Promises of Spring

My book review of Two Gardeners is in progress, and it's been perfect weather for digging – today's post will be photos and short notes: To prove that spring is coming, here’s a White-winged Dove perched among the swelling buds of my neighbor’s Saucer Magnolia. I didn't touch the color in the photo - the sky really was that blue today.
Mrs Quad posted photos of a fun Mardi Gras dinner at a restaurant on her blog – mine may not have been quite so authentic as hers, but our homemade version of Chicken Gumbo tasted fine, the Sweet Potato pie [infused with Southern Comfort] was pretty darned good, and a few of the camellia buds were open, so I floated them in a bowl on the table.
Northern gardeners have been asking for flower photos – before their gardens thaw out and we are taunted with a zillion pictures of lovely, unattainable tulips -my small bunch of Ice Follies daffodils are now open!
Amy Stewart managed to avoid the ice and arrive with the daffodils… I’m planning on going down to Book People this Friday night and hope to meet her. Flower Confidential has been getting great reviews everywhere. More information can be found on Amy's Garden Blog. Of course I have nothing to wear.

Mount Catherine ..

Scott had the day off and wanted to ski before Thanksgiving. I wanted to burn the calories that I was about to consume, so I happily obliged. The plan if there was good snow was to go yo-yo somewhere and have fun in the powder. However, it looks like we have hit the El Nino segment of our dark months with higher temps. This meant rain at the passes the day previous and a 10000' freezing level on the day of our trip.
Skinning up the slopes of Hyak
So we headed for Mount Catherine with the hopes of a summit. Chad joined us at the Mercer Island Park and Ride and we were on our way. The weather was clear and we saw a beautiful sunrise before arriving at Snoqualmie Pass to low clouds and fog. Instead of taking the Sno Park and forest road in as it seemed tedious. We opted for the skin up Hyak and over the other side. We followed forest roads (Nordic ski trails) down the other side a bit before leaving on a bearing across the North Face. After endless traversing through trees, we got to an open area which we confirmed with the map was the east end of the summit ridge. There were cliffs and no obvious way up, so we traversed more and more which reminded Scott and I about the Ski Patrol Race we had done back in February.
Heading into the trees
We occasionally crossed open slopes and contemplated trying to gain the ridge to the summit but we were having little luck. Our difficulties were exacerbated by the constant fog which made seeing ahead not easy and gave us little incentive to try and head up only to be confronted by cliffs. So we maintained a fairly level traverse and then we started seeing flatter terrain. We finally made it near Windy Pass and eventually saw a sign with an arrow pointing in that direction. There was a weather monitoring station there too, and some blue diamond trail markers. We stopped for lunch. (It was around 1pm.) The sun just barely came out briefly enough for us to see our shadows. Then we deskinned for a short ski down to another road. At this point we had forsaken our summit attempt and were content with a circumnavigation.
A more open area
Unfortunately due to the poor sloppy snow conditions and the ungroomed state of the road, going downhill on the road took almost as much effort as going uphill. We worked hard to make our way out and after it seemed like there would be no more downhill, I gave up on the skinless skis and stopped to put my skins back on as it seemed they would offer me better propulsion. They did, but Scott and Chad were out of site, and I did not catch up with them until the final downhill to the parking lot in the Hyak ski area. (Which was in more disappointing slop.)
Boulder field
Overall, I was happy to get out. The weather wasn't great, but that wasn't really a big deal. We knew going into it that the snow wasn't going to be so good for skiing, but it was more about the journey. Even though the road out was tiring and tedious, it was still better than being on snowshoes. Plus I think this is the first time I have circumnavigated a peak. Cool.
The road out

Spring Lightning

Last night saw the first lightning storm of the year come over Grand Portage Bay... at least, the first one that produced lightning strong enough to photograph. These images were captured from the beach in front of my house on Grand Portage Bay at about 1:30 a.m.

Rewards of the Simple Life

"To find the universal elements enough;
to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be
refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter;
to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated
over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring...
these are some of the rewards
of the simple life."
John Burroughs

X-Stitch: Pull Up a Chair and Relax

It’s cold here in Virginia today.  In fact, at 32F, it’s downright freezing.  But it is winter, and we’ve been lucky thus far with our temperatures, so we can’t really complain much.  That’s not to say that we can’t dream of a warm seaside location where a couple of Adirondack chairs invite us to sit down and relax.

Aaaah, yes … those chairs sure do look inviting.

Maybe I should go see if I can find an Internet special for a flight to somewhere warm :-)

(P.S.  For those who might have missed the earlier posts, this is a continuation of the series featuring my counted cross stitch art … most of which is now packed away in preparation for full-timing.)

They are Off!

Yesterday, I took photos of the Greenstreet Cyclocross race at Fontenelle Park. Day one of the race was a warm, windy day. I think the temperature hit 80 during the afternoon.

Its going to be a different situation today for the second day of the race. Its still windy, but temperatures are forecast to be in the 30s and some light drizzle (cyclocross weather).

