Last night before I went home I stopped by wal-mart to pick up a few items to make dinner. While I was there I also stocked up on some “shrooms”.

For some reason I just found this kind of funny…

Though still a work in progress, I have made the decision to merge my two websites… ryanmccoy.us (Blog) and shortleaf.com (photography). Both will more or less stay the same, they will just be combined into one site and under the umbrella of Shortleaf. My intent is to center more of the postings around photography, or photography related to the things going on in my life. But I’m sure I’ll post some of the random thoughts and such as well from time to time.

Hopefully this will be a mutually beneficial relationship for both websites!

Contrary to popular believe I am not dead, nor is this website. I’ve just been busy and like any habit, once you get out of it, it can be hard to get back. Regardless, I’m going to start off 2010 with a random assortment of photos documenting 2009. Enjoy!

 

Saturday I went hiking with Matt and my cousin Logan. We decided to try and locate the natural bridge in the Mark Twain Natl Forest. If you read this blog regularly you may remember last winter when Matt and I tried to find this without success. This time I came prepared with gps coordinates and a detailed topo map of the area. The natural bridge has no trails leading to it and there are no signs. If it weren’t for the fact that it’s indicated on some topo maps no one would probably know it existed at all. It seems strange that something so big would be hard to find but in the maze of steep hillsides and trees you really don’t even notice the entrance until you are practically right on top of it. Luckily this time the maps and gps allowed us to find this hidden splendor. Click photos for larger versions…

It’s a lot larger than it looks in the photo.

Note how small Matt is in this photo.

We stopped for a sack lunch inside the cave. Again, this photo makes it look deceptively small.

Saturday night Andy and I went to a bball game at my alma mater. Thanks to some of my special connections I was able to take some courtside shots. Although since we were sitting on the 3rd row it really wasn’t even necessary to go courtside to get them. Here are a few of the pics (click them to enlarge)…

Mmm, chocolate covered broccoli

However as of yesterday we are back on the same playing field – and both in our last year of twentydom. Grant chose to celebrate this by eating chocolate broccoli fondue in front of his friends, so I am not entirely convinced that he has truly caught up with me in terms of being wise.