Category:

explore everywhere

Sometimes I go places, this is where you can read about my adventures. Road trips, cemeteries, abandoned places – they’re all here.

three best spots for beachcombing in Cleveland

by Kaylah Stroup July 25, 2018

beachcombing in Cleveland, OH

I’m sharing top secret information with you here today. Are you ready? I’m giving up my three favorite spots for beachcombing in Cleveland! This information isn’t actually a secret. These beaches are all popular spots but perhaps never shared in this manner? What I mean is that when people think of Cleveland, I’m sure their first thought isn’t ‘I’m definitely gonna have to look for beach treasures while I’m there!’

Part of me feels like I shouldn’t disclose this information since beach people are normally fiercly protective of their spots. As someone who travels fairly often though, I do wish this information was easier to find. When I’m researching areas that I’ll be visiting, I’m not looking for the best beaches to swim or sunbathe. I wanna know where your trash is! Where can I find random treasures that wash up on the shore?! This is the information I’m sharing with you today. If you’re looking for some tips on where to swim in Lake Erie, this isn’t the post for you. If you want to find beach glass, old pottery, and other strange bits and bobs – I’ve got ya covered!

Wendy Park

2800 Whiskey Island Drive, Cleveland, OH 44102

Wendy Park is my main haunt. It’s the first beach I fell in love with when I moved to the area. It’s off the same exit as Cleveland’s most popular beach yet, somehow, manages to be worlds different. Waves wash in all sorts of random things from pottery to drift wood to miscellaneous trash. Sometimes there’s even an abundance of beach glass as well but not all of it is as worn down as I’d like.

I’m a big fan of Wendy Park because it’s fairly quiet (and of course, because I find lots of fun stuff in the sand!) Every once in a while I’ll show up and there will be a bunch of people but the majority of the time it’s usually just me and a random dog walker. At the park beside the beach you’ll find a neat view of the city, and a pier that leads out to the old coast guard station that is currently being renovated.

Best for : trash, driftwood, pottery pieces + birdwatching

Bradstreet’s Landing

22400 Lake Rd, Rocky River, OH 44116

I discovered Bradstreet’s Landing shortly before moving to the area and actually regularly took the hour drive just to come here. I had never seen as much beach glass as I was finding here. I was used to finding four to five pieces of glass per trip but at Bradstreet’s I could fill a sandwich baggie in an hour or so.

Depending on what time of the day you go, Bradstreet’s Landing can get kind of crowded. It’s an older, friendly crowd though. A great spot if you’re a social beachcomber who likes to chitchat. Even when there are others there, it’s still super easy to find lots of great pieces of glass!

Best for : beach glass

Perkins Beach

Upper Edgewater Park – 41.48752919,-81.75115557

I found Perkins Beach by accident. We were geocaching around the area and one led us to this quiet little beach. It was getting dark but I liked the view of the city I could see so I made it a point to go back the next day to check out the beach. What a great discovery that was!

I almost already regret sharing this spot because the beach glass here is so good! There isn’t a lot of really large pieces but the small pieces that cover the shoreline are perfectly frosted. I have never seen such beautiful glass in person as I find at this beach. There’s also an abundance tiny blue pieces!

Best for : beach glass, driftwood + a great view of the city

beachcombing in Cleveland, OH beach glass from Perkins Beach

an hours worth of glass from Perkins Beach

A couple honorable mentions…
(Not included in the top three mostly because of distance to Cleveland.)
▴ Mentor Headlands. People rave about the beach glass here. I’ve never had great luck but I think Mentor Headlands has some seriously impressive rocks!
▴ Sherod Park Beach. To be honest, I only recently discovered this beach. Consequently, I can’t really give a fair review of the beachcombing scene there. I actually didn’t see much beach glass at all. The reason it makes the list though? I found my first marble there. I will say that there were lots of great rocks as well!

Two last things before ending this post!

If you see a green haired girl hunched over searching for treasures at the beach, please say ‘hi!’ I’d love to meet other folks who enjoy poking around in the sand!
Pass on the knowledge! Know of a neat ‘trash beach’ near you? Let me know! Like I mentioned at the beginning of this post, finding these places online isn’t easy, it’s almost like you just have to be in the know which isn’t really possible if you’re just traveling through somewhere. I’m always looking for new places to add my to-visit list. If you’d rather keep it a secret, feel free to email me.

