Home Base

During this period where I've had no internet, I was happy to find a local cafe with internet.  This place is awesome!!! 

It's a small hole-in-the-wall sort of place, but exploding with personality.  They have delicious paninis, smoothies, coffee, and desserts...plus wi-fi!!  I spent many of my days planted here for hours during the first few weeks in town. 

They make these sodas from syrups and soda water.  Delicious!!

The smoothies are really good too!

I love the decor as well, I need to go back and get more shots soon. 

That's all for today, off to the beach!!

Now the internet is lost in the foothills too...

Aaaannnnndddddddddddddd....I'm back!  I can't remember the last time I got online, seriously!  We are staying with the Manos family here in PA and they just got back from 3 weeks in California.  The plan was to have good ol' internet company trot down and hook us up to the grid, however for some reason they couldn't find our house.  Apparently, Eagle Rock Resort:

Amazing isn't it....sorry I got distracted by its beauty and my amazing photography skills (j/k).  All the roads had the same name.  All of the hundred or so roads HAD THE SAME NAME.  Hmm....well they thought about it and decided that might be confusing; all roads were given unique names but this just confused all local businesses.  You see where I'm going here?  Needless to say, internet company X was too lazy to use google maps and look us up.  Internet company Y has much better customer service and literally found us on Google's satellite image.  Sis Manos: "Yup, we have a green roof, you found us!!" Hope is in site...and in a week we'll maybe, possibly, by the grace of God and GPS's we will have internet at the house!!

All that to say I haven't been online and a quick visit to my in-laws provides a ripe opportunity for a plethora of posts so I can catch up.  I hope to do one a day, today, tomorrow, and Wednesday.  Then I go dark, then maybe Monday I'll be able to sit in my pj's with cup of coffee and blog away from the comfort of home again. 

Last time I promised sunsets and a cafe...I'll give you sunsets and tomorrow the cafe.  Enjoy:

In the bottom left you can see the lake that is just minutes from the house.  Most of the valley you see is Eagle Rock Property.

The 200mm zoom lens makes this look very compressed.  I love the layers of hills leading up to the last light of the day.

I named this "reminiscing" but I like "solitude" better.  Just a man and his thoughts at the end of the day.

Last thing: if you click on any photos it will bring them up much larger.  They look good bigger, go ahead-try it. 

Come say hi on facebook or twitter: https://www.facebook.com/#!/timothywilliamlawrence  https://twitter.com/tlawrencephoto

Sunsets and Buildings

The other day, on our way back from the adventure in Jim Thorpe, I noticed the sun hitting this church in an awesome way.  It helps too that the church itself is a rare site for me.  Apparently this area has a high number of Greek and Russian Orthodox churches, which if you've seen them, aren't the traditional steeple churches you might see on Main Street.  Instead of jabbering on about it, I'll show you:

I Love sunsets!  Every night is completely different than the last, and there are literally innumerable possibilities with what you can capture in front of a gorgeous sunset.

The detail on these doors is amazing!  True craftsmanship here, kudos.

A close up of one of the doors.

The spires are what caught my eye in the first place.

Next up, when I have internet access again: sunsets on top of a mountain and the Dragonfly Cafe!

As always, check out my facebook page for albums: https://www.facebook.com/#!/timothywilliamlawrence

Hmmm...I think we're lost...

From what I've seen so far, this area of PA amazingly beautiful.  The place we are staying is nestled in a valley surrounded by a huge ridge.  The surrounding towns hide in between dramatic hills, ridges, and mountains.  The best part for me...everywhere you look there's green.  Kayla and I have always loved the Adirondacks in NY and would have loved to live there someday.  This is every but as beautiful as the Adirondacks, yet its closer to all those little conviences that we enjoy too.  Dream. Come. True.  Or more aptly, God. Answers. Prayers.  But for one caveat...getting around is confusing!

You might have noticed the new title...here's why:
For the move we rented a 10' truck and squeezed every inch of space out of it.  Note to self, get a bigger truck next time.  The return address seemed simple enough for a naive New Yorker such as myself; drive 30 minutes to the next town and live happily ever after.  Not so sir...not so. More like drive through town on bumpy road and play chicken with construction cones and oncoming traffic, climb a mountain, traverse said mountain, go down the mountain at breakneck speed whilst manuvering a giant, top heavy beast around corners, kill the phone battery (my only source of navigation), wing it, go through a tiny town with 9 feet wide streets, turn around, explore some more, THEN drip it off in town.  Did you get all that?  Run-on of the century!!  Point is, Kayla was following me and totally stressing, I was trying my hardest to not run over pedestrians in a crowded "historic, artsy disctrict" (read: tiny roads complete with curves and parked cars), and I have no idea were I was or where I was going.  So it was fun!  After an hour we figured it out and got the truck safely to the garage.  All that made us hungry and that tiny town we blundered through actually looked nice and ripe for my camera.  Chinese food and some exploring proved a very fun night after all. 

Segway into photography...

This place is saturated with photographic opportunities!!  Tiny towns nestled in the hills, history out the wazoo, and all the little details plus giant landscapes I could ask for!  You shall be my town and I shall love you and squeeze you and...wait wrong movie.  I'll spend a lifetime photographing the area if I'm lucky.  I'm done rambling and stuff, so here's some photos of the town called Jim Thorpe, rated one of the best small towns in America!  No really, go look it up...you know why?  Cuz they have awesome old trains and you can ride them!! Woohoo!!

