Run for the Roses

Ah, the rose garden! Reportedly, this wonderful place -- located at the back entrance to the D.D. and Velma Davis Visitor and Education center -- is the most popular place in Mill Creek Park. Anyone who visits this time of year would understand why: everywhere you walk in this garden, you encounter some of the most beautiful roses you'll find anywhere. At every turn, you're greeted by arrays of reds, pinks, oranges, whites, yellows and even some that combine two or more shades in one.

On our July 6 visit, I wanted to avoid the direct overhead sunshine, so since our choices were fairly early in the morning or in late afternoon, we opted for morning. By the time we arrived around 10, though, the sun was a bit stronger than I'd have liked, but it was doable.

Of course, I hauled in my trusty Canon EOS Digital Rebel (a hand-me-down from my husband, Jack, when he got his new Canon Digital Rebel XTi). Mine, for the record, is equipped with a powerful Canon EF 100 f/2.8 macro lens, which I acquired courtesy of our good friend Amanda, a skilled photographer from West Virginia. This time out, though, I wanted to try another camera.

I've always carried a pocket-sized, all-purpose camera wherever we go, mostly as a back-up and partly to use when lugging the SLR is just too bulky to deal with, like on a hiking trail. For several years, my back-up of choice was a Sony Cybershot DSC-P200; but recently, it developed a couple of "shadows" on what I assume is the sensor -- there's no way to remove them -- that are obvious on photos of something plain like a clear blue sky. No, I said -- that simply won't do.

So, I forced myself to go on a camera quest and ended up (with Jack's help) with a Canon Powershot A590 -- a bit bigger than I'd like, but we've had very positive experiences with the Powershot series and the price was right. When I got it home, I discovered that it has an easily accessible macro mode -- and the few times I tried it, it worked quite well.

Trying to get good macro shots of roses, though, would be the real test -- and believe me, the camera got a good workout on this occasion. All told, I took nearly 300 photos, mostly of roses, about a third of which were with my new "baby." And guess what? It performed like a pro. In fact, in the end I deleted more less-than-perfect photos from this camera than I took with my SLR!

That said, this is a wonderful time to visit Mill Creek Park. After we left the rose garden, we found relief from the 85 degree heat -- and quite a few more photo opps -- inside the visitor center. Ah, but we were hungry. No problem! There was no line at all in the cafe, which on Sundays serves up a fabulous brunch catered by The Georgetown -- at $12.95 per person, it can't be beat. We sat at a window overlooking Lake Glacier (choosing that instead of on the outdoor patio because of the heat) and chowed down on breakfast goodies like scrambled eggs and biscuits with sausage gravy and then moved on to entrees like chicken francaise and two kinds of pasta. Dessert was fresh fruit -- strawberries, pineapple, grapes and two kinds of melon -- and generous slices of delicious cherry pie.

For an encore, we wandered around the well-landscaped parking lot and found a number of other floral treasures to "capture" -- in fact, that's where I snapped my pick of the day's litter and one of my all-time favorite photos -- a beautiful pale peach daylily.

That was, or so I thought, another wonderful day that ended too soon. But then, more great news: First, an em-mail message brought me the news that my black-and-white photo of the grist mill at Babcock State Park in West Virginia. That was followed a couple of hours later by another message informing me that the same photo was selected as the June Photo of the Month in the Black & White category at MyParkPhotos.com. Wow, I said -- it doesn't get much better than this!