Cabin Trip

driving on a snowy highway through the mountains viewed from behind the steering wheel of a vehicle
28mm Elmarit ASPH / Kodak XX @ 800

Whew. I have been wanting to make this post (and many others) for quite a while. One thing holding me back is that I’ve been wanting to come up with a way to view a gallery of images per post. This post is dated for back in January, but a few days ago from the current time (June 18th (I know, I know.)), I some how came up with the idea to list out the data for the images in the YAML frontmatter of the post’s markdown file. You see, I use Hugo, a static site generator, to build my site. This means no back-end and that usually means no content management system. There are ways to setup a CMS for static sites, but I’ve never explored them. So everything is in markdown files. I’ll make a post later on what I did exactly, but for now I’ll just mention it involves looping over YAML data with the Golang template, and then using VueJS to create a little lightbox component per image. I switched over to PhotoSwipe . I’ve noticed a few other people using it, after examining how flexible it is, I decided I’d rather spend my time adding to the site instead of maintaining and updating my own image lightbox. It’s easy to setup, easy to customize, accessible and mobile friendly.

Anyway, we spent a long weekend in a large cabin over in Tennessee with a bunch of friends from Raleigh. Right outside the Smokys. The drive up wasn’t bad. We originally planned on switching halfway, but I was having so much fun driving the new truck in the mountains I just kept going. Even through the snow, which I have zero experience driving in.

Overall the trip was a lot of fun. Lots of games, really good food and a heck of a dance party. They went all out. There was even a disco ball strung up over the great room.

overhead view of people lounging on couches in a great room
28mm Elmarit ASPH / Leica M10-P

On the last day of the trip we went down to Gatlinburg. I haven’t been downtown since I was a kid. We went to this activity games place where there is a large assortment of active games and escape rooms. The games were very fun, and very much a form of exercise.

a truck is parked on a foggy overlook
50mm Summilux ASPH / Leica M10-P

The drive home was nice. Google Maps routed us to go through the Foothills Parkway, which had a few nice overlooks. It was incredibly foggy. The Smoky Mountains definitely showed off the “smoke.” So much dense fog everywhere.

Here are some more photos from the trip:

  • a gate on a snowy mountain trail with a sign that reads no tresspassing. it also has a christmas wreath hanging on it
  • four men playing cards at a table
  • a group of men sitting around a table playing a card game. each of them are making finger gun expressions at the other
  • a group of men sitting around a table playing a card game. one is holding anothers face to his and kissing him forcefully
  • four men about to drink a shot off of a ski. also known as a 'shotski'
  • a large group of men post for a photograph in a log cabin
  • a foggy mountain view from an overlook
  • a junked passenger airplane sits in an open road-side area