I'm back...and with some color!

I didn't realize until today that I haven't posted anything in almost 4 months. I knew I had been putting off my blog for quite some time, but not that much time! There has been quite a change in temperature and surroundings since my last post. I'm happy to say that things have brightened up around here. Spring did finally arrive and was absolutely gorgeous, with blooming pears, redbuds, amelanchier, dogwoods, forsythia, and others. I had never seen so many colors at once!

Right when the weather started warming up, work picked up and kept me pretty busy. I was also busy on the weekends trying to enjoy as much of the beautiful weather as possible, and didn't realize how much of a backlog I had on all my pictures. Although adjusting and feeling at home is still quite difficult, I have become more comfortable with this region of the country and have enjoyed going on little road trips just about every weekend. Staying out and about has helped me forget how far away and lonely I feel sometimes, but it is really nice to sit still today and actually take time to absorb all the places I've gone recently. I've honestly barely had much time to reflect on any of these trips, and I can tell I need to because my adventure outings are starting to become routine as exhaustion starts to make me focus on getting through the trip instead of really experiencing it. Part of a great experience is getting to share it so hopefully I'll be getting some posts together about each trip in the days or weeks to come.

Ironically I don't have great spring pictures to show you but I've scrapped together some that I think are decent just so you can get an idea of the colors I saw. These are all from the April time frame. Better pictures are coming in future posts!

f2.5, 1/1600, ISO 80

Playing around with some macro setting. Pink dogwood at the Knoxville Botanical Gardens. The light was a bit harsh that day, but I like the vivid pink and yellow against the brown background.

f5.6, 1/200, ISO 100

This was also at the Knoxville Botanical Garden. A Japanese maple's first flush of growth, a brilliant orange-red. A shed was not the background of my choice and the sunlight on the bench is a bit harsh but the tree had beautiful form and color, and I framed it as best I could.

f4.5, 1/250, ISO 160

Look familiar? It's Warrior's Path bike trails, only flushed out with growth. What I love about running trails is getting to see them change throughout the seasons.

f4.5, 1/250, ISO 160

Another section of trail at Warrior's Path. I am glad to finally see blue sky, although the green color in the mid-ground is a bit overexposed in the two preceding photos.

f5.6, 1/500, ISO 160

Not much of a composition but I wanted you to see some of the color on the trails. The picture doesn't really do it justice, but use your imagination to see a forest with not much green, but tons of white, pink, yellow, and purple...that was my spring!