This week’s article is by my friend Jo McAvany.
Last weekend was my husband Shaun’s and my 12th anniversary.
My in-laws had asked to take our kids for a few nights over spring break. (We have a five-year-old son and a four-year-old daughter) Early Saturday morning we loaded up the car and headed out to meet my husband’s brother in the nearby town of Clinton. Shaun and I planned on a nice slow drive home after dropping our children off, stopping for photos along the way. However, the weather had other plans; it was so windy there was absolutely no way I could set a tripod up without it shaking or blowing over.
I had my Nikon D800 and borrowed John’s 28-300 mm lens. The 28-300 mm lens is my favourite adventure lens and I’ll admit that I am not even sure John has gotten the chance to use it since he bought it over a year ago, ha-ha.
I always prefer to use my D800 for landscapes. The 36 megapixels allow me to crop without losing data and if I wanted to enlarge my image past 16x20 I could do so without losing any quality.
We stopped just outside of the town of 16 Mile at a little rest stop. With my camera around my neck, I quickly hopped out of the car to take a photo of the mountainside. The sun was hitting it just perfectly and despite freezing cold wind I couldn’t resist.
I am from the small nearby town of Cache Creek. Yes, born and raised and lived there for 20 years, so I am very familiar with the area. Just north of Cache Creek is a little ranch called Horsting’s Farm that has been there since I was a little girl. They sell locally made pies, jams, homemade bread, potato buns and honey among many other things. They farm their own fruits and veggies and in the season they sell those as well. It’s a family-owned wonderful little place and if you ever get the chance to stop in I highly recommend you do so, go get a sandwich on a potato bun. We always get a package of potato buns when we stop – they are so good.
Of course, I brought my camera in with me. It was too cold to wander outside so I thought, “I wonder what can I find inside to photograph?” fudge. It was our anniversary! My husband looked at me and said, “What kind do you want?” (I chose Score).
I walked around the store and photographed some pies, jams, a display case filled with fudge and on the way back to the car I took a quick shot of the already budding apple orchard.
After our stop at Horsting’s Farm, we drove back to Kamloops. I saw baby cows and we pulled over for some photos. Just outside Cache Creek, there was a field with many breeds of cows. That made me think about the eggs my chickens lay with all the different colours there were out there. It’s not often you see that – most farmers I know in that area tend to stick to one breed, so to see five or more different breeds in one field was neat.
We made it back to Kamloops, did a little shopping then went out for a really nice dinner at Red Beard Café just down from John’s shop. They have these big fries called “Thrice Cooked Fries” that come with a blueberry BBQ sauce that is so good.
We had those and chicken tandoori. If you have never been I highly recommend going and checking them out, once this whole Corvid-19 virus outbreak is over.
To my husband Shaun, thank you. It was the perfect anniversary.
These are the thoughts of Jo McAvany for this week. Contact us at enmanscamera.com or emcam@telus.net. Stop by Enman’s Camera at 423 Tranquille Road in Kamloops.
