Susan Solo – Photographer | Traveler | Adventurer

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Mischief Managed!

I solemnly swear I was up to no good this past weekend! My very dear friend, Casey, and I met up in Florida for a weekend of fun at the Universal Studios parks. We planned to visit both of the Universal parks over two days, but we specifically wanted to see the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at the Islands of Adventure park since we’re really big Harry Potter ~~nerds~~ fans. I’ll be honest, my expectations of the park were pretty high…and the re-creation of Hogwarts and Hogsmeade absolutely exceeded my hopes! On Day One, we headed straight to Hogwarts within Islands of Adventure, and we never had to wait more than 20-30 minutes for anything with the exception of a log ride in another area of the park. The weather and the crowds were actually not too bad – getting to the park at opening helped. We explored and inspected every little inch of the Harry Potter world, and were so delighted with all of it. Here are a few of my favorite point-and-shoot photos from the weekend:

I couldn’t get over how amazing the castle looks, both inside and out. The Forbidden Journey ride (favorite!) is tucked within the walls of Hogwarts, and while you’re waiting in line for the ride, you’re treated to a tour of the castle’s hallways and rooms.

We also braved the Dragon Challenge coaster, a pretty thrilling steel inverted roller coaster.

Butterbeer is one of the best things I’ve ever tasted. Ever. It was so fun to have lunch at The Three Broomsticks, and to enjoy a butterbeer with our food just like in the books/movies. People keep asking me what it tastes like, but I almost don’t want to spoil it! It’s really fun to try it for the first time without knowing what to expect. And anyway, it’s sort of indescribable.

The little shops within Hogsmeade were (forgive the pun) magical. We really felt like we were in the story.

I really want to get on the Hogwarts Express and go to Hogwarts!

The castle at night is just breathtaking.

Day Two, we headed over to the Universal Studios park, where we had a nice, sunny morning that turned into a rainy afternoon. Thankfully we were able to ride all of the attractions, and our timing allowed us to miss all the rain showers.

Probably my favorite ride at Universal Studios side was the Rip Ride Rockit coaster. I absolutely LOVE thrill rides, especially huge roller coasters. The scarier the better. That lift is straight up! Really fun. We also had a great time becoming minions on the Despicable Me 3-D ride.

As a Simpsons fans, we loved exploring Springfield and having a Krusty Burger AT Krusty Burger!

But ~~probably~~ definitely the most impressive area out of both parks combined is the Hogwarts castle and the Forbidden Journey ride in the Harry Potter world. If you’re an HP fan, I highly highly highly recommend visiting! And having a butterbeer or two. (Or three.)

July 2, 2013
Knob Knob…Who’s There?

Happy Monday! I just wanted to show (off) a tiny/quick update that Chris and I finally completed in our house. It’s really the smallest detail, but it makes such a huge difference! Any guesses from the following iPhone snapshots as to what it is?

We finally finished changing out all the hardware on our doors! We swapped out all the brass knobs, hinges and doorstops with oil-rubbed bronze hardware and I LOVE the difference it makes. They really pop off the white doors now, and I find myself just staring at them sometimes.

It’s really ~~sad~~ ~~funny~~ sad how long it took us to complete this super easy project. First, we ended up making three separate trips to Home Depot for the supplies because the person in charge of counting the hardware (ahem…me) kept missing one or two here and there. Second, we sort of have home-projects-ADD, otherwise known as HPADD. We would do a few knobs, admire our work, then wander off to watch TV or something. Chris ended up doing the rest of the knobs one weekend while I wasn’t home – yay! But then it was several months before we felt like doing the hinges, especially since the first door took us a long time. We removed the entire door and tried to swap all three hinges at once. It was awkward, even with two people. We eventually realized it’s much easier to just leave the door in place and replace each hinge at a time.

So there you have it! The tiniest and not-too-expensive little update (I think our total was around $385 for 12 doors) and we love the results. My next project in de-brassing the house is to refinish the rest of the light fixtures – I’ve already successfully done one and I love how it turned out. After four more fixtures, that will be the last of the brass. More on that soon!

June 24, 2013
Coelle & Corey – Expecting!

I don’t do a ton of maternity photos, but when I found out my very dear friend, Coelle, was pregnant, I knew I wanted to photograph her with a cute baby bump! Coelle and Corey are going to make such amazing parents, and that baby is going to be super smart, talented, and beautiful. We didn’t have the best weather yesterday, but we made it work in between sprinkles.