Good luck!
xoxo

shackman multishot – wedding roadtrip

by Kaylah Stroup July 24, 2018

instant film

My brother + dad climbing around Twin Arrows.

Two years ago a very kind person sent me a little package with a camera they no longer had use for. I’d never even heard of a Shackman Multishot before but it’s safe to say, I fell in love quickly! Despite it’s very clunky size and super expensive film, it’s one of my absolute favorite cameras.

The Shackman Multishot has two lenses that sit beside each other. You can either take two nearly identical shots, or you can cover one of the lenses and take two totally different shots that will appear on one photo. Most of the time I opt for the second option. Getting two shots per frame is cost effective, looks really rad and is just something totally different than anything my other cameras can offer me.

Very shortly before I aquired the camera, Fujifilm annouced they’d no longer be producing the film needed for this camera. Luckily, I had the foresight to get it while the getting was good! I have a gold mine of film in my fridge that I only break out on special occasions. Special occasions really just meaning road trips most of the time. I figured this would probably be one of the most important and unique trips of my life so I brought along a ton.

I’m SO excited about the photos I captured while we were out west last month! The first one in this post being my absolute favorite. I can’t get over how well those shots work together! My only regret is not shooting more photos with the Shackman Multishot.

xoxo

Film for this camera can be found here. Be warned, it is no longer made and therefore very expensive to purchase. As for the camera itself, perhaps check eBay. Last time I checked, there were none of this exact camera but one of a similar model that has four lenses. So tempting!

Twin Arrows + Two Guns

by Kaylah Stroup July 17, 2018

I have a lot of photos from our most recent trip out west that I want to share. A lot of pictures that I’m really, really excited to show off! Despite covering ground we’d driven just a few years prior, we still managed to make lots of new stops. That being said, aside from our actual wedding photos, these might be some of my favorites. Not because they’re well composed or of wildly interesting subjects but because they’re really special.

I think I end up writing one of these posts after each road trip; where I just go on and on about how much I love traveling with Jeff, how it means the world to me, and how there’s nothing else I’d rather do despite the fact it’s not always perfect. This post from 2017 is a prime example. Well, Surprise! I’m here writing another one.

The day before the wedding, instead of a traditional rehearsal, we opted to just show off two of our favorite desert spots to our family. First stop, Twin Arrows. This was mine and Jeff’s third visit to the abandoned gas station, trading post, and diner since 2014. It’s going down hill quick but still remains one of those spots that just makes me fall in love with the desert all over again every single time. It’s also the inspiration behind the two arrows on the enamel pins we had made for our wedding.

After wandering around for a while, finding a snake, and coming up empty handed in the hunt for a geocache we moved on to the most important location of the trip. Just around ten miles away lies one of my favorite places in the world, Two Guns.

A little bit backstory here, we discovered Two Guns back in 2014 on our first trip our west. It was right on the way to where we were heading except we were majorly crunched for time. We had reservations and had to check into our wigwam before the front office closed for the night. But Two Guns!!!! It looked amazing. We had to stop, there was no two ways about it. Jeff and I agreed we’d only spend ten minutes there so we both got out of the car and literally ran from building to building snapping photos like crazy. The ten minutes was up in no time at all. We got back to the car gasping for breath and full of adrenaline. My pictures weren’t that great but it’s honestly one of my favorite memories from that whole trip. We visited again in 2016.

After we finally made concrete plans to get married there I could not wait to be there with everyone. The thought of showing it off to our loved ones was enough to make me all teary eyed. I can’t quite explain why but it’s such a special place to both of us. I’ve never been more excited to share something with someone than I was to share Two Guns with them. Even looking back now, I can’t believe that we actually managed to pull it all together.

For a brief moment before leaving for this trip, I contemplated not bringing along my camera. I figured I’d just be so busy I wouldn’t really have time to shoot much of anything. There were definitely a couple days where my camera didn’t get much use and just hung out in a bag that made my back really sweaty but I am so thankful to have had it at our ‘rehersal’. The photos from this day make my heart feel so full.

Two Guns ruins at Two Guns ghost town View from the top of the crumbling building we chose to exchange vows on.

Although the ruins aren’t what comes to mind when I think ‘Two Guns’, they were always my first choice when it came to ceremony location. They don’t have as much graffiti on them, and I really didn’t want any poorly drawn genitalia in my wedding photos. Before this trip, Jeff and I had actually never wandered out this far on the property. I had seen some photos of the building we ended up choosing online and even made a comment about how great the staircase was but didn’t truly consider it because I knew it was pretty far away from the road. When we actually approached that building with the staircase though, collectively the whole family was like ‘Is this the one?!’, ‘Can it be here?’ We found a heart shaped rock, and some random people showed up with puppies so obviously it felt right.

