even though we hardly saw anyone during our stay! The breakfast came from local companies and one of my favorites, Noosa yogurt! The delicious pastries are provided by Cafe 13, just down the street! It was the perfect amount for a fresh start to the day! We stayed in the Castle Rock Studio room, and this room would be perfect if you were traveling with a large group. Equipped with a full-size kitchen and the Murphy bed folded right up and opened the space for larger gatherings!

When we travel, I love to find fun new restaurants and Golden, Colorado has so many options to choose from on the historic main street. The Dove Inn is in the perfect location to walk to any of them. We ate at the Thai Gold, Abejas, and The Sherpa House. Our favorite was Abejas, the modern farm to table menu was so unique. The local trout and steak had accompaniments of a fresh twist on puréed vegetables and tasty grains.

We enjoy walking around downtown Golden. We are suckers for outdoor gear shops, and I am surprised neither of us came home with a new jacket! There are so many fun shops to peruse!

When we first decided to go to Golden, I knew I wanted to try and get some time in Rocky Mountain National Park. I enjoy the mountains, and I love being able to check off another National Park on my list. From The Dove Inn to the entrance of the park, it took us an hour and a half to get there. The drive is so scenic once you enter the mountains. We traveled in January, and we were expecting a lot more snow; I guess when you live in Logan and always have snow in the winter, you assume that the mountain towns are going to have the same amount of snow. We rented snowshoes in Golden just in case we needed them, but the snow was packed down enough in the areas that we hiked that we didn’t use them. Next time I will bring some spikes for my boots. We drove up to Bear Lake and walked around it and then hiked up to Nymph Lake. They were easy hikes and very passable in the winter; the views were so spectacular. We only had an afternoon, so we only got to two of the lakes. There were so many other trails I would have loved to explore. After we drove around and chased the last bits of light and viewed the breathtaking scenery.

This year I feel like I missed the holidays, I took on a lot of photoshoots while everyone’s families were in town. Once the New Year hit, I felt like I didn’t get to relax and celebrate. When the opportunity came up to travel to The Dove Inn, the getaway was definitely needed! Everything about the place was so relaxing, we were able to come and go as we liked. The bed and bedding were so comfortable, we didn’t want to leave! They did such a fantastic job on all of the details, it made for a beautiful weekend! Now I am ready to tackle 2020, thanks for the lovely stay, Dove Inn!

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Travel Guide to Charleston, South Carolina | Travel Blogger

November 19, 2019

Oh my, there is so much to say about how much I loved Charleston!! The scenery, the architecture, the food, the culture, all of it was so amazing!! I have always wanted to see trees with the Spanish Moss, and it was my absolute favorite!!! The first three days that I was there, I was at The Rise Business Conference (watch for future posts about that!), and I was so antsy to see the area! On the last day of the conference, we walked around for lunch, and I saw my first tree with Spanish Moss, and I couldn’t wait to start exploring the next day!!

Usually, when I travel, I am so bad at getting a plan and an itinerary, I know if I planned more I would be able to see a lot more of the area. I started organizing the places I wanted to see in Apple Maps during the breaks in the conference. You can create Collections in the app and then have all of the spots pinpointed on the map. It was super helpful to plan the activities based on the locations. I usually fly by the seat of my pants and probably waste time driving all over the place to see the things that I want.

Once the conference was over, we only had two full days, and I definitely could have done at least two more! We visited in November, so it got dark at 5:20 so that limited our day. I wish I could travel all day in the golden hour! I always plan the things that I am most excited about in the early morning or right before sunset. The weather in November is perfect, it was not too hot, and adding a jacket at night made it just right with the temperature.

We rented a car for these two days, which I think is a must! All of the plantations and sites were a bit spaced out. Driving around was super easy to navigate and way easy to drive downtown.

