Longing for Speyside

The heat has reached even Scotland, and the city is stifling. I am longing for the North and an escape to Speyside, although it looks as if the heat will follow us there.

Meantime I am refreshing myself by looking at photos I took when we were last up in June. Perhaps the sunny yellow of the broom was foreshadowing our proper summer.

Reflections

We don't need thousands of photographs of reflections. We need thousands of moments to reflect in between each photograph.
~ Jim Austin ~

Magpie season

WARNING: This creature may look benign, but a vicious killer lurks within!
Alright, that's probably an exaggeration, but this bird does take on slightly aggressive behaviour during this time of year (i.e. spring) in Australia, during the mating season, and anyone who gets too close to a nest is a target. The general idea is to swoop from the air and use their beak as a weapon to inflict damage on the head of their prey. Cyclists seem to be a particular target, but at least we have the option of wearing a helmet to ward off attacks (although some suggest that this actually attracts magpies).
Of course, if I just continue riding and not allow myself to be distracted by the feeling of being hit in the head by a tennis ball, most magpies bounce off harmlessly. I do, however, take note of where the really aggressive ones happen to be, just in case they start going for the ears, or launch a head-on attack (I've only actually seen one do this). Hence, for this weekend, I note that there may be one near Uki in the Tweed Valley, and possibly at Tumbulgum (although I can avoid that via Urliup).
The problem is, due to bushfires, I may have no choice but to ride around the Tweed Valley -- very probably passing through Uki.

Waxwing and Mountain Ash Berries

With the cold weather hanging on for another night, I figured I would get up early and drive to Grand Marais to photograph the steam behind the lighthouse. What I wasn't figuring on were the thousands of Waxwings that were hanging out in the various trees in the Grand Marais campground. I found one area where all the Mountain Ash berries had blown off the trees and down onto the ground. I watched as hundreds of Waxwings hopped around amongst the berries, choking them down just as fast as they could pick them up. I don't know how I did it, but I managed to isolate this one bird against the backdrop of berries. It is my favorite shot of the morning.

Surreal Sky

I am always on the lookout for interesting clouds to photograph, and this morning I definitely saw some interesting ones. The clouds shown in this photo were very high altitude and held their shape for a very long time. I shot this photo with my Canon 100-400mm lens at 400mm.

Foothills

Foothills, originally uploaded by ParsecTraveller.

A view from Diablo Foothills Regional Park. The hills remind me of Ireland around this time of the year.

Nebraska or Bust!

Nebraska or Bust! Sandhill Cranes here I come... I get so excited this time of year not only to photograph the cranes but also simply just to SEE and HEAR them. They are one of my favorite birds, magnificent animals and also one of the oldest, with one of the longest fossil histories of any bird still found today.

We arrived in Kearney, Nebraska at 4:30 this afternoon. The temperature was 83 degrees when we arrived. It is supposed to reach 89 tomorrow and everything (grass, trees, etc.) is very green already! I have been down here 5 times already this same time of year and I've never seen it so green. Kind of surreal. We got lucky and were able to get into a group photography blind this evening at Rowe Sanctuary. Even though we are a week later than we were last year, there are still plenty of Sandhill Cranes in the area. Sunset over the Platte River was nothing short of AMAZING!



Sandhill Cranes are birds that seem to be full of so much personality. One can't help but think of them as goofy birds when you see them coming in for a landing. While flying they are quite sleek with their legs sticking straight back and their necks stretched straight forward. When landing, however, they flare their wings and their feet dangle beneath them while their heads stick up into the air. I just love these birds!



We had a great time this year photographing the cranes in Nebraska. The conditions were much more favorable for photography than they were last year. Last year the river's water level was too high which meant the birds were roosting farther away from the blinds than usual, and we had very little good light. This year was different. We had awesome sunset and sunrise light and the water level was lower which meant more sand bars and more places for the birds to roost. The photo below could very well be my favorite shot from this year's trip. I almost couldn't believe it when I saw that one crane start walking to the left. I thought "No way! He's gonna walk right through the sun's reflection on the water!" Sure enough, he did... and provided me with an awesome photo to share!



