Now that's an icebreaker

You know that uncomfortable feeling when you walk into a room and you aren't really sure whom to talk to or what to say? What you need is the USCGC Mackinaw, designed to ram through 32 inches of solid ice or ten feet of brash ice, and to fully penetrate a ten-foot pressure ridge in less than half an hour.

Or maybe you don't need that, but the Coast Guard does, and it's mighty proud of this five-year-old vessel, which was docked next to Chicago's Navy Pier this morning, after distributing 1,200 Christmas trees to low-income families and retrieving buoys for the winter.

The USCGC Mackinaw.

This is a luxury liner of a Coast Guard vessel. It boasts a 3133-square-foot heated buoy deck as well as two-person staterooms for its 55 crew members. And it has "multi-mission capabilities," meaning it can be used for search-and-rescue, buoy-tending, ice-breaking and even oil spill containment, as well as continuing the nearly 100-year-old "Christmas Ship" mission.



Now there's a conversation starter!

River Continues to Rise

Wednesday I was back on the trails. This time I parked at the Wabash Trace Trailhead. From there, headed out on the Lake Manawa trail. Rode down to the mountain bike trail area.
The Missouri River level is up from what I saw Sunday. Today's photo is of the water level at the exit of the long loop. Sure would be nice to be able to ride my favorite trail once again! Guess like I will have to keep riding the pavement and the Wabash Trace.
Rode on over to the Trail Center. From there to I-80 (get in a little more miles - a very little more). By the time I was back to the Trace trailhead, the day was warming up and the wind was kicking up. Still, a good ride.

Gold Discover Days in Custer, SD

This weekend was Gold Discovery Days in Custer. We're talking Hot Air Balloon Rally, Parade, Antique Car Show and Hospital Bed Races. Life in the Fast Lane!

Hey we have Friday Night off so we head into town to check out the Hospital Bed races.




Saturday Gary starts at 9:30 and I start at 2:00 so we get up early to see the Hot Air Balloon Rally that was supposed to go off at 5:30 a.m. Got there but they didn't get out till almost 6:30 - could have used that extra sleep time!









Next we check out the Antique Car ShowLoved the jean upholstery in this one

Gary missed the Parade cause it started at 10:00. Gold Discover Days started in 1923.Mitch our resident General Custer

Just love a small town parade

Till Later,

Meanwhile we keep on Trek'n

Melissa and Gary



Night Ride @ Manawa

Overcast evening, no moon, Riding at 6:30 and later. Hmmm - night ride. This was an experience.
I found that I need to concentrate on the trail, not look at or worry about the light. No steering so that the light shines on the trail -- ride my lines, the light will follow.
It is better riding solo with a light. Otherwise ride in the trailing position. When leading the ride, the other lights are a distraction.
During our ride, the sky started dripping on us, not enough to stop riding. Was over in no time. See what the weather has in store for us tomorrow.
I will not be riding the Friday Night Ride the next two weeks. The 19th is the Bike Bash @ Platte River. The 26th is Xtreme Wheels Full Moon Ride.

Our Condo Reveal - With Guest Room

It's built into the lease that we have a cleaning woman come in twice a month. yesterday was the first time, and since the place shined so well, thought I would take the chance to show off the place...



Living area... Couch, Love seat and chair with ottoman.



Dining room table 4 chairs



Entertainment center... complete with lending library (newest book was 10 years old), a few DVD's and VHS tapes. I think people just left em). We do have cable TV, so I get my fix of Morning Joe while I do my post).



Master bedroom (looks a little like Marcia Brady decorated)



Master bath withRalphLauren towels.



Guest room (plenty of room for you)



You even will have your own bathroom



But when you visit, I get the room with the stuffed iguanas on the wall.

It's not home, but it certainly is better than a hotel for 6 months.

And plenty of room for company

Potential?

When does potential become another excuse for failure? Harsh words perhaps, but yesterday's 80km was an ultimately frustrating experience.
The plan was to explore a few detours in Tallebudgera Valley. Specifically, I wanted to first explore a link to Bonogin that had been flagged on Google maps, then to check Mt Cougal road, which more maps suggested might have been worth a look. The first link was a total failure, which offered about 3km of glorified suburbia, before dead-ending. The first failure of the day.
Toward the far end of the valley I found the turn-off for Mt Cougal "road". This one started promisingly, through pretty scenery and a gradual gain of height. For a while I thought it might go somewhere. This too died after about 3km, ending in a "private property" sign. It's entirely possible that this land was actually crown land that had been signed off quite illegally, but I wasn't in the mood for an argument at the time -- especially as the temperature was already approaching 35 degrees C at the time (it would hit 40 by the end of the ride).
I did find another detour virtually at the end of the valley, but this one ended even quicker than the others did. Accordingly, I hammered the climb of Petch Creek road before going home. I am now left back at the drawing board when it comes from finding detours out of this valley. There is still one possibility left, but it's not one for which I hold much hope. Perhaps it's time I found somewhere else to explore.

