Category: Outings

Note: New carpool location: Starbucks parking lot, 6115 Camp Bowie Blvd., by Frost Bank and across the street from Le Madeleine restaurant. (This will avoid Cowtown Marathon activity around UNTHSC.)

• Meet at 8 a.m., Saturday, Feb. 23, 2019; Starbucks, 6115 Camp Bowie
•  Capture spring flowers in pixels at the annual Dallas Arboretum Dallas Blooms festival.

This popular club outing offers expansive gardens, walkways, waterfalls and landscaping, most with early spring flowers such as tulips, daffodils, hyacinths and blub-generated plants.

The floral display is especially good for close-ups and macro-photography.

Admission is $17 per person ($14 for age 65 and older) at the gate. If enough people sign up, a discount may be available. Contact Outings chair Mark Rogers.

We’ll enjoy lunch after a morning of photography.

• Learn more about Dallas Blooms, find a map.
• Learn more about Programs, Workshops and Outings.

Daffodils, above, courtesy of Arboretum media services; club members in action by Dick Dodds at the 2018 outing.

• May 20-25, 2019
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee and North Carolina
• Participants are responsible for travel, park fees, lodging and food.

Join club member and master photographer Marsha Ezell in May 2019 at a long-distance, informal outing in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

This is a loosely organized outing, says Marsha, who previously has traveled to the park and loves its photo opportunities. “The park is good for non-walkers and super heroes, there are on-the-road areas and hard hikes that take photographers to fabulous waterfalls,” she says. “The great draw of the Smokies is water. There are cascades, waterfalls and still water, everywhere.”

• For information about the trip or hotels, contact Marsha.
• If you are interested in RV-ing as a group, contact club member Chad Fenner.  
• Find more information from Marsha: PDF-Marsha-Ezell-Outing-GSMNP-2019

There are photogenic cabins, churches, mills and a school, crafts and artists, the Eastern Cherokee Reservation and the early morning fog that gives the park its name. The park is in the Blue Ridge Mountains, about 950 miles east of Fort Worth.

To learn about the park, go to:

• Great Smoky Mountains National Park
• Explore Great Smoky Mountains National Park 
• Visit Gatlinburg

 

 

Photos, Grotto Falls and trillium grandiflorum, U.S. National Park Service

• 8 a.m., Saturday, Jan. 19, 2019
• Meet in the parking lot at UNT Health Science Center, 3500 Camp Bowie
• Carpool to Stony, Texas, 10 miles west of Denton

Visit a rural site seen on the TV program American Pickers, Bill Maquis’ ranch near Stony.

We’ll make two stops, first at the ranch, which also has been featured on NBC5 news, says 2019 outings co-chair Mark Rogers. It has a work shed and abandoned gas station. Channel 5’s report describes a visit as stepping back in time. Bill accepts donations for visits, so everyone should bring cash for donations to help him keep his ranch open to visitors. From there, we’ll go to the school.

Meet at the UNT Health Science Center at 8 a.m. to carpool to Stony, about an hour’s drive. If you plan to attend and/or want to be a carpool driver, email Mark at mark.rogers@swbell.net. Lunch will follow.

According to the Texas State Historical Association, Stony was settled in the late 1850s and was named for the stony area in which it is located. Stony had a post office from 1879 to 1918. In 1884, it had a mill, gin, four churches, two schools, and a population estimated at 130. In 1914 the town had 100 residents, a doctor, a blacksmith, and at least two stores.

Note: Meeting time changed to 7:30 a.m. If you plan to stay for lunch, you must sign up by Tuesday, Nov 27. The plan is to eat at the highly touted Pecan Lodge Barbecue. Email Dick Dodds ddodds0402@gmail.com with your name and phone to confirm lunch attendance.

• 7:30 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 1; see note above regarding lunch
• Carpool from the parking lot at UNTHSC, 3500 Camp Bowie.

 Capture the imaginative graffiti designs of Dallas’ fabrication yard and the street art of the historic Deep Ellum area at the Dec. 1 club outing.

Outings chair Dick Dodds will lead the group to the fabrication yard area near Sylvan Avenue and I-30 to find bold, sanctioned graffiti. Participants also will be able to photograph the two iconic bridges over the Trinity River. The group will then move on to the more sophisticated street art of historic Deep Ellum in east Dallas.

The group will leave the UNTHSC parking lot at 8 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 1, for the 45-minute drive to Dallas. After the outing, we’ll enjoy lunch at participants’ expense in Deep Ellum. If you have questions, contact Dick.

Fabrication yards image by club board member Julie Delio.