because what fun is the news that is?
Cherry Blossom trees are in full bloom in Branch Brook park, here are a couple quick photos I took on my bike ride home:
Sadly, the cherry blossom tree in our front yard still needs some time:
Though the rhododendron are starting to show:
Tomorrow: we plant grass!
First, from the Third Coast: I heard this story on ATC yesterday and I just had to smile at how Midwestern the Mayor of Naperthrill (as we referred to it back in my college days) sounded.
And then there’s this story, that takes a look at one of the rivers close to home. The Passaic passes by Newark just a few blocks from WBGO. Not only an interesting story (both the radio version and the produced video as well) for the history of it, but as an illustration of the characters out here.
I call it a half-day since 6 hours of it was sitting on a plane – Adrienne in First Class (she unknowingly and unwantingly got upgraded because of her Elite status!) and David back with the commoners. Flight was fine, got into PDX a bit before 1pm local time. Took a while to get our rental car (asked for a compact and the smallest they had was a Chevy Malibu – so far a pretty nice riding car), and then got on the road. Rather than taking the quickest route to Goldendale (via 84 along the Columbia River), David suggested we take a scenic route along US26 through Mount Hood. On the outskirts of Portland we happened (ok, maybe planned…) to find a Burgerville – the Portland equivalent to Beef-a-Roo – where lunch/dinner (was so filling!) was acquired. Should you visit, know the 10 onion ring basket gives you more than 10 onion rings! Food was very good, and then we were on our way to the Mountain. We stopped by Goverment Camp, OR (basically the peak of Mt. Hood) and did a 3-mile round trip hike to Mirror Lake. Also stopped by the famous Timberline Lodge (exterior scenes of The Shining were filmed there). Continued to take “back” roads to Goldendale – I was really blown away by the beauty of Rt. 44 between US35 and US197 – you’re literally driving down the mountain and view the change in scenery from Mountain to farm valley (just west of Dufur is beautiful!) to the Plateau area on the other side of the Cascade Mountain Range. There are now literally hundreds of electricity-generating windmills on the hills along the Columbia River outside of Goldendale – these things must have a 30-foot or greater wingspan. It’s quite mesmerizing to watch them slowly flow through the wind… hard to keep your eyes on the road! It is interesting how much they’ve changed the landscape in the course of two years (when I was last here – for Christmas two years ago – there just a couple windmills). I’ll grab some photos sometime hopefully – I think I’ll just keep updating the photo gallery below, so enjoy for now!
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This vacation narrative begins a few days before the vacation… Monday night I noticed our ice cream in the freezer was soft, and our sorbet was all liquid. I guessed the door may have been left ajar due to a towel around the handle, and made sure the door was closed before going to bed. Tuesday morning things still didn’t seem cool enough, and quickly enough I deduced the refrigerator was not working. I put in a call to Sears Service (for our Kenmore fridge), and was told the first appointment available was 8 days out! Did some research and learned the overload relay on the compressor often fails, so I pulled the fridge apart and sure enough, the relay exhibits the symptoms. Made some calls to learn no one stocks this part (which again, the internets seems to think fails often on these models). So I ordered the part for next day shipping, and bought a whole bunch of ice and a cooler…
Part comes next day (Wednesday), only to find the connectors are not the same, sheesh. Have to do some light electrical work, and get the thing running. It’s Wednesday night and I’m not convinced this thing is running properly (other possibility is the compressor could be giving up the ghost). We had planned on leaving Thursday morning, but all preparations got derailed due to the fridge. I’m still not convinced it’s working (temp hasn’t fallen quickly enough to my thinking), but we leave the house about noon.
With just a stop for lunch at Panera at a town that I don’t recall at the moment, we made it up to the cabin in West