Day 1

First stop, Magnolia Plantation. Since we had a time limit, we didn’t spend much time at each location. We could have spent several more hours here. We walked through the gardens, and it took us about an hour and a half to get through. The Camellia Trees were starting to bloom, and they were so beautiful. I love flowering trees, and these were some of my favorites!! And the Spanish Moss on the trees along the river?? Oh my, so dreamy!! I was dying to do a photo session. I need a cute couple or family to always travel with me!! Any takers?! Your cheeks would hurt by the end of the day!

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Kiawah Island. My mom is a travel agent and a golfer, so she wanted to tour the 2021 PGA golf course, The Ocean Course. The drive to the golf course was so incredible, and the homes were all so beautiful! Before you get to all of the golf courses, there is an access point to the beach. Kiawah Beachwalker Park is the perfect place to get to the beach, and you could stroll all day looking at the various golf courses and homes.

On the way back to the city, we stopped at Angel Oak Tree, and it was so neat!! It is such an enormous, beautiful tree. We got there right before it closed, and with the thick tree canopy, I would have tried to get there a bit earlier to have a little more light.

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We ended the day with a walk along the Battery, one of my favorite things to do is to take a long walk along the ocean, whether on the beach, boardwalk or pier, I love it! We had beautiful views of the harbor and the cool old mansions on Battery Street.

We picked up our car on this day, so we had a late start to our day, I would have loved to go to the Charleston Tea Plantation, it looks pretty picturesque too! If we would have started earlier, we could have stopped and had a quick tour.

For dinner, we went to a little southern bbq place on the side of the road. It was a fun environment!

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Day 2
We started the day at Cypress Gardens, and we arrived right when it opened, which is what I would recommend. I just loved visiting Cypress Gardens, and it was such an excellent experience. It was probably my favorite thing in Charleston and on the top of the list of favorite things that I have done while traveling! We did a self-guided boat tour, which was free after paying the admission of $10 per person to get in. It was so unbelievable and peaceful!! I highly recommend going and paddling around on your own. Arrows lined the path, and there was no way to get lost!! We paddled around for 45-60 minutes. We were the first ones out on the boats, and it was so peaceful! Paddling through the trees was soooo magical!!! We saw turtles, beautiful birds, and ALLIGATORS!! At first, I was a bit terrified, but they were sunning themselves on the logs, and didn’t even care that we got close in the boats! The baby alligators, on the other hand, scared the crap out of us!! After we boated around, we walked all around the swamp on the boardwalks, and we spooked several babies back into the water. We may have screamed and jumped a bit!! If we had had more time, I would have gone around again. And then probably another time! I could have spent an entire day there. They also have a little aquarium and butterfly garden to visit. I can not wait to come back with Cole. It was seriously my favorite. It will probably be the first thing that I do on my next trip to Charleston!!
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Boone Hall Plantation. I think the primary draw for this plantation is the Oak covered driveway. It is so amazing!! Eighty-eight beautiful giant oak trees line the long driveway, and they originated in the 1700s! It takes 150 years for the trees to start canopying, Spanish Moss draped over all of the branches, and it was breathtaking. I wanted to bring some home in my suitcase for my wreath making! One of my favorite things was watching the women weave the baskets. I would have loved to take a Sweetgrass Basket weaving class! I wanted to buy one of the baskets. I thought they would be cheaper at the market, so I waited, but I shouldn’t have. The ones at the plantation were $80-$150, the ones in the market were $150-$600. You could easily spend a half-day here to learn all about it, but once again, with limited time, we just walked around the property a bit and did the house tour. I can only imagine how dreamy a wedding would be here!! Hollywood loves this plantation, several movies and shows took place on the grounds, the most popular ones are The Notebook, North and South, and a few other films.
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We ended our day walking around Rainbow Row, which is a must! It was so fun to walk around the bright colored homes! There were so many beautiful window boxes and cobblestone streets! We got to the City Market right as it was closing, so most of the vendors were gone, but we got a little taste of it.
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The Food
We had a lot of yummy Southern food!! I love Shrimp and Grits. I had that a few times, and now I have some more ideas for when I make it back at home.

Lunch
Goat. Sheep. Cow. I loooove Charcuterie boards, and this is their specialty!! If you are like me, you will enjoy this place!! I loved seeing the way that they plated their board! It was a favorite, and the ambiance was perfect!

