[Leica] Long strange trip

[Harrison McClary <harrison@mcclary.net>]

I just got back from a trip across North Carolina...man what a weird 
trip, when did they make NC a dern Yankee state???

I left Nashville Wednesday morning and it was sunny and very warm, could 
tell Summer is starting.  Got into Asheville Wednesday to scout locations 
to shoot a skyline shot for the Asheville Convention and visitors 
magazine we do and it was cold and rainy/foggy....was beginning to regret 
not bringing any long sleeve shirts.

Thursday AM we headed to Grandfather mountain to meet with Hugh Morton 
and look over his photos for possible use in the North Carolina Travel 
Guide we  produce for the state of NC.  Was a very slow drive as we tried 
to drive the Blue Ridge parkway...so foggy we could only see a few feet 
in front of the car...finally got off the parkway and had slightly better 
luck on the highways.  After looking over Mr. Morton's stock we headed 
south to Charlotte...drove through snow in Blowing Rock!!!! SNOW in the 
next to last day of April in a southern state!!!  Was REALLY regretting 
not bringing any long sleeve shirts.

Thursday evening pulled into Charlotte to shoot the Carolina Panthers NFL 
spring practice and get photos of the new guys for the next issue of 
"Panther Pride" a magazine we do for the Panthers.

Friday on the way to the practice fields we stop at K Mart and get some 
long sleeve shirts, smart move on our parts as it was about 50 degrees 
with at least 30 mph winds, and some rain.  My blasted Canon F1 crapped 
out on me (actually crapped out at the last game last year and I forgot 
about it, seldom use this lens/camera and I forgot it had a problem...oh 
well it has given me 10 years of service with no stoppage even after 
being dropped so hard it bent the advance lever so bad it was not usable, 
6 years ago).  Fortunately I had adapted my ancient 600 to an EOS mount, 
Donal thank Helmut for making that thing a "T" mount!!!  

So we shot the morning practice then drove up to the Lowe's Motor 
Speedway (formerly the Charlotte Motor Speedway) to get a shot of the new 
sign out front for the NASCAR magazine we do...no such sign to be seen.  
Guess the millions Lowe's spent was not enough for a sign. ;)  Did get a 
shot of the new interstate signs "Lowe's Motor Speedway exit 49".  

Went back to the Practice fields and shot the afternoon practice then we 
drove back to Nashville.  Left Charlotte at 3:30pm CDT got home at 9:50pm 
CDT  We were humming!!  I think I averaged 70mph between Asheville and 
Knoxville through the mountains.  If you have ever driven this stretch of 
highway you know what a feat this was.  Mark, JCI's vice president of 
editorial, and my traveling companion on this trip was white knuckling 
the "oh shit" bar the whole way...

Oh well I ended up shooting only 11 rolls of film, got all I needed for 
the Panthers magazine but not much else.  Found out the two angles of 
Asheville are not really what we were hoping for and saw some nice stuff 
from Mr Morton's files.  If any of ya'll know of any neat shots of the 
Asheville skyline putting it in a Mountain setting let me know.

Sorry to all you NC Luggers, was hoping that I'd have time to drink a 
beer or two, but we were very busy this trip.  Hopefully later when I am 
working on the Panthers mag and only on that mag I can meet up with some 
of ya'll then.


Best regards,
Harrison McClary
email: harrison@mcclary.net
http://www.mcclary.net
preview my book: http://www.volmania.com