The next stop on our vacation was a visit to Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest. Many people know about Thomas Jefferson’s home in Monticello, but while in Lynchburg, we learned that he also had another home in Poplar Forest. He would often come to this home as a private retreat. He’d visit for two weeks to two months at a time. As we walked around the property, we could see why he was so attracted to the beautiful land!

The Natural Bridge Zoo has a wide variety of animals from goats, birds, and turtles to giraffes, elephants, and tigers. Read more about my favorite stop on our 4th of July adventure around Natural Bridge, VA.

Dinosaur Kingdom II is a tourist attraction located just over a mile down the road from Natural Bridge State Park. This was by far the most bizarre stop during our week-long trip to Lynchburg, VA. I didn’t know what to expect, but this place took us on a wild ride through fictional history.

Natural Bridge State Park was a really fun day trip for the 4th of July! Check out our travels to the attraction, along with views from our hike along the Cedar Creek Trail.

The Kemper Station trail is about a one-mile walk that starts at the Blackwater Creek Trail and ends at the Kemper Street Train Station. The difficulty of the trail is rated easy and on a paved surface. Since it was a very shaded trail, this was a perfect choice for a really hot day.

The Court House Hill historic district was the perfect place to begin our week-long vacation to Lynchburg, VA. Check out our visit to the Lynchburg Museum, Monument Terrace, and more around the downtown area.

After my first photoshoot with my new Canon R7 camera using the kit lens, I quickly realized how limiting kit lenses can be. I got plenty of great images, but I was left wanting more.

The Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Dulles, VA hosts an annual Innovations in Flight event where you can see a lot of different planes and talk to different pilots and engineers of these various aircraft about flight innovations over the last century.