The Ponds at Liberty Hill, next photo

The Austin Pond Society tour took in quite a large territory this year, reaching up past the northwest corner of Austin to encompass ponds in Cedar Park & Leander, then tossing a lasso up to Liberty Hill. Past the shopping centers, past the faux-Victorian subdivision houses, up to where the streets have horse names, the houses have a few acres surrounding them, and there is room to swing a cat – or a backhoe.
This pond owner/builder told me that he had an advantage when building his pond – he owns the backhoe, and lives in an area where rocks abound under the soil. Some pond gardens in more urban areas are designed for specific reasons: to muffle the sound of traffic, to add resale value to the property, to provide an impressive area for entertaining, to enclose the koi so they’re not pierced by herons, to provide privacy from close neighbors or to bring a feeling of nature to the city. This pond plays in a different arena – creative expression by a hard-working man who is having fun. It's actually a series of ponds, built in stages, displaying an adventurous & masterful use of plants, and decorated with whimsical touches. Along the back border of the pond area, native trees, shrubs and drought tolerant plants provided a colorful backdrop. A recent addition was standing cypress, Ipomopsis rubra. [You can see it at top left in the previous posted photo.] The owner intends to scatter the seeds of this beautiful flower, extending the bed into a border. Within the pond there was an area with bog plants, among them the red-flowering Lobelia cardinalis, happy to have damp feet in Central Texas. Wonderful water lilies are mandatory, of course! The bloom season of the water lilies is one reason for the mid-July timing of this annual tour.
With this large, well-built and well-planted foundation in place, the owner added many quirky touches, thus invoking what the tour brochure promised, “the essence of South Austin in Liberty Hill”. The effect was playful, charming the adults and delighting the children as they wandered up and around the ponds, discovering the Mariachi band, a lighthouse, a dry hill with cacti & a windmill, and dancing frogs tucked in along the way.

Gilia Clusters

My Gilia tricolor plant is really doing well.

Reflections

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

Instagram Fever

I don't know if anyone has noticed, but I've only been posting, at the most, once a week. I was thinking about this and wondering why, and it dawned on me; I've joined Instagram! It's my new obsession. Does anyone reading this post on Instagram? I'll tell you, it's addicting. It's like a mini-Facebook only way more fun.
You take a photo with your smartphone and then post it to the Instagram app. You may write a descriptive sentence if you'd like. People who are following you can see your photo, like it, or make a comment. It's just another way to connect with people in cyberspace. I'm only following a handful of people, because I don't want to be consumed with looking at everyone's new posts all day long. Mostly it's friends and friends of friends that I follow, although I am following a few unknown photographers just to see their beautiful photos. They inspire me.
What's your favorite social media on the internet? For now, mine is definitely Instagram.

Lamport and Draughton via Brampton Valley Way

10 of us - Barry, Barrie and Vera, Norma, Sue, Steph, Gordon, Phil, Jill and me. 5.3 miles. Mostly fine with a couple of brief showers.

A bucolic scene

We started from Lamport High Street, and turned right along the Harborough Road which we followed for a short distance before turning left and following the path downhill to the Brampton Valley Way.







We turned right along this pleasant path and crossed over the A508, then continued for about a mile and a half.















We turned off to the right, near a disused footbridge.

We crossed a field, hugging the edges, to the road between Maidwell and Draughton. We turned right and along the road to Draughton. Snack stop was outside Draughton church.

A few hundred yards further along, outside the village a footpath led to the right. We walked along the edge of a recently harvested field gently uphill to a spot marked as a tumulus - some vegetation and a round pond. This was when another shower hit us.









We made our way down to a gap in the hedge to the road,

and crossed over to pass Shortwood house and a couple of cottages on the left. There's a large area where they keep young game birds, possibly partridges, in long runs. At the top of a short hill we turned left along a sheltered path, then across further fields. It's a flat walk following the path and a very short distance after a left turn along the road we arrived in Lamport. Another left turn, and we were back at our starting point.

Taming the Lions

I had been planning to ride the Lions Tourist Road between Rathdowney and Kyogle as a day ride for some time, but for one reason or another, I didn't get around to it during the cooler months when the temperature would have been a little more pleasant. Consequently, I did it yesterday. It was actually a surprisingly pleasant opening to the ride after clearing suburbia, and getting into the Canungra Valley, accompanied by little pieces of mist, apparently left over from some storm somewhere.