Picking the exact location the day prior was a really special moment and one of my favorite memories from the whole trip. I was definitely stressed and sweaty but I’d do it over and over again in a heartbeat! Not sure what else I could write that wouldn’t just be me repeating myself about how wonderful it was to be there with everyone. The whole trip just feels like a dream. I was so anxious about our very offbeat plans but dude, we nailed it.

Climbing down into the Apache Death Cave.

Apache Death Cave

Our loved ones in the cave! How was this real life!?!

Boothill Graveyard

by Kaylah Stroup July 11, 2018

Boothill Graveyard in Tombstone, Arizona is easily the most tourist filled cemetery I have been to. Even more so than Granary Burying Ground! It also marks the first cemetery I have ever paid admission to check out. $3 gets you entry, a pamphlet detailing all of the known burials, and a short speech about the cemetery from the sweetest little old lady. (Dream job much???)

Tombstone wasn’t originally on our itinerary but when I realized how close we were I figured it’d definitely be worth a detour. With a name like Tombstone, it’s no surprise that I’d be interested in visiting this historic town. Tombstone calls itself ‘the town too tough to die!’ Its a place essentially frozen in time. Down the main strip, lots of original buildings remain some even decorated with bullet holes from gunfights. There are ghost tours, daily gun fight reenactments, mine tours, gift shops, a shooting gallery and most exciting to me, pressed penny machines galore!

All of that was great but I was most enthused by the cemetery! Since the original grave markers were wood very few stood up to the test of time. What can be found now are recreations. Some are humorous, like Lester Moore whose epitaph reads as follows…

‘four slugs
from a 44
no les
no more’

Others give the cause of death such as Six-Shooter Jim who was ‘shot by Burt Alvord’. Then there are lots that are just ‘unknown’. The pamphlet you get when you enter gives you even more information. To be honest, I didn’t look at it once while still in the cemetery because I was so excited to see everything and take photos but I really enjoyed reading it once we got back in the car. The cemetery isn’t that large but there’s lot to see.

boothill graveyard, tombstone, arizona, cemetery Tombstone, AZ

It was hot as heck, and the graveyard was full of living folks (I did an A+ job shooting around people, huh?) but we all really enjoyed ourselves. Definitely worth the price of admission to cross yet another famous US cemetery off my list!
xoxo

More from this trip;
▴ just married!
▴ instant photos from our wedding week
▴ that time I got married in a ghost town
▴ Cadillac Ranch

Cadillac Ranch

by Kaylah Stroup July 3, 2018

Cadillac Ranch, Amarillo Texas, Roadside Attraction

It’s been nearly a month since our last big roadtrip. Ya know, the one where we got married. I thought things would slow down after the wedding but honestly, it’s been crazier than ever. I feel like since then I’ve had one huge wedding hangover. I’m just now getting around to sorting and editing all the photos I took on that trip!

The original plan for this trip was that we’d fly into Las Vegas since it’s not too far of a drive to Flagstaff and normally has really cheap flights from Cleveland. When we first started planning our wedding/the trip flights were just under $100 round trip. We made the stupid mistake of not jumping on that deal. The longer we waited, the more the price went up until we eventually just came to the conclusion it’d be dumb to pay that much to fly to Las Vegas. We did some shopping around and ended up finding some decently priced tickets from Cleveland to Dallas. About a month before the wedding, we finally pulled the trigger. We’d fly into Dallas, Texas and then drive to Flagstaff which is the closest city to the ghost town we chose for the ceremony.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. ‘Holy smokes, Kaylah, that’s a long drive!” Yep! 14.5 hours without including time for stops! Buuut that was actually what sold us on the idea of flying there. Neither Jeff or I had ever been to Texas and it only seemed right to add an actual element of road tripping to our adventure! We love exploring new places any chance we get but one of the things that really sold us on choosing this route was that we’d finally get to visit Cadillac Ranch.

If you’re not familiar, Cadillac Ranch is one of the most popular roadside attractions out there! 10 Cadillacs are half-buried nose-first in the ground. Each completely covered in spray paint. It’s been really really reeeally high up on Jeff’s list of things to see for quite some time now and obviously, I love stupid roadside attractions so visiting on our wedding trip was an excellent plan!

