A morning doing an autumn-colors photoscape in Cary NC's Lochmere

I strive to do at least one serious autumn colors shoot each year, and this year I elected to visit the Lochmere neighborhood of Cary, a western suburb of Raleigh. For my Indianapolis area readers, Cary is the Triangle's equivalent to Indy's Fishers, Carmel or Zionsville, although Cary's population is much higher than either Carmel or Fishers (180,000 vs.103,000).

I’d had Lochmere on my mental back burner for almost a decade, and possibly longer. For a year or two before moving to North Carolina, when we visited Cary, where Lee Ann’s son and his family live, we made a point to look at houses for sale. One such house, in a cul-de-sac on a short street in her son’s neighborhood, we stopped to check out on an open house day. 

As beautiful as the house was (and it really was), its price was twice what we had been hoping to spend. We chatted with the real estate agent there and explained what we were hoping to find, and she suggested we look in Lochmere. She said she lived there and even invited us to drive by her house and see how we liked the neighborhood.

We did made a visit there. Lochmere is a pretty massive planned unit development, one of the first in Cary and probably among the first in all of North Carolina. It has three lakes — two of which are pretty close to each other along Lochmere Drive. And it has loads of mature trees and a variety of amenities, including pools, tennis and pickleball courts, walking trails, playgrounds, a boat ramp (at least on one of the lakes) and an 18-hole golf course. 

(The actual first-ever PUD in North Carolina, Kildaire Farms, also is in Cary and is not far from Lochmere, which technically is on land that was formerly part of the Kildaire family farmland. In fact, there is a major north-south thoroughfare in the city bearing the Kildaire Farms name.) 

I was impressed with Lochmere when we went to check it out, except for the fact that all of the homes or townhomes there that were in our price range were on small parcels of land (about 0.25 acres). Nevertheless, I could not deny its beauty; the neighborhood is heavily treed, and a slow drive down its main thoroughfare, Lochmere Drive, on a peak-color autumn day would persuade anybody of the same.

In fact, that’s what I did on Thursday. I drove down the main drive, a two-lane road with a splendidly landscaped median. Then I went to Lochmere Pavilion — a modest shopping center with local-owned stores and businesses — where I decided to park while I walked down Lochmere Drive to do my shoot. 

That’s Lochmere Drive you see in the photo leading off the post with a runner off to the left. I came across this runner twice on my shoot, and also crossed paths with walkers, walkers with dogs, and cyclists. 

I wish I had made it here much sooner than I did, but I’m glad I finally did make it.  

That’s the story of this post. Most of the photos below are simple “pretty pics,” not needing further caption elaboration. I’ll drop in captions when I think they are needed or appropriate. Don’t forget to click on an image to bring up a larger version, which might be helpful for anyone accessing the blog via mobile device. To view a full gallery of images from my shoot in Lochmere, just click on the link in this sentence. 

I came across the couple (above) on a walk early in the shoot and the one below about 30 minutes later. I initially thought they were the same people, but a closer look at their clothing convinced me they were not.  

Above: My second encounter with this runner. On this meeting, he kindly greeted me with the observation that it was a nice day for taking pictures. 

Above: A look at the boat ramp area on Lochmere Lake.

Above: A peek from afar at the tennis courts. A pool and playground are off to the left, out of the picture. 

A two-chair outdoor mini-dinette set (above) in the backyard of a home I passed on Lochmere Drive. In a different backyard is the bench (below), and in open space along the drive a separate bench (second photo below). Longtime blog followers know of my interest in photographing different benches.  

Above and first four photos below: A look at some of the homes and townhomes clustered near Lochmere Lake as seen from Lochmere Drive. 

Another dog walker (above) and an attempt at an artsy shot (below) using a leading line. Unfortunately, the leading line doesn't really lead to anything rewarding for the viewer, so I guess that makes this is big fail. (smile) OK ... perhaps I’m a little rusty. 

Above and last five photos below: This is Lochmere Pavilion shopping center. A piazza is in the center of the complex with shop accesses flanking a fountain in the middle of the piazza (see second photo below).