We had some beautiful light in Nebraska this year, which made up for the gray skies that dominated our trip last year. The photo below is one of my favorite post-sunset shots from this year. After the sun goes down the sky glows for several minutes and the river reflects that glow. It was during this time that this photo was made.

Amping up the Tweed Valley

I hadn't planned to do it this way, but last week I decided to do something with the old Tweed Valley ride that I've been doing regularly for over eight years. The distance was still similar (178km), but change to the route on the way home from Chillingham would totally change the complexion of the ride. It all started simply enough with the now customary southern ride via Urliup to get away from the coast. The first slight variation came after Murwillumbah, and the decision to detour along Richard's Deviation, a beautiful detour that I had almost forgotten about.

Beyond Uki, I headed for the really beautiful stretch of the ride along Byrill Creek. This is actually a long grind of a climb on the dirt, but on a slightly cooler day, I was able to enjoy the scenery of the rainforest, waterfalls and distant mountain views. This area must be an amazing place t0 live, with the fresh air and the tranquility of the forest.

The stretch through Brays Creek, Tyalgum and back to Chillingham is one that I've been riding in the wrong direction for all these years. Heading north opened up the views of the Lamington ranges and Bald Mtn. The two climbs out of Tyalgum made me work, but the surroundings compensated. Also hard at work today was the new altimeter that I had fitted to the bike the previous evening. I smiled at it particularly, because after Chillingham it would get one hell of a job.

Returning from the Tweed Valley via Numinbah Gap and Springbrook is hard enough at the best of times, yet I was about to attempt it on the back of a century ride. Still, it was a pleasant enough day, and the promise of rain on the climb of Numinbah gap (it seems to rain every other time I climb it from this side) might just keep me cool enough to pull it off. As it happened, it didn't rain until the descent on the other side, but I managed to maintain a grinding rhythm that pushed me over the 10-15% climb and into the Numinbah Valley on the other side.

Now it was on. I cruised down the long, steady descent into the valley, and caught a ride toward the Springbrook turn off on the back of a tailwind. The only problem was that my legs were totally shot, with a 24% climb still to come. I commenced the climb to the sound of screeching tyres in the valley -- the climb might be physically impossible, but at least it would keep me from associating with hoons. As it happened, I eventually made the summit (albeit with a couple of unscheduled rest stops), and was simply too tired to raise a victory salute. At least it would be all downhill from here.

The 8km descent that followed just didn't seem to be long enough to allow my legs to recover, and there was still some work to do. I actually thought about detouring to the Fudge shop at the old Craft Corner, but decided I wasn't up for an extra climb. Instead I simply mopped up the remaining kilometres and was glad to just make it home in one piece. It had been a memorable (if tiring) day. A few more of these, and I might start to get fit.

Caribou Lake Colors

Autumn at White Sky Rock along the Caribou Trail in Cook County, MN.

Work moves at Lightning Speed... Somedays

Roads are terrible here. More potholes than you can imagine. But when they decide to fix something, the jobs get done fast. They are building a much needed sidewalk through our little town of red Hook. In only a couple weeks, they have added several hundred yards of sidewalk, and more added every day. Hard working crew.



But when they do not decide to work, it moves slowly... in fact, I saw this much needed piece of machinery first day I moved to my new condo a few weeks ago... has not moved since, and appears to have not moved for months.

Plenty of work for ya, Harley!

Felt Damn Good

It was hot this morning, humid, and no air moving. I got home after breakfast and picking up held mail. The power was off in the area. So, I loaded the road bike on the car, changed into a cycling kit, and headed to the bike shop for a ride.
As I neared the bike shop, I noticed that the stop lights were not working. Zack confirmed that they have a power outage, too. Word was that the whole area was dark. (The bike shop is about 10+ miles from my house!)
I still needed to get on my bike. It was too long since I last rode (almost a week!) My helmet needed some repair parts, so bought a new brain bucket. When they have the repair parts, the old helmet can be my spare.
Headed out from the bike shop. Damn, it felt so good to be back on the bike! I had one of those emotional moments on the bike. Finally I settled down for the ride.
My first stop was the Lake Manawa Mountain Bike trails. The road is now dry (but the park has a barricade across the road). The trails are still underwater. The top photo shows the water at the exit from the long side.

