allison and her dad.

Allison and I arrive at the reception.

This is my latest effort with digital image manipulation. Kenny took these shoots of our bodies falling off of the cliffs at Fontana Lake. I worked the Photoshop tools. Wouldn't you love to see this slow motion?

Early Saturday morning William, Kenny, John, and I arrived at Jerry's house at the Fontana Village Resort in the southern tip of the Smokey Mountains in North Carolina. We set out by boat across the Fontana Dam Lake to our first camping spot. From there we visited cemetaries, abandoned log mills, avoided wild savage hogs and wet goats, and enjoyed great weather. This is a selection of the great bulk of footage and images taken on the trip.

You can click each photo to enlarge them. I believe that if you click the photo again it will enlarge it even more.If you want to save the largest version of the photo then be my guest (right click the image and "save as" to your desktop or folder). Thanks to Kenny for his photos (all of the lake photos are his). enjoy....

We boat across Fontana Lake to our first camp site on Saturday morning.

Our intrepid leader was Captain Jerry Span. Jerry lives and works at Fontana Village and is very active in AT trail conservation and hiking adventure. He knew all the best spots for our campsites and was a great guide. Visit Jerry's blogs and learn more about his Fontana life:
http://fontanalife.blogspot.com/
http://ihikeat.blogspot.com/

William illuminates a gravestone with his red headlamp. The location is the old Proctor family cemetary. The site is deep in the woods and the graves are some of the oldest in the area. Many of the tombstones are in ruin but new stones have been placed beside the old ones. Is that a ghost in the background?

I hit the water.

Kenny got some great photos from a vantage point under the cliff. He shot the pics on "burst" mode which captures a fast action in a sequence on images. Jerry got the best air as seen here.

William jumps. I look on. jump the goat.

I intently study an odd root at the Fontana Lake. Photo by Kenny.

This picture reminded me of Thomas Eakins' Swimming Hole painting...but with less nudity.

Jon finds time to exercise.

William and his pet Moss. If you want to photograph close-ups of moss then take the moss TO the light.

our camp site # 2

One of my favorite pictures from the trip. Hopefully I can use this image as a reference for a painting.

Jerry takes on the rapids.

The Red Head lamps came out at night. They were a theme of the trip.

Kenny and William set up comp.

William intently films a cluster of butterflies gathered around a pile of....um, dirt. Willie captured alot of our surroundings in Hi-Def video. Again, this was camp site number 2.

Little Mr. Red was our mascot on the trip. We put the tiny little man in the water and he grew into this disgusting bloated mass.

Fontana Lake on the morning that we left our island on July 4th. America the beautiful.