For our upcoming 14th wedding anniversary and my birthday, spanning Sat-Mon, we wanted to go somewhere together as a couple on a mini-retreat. Naturally, I wanted such a spot to encompass some natural scenery and beautiful landscape photographs, especially as I had not long ago re-upgraded my camera to the Sony NEX-6 (10-17-2014), a real "enthusiast" grade of camera tailored towards a hobbyist/enthusiast and capable of really top-caliber results. I wanted to really have at it with that camera and do so somewhere quiet and close-by that we hadn't been to previously.
A friend of mine, my former boss, and her guy had gone to a spot in Angelina National Forest and gotten some good photos. I researched the area myself, and received tips from this person, and decided that this spot had potential as a good weekend getaway for ourselves. The stage was set.
"My Maps" and Road Warrior For an "Overview"
In anticipation of this, I recalled Jasper 2013, how we had been to a spot different from the previous year in a different area and, after having finished that spot, we were now looking for somewhere else to go and didn't realize 2 spots we had visited before the previous year and liked (Sam's Throne for "view" shots, and Eagle Rock Cafe for eating--we were hungry) were not that far away at the time. We didn't know that because, as great as GPS units are, they fail miserably, for me, at one thing--providing a "bird's eye overview" of your various spots of interest, showing you the layout of these spots and where you are currently "in the context of everything." You feel as if you are in the dark about everything. You could be 2 miles from a given spot besides the one you were currently going to, and never know it. Or, even if your GPS tells you that you're 5 miles away or 15 miles away, you don't know which general area that spot is located in, and whether it's close to other spots on the way back to the hotel or if you're going somewhere totally out of the way in going to those spots.
Some people, like my best friend KSG, have no issues with this, as they perform their navigation mostly via paper maps and an Atlas etc. Those are good at giving you a "bird's eye overview" of what's going on. However, I've never been a paper maps person, at least for the purposes of step-by-step directions, especially because it's hard to determine where you currently are on that map vs where the destinations are. Even so, I did desire the "bird's eye overview" they give you, so we could see the layout of all of these spots.
Enter "My Maps," a feature of Google Maps I had never explored. Using this, I was able to create my own custom map at the PC through the browser, with Google Maps as its foundation, of the various spots of interest (spots obtained either by "panning" around or by plugging coordinates), and it would push this map to my phone. I would get a "bird's eye overview" of each spot and I could also direct step-by-step directions for a given spot at any time. I also would have each spot's coordinates so I could plug these spots into another app I had downloaded to my phone, "Road Warrior Route Planner," that could provide multi-destination routing and also let me navigate in a more "reading a map" sort of way, as it would show you your various spots and show a "you are here" dot as you were driving, making it easy to see what was going on in a very "bird's eye overview" sort of way.
A screenshot of the Google Maps "my map" I made, which pushed to the phone
I also plugged several of these spots into our Garmin Nuvi 40, a newer GPS that arrived just the day before (paid $30 for it shipped). Further, as I had a text-file (a Google Drive document and a note in ColorNote) of these spots & these coordinates pushed to the phone, and accessible offline, I could simply plug any given spot's coordinates into the Garmin Nuvi if the phone had no signal (even without the signal, though, I would still have the "bird's eye overview," I just couldn't get turn-by-turn directions--although I'm told there are Android apps that will give you that).
Day 1--Saturday, December 13th
Departure day, also my 46th birthday. I had hoped to leave by 10 am or just after. Naturally, it took us longer than that. After packing everything, including a big-freaking fan so I could sleep in the hotel (KSG would have liked that), we first went to Longview and re-set up her car insurance. Although funds were a bit snug, I did not want to chance her getting a fat ticket for not having insurance, so I did the responsible thing and made sure the insurance was paid, even though going to the insurance office was an out-of-the-way trip (we were due to go through Henderson, the other way) and would delay things. (It did help, too, that I had extra money from a $50 refund on a computer I didn't buy, and $50 from my mother and $20 from hers in the form of birthday gifts).
I wanted to go to Boykin first, it sounded like the best spot from what I heard, and also Sandy Creek. Using "Road Warrior" I was able to map out directions from where we were at currently, then Boykin, then Sandy Creek, then the hotel, all in a "bird's eye overview" sort of way (with step-by-step directions available at any time as well). I then had her Garmin Nuvi give the "navigation" instructions to Boykin. On the way, we ran into Burger King in Henderson, where we stopped to eat (got it to go), as we had eaten nothing yet and it was now around 1:30 p.m.
I was anxious at this time, not particularly in the "relaxed" state you want for a vacation. Part of this was because the first spot, Boykin, was one that involved a bit of hiking and I was worried we wouldn't get there in time before it got dark, as the GPS was giving an ETA of about 3:15, and while I was pretty confident in my GPS spots, I wasn't 100% sure either.
Boring photograph, I know. I got the $5 special on the 10 piece (included fries, a drink & 2 cookies), she got the ham & cheese combo
I was anxious at this time, not particularly in the "relaxed" state you want for a vacation. Part of this was because the first spot, Boykin, was one that involved a bit of hiking and I was worried we wouldn't get there in time before it got dark, as the GPS was giving an ETA of about 3:15, and while I was pretty confident in my GPS spots, I wasn't 100% sure either.
1st Stop--Boykins Lake/Springs (31.05926, -94.274506)
Even so, I set in and started taking photos.
At first I was disappointed with what I saw, but once I got going I got some rather nice photos, once worth being proud of. The best ones were of these little bitty waterfalls which I, as suggested, zoomed into. I even got to the point of using the tripod and longer shutter speeds for the "water blur effect." I had a Vivitar CPL Polarizer mounted as well. It was a pleasure using my relatively new Sony NEX-6 with its EVF and virtual horizon for keeping it level.
Here are some of the better photos, as well as a few snaps of what was going on.
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From there, we went to Sandy Creek, a spot which was supposed to kind of have some "view" shots of the lake. I got a few good shots and also thought I was getting some really spectacular "silhouette" shots of the two of us, but they didn't turn out as I thought. Also, we left one set of our 2 sets of keys there, but we didn't get particularly upset about it (and found them the next day, which I'll elaborate on a bit later).
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