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Dinner
Revival
An upscale modern take on southern food. We started with William Deas She Crab soup, and it was so rich and buttery, the crab in it was so fresh and fabulous, I love crab!! They had a delicious version of Shrimp and Grits, with forbidden black rice grits served over cherry tomato gravy.

The Darling Oyster Bar
Cute restaurant on King Street, we had to wait over an hour to be seated. It wasn’t my favorite, but I don’t think I am an Oyster connoisseur. I got their shrimp and grits, and that was good, but the Brussel sprouts stayed on the stove way too long. The Clam Chowder was inedible and very disappointing and if you love a good clam chowder don’t have high expectations.

Tattooed Moose
Traditional southern BBQ on the side of the road. Pretty good BBQ, delicious fries, and cornbread!

Travel Guide to the Faroe Islands: Part Two | Travel Photographer

October 30, 2018

If you missed Part One to the Travel Guide to The Faroe Islands, click here!

Day Four:

We wanted to drive as far as we could so we went towards the island of Vidoy to do a hike. It was such a beautiful drive! The islands aren’t very big and it doesn’t take too long to go across. It took about an hour and a half to get to Vidareidi on Vidoy.

We attempted to hike Villingardalsfjall, it was a doozy! It was straight up the hill and through lots of mud and rocks. We were almost to the top and we could see the rain starting and it would have been a nightmare to come down in the rain, it would have been so slippery and pretty dangerous on the steep hillside. We were probably about a half mile from the top. We heard that the views were incredible from the people coming down earlier from the hike, so we will have to try and tackle that one next time!

On the map that you get at the airport there are a lot of Buttercup Routes that are points of interest. On the way home we hit a few of those and that was so fun searching for the Buttercups and they weren’t just scenic views, they were some of the most epic drives I have ever been on. The views were unreal. To find the Buttercups they are pointed out with the name of it with a buttercup on the sign and then on the road you will see signs with Buttercups on them assuring you that you are on the right road. Most of the Buttercups were on small narrow, one way roads, and usually a decent cliff off of one side or the other, don’t let this keep you away from them, just a warning for the driver. Cole got a little nervous with me trying to look at the amazing scenery while staying on the tiny road! Haha! We were able to see these Buttercups that night: Oyndarfjordur and Hellunar.

We tried to just do a cheaper dinner that night and had pizza and a pita at the local pizza shop not the best food decision. But we were tired!

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Day Five:

This was one of our favorite days, even though they were all so good and everything was so amazing!

First we went to Saksun and it was so beautiful!! We did the hike Ut a Lonna, it starts in Saksun and goes along the river and then it connects to the beach. Make sure to go at low tide so you can go as far as possible. It was such a relaxing walk, we really enjoyed it! I loved the black sand! We were surrounded by cliffs with small homes and waterfalls everywhere!

In Klaksvík there is a little bakery, Bakeriid Hja Jorun that we got some sweets and rolls and cheese at for our lunch.

We caught the 2:10 ferry from Klaksvík to Kalsoy. We had enough time to drive to the end of the island and hike to the Kallur Lighthouse. It was an amazing hike!!! The view of the cliffs at the lighthouse were so beautiful. It was so windy and muddy that we couldn’t hike down below but I can only imaging what it would have been like. I loved the green hillsides that we were able to hike right along with the sheep. It was incredible. With it being their off season the ferry was limited, so we had to make it back to the ferry by 5:35 pm, and it was close! They let 15 cars on and we were number 12 in line and then 2 workers cut in front so we almost didn’t make it! We even arrived at 5:10, so I would recommend getting back to the ferry as soon as you can, if we would have missed it we would have had to wait until 10:00 pm for the next ferry.

On the way back we tried to fit in a few more Buttercups and we were able to get to Elduvik and the views at the tiny village were so amazing! There wasn’t enough time to get to all of the Buttercups and I can only imagine how beautiful they all are!