We arrived in Dallas on Tuesday afternoon, made a few small stops along the way and arrived at Cadillac Ranch just in time for magic hour. Much to my surprise, there weren’t many people there. (Something I had been stressing about!) It was perfect. The sky was beautiful and Cadillac Ranch was just as great as we had built it up to be.

Obviously going into this I knew that people painted the cars (and that I should come prepared with the goods to leave my mark) but I didn’t realize just how popular it was. The cars are covered in a couple inches of paint! Literally multiple inches of paint! There were a few spots where we saw people left their mark by actually carving their name into the thick build-up of paint. My brother, who drove from Ohio instead of flying, visited a few days before we arrived. He posted photos of each of his daughters painting their name and even wrote the name of our shared wedding album on a car. It was completely covered by the time we arrived!

I’m excited that Jeff and I finally got to visit and even more excited that my parents were there too. I loved hearing my dad talk about when he had visited nearly 40 years earlier. It’s literally just cars buried in the ground. Nothing too special but it was the perfect start to our family roadtrip.
xoxo

If you like cars half-buried in the ground, you should also check out International Car Forest of the Last Church!

Lake Erie Shores & Islands – Unplugged

by Kaylah Stroup June 28, 2018

Special thanks to Lake Erie Shores & Islands for sponsoring this post! Lake Erie Shores & Islands Travel Guide

Massie Cliffside fishing dock

If you follow me on instagram, you probably caught wind of the awesome little trip I just got back from (or at least I hope you did!) I promised a massive blog post recap, and that’s what I’m here to give ya today!

I was recently contacted by Lake Erie Shores & Islands about a little campaign they were doing that focused on two things I love very much – Lake Erie & unplugging. Obviously, I was quick to say ‘yes!!’ Armed with a Polaroid camera and a hefty list of places to visit over a three day weekend, we set off to have one incredible trip. Each day we made a conscious effort to pick up our phones as little as possible.

We packed a lot into three days. It’s honestly pretty amazing how many new places and things there were to experience just an hour away from home. A lot of people don’t realize how big Lake Erie is. It can easily be mistaken for an ocean. Travel just over an hour west of Cleveland and you would think you were on the Atlantic coast. There are several islands and coastal towns along the shore, each with plenty of restaurants and attractions. I think the best way to go over everything and share some of our new found favorite places is just to start from the top…

Put-in-Bay

left to right, top row; watching the waves at Put-in-Bay beach, Lake Erie Island Historical Society Resale Shop. Bottom row; Massie Cliffside Preserve, Exploring Put-in-Bay (even the kind of flooded spots) via golf cart.

Friday

Our little adventure started out with a trip to Put-in-Bay. Put-in-Bay is a small (2.5 by 5 mile) island in Lake Erie. I had never been there, nor did I know much about it but I ended up having a blast.

We took Miller Ferry (my first boat ride!) to the island and immediately picked up a golf cart from E’s Golf Carts. Although you can bring your car over on the ferry, it seems like most people opt to explore the island via golf cart. Holy cow, what a blast that was. Wade brought along his portable speakers and we spent most of the day bopping around and waving at other people in golf carts. We ate the most delicious brie, chicken and arugula pizza from Frosty’s, browsed the resale shop, checked out the island’s two cemeteries, and enjoyed mochas from the Chocolate Cafe & Museum.

Highlight of our visit to Put-in-Bay for me though? Dinner at The Boardwalk. Jeff has literally been talking about their lobster bisque since we met. It was incredible! (Also, my first time having lobster!) I ordered the crab and shrimp eggrolls which were so tasty. I would legitimately go back to the island just to eat there again.

We took the last ferry back to the mainland so we could head to our hotel, Country Inn and Suites in Port Clinton, for a good night’s sleep before the next day’s adventure. I was honestly sad to leave. The island isn’t that big but there’s a lot to do and explore! Everyone we encountered was super friendly, including the parents of a pup named Captain Jack in a pirate costume. (Clearly, that was a highlight of our visit too.) Just good island vibes all around!

put-in-bay, the watering hole safari park, lake erie, lake erie love

left to right, top row; Macey the giraffe at The Watering Hole, bumper boats at The Watering Hole. Bottom row; Massie Cliffside fishing dock, sunset at Huron Harbor Lighthouse.