Still feeling pretty good, I headed on over to the Western Historic Trails Center. After stopping in to sign the guest book, it was time for a granola bar and bottle of G2. Rode up to the levee to check out the water there. The photo tp the right shows that the trail dropping off from the levee, heading towards the river, is underwater.
I have been told that the trail (and lower parking lot) is underwater at Harrahs. Word is that Big Lake is also flooded.
Nothing to note on the way back except for work along Mosquito Creek. When I got to the construction area there, I had to walk the bike because they had sprayed oil over the pavement in preparation to re-paving. That slowed me down a bit as for average speed.
Still ended up with just over 12 mph for the 20.5 mile ride. Felt Damn Good!

Paseo del Nordeste

This morning, I rode the Paseo del Nordeste Recreational Trail. Started from my motel near Menaul & Carlisle. Rode the streat to the N. Diversion Channel Trail. The first think I saw, the city is constructing me trail bypasses under streets.

After just short of 2 miles in my tide, I turned east to ride the Paseo del Nortests. This is another trail along a diversion channel/arroyo (The Hahn Arroyo). Since the trail is perpendicular from the Rio Grand, it climbs East towards the Sandia Mountains.

A couple times I thought of turning back (after all, I had enough climbing yesterday). I persevered, and made it all the way to the end of the trail at the Sandia High School (about 3 miles from the N. Diversion Channel). Stopped to take some photos and re-hydrated a couple times.

The 3 mile coasting ride back down partially made up for the climb. Then, just a easy ride (slight up-slope) along the N. Diversion to Menaul. Back at my motel just on time to change clothes to meet a fraternity brother at Range Cafe.

The afternoon, processed photos, rested, and made tentative plans for riding the RailRunner to Santa Fe tomorrow.

Today's photo in along the Paseo del Nordeste Recreation Trail in a section of the Hahn Arroyo rehab project.

Book Related Stuff

This blog is so cool! It shows people reading in subways and the names of their books. I was surprised by the depth of their reading materials; lots of philosophy and other weighty matters.
Don't you just love this poster? Our children were always putting on plays and dressing up based on the characters in whatever they were reading at the time. We have the cutest videos of their antics! They did it all themselves. All I did was provide the books and costumes.
I'm finishing up an audio book today that I've really enjoyed, Mark Twain's A TRAMP ABROAD. He's a hoot. I love the story he tells about trying to use a glacier as a mode of conveyance. He figured out at their present rate of travel, they would arrive at their destination in the year 2046! So he decides that a glacier isn't a very efficient mode of transportation. I laughed my way all through the book.
I'm aiming to finish up QUEEN LUCIA by E.F. Benson by Saturday night. Here's another really funny book. I've already watched the Mapp and Lucia series from Netflix, so I have the characters in my head. Usually this isn't a good thing, but in this case it adds to my enjoyment of the book. Thanks, Angie! You always told me how good they were and you were right! I'm going to read them all.
Here's the link for the blog above: http://undergroundnewyorkpubliclibrary.com/About

Yellow fuzzy caterpillar

BugGuide to the rescue once again!
This is a Spotted Apatelodes moth caterpillar (Apatelodes torrefacta).
I had to look through 39 pages of moth caterpillars to find it, but BugGuide.Net came through again in the end. Apparently these moths are normally white instead of yellow.
Here's what he'll look like once he's a moth.
I can't decide whether he reminds me more of Cousin Itt or a Tribble.
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I should point out that the adult moth link above deserves plenty of your time if you have an interest in moths. The site, Moths in a Connecticut Yard, is full of helpful information about attracting moths.
The sugar, beer, and blacklight bait combination would probably work on some people too, but it might not be the type you'd want milling around in your back yard.
The web site author wrote a book about moths that might interest you as well.
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See this previous post about fuzzy white caterpillars. Since I wrote that, I've read that many fuzzy caterpillars, if not stinging, can be irritating to the skin.
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Edited to add:
If you're interested in bugs or other critters without vertebrae, you'll want to check in over at Circus of the Spineless. Submit some entries yourself if you're so inclined! Deadline for the first edition is Sept 28.

