Sunday, May 29, 2011

Xtreme Wheels Century


No, I did not ride the 100+ miles today. But I was up bright and early to take some photos. A good turn out, great weather. Hope every had a good ride.
After the Century Ride start, I took my normal Sunday Morning Ride with Dennis. Was a gorgeous day - Was in the mid 70s and no the light wind. We got stuck by a train - waiting about 20 minutes. Made it was a long ride. The rest kind of rejuvenated me.
After the ride, I headed home to process the photos. Left a CD at the bike shop.
Backing up a couple days, we had a good Friday Night Ride at Lake Manawa. The trail was in mostly dry (just some slick/soft/muddy spots). The sunset is starting to cutting into our riding time.

Snow and Icicles and Pizza and More!

Help! We don't even know where to begin, except to woof that we all had the most awesome time in the snow! It was Avalon's first Christmas, first New Year's (of course!) and first snow; both of us were enchanted by all of the festivities and miraculous acts of nature! While we did a lot of trail running with our peeps and also a cool hoo-guy, who took us on super walks through the snowy woods, our peeps went skiing on some days. Above is a picture of Lake Tahoe from the chairlift.
Here we are at lunchtime, trying our best to score some delish snacks! Don't we do a good job of beggin'? Later, we got yumzers Pizza - woo hoo - was it good!
This is the backyard of the house we stayed in - I've played in snow before, but have never seen so much! We loved our house - there were so many icicles hanging down - Mom said it made the place look charming - like a glittery old European postcard, whatever that means!
Here's Avalon tending to her investigations - of what... I couldn't woof.
Tandem investigating... and below, a longish photoshow - please biggify for best viewing!



The Truckee River with snow-laden pine trees lining the banks.
This is a picture of Percy, who owns the house where we stayed. This was such a cool place - everywhere we looked, there were photos of goldens; there was a deck of cards in the shape of a bone, a huuuge basket full of dog toys for us to play with, an emergency dog medicine kit in the front hall and towels to wipe ourselves dry when we finally came in from the snow! One of the coolest ideas he had was to provide tags for us to wear that had our Tahoe address on them - how pawesome is that? Percy laid it all out for us and we are furry grateful! Hands down, it was the best place for dogs and kids! If you want to see photos, you can go here - and that image of Percy, above, is by Keoki Flagg, who is pretty famous - out here, at least. Check out his site here. And lastly, we are furry proud of our former-ski-instructor Dad (years ago) - he still cuts quite the carvy turns. We'll leave you with this movie - he's the last one comin' down the hill in the white jacket!



Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Tea Olive Beauty

I confess that I bought my tea olive bush because I liked its name. Little did I know that it would grow so big or smell so good. It smells like an orange tree or something mighty similar. It's blossoms are tiny yellow flowers that all fall off the same day and make this lovely, mass profusion of petals.
I wonder why it's named Tea Olive? And does it only grow in the South? I've never seen one anywhere else. Does anyone know the history of this plant? Do you have one?

Monday, May 23, 2011

Goo to you


Big spring rains = orange goo.

This year we had an overabundance of the Cedar-quince rust (gooey bits seen here) and not so much Cedar-apple rust (noodly orange meatballs).

Sporulation, my new favorite word.
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These photos are really from about 3 weeks ago - I forgot to post them earlier. I have been forgetting a lot of things lately.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Know What You Want


I found a great article on a blog called Helen Jane. Here's the link:http://helenjane.com/../05/23/know-what-you-want/">
I made a list of what I DON'T want. :
THINGS I DON'T WANT IN MY LIFE
IN GENERAL
1. Negative people and/or people telling me I can't do something
2. Frantic activities
3. No margins
4. Being gone from home too much
5. No time for creativity
6. Being overweight
7. Sickness/Weakness
8. Spending too much time on minutia
9. Spreading myself too thin in time and/or relationships
10. Ungratefulness
What do I WANT in my life? The opposite of the above plus some.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Call Us Chicken!

Friday, August 26

animated-gifs-chicken-36Yes, we know we’re not in the bull’s eye of Hurricane Irene. Yes, we know we’re at the far Irene2edge of the area designated for a tropical storm warning in northern Virginia. Yes, our location means that the effects of the storm would be greatly diminished. But what’s to say Irene won’t wobble again and shift a tiny bit further east in the next day as she continues her path north.

Call us crazy, or call us chicken, but somehow going to a heavily forested area where the ground can become saturated from rain and increase the threat of trees toppling over from sustained strong winds didn’t seem like a good idea to us. We don’t need dents — or worse — on the roof of our condo on wheels.

Even the campground manager at Bull Run said it was probably smart that we were cancelling this weekend’s camping reservations. Well, not really cancelling, since we’re now booked to go back the first weekend in October.

the yellow flag shows the approximate location of bull run regional park.
[collage of images from ABC7 WJLA weather website]

This is what Irene looked like from space as she harassed the Caribbean on 22 August.