Coelle and Corey: I’m so excited for you both, and can’t wait to meet (and photograph!) your new little one. Love you! xoxo

June 10, 2013
Skagway, Alaska

As I was cleaning up some folders and files on my hard drives, it occurred to me that I have so many images I haven’t blogged, especially from fun things like our travels. And since I’m daydreaming about when we’ll get to travel next (we have a few things in the works!) reminiscing about past adventures helps me to pass the time. So I’m going to revisit some of those trips and post more images, in no particular order starting with Alaska. One of our stops on the trip included the cutest mining town called Skagway. Perhaps the most popular tourist attraction in Skagway is to take a narrow gauge railroad to the Summit of the White Pass, but Chris and I had done so many excursions in the previous days that we decided just to do our own walking tour of the town. We’ll just have to go back someday!

June 4, 2013
Virgin Gorda – The Baths

If you are planning a trip to the Virgin Islands (U.S. or British), The Baths on Virgin Gorda is an excursion not to be missed. It was one of the highlights of our Tortola trip! Huge granite boulders form caverns of sheltered pools along the edge of the beach, and you can hike, wade, and climb your way through the massive awe-inspiring maze. If you’re not staying on Virgin Gorda, it’s easily accessible by ferry, a tour group, or charter boat.

The first time Chris and I went to St. John, I chickened out of visiting The Baths with the rest of our group because I was afraid to snorkel and for some reason I thought the caves would be dark and full of creepy sea creatures. I’m shaking my head in shame now that I know better, and I’ve learned my lesson on carpe diem-ing these opportunities. The second time we planned to see The Baths via the Bad Kitty tour after I decided I was brave enough, a tropical storm cancelled our tour. Sigh! So third time’s a charm, right? On this trip to Tortola, Chris and I were fiiinally able to see the awesomeness that is The Baths. We decided it would be easy enough to just hop on the ferry out of Road Harbor and grab a cab once we arrived on Virgin Gorda, and it did turn out to be very simple.

Our ferry ride over to Virgin Gorda from Tortola was beautiful. The weather was a little cloudy that day, but happily I think it made a difference in the crowd level. We heard morning was a good time to avoid busy tour groups, so we arrived around 11am and didn’t find the caves or the beaches to be crowded at all. I had also checked the Port Authority schedule to see what day would have the least cruise ship passengers in port (we picked a day with no cruise ships in port), so that helped, too. Photography note: morning is also a great time to get the best lighting for photos.

From the ferry dock we took a taxi to the top of the Baths – you can either arrange for a taxi as part of your ferry trip, or just grab a taxi waiting at the ferry dock. It was about a 10-minute ride to Spring Bay where we were dropped off at The Top of the Baths – an area with restaurant/bars, shops, and the kiosk where you pay visitor entrance fee to the park ($3 per adult). From the top, it’s a 10-15 minute sandy hike down to the caves. The trail is well-marked, you can’t get lost, and as long as you don’t have mobility issues it’s not a particularly challenging hike. I wore water shoes, but Chris did the trip in flip-flops and he was fine.

And just to ease the concerns of anyone who imagines The Baths like I did, it’s not creepy. I promise. The caves are nice and bright, and the water is no more than waist-deep (I’m 5’7″) in most spots, free of any sea creatures. Also, the boulders are so huge and tall that I didn’t feel trapped in a small space or anything. There are a few tight areas, including one that you have to crawl through to enter the caverns (see photos of us in the crevices below for perspective), and there’s a bit of an incline climb towards the beginning that requires assistance of a rope “rail,” but other than that, this isn’t a super physically demanding activity. If there’s anywhere you can make it look like you’re starring in an Indiana Jones movie though, this is it!

I hate saying this since I’m a photographer, but photos just don’t do this natural phenomenon justice. You really have to be in the caverns to understand the scale of these massive boulders.

There are plenty of tour groups that offer guided tours of The Baths, but it’s something you can see on your own if you don’t want to go with a big group. We didn’t have guides, and well…full disclosure, we did get a little lost for a few minutes, but that’s only because we climbed up out of the caves and on top of the boulders and sort of wandered off the beaten path. Obviously we found our way out!

After exiting the caves, we spent some time snorkeling around the boulders off the beach and it was SO FUN. This was the moment I realized snorkeling isn’t terrifying, and it’s actually quite fun. We saw friendly colorful fish in shallow, easy to access water right off the beach. Some of the footage in this video is from The Baths (from 1:36 to 1:57), and might give you a better idea of how things looked from the inside. All the photos and this video were taken with my Canon S95 in a waterproof housing.

Tortola 2013 from Susan Marks on Vimeo.

May 20, 2013