Saturday

We started the morning at Tin Goose Diner which is an authentic 1950’s diner that was trucked in from Pennsylvania. It’s now part of the Liberty Aviation Museum. Typical diner food (aka my favorite!) and judging by how busy the place was I’d say a lot of other folks think it’s pretty tasty too!

After fueling up, we headed to The Watering Hole Safari and Water Park at Monsoon Lagoon. I’ve actually driven past here a few times but had no idea all the fun that was to be had there. Putt putt, go-karts, a water park, bumper boats, and a petting zoo. We were most excited about the zoo because… well, animals. Duh! It was nothing short of amazing. I’m honestly shocked I didn’t cry happy tears. I bottle fed baby goats, held an armadillo, touched hands with a lemur, fed a giraffe, and CUDDLED A BABY SLOTH!!! It was clear that all the employees really loved the animals, and that the animals felt a connection as well.

After that, we checked out the water park section of the park. Happy to report that it was really fun, even for an adult! We stayed just long enough to cool off and test out each of the water slides. (Five of them – all super fun! One that was even a little fast for me.)

We made it out of the park just before the sky started to fall, and had lunch at The Original Margaritaville. I had their shrimp tacos which were out of this world. I highly recommend getting yourself some of those. It continued to rain on and off for a while, and we were all feeling a little drowsy after swimming (swimming always takes it outta ya, eh?) so we stopped for coffee at Gathering Grounds Coffee. Get yourself a sparkling lavender lemonade. Holy cow!

The city of Huron has a super cute little waterfront area. It’s a great area to walk around. Live music right on the water, a bunch of food options, and a super cheery vibe. Our hotel, Comfort Inn River’s Edge, was so close to all the action you could even hear the music from our room!

Dinner on Saturday was at Bar North Bistro. This was the one time we had reservations, and coincidentally we were still full from all the food earlier in the day. I figured we’d just get appetizers until we looked at the menu. We each got a huge meal… and devoured it. Everyone really enjoyed their food but I think we can all agree ‘devils on horseback’ is where it’s at. (That’s dates stuffed with brie and wrapped in bacon. SO GOOD!)

The evening ended with sunset on the Huron pier. We hiked out to the lighthouse and watched as the sky treated us to beautiful colors. It was busy on the pier. Not crowded in a bad way though, the kind of crowd where you can just tell everyone out there is just enjoying life. It was lovely.

left to right, top row; walking out to Huron Harbor Lighthouse. Bottom row; Granny Joe’s Ice Creamatorium, building cairns Sherod Park Beach.

Sunday

Sunday morning we woke up and headed 20 minutes east to Vermilion. Vermilion is somewhere Jeff and I have been before a couple of times just to geocache. Every single time we visit one of us ends up mentioning how nice it’d be to move there. It’s just such a sweet little town. Plus it’s home to Granny Joe’s Ice Creamatorium! A cozy breakfast joint and ice cream parlor housed in what used to be a funeral home. A short walk away Lake Erie awaits! We wandered around Main Street Beach and checked out the beautiful lighthouse before hopping into the car to head to Sherod Park Beach.

From the parking lot, Sherod Park Beach doesn’t look like much but once we got down to the beach I quickly realized this could easily become one of my favorite beaches along Lake Erie. Tons of gorgeous rocks cover the shoreline. I’m not a huge rock hound but I do appreciate pretty rocks and usually, end up finding a few to bring home anytime I visit the beach. I was already carrying a few rocks when I happened to glance down and a marble caught my eye! There wasn’t much beach glass there so I definitely wasn’t expecting to find something as awesome as a glass marble, especially sitting right on the top of the rocks like that. All my time spent on the beach and this was my very first marble! I’m definitely interested in heading back for some more beachcombing… like right now.

A short twenty-minute drive away from Sherod Park was our next adventure, Common Ground Canopy Tours & Zipline. The four of us had never ziplined before but we were all over the moon at a chance to give it a shot. I presumed it would just be like one platform to another and then you’re done but it was SO much more. Seven ziplines, thirteen tree platforms, three ariel bridges, two spiral staircases, and a floating staircase! The course takes about 2.5hrs to complete. We had a blast! Our guides were so nice and felt like old friends by the end of our visit. They even take photos throughout the course so you never have to touch your phone but still have photos. I cannot recommend Common Ground Canopy Tours highly enough!