On weekends the train in the background runs all throughout the county.  I cannot wait to do it!

I love trains...they remind me of the model train sets I had as a kid :D

 This place is very patriotic, I love it!

 I think I sense a color scheme going on here...

Why thank you, I feel welcome!  Can I have some fresh baked cookies while I'm here?







The rest of the photos can be viewed on my facebook account: https://www.facebook.com/timothywilliamlawrence#!/media/set/?set=a.10150966892634347.437939.500654346&type=1...there's sure to be more in the future so stay tuned.

Starting Fresh

Whoa...I have a blog?!!??  Yup.  I let it fall away while other things took precedence, but I'm back!  Why, do you ask?  Why start this back up?  Here's the story:

Since I last posted, nothing had changed.  Really, life was quite stagnant it seemed.  The job wasn't all it was cracked up to be and I had no where to go.  In many other areas of life as well, my heart wasn't in it.  My brain tried very hard to convince otherwise, but no amount of trying could keep my heart from screaming the need for change.  So I prayed, and thought, and prayed some more, but nothing presented itself.  Then it happened...I got laid off.  A huge weight was lifted from my shoulders and I felt free!  I was also jobless and have a family to feed, so don't think I just packed up and started some road-trip with the top down and wind through my hair.  Practicality aside, I was free!  Some friends were moving the very next day to a place called Hazleton.  Ever heard of it?  Me neither...but I was going with them to help unload to moving truck.  Well...three weekends of moving trucks and pizza later, here I am!  Kayla and I packed up and came over, and completely fell in love with the area. 

So begs the question...now what?  I still have no job (working on it) but the point is that we have completely started fresh.  With the support of our dear friends, whose house we are crashing until we get on our feet, we have hit the reset button.  So in that spirit, I have re-started the blog.  New name, new direction, new photos!  It is all sure to be an adventure!  I hope you will join me as I get "Lost in the Foothills" of PA.  You're sure to be entertained....

I love this girl.  She puts up with my faces AND camera!

Veteran's day thank you

     It's rainy and dark (my vitamin D reserves are getting very, very low) but that's OK because I had an amazing weekend!  Ice skating and the bruises associated with that nearly crippled Kayla, but she is recovering.  There was also pigeon hunting, horseback riding, football, and time spent with my friends and family that I will cherish.  All in all, it was a jam-packed weekend that made 6:45AM a decidedly unpleasant experience.

     On to the main reason for my post: photo of the week, the Veteran's Day Special.  First of all, I want to sincerely and humbly thank all of those veterans, personally known or otherwise, who have risked their lives and lived to tell us about it.  They were brave enough to sacrifice so much of life that I don't think I ever could put on the line.  They not only risked their own lives, but they gave up time with family and friends, they gave up comforts that I take for granted, and did it for my freedom.  I pray I never take that for granted.  Have you ever taken the time to hear a veteran's story?  I have a few times and they are amazing.  Go find a vet, listen to them, nod your head and ask questions...you will be amazed with the perspective you gain.  This is in honor of them:

     This is a Veteran's memorial near downtown Schenectady and falls within the lines of my "self-project" of finding long-lost Schenectady.  I look at this 3" gun, made by Rock Island Arsenal (I think) in 1944, every day before boarding the bus for work and think, "hey! I should photograph that cuz it's old and detailed and would make an interesting black & white"  Well as luck would have it, one day last week was very foggy and I brought my camera.  This is the best composition and I love the fog covering the back ground.  I've contacted a few different agencies because I really want to know the back story of the gun--when I know, you'll know.

     I do hope you enjoy the photo, and I hope you go find a veteran that you know and spend a few moments with them.  Take them out to taco bell or something and talk, they deserve it.

     Lastly, if you know of any sites around the city that you think to yourself, "that would be an awesome photograph, Tim Lawrence the photo-pro extraordinaire (just kidding!) should go snap a few shots", please let me know.  I'm hungry for history knowledge of the area.  Have a great day, stay warm!

-Tim  

Schenectady: The lost city

I know, I know...it's not Monday!  Sorry to keep ya'll waiting, it's been amazingly busy and I've fallen behind on my editing.  I started using RAW files instead of JPEG and that's a whole new learning curve to overcome, hence why I haven't done much uploading anywhere lately.

Well here it is, or they rather...

There is a wonderful little article that I found explaining the origins of this sign, here's the link.  This guy does a much better job explaining it than I would so I step back into the role of information liaison.                                                           >>http://www.lostlandmarks.org/cokeschenectady.html<<

This photo is possibly the start of my first " personal project".  I assigned myself the task of finding, photographing, and writing about all of the little things in Schenectady, NY that has been lost to history.  There is a wealth of knowledge and history in this old city and I've always loved history (my grandmother has always been a history buff and passed that on to me), but I've never taken the time to explore my own city.  I'm not going to be posting a whole ton of photos constantly, as I want this project to take time, lots of time.  In this digital world and instantly attainable (and subsequently just a instantly forgettable) information, I'd like to slow down a bit and make something lasting.  Wish me luck :)