During the month of October, I took three trips to the mountains. This time of year is the perfect time to visit. The leaves are changing colors, which makes for beautiful landscapes. My first trip was to Roanoke, Virginia for a State Conference for work. This was my fourth trip to Roanoke. It has a very quaint and neat downtown area. I set out to take some night pictures. The Roanoke Star can be seen from all over downtown Roanoke. Whenever I visit, I have to make a trip to the Star. I am sure the locals can easily recognize me as a tourist. 🙂 That’s okay, it is too beautiful and too cool to miss!

These were taken before I bought my tripod, so there is a bit of camera shake, but I am pretty happy with the results I got.

Zooming in for a closer shot.

The moon and night sky.

On the drive home, I pulled into an overlook and took some pictures of the Mountain views.

The following weekend, I took a day trip with a friend and her family to pick apples at Carter Mountain. Her two boys, Hunter and Austin, had a blast picking apples. The apple trees are really pretty.

And the reward for all that walking, reaching and picking is a fresh, juicy apple.

We got photo bombed!

It was quite the workout for me. The terrain is steep and the bags of apples became like little arm weights, but it was fun none the less. 🙂 I picked just enough apples to make an apple pie. Below is looking down the steep hill at all the apple trees.

Two weekends later, I was in the mountains again. This time, Mitch came along. We ventured up to Graves Mountain for their festival. What started out as a weekend festival years ago has grown in popularity and is now a three weekend festival. We took the hounds with us and met our friend Judy at the festival. She brought her three hounds, Sandy, Jackson and Heidi. When we first arrived, we tried walking around for a bit to look at all the arts and crafts but we were only able to make it a few steps before the hounds drew all the attention. We were like a mini walking meet and greet. 🙂 I gave out all the VAGA business cards I had on hand. We met lots of folks and had fun spreading the word about how wonderful greyhounds are. After making it around to see all the vendors, we set up the ex-pen for the hounds. They still continued to draw in the crowds, so we continued to do meeting and greeting.

The pups loved all the attention, but were pretty pooped out after a few hours. Below are Heidi, Jackson and Sandy.

Heidi wanted some time out of the ex-pen with her mom Judy.

My kids were pretty tired too, except for Ziva. At age four, she has never ending energy. 🙂

We received some donations for the hounds also. 🙂

Next year, we will be better prepared and will bring all our meet and greet supplies. All in all it was a great event!

After the festival, we went wine tasting at a nearby winery, DuCard Vineyards. They were dog friendly so the hounds got to tag along. On the drive home, we also stopped at Prince Michel Vineyard and Winery for a tasting. The pups were allowed in to this winery as well. I did not bring my camera in, so no pictures.

It was an awesome day trip! I am way behind on my blog posts and have lots of catching up to do over the next week or so. Hope everyone is having a good fall and had a great Thanksgiving!