We had all worked up an appetite by the end of our ziplining excursion. Everyone at Common Ground recommended the same restaurant, The Feve in Oberlin. It was AMAZING. Honestly, the whole weekend was packed with delicious food so it’s hard to pick a favorite meal buuuut my breakfast burger was easily the best breakfast burger I’ve ever had.

Lake Erie Love, Vermilion, Ohio lighthouse

Vermilion Lighthouse

Clearly a jam-packed weekend. We ate a ton, saw a ton, and spent tons of quality time together because no one had their phone out. It’s amazing what magic awaits just an hour away from Cleveland and how much of it you’ll experience if you just stop checking your phone every fifteen minutes.

I love our beaches here but visiting all the ones we did over the weekend truly felt like a vacation. I kept thinking “okay, and what time do we need to get to the airport again?” because it felt like we were a lot further away from home than we were. Lake Erie is pretty incredible!
xoxo

that time I got married in a ghost town…

by Kaylah Stroup June 25, 2018

Two Guns Wedding, ghost town wedding

I don’t even know how to start this post. There’s so much to say about our wedding and honestly, so much I just want to keep private. I’m straddling this weird line between sharing something I’m proud of and excited about and keeping it all to myself because it really is so special. Either way, this is going to be a long, photo heavy post and I’m sure as soon as I hit “publish” I’ll think of a thousand other things I wanted to mention but here we go…

Jeff and I live to travel. It’s such a huge part of our relationship. Neither of us care for traditional weddings so it was a no-brainer we’d have a destination wedding. Based on our travel history and the fact we’ve made it an annual tradition to go there, the desert was also a no-brainer. We’ve spent the most time in Arizona, California and New Mexico but aside from Cisco, UT where he proposed there was only one other spot that we loved as fiercely – Two Guns, Arizona. I had always half-jokingly suggested we should get married there but never really thought it could actually happen or put too much thought into what the logistics of that would look like.

Shortly after proposing Jeff mentioned “So, I was thinking Two Guns?” I was too emotional to talk about it but I couldn’t believe he was actually suggesting it. I finally stopped crying for long enough to have a conversation where we decided that yes, Two Guns would be the perfect spot to get married but before we officially made the call we wanted to make sure our families were down to travel. I was worried that it would be asking too much. Much to my surprise, everyone was totally on board. Not a moment of hesitation from either side.

Seven months later a grand total of thirty people, including Jeff, myself and our photographer, made our way out to Arizona. Each group took their own route, came in on different days, and did a variety of different things leading up to the wedding but all eventually met up at one of our favorite places in the world, Two Guns!

Two Guns is a ghost town outside of Flagstaff, Arizona. It has a long, kind of wild history but currently just sits baking in the desert sun. The property contains many ruins, including old cottages, a campground, a service station and even a zoo! Can’t forget to mention the cave either. (Heck yes we got photos in the cave!) Truly a playground for Rt. 66 travelers!

It’s actually for sale! If anyone would like to give it to us as a wedding gift, that’d be rad.

Like a lot of the abandonment in the desert, it’s not really a big deal to visit. There are no fences to hop to access the property, and it’s literally right off a highway exit. We figured we’d just show up, get married and leave after we were done. We had no plans to decorate. It’s seriously perfect as is! Since the ceremony was going to be super short we didn’t even bother with chairs. We did however end up choosing a spot with lots of objects to sit and lean on which worked out very nicely. It was essentially a wedding flash mob.

One of my brothers officiated the ceremony. He got ordained just for us, and spent a good deal of time practicing by marrying my niece’s stuffed animals because he was so nervous (mostly just because he didn’t want to cry!) So sweet.

On June 9th, 2018 at 9 am Jeff and I got married on top of an old crumbling building in the ghost town of Two Guns, Arizona.

It was nothing short of incredible. I spent so much time stressing about everything from the dress to if we should decorate or not but it was legitimately perfect. I can’t think of a single thing I’d change. It was so perfectly ~us~. We’re both just over the moon.

I will not say this is my favorite photo because I could never choose but you guys, I am LIVING for how fierce I look up there. Was I just married or am I ready to go into battle?

All photos in this post are by Madeline Barr. Finding the right photographer was the biggest task in planning this wedding. Jeff and I were both really stressed about it. I cannot express how happy I am that we hired Maddie! She is a blast to be around, made us both feel super comfortable in front of the camera, and gave us the wedding photos of our dreams. I seriously can’t believe these are photos of us! I’m already plotting what excuse we can make to fly out to San Diego and have her photograph us again. She’s amazing, hire her!

more details
dress + topper –BHLDN
pink underskirt – Amazon
shoes – Palladium Boots
flowers – Sutcliffe Floral
pants + vest – Express

Most of these photos were just part of the preview that our wonderful photographer sent over the night of the wedding (what!?) and somehow she’s already finished up the rest of the photos. I’ve pored over them so many times. I’m completely obsessed!!!