As usual. my photos are available for viewing and purchase on my race and events web site http://win-photo.photoreflect.com. The photos on the web site are jpg proofs. When a photo file is ordered, I will start from the camera RAW file do some touch-up before converting to jpg and e-mailing the file to the customer.

Maiden Voyage: Day 4 on the Road

Sunday, July 4

Happy 234th Birthday USA! We heard fireworks going off last night somewhere near the campground, but were too tired to check it out. Maybe we’ll get an opportunity to see the sky light up in a colorful display tonight.

We’re on the road again, and as the welcome sign to the right will attest, we’re in Iowa. (Sorry the photograph is blurry, but that’s what happens when you’re shooting through a rain-streaked windshield on a bumpy road!)

We woke up at 6:00a to the pitter-patter of rain on the roof of the rig. I suppose our marathon of blue-sky days had to end sometime. I like rainy weather, so I didn’t mind. Mui wasn’t too happy that he might have to unhook the utilities, especially the shore power, in pouring rain. Luckily, by the time we were finished with breakfast, the rain had let up for Mui to take care of the outside chores in relatively dry conditions. By 7:30a, we were on the road to Galesburg, Illinois.

Our route from Doniphan, Nebraska to Galesburg, Illinois takes us on I-80 and I-74.

We’re about 85 miles [136 km] out from Davenport, where we will leave I-80 behind to drop down into Illinois. The drive thus far has been uneventful. It rained pretty much all morning — sometimes a light drizzle; pouring rain at other times. Not pleasant driving conditions, but at least the Phaeton got a good wash. Needless to say, I didn’t get too many photo ops along the way.

Rain, rain, go away; come again some other day!

The weather dried up almost entirely as we neared Des Moines. About 35 miles out from the city, we stopped at a rest area for lunch. On the menu today: red pepper & tomato soup and egg salad sandwiches, with fresh peaches for dessert.

A classy classic car adds character to the interstate.

At this rest area on I-80, picnic area panels display noteworthy quotes.
(“I am eternally grateful ... for my knack of finding in great books,
some of them very funny books, reason enough to feel honored to be alive,
no matter what else might be going on.” [K. Vonnegut Jr.])

We’ll be going onto I-74 soon. Need to put on my navigator cap again. More later …

Later … at the Galesburg East holiday trav-l-park

(The welcome sign for Illinois was hidden amongst trees; here’s one I grabbed from the web.)

After an uneventful and reasonably dry afternoon of driving (just a few drizzles), we pulled into tonight’s stop at the Galesburg East Trav-L-Park in Knoxville at 5:30p. What a nice change to arrive early enough to be able to relax for a while.

We’ve established a routine for campground arrival. Mui pulls in near the office and while he’s idling, I hop off to check-in. Today, I actually had a chance to meet the camp managers and chat with them for a few minutes; very nice people. After I’d signed on the dotted line, the manager hopped into a golf cart and escorted us to site “lucky 13” — pull-through with 50 amp service. Our rate for the night is $27.90.

Making short work of the set up chores, we went for a walk around the campground. With only 68 sites, this is the smallest campground of our trip. The sites are relatively narrow and we’re all packed in quite close, but I don’t seem to be minding it as much as I did last night as it feels more spacious here. There are full grown trees everywhere and lots of grass (well maintained, I might add). The corn fields on three sides effectively dull the traffic noise from the highway. The birds that were chirping until night fell a little while ago were a nice welcoming committee.

The Phaeton has been put to bed for the day!

Dinner tonight was another frozen entree — vegetable lasagna — with some wine to go with it. Afterwards, we pulled out the maps and the laptop to determine tomorrow night’s stop. With just 800+ miles [1,280+ km] to go, we’ve decided on a 500-mile [800 km] or so drive for tomorrow. We can then take it really easy on the last day and arrive home reasonably early so that we have plenty of time to put the RV in storage. Not that it will stay there long if we can help it (wink, wink).

With a plan for tomorrow in place, we then settled down to enjoy the 4th of July festivities.

Jimmy Smits is hosting this year’s celebration.

A Happy Capitol Fourth!
(didn’t care for the color on this shot; hence the B&W treatment)

OK, OK … so the festivities weren’t local (they were scheduled to start later). With time on our hands, we were able to watch TV tonight. The trees blocked satellite reception, but Mui managed to get the local channels with our antenna. We didn’t know what to expect in the way of programming, but we lucked out with a PBS station that was airing the annual 4th of July program from the Mall in Washington. A nice treat after being on the road for four days. Here are a few more screen grabs from the mid-ship TV.

On that note, time to call it a night. I’ll leave you with one last shot from the day.

Sunset over the cornfields of Illinois.
(from our campground site)

As the ABC anchor John Daly used to say when he was signing off from the evening news: “Good night and a good tomorrow.” (OK, so who cares if he was a little before my time; it’s still a good line.)

Start Odometer	End Odometer	Day’s Mileage
10147	10642	495 [792 km]

Statistics for Today

Next Up … Maiden Voyage: Day 5 on the Road