Later that night we ditched our hiking clothes and went back to the nice restaurants and ate at Aarstova for a 3 course meal, Cole enjoyed the Shoulder of Lamb and I got the poached Cod and it was so amazing!!

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Black and White film photo from Cole on the ferry to Kalsoy.
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Day Six:

On our last day we just had the morning and we were a little sad our trip to The Faroe Islands had to come to an end!! We hadn’t been through Tórshavn while shops were open so we went and shopped around in the morning and I bought some yarn I am excited for!! I will try to be a knitter again!

There is a Buttercup going out of Tórshavn so we made that drive on our way out of town. This one was on top of the cliffs and above the usual route back to Vagar. When we were down below I knew the mountains were tall around us, but when we were on top of the mountains I realized how tall they were and the road was nice and narrow right on the cliffs!! And it was super windy and rainy! We soaked in our last drive back to the airport!

We arrived in the domestic Reykjavík airport around 4:20, and I had planned to just store our luggage and go back and walk around Reykjavík for the evening but luckily I looked at our car rental, I knew it was at the other airport, but I thought the rental company would be open later. It closed at 6! So we had to rush over there. The FlyBus didn’t have any departures until 8:00 pm, so we had no choice…. we had to take a taxi and it was $145!!! And then all of the shops would be closed in Reykjavik so I couldn’t get another pastry and my plates…. I know real problems here! Haha. It worked out and we got our car and we thought we booked a hotel for our stay but it was really an AirBNB that was still under construction. We stayed in Keflavík and ate a a cute restaurant Library. Later we drove to a little lighthouse and had the most amazing views of the Northern Lights, it was unreal!!!! This world is such a beautiful place!!

Day Seven:

Because of how flights worked out with The Faroe Islands we had an extra day in Iceland. We chose to drive along the southern Ring Road, we made it to Vik, it was about a 3 hour drive but with the stops we made it took us about 5 hours.

When I bought my yarn in Tórshavn, I realized after that I had bought two different whites. As we were driving through Selfoss I told Cole to watch for yarn balls so I could try to get the right one and two seconds later I was turning the corner and Cole didn’t know what had happened! Hahah, I saw some yarn balls on a little hand made signs and found the right yarn!

After that our first stop was at Seljalandsfoss there were 3 beautiful waterfalls to walk around and you could hike behind the main one. It had felt like a long drive from Keflavík to this point so it was nice to be walking around the beautiful scenery. After this point there were a lot of beautiful things to see. Skógafoss was the next waterfall and I loved that you could walk right up to the base, the black rocks and sand were so beautiful! It was amazing when the sun came out it seemed like the rainbow was going to make a full circle! This drive was so breathtaking, the green mountains and cliffs were so beautiful! We made a quick stop to look at the glacier and then moved on.

We stopped at the Black Sands beach to view the Reynisdrangar, I loved seeing all of the pillar rock formations, it was quite the spot for everyone getting their IG photos! Haha! I knew there would be a lot of tourist in Iceland, but I totally underestimated how many people would be at each stop. It was like visiting Zions National Park in the middle of summer, there were people everywhere!

We made it to Vik and I thought it would be a bigger town, but it was pretty small so we ate dinner at one of the two places offered and it was cafeteria style, I was hoping for something a bit better but we were hungry. We chased the last light back and I was hoping to find some fun Icelandic horses but we couldn’t find them until after the sun went down. It was definitely a short little journey in Iceland and it would have been nice to not be rushed but we did what we could in a day. We made the journey back to our place and it took 3/4 hours with our stopping a lot to take photos during golden light.

Travel Day:

Our flight left Reykjavik Keflavík International airport at 11:10 am and we laid over in Dallas and got into Salt Lake City at 6:00 pm, it is so nice coming home and gaining a day and not getting home super late. It was a trip of a lifetime, probably one of our favorites!!!

When we go back to The Faroe Islands, the first things on our list will be Mykines Island, Ragnin Hike in Vágar, ferry to Nolsoy and Sandoy, looks like we have our next trip already planned out! Who wants to go?? 🙂

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