Happy New Years Day ice climbing...

Happy New Year to all! Hope everyone survived the welcoming of . My New Years was much like the rest. Laura and I stayed home, didn't do much. We stuffed ourselves with some Kielbasa, Hot Dogs (veggie dogs), Sauerkraut, and some New Years Pretzel Bread that Laura baked up (see photo) which was bomb diggity! We rung in the New Year and made our way off to bed to rest up for my annual New Year's Revolution ice climbing! The temperatures weren't very favorable the previous days up to New Years Eve, but we still kept our spirits up as the weather forcast was for below freezing temps by morning with it going down as the day went on. Well it did just that. There was also a small amount of snow on the ground. A welcome sight from the dreary day before. We loaded up the gear and made our way to Secret Cliffs II. As we neared the cliffs, the snow deepened and winter seemed to be back in action. We hiked down to the climbs, only to find that the ice was still EXTREMELY wet and not very well bonded in most places. We seriously debated for a while whether or not Called on Account of Security would go. I'm sure it would've, but the delaminated ice at the top looked way too unsettled to rappel down from and we opted to let it go and continue to build for the upcoming cold week. After leaving Secret Cliffs we opted to continue our quest. We decided that to surely get in some climbing we should go to Lower Meadow Run to get on the mixed lines. We found that the ice there was in reasonable condition. I'd been itching to get back on Caveman and try to get the redpoint. I tooled my way up to the crux (3rd. bolt) and made it to the ice. I couldn't pull up around the corner and came off. The ice was poorly bonded and was washing out as I was climbing. I pulled back on and clipped the 4th bolt. The section above the fouth to the Rhody was very unstable as was the mucky topout. Given a little more attached ice and I think I would've got it. I can't wait to get back on it again. Laura gave it a quick go. Despite having a severe reach disadvantage she gave it her best. Captain Caveman proved to be more suited to those with long limbs. We roped up Anger Managment and took some turns on it. We did much more climbing than initially thought. It wasn't the best New Years Revolution conditions, but we climbed what we could and had a great time doing so! -As always climbing is a great way to bring in the New Year. Welcome !

Six Days and 10 Hours … Call it a Week

As I write this, the countdown clock says we have just over six days to retirement. Seems to me it’s off by a day, counting down to the morning of November 30 instead of the evening. That’s OK; I can live with that discrepancy.

First of all, I hope all those celebrating Thanksgiving had a wonderful day yesterday. This was our first Thanksgiving since moving to the US in 1982 that we did not have a turkey dinner with all the trimmings. Even plans for having turkey wraps for dinner fell by the wayside, but no biggie … we still gave thanks for all that we have to be grateful for.

We spent T-Day at the motorhome continuing the rough settling in process. Mui had a few things he wanted to do — like hanging up an over the door towel rack in the bathroom, and a few quick storage mods that I will blog about in a separate post. The picture to the right hints at one of the mods Mui made … and no, I’m not talking about the bottles themselves ;-)

We’re on track for the permanent move into the Phaeton a week from today; first stop — a few days at Bull Run Regional Park. We will probably go out to the coach both days this weekend to do some fine tuning while we’re still in storage. We figure whatever time we spend there now will speed things up and perhaps we can leave Bull Run earlier than planned and head to warmer climes that much sooner.

With so little time left in the stix & bricks, I thought I would post a few “then and now” photos to remind us of our living conditions after we got down to the serious business of moving stuff to storage and donating what we didn’t want to keep. All I can say is that camping out like this is nothing like camping out with the motorhome — we much prefer doing the latter.

