Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Midwest Living Photo Contest

As the Chicago way - Vote early and often.

Copy the link below and mark "Like" for each of the pictures. Yes it is that easy!

http://www.midwestliving.com/photos/photo-contests/march-2011/3865400019

Thank you

Joe and Nikki Walsh

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Southern Illinois

This entry has some pictures from our trip to Southern Illinois. We were looking at buying some land to open up a Bed and Breakfast a while back. So we went down to do some scouting around. Around the same time we also started trying to start a family. We have Gwen now, and no Bed and Breakfast yet, and we mean yet!

So here we go, down to Southern Illinois, and he town of Cobden

Trying to get artsy one morning before breakfast. A very cool fog had settled in at the Bell Hill Bed and Breakfast where we stayed before we left to go to a few wineries.






After the fog had burned off we went to the Giant City State park down the road and took a little hike. This formation was called the Standing Rock


This was the view that I enjoyed each morning after breakfast at Bell Hill. Relaxing with a Mimosa. Such a great place to relax, and unwind. It seems so far away from Chicago. A lot farther than 5 hours.

A cool barn, couldn't resist taking a few pictures.


The grounds at Bell Hill are great to walk around. I was following a herd of deers, couldn't get a god picture, maybe next time.

An old flat bed truck at Owl Creek Winery, the manager said that when they have live music there, the band sets up on the back of this truck at the bottom of the large three tier deck. Each time we've been down there, we seem to miss the music. Maybe next time.

I had just bought my new Canon EOS 50D, and was having fun taking pictures over at Blue Sky Vineyard. They had a variety of sculptures on the grounds. This was one of the first artsy pictures I tried to take. I took about 15 or so shots, and this was the best one.

One last picture of the old tree outside of the Bell Hill Mansion Bed and Breakfast. I just like this one. Can you believe back in the day, they had platforms built in the tree where a band would play when the owners would have parties on the lawn.

That is all for this post, look forward to more soon.

Joe and Nikki Walsh