At this time I’m not sure if I’ll be sharing many more photos. The day before the ceremony Jeff and I were sitting at a cute little coffee shop and we started talking about how the whole idea of a wedding was super weird. It’s such a personal thing. Even though we had only invited the closest people to us, it still felt like too much. Looking back on it now, I love what we did and I’m happy everyone who was there was there but I can’t even imagine how we would have been able to deal with a bigger or more traditional wedding.

When we went through all the photos Maddie had sent us, I felt that same way again – just like this is SO personal, how could I ever share these with someone else?! I want to hoard them away for just us. Does that make sense? Did anyone else feel like this? I never thought that I would and maybe I’ll end up feeling more comfortable about it all after it’s not so fresh. For now, I’m happy just sharing these.
xoxo

instant photos from our wedding week!

by Kaylah Stroup June 18, 2018

Polaroid Originals color frame

Just a little round up of Polaroid film shot on our wedding road trip! One week on the road. We explored abandoned buildings in the desert, visited roadside attractions, hung out in a couple of caves, spent time checking out the Grand Canyon and uh… GOT MARRIED.

These road trips out west, which have become an annual thing for us, are the one time of the year that I completely go wild shooting instant film. It’s not a cheap hobby so I tend to hoard my film. There’s quite literally more film than food in our fridge most of the time!

Obviously I went into this trip knowing it would be even more special than normal. I took SO MANY POLAROIDS! Photos I know I’m going to treasure forever. The one of Jeff and I at our wedding, looking tough with our friends might be one of my absolute favorite polaroids ever. I already have it framed*. My scanner didn’t do it justice, at all.

I’m a huge fan of this film and it’s actually fairly inexpensive these days. I mean, comparatively. Still a little over $2 per photo but NOTHING beats being able to physically touch a photo, and watch it slowly develop. Despite the fact they’re not even close to the quality you’d get from a digital camera, there’s just something so special about them! I only wish I had taken more of them on this trip!
xoxo

*These frames are perfect for displaying instant film!

abandoned industrial complex

by Kaylah Stroup May 1, 2018

abandoned kitchen

Every time I think there’s nothing new to explore in this city we end up finding something wonderful. Most recently – this place!

My history with this building complex began around the time I moved to Cleveland. We were doing a lot of exploring, getting out nearly every weekend to take photos. This place was a suggestion from a friend but on the morning we showed up there was what appeared to be a realtor showing off the property. Obviously having anyone on the property while we wanted to explore would have caused us to stop and rethink our plans but a realtor, to me at least, meant that the buildings were in good enough shape to be sold and probably weren’t exactly as abandoned as we expected.

Four-ish year pass and I randomly thought of this place when brainstorming what we could do the following weekend. After scoping it out, we were positive it’d be doable.

Based on the decay, I’m going to assume it was in pretty rough shape four years ago as well but who knows! Whatever the case, I’m happy to finally have it under my belt. It easily ranks among my favorites for a handful of reasons. One huge one being that it was FULL of stuff. Empty abandoned buildings are fine and dandy but stuff left behind really makes a building for me. There were stacks of chairs, hundreds of bottle caps, miscellaneous household items, boxes upon boxes of files, and so much more.

flag in an abandoned building

It’s always exciting to get to explore something new, especially when no one in the group has been there before. The first building we entered wasn’t terribly interesting but things quickly started to look up after we popped into the second building. It was like every door we entered, and every corner we rounded had something that made at least one of us say “Oh my gosh!” (Usually me because I’m super easily amused…)

If I had shot more photos, I could have easily broken this down into multiple posts and no one would have ever guessed it was all the same place. Every section was so different from the last.

#theresalwaysachair

Before we had pulled away I was already saying ‘I’m ready to go back!’ There was just so much to see. It was hard to try to photograph it as well as I wanted while still also checking the place out for the very first time. Hopefully it won’t be another four years before we head back.
xoxo

If you haven’t gotten your fill of dilapidated buildings – check out the tag “abandoned” for more posts!

Newer Posts

Older Posts