The “then” photos were taken after we sold our townhome and moved into our temporary digs in May ; the “now” photos were taken yesterday. Whatever furnishing you see in the latter set of photos are either things we plan to leave behind/donate; or stuff borrowed from the coach so that we have a place to eat and a place to sit. There are a few things — like the TV — that will be going in storage; we plan to make a last trip up to Winchester before we leave the area.

Then … first floor living spaces.

Now … the table and chairs go back to the Phaeton; what boxes that aren’t used for
stuff going to storage will be recycled.

Now … Storage bins re-purposed as coffee tables; you use what you’ve got!

Then … the spare bedroom that served as my office and the guest bathroom.

Now … the laptop on the left is going back to my work office on Monday; which means
I won’t have a need for the external monitor anymore; my Mac is going on the road
with us — I just can’t give it up; Mui designed a nifty way to keep it safe when we’re
rolling down the road in our quest for new adventures.

Then … the master suite.

Now … not much left; the box springs and mattress will be put in the
trash room on Friday to be hauled out to the dump.

Yes, the condo looks pitiful; but we don’t mind. Seven more days and we’ll be in the coach to begin our gypsy lifestyle.

Table Rock Dam

Wednesday was a lazy day here at the reunion. Mostly cloudy and occasional showers. Temerature was warm in the morning and dropping later in the day.
Not weather conducive to bicycle riding. Spent much of the morning visiting. About 11, I drove down the Table Rock Dam and Shepherd of the Hills Fish Hatchery. Time to play tourist.
Shot some photos at the fish hatchery. From there, I stopped at the view point parking lot on the lake side of the dam.
Next it was a stop and the HQ and Visitor's Center. Not much to see there. They are building a new Visitor's Center. The lake shore walking/cycling trail starts at the Visitor's Center. Time permitting, I want to ride the 2.2 mile trail on the road bike (the trails is paved).
Ended my tour driving to the trailhead #2. The first parking lot on that road is the only spot that affords and view of the dam. Nap time!
In the evening, a large group of us went to Charlies Steak Ribs & Ale for dinner. Much better service than Tuesday dinner. And, I was able to able to have my local micro-brew. The proplem was my food was over-cooked, dry. Others commented their's did not taste right. Some of the group had been to Charlies before and the food was great. So, food at Charlies was so-so.
Had to shoot one mug shot and play a DVD on my laptop. Visited Paulette for a bit while the video played. VERY tired (over-tired) by the time I got to my room.

BBC climbs; Handa and the caves DVD available

I’ve just added a new climbing DVD to the webshop. It’s the double DVD of two BBC programmes I shot last year. The first is a re-enactment of one of the first recorded climbs in the UK; a crossing by three men from the Western Isles onto the Great Stac of Handain 1867. It was quite an experience to recreate their feat of daring and a window into a way of life now long gone. The inspiration to make a film about it came from an essay by Tom Patey in an old SMC journal, where he expressed his amazement at the strength and ingenuity of the Lewismen for rigging up a rope successfully and climbing across the huge gap to the stac. Patey himself had found the crossing desperate. To film it we had to get a 400m rope that was really thick (it weighed 45kgs) and cart it across Handa and then set it up spanning between the headlands on either side of the Stac. It was quite amazing the Lewismen thought to do it that way.
Thesecond film couldn't be more different. The huge networks of limestone caves underneaththe dales of Yorkshireand the Peak District obviously have some fantastic rock features, but they aren’t normally visited by rock climbers! Myself and Alan Cassidy went on a wee mission to see if there was good rock climbing to be had in the caves. What we found was pretty adventurous and definitely out of the ordinary. First off we climbed the a big circular chamber of Jingling Pot in Yorkshire. It went at about E3 although that obviously doesn’t do it much justice since it was running with water and totally dark. But that was just a warm up for the 4-pitch monster 7c+ we climbed in Peak Cavern - the biggest cave opening in the peak, and our route was the first free climb In the whole cave. It was quite a lucky and special experience. Both programmes are 1 hour long.
It’s in the shop here.

Our new 4 pitch 7c+ in Peak Cavern on the Extraordinary Climbs film