Even though this weekend’s plans have now been postponed to October, we won’t have to wait that long to go out in the Phaeton. We have reservations to camp at Bull Run over Labor Day weekend. (Marti and Paul: here’s hoping we have occasion to meet up at another time.)

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Great Smoky Mountains National Park


Wednesday, June 30
There are a couple reasons for visiting the Deep Creek area of the Smokies. First. it was on my way from Tsali. There was a short trail to walk. and, the trail brought you to 3 waterfalls.
Its not easy to navigate through Bryson City. Coming in from the SW, came into the "back" way, I got the tour. Fortunately, there are good signs to show the way to Deep Creek.
When I got there, I could see why - tubing. Lots of vendors hawking tubes for floating on the creek.
Picked up the area informational pamphlet ($1.50) trail-side. First was a climb up to Juney Whank Falls From there, you can follow the horse trail (making a loop) or drop down to the Deep Creek Trail. I opted the second.
After a steep decent, I was on the Deep Creek Trail - a very wide trail. It was a short walk up to Tom Branch Falls. This is a small, tall falls where the water drops into the main creek.
Another short hike up along Deep Creek brings you up to the junction of Deep Creek Trail and the Indian Creek Trail. Just up some 200 feet on Indian Creek Trail is the Indian Creek Falls. This was the largest of the falls on the loop. The photo above is of Indian Creek Falls.
From Deep Creek area, I headed to Cherokee, NC, stopping for lunch. Cherokee is at the South end of the Great Smoky Mountains NP and on an Indian Reservation. Its a tourist trap town. Ended up fast food to easy the hungries.

Next, it was a drive on into the park. Stopped to look out the Mingus Mill. Took a couple photos here. Then back up the road. Paused to take some photos at overlooks.
Took the extra 7 mile drive up the Clingmans Dome road. They are doing work on the parking lot. I did not walk up the trail (lots of climbing) to the observation deck. Just too much for my legs. From Clingmans Dome, back on Hwy 441, it was a very short drive to Newfound Gap
The lower photo in this post is a HDR photo of the view from Newfound Gap. This is at the Tennessee/North Carolina state line. It is also the point where the Appalachian Trail crosses the park road.
By now, it was time to head back to Asheville. It was a uneventful drive back.

Friday, May 6, 2011

The Soul's Longing

I read one morning in a Psalm (I can't remember now which one) the phrase 'Deep Calls Unto Deep'. I thought, "That'd be a great name for a book." Then on someone's blog (I can't remember which blog either) I found this poem. It made my breathe catch in my throat. The deepness of it is almost too much for words, but the author of this poem somehow managed.


The Call of Deep Unto Deepby John Wright Follette
Down in the depth of my natureWhere the issues of life are born,From that unknown mystical realm,Surviving through ages of storm,A call is forever rising -But its language I cannot speak.It was born ere I had being,'Tis the call of deep unto deep.Our mother tongue here is awkward,For no words can fully expressThe needs in the depths of nature,In bondage to sin and distress.Our hearts in their depths surely ache;They hunger; they call; and they seek -Then silently wait an answerTo the call of deep unto deep.Down deep in the heart of our God,In mystical regions sublime,In the Godhead's holy councilLong before our world or our time,An answer was fully preparedEvery pain, every ache to meet,In Christ, God's only begotten,Is answer to deep unto deep.The Answer indeed was the Word,The Word when expressed was the Son.Oh language of God how profound!In answer what more could be done?The heart of our God is hungry,His portion, His people to seek."I thirst," was cried by the Answer -'Tis the call of deep unto deep.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Maple Aurora




I have been suffering from Aurora withdrawals again lately, since our last good showing of Northern Lights was over 2 months ago. What can I say? The last year and a half of good solar activity has me spoiled and I want more :-) This one was taken on October 25, along one of the Maple ridges in Grand Portage, MN. It is a favorite spot of mine to photograph the fall colors, but is also a wonderful spot to photograph the trees silhouetted against the night sky once the leaves have fallen.

Monday, May 2, 2011

First game camera of

No matter which way we point the game cam, we always seem to capture mostly... southbound views of northbound animals.

Well maybe not mostly, but well over half, definitely.

I'm not sure why it happens that way.

This seems like a different bobcat, don't you think? (The first one looks heavier.)
At least two other blogger friends have told me they got game cameras for Christmas, so I'm anxiously awaiting their first pictures.
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Our game camera is a Cuddeback Expert 3.0. We bought it from Boss Buck. Neither of them gave us anything for free, which is a crying shame, really, considering how much free publicity I've doled out.
I wasn't wild about Boss Buck's skimpy degree of packaging protection. But the camera got here in good condition anyway.
Wayne got the "No Flash" version of this camera, but I'm not sure that he's entirely pleased with it. I believe I remember him saying that he'd get the regular (flash) version if he had it to do over again.
If you're considering buying one, definitely check out the Cuddeback gallery to see which pictures you like best. Many videos are there too, but we've never been able to get the video function to work to our satisfaction.