It was after passing through Beaudesert and turning south that the ride really began. Early on it's not so interesting on this stretch (although there seemed to be a surprising number of cyclists around, considering I generally never see any here), but shortly after the little deviation around Rathdowney, it began to pick up. Along the way I produced a piece of pure magpie ownage, with a squirt of water from my bottle causing one to do a very sharp about-face and find someone else to harass. This was made even more interesting by the little Butcher Bird (pesky little birds that generally mimic what other birds do, including magpies) doing a very accurate impersonation of what the magpie had done, including the sudden change of direction after getting within squirting range. It was all quite entertaining.
The temperature was increasing, eventually hitting 32 degrees C, but so was the scenery, vistas opening up around every turn.





The final climb to the Richmond Gap pass at the NSW border is 12% -- on absolutely shadeless roads in the heat. It was tough going, and it took me quite a while to recover. I did get some more water after descending to a new cafe in the Valley (although I could only get salad there). After that it was a relatively uneventful ride to Kyogle, before the ride home was suddenly made a lot more interesting by a change in weather.
The wind, which had done nothing all day, suddenly blew like crazy from the north-east (i.e. the direction I was heading). A storm was brewing somewhere around Nimbin, and contending with the heat on the climbs of the Mackellar and Nightcap ranges, I would have been glad to have some rain.
As it turned out, the storm fizzled away by the time I reached Uki (more food and water here). After that, the ride through Murwillumbah and back to Urliup was relatively uneventful. Urliup was beautiful as always, this little dirt road is one of the last great survivors from a bygone era, from a time when narrow winding dirt roads were all the rage in the Tweed Valley. I don't know how much longer it will be there, but it's always a refreshing twist at the end of the ride.
The lights went on at the top of Bilambil, and the remainder of the ride was done in the night air. In the end I finished with 283.6km, and a little over 2,700 metres of climbing. Despite being extremely tired at the finish, I'm already planning to do it again. Maybe I'll try to pick a cooler day this time, but it was an extremely rewarding ride overall.

Pismo Beach

Pismo Beach, originally uploaded by ParsecTraveller.

Last night I watched the sunset over Pismo Beach, a community on California's Central Coast about 10 minutes away from San Luis Obispo. With offshore winds, the temperature was in the 70s even as the sun was setting, making for a great evening. Spring is here in California, what about your part of the world?

ironies of paddling, part three

Paddling along Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.
When students sign up for day trips during a kayak symposium, they typically are given a choice of beginner or intermediate trips. Those who plan and lead the trips take a few things into consideration in determining the skill level of a trip: distance, length and number of crossings*, and overall potential for conditions**.
Students who sign up for trips are supposed to take only one thing into consideration: their own paddling proficiency.
But how are they supposed to know whether they are beginner or intermediate paddlers? Those are vast and highly subjective categories. Is a beginner a complete novice? Someone who has paddled only occasionally? Someone who can't break three knots without a tail wind? Someone who hasn't paddled that distance before? Or someone who's just terribly insecure or paddles with too many people with greater skills and experience?
I (Sharon) regarded myself as a beginner well into my third year of kayaking. Yeah, I had a reliable roll and could paddle pretty hard and pretty far, but I was paddling with some fairly spectacular kayakers, like Bonnie Perry and Andrea Knepper (and Alec, who is slightly embarrassed that I've mentioned him here), and by comparison I felt like a novice.
A few days ago, I helped lead a 12-mile trip along Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. It was billed as an intermediate trip, and 17 students signed up. By the standards I set for myself, none of them were true intermediates, and the trip was challenging and exhausting for many of them. But they all made it and they all had a good time. This trip was a serious stretch for many of them, but by taking it on, they improved their skills and their confidence.
So were they intermediate paddlers after all? Probably not, and they certainly had no business attempting that trip on their own. But with five instructors to guide them and handle the issues that arose (which included issuing a "securite"*** to motor boats we couldn't see through the fog, executing a rescue close to the cliffs, and towing one paddler for five miles), they were intermediate enough for this trip.
In any case, I'm glad they didn't ask me before signing up. So here's the irony: Even though they had less experience and training than me, they improved my understanding of what a beginner or intermediate trip truly is.
* crossings are non-coastal portions of trips when paddlers are more exposed and less able to take refuge at shore.
** conditions refers to wind, waves, fog and weather.
*** "securite" is a notice to mariners over channel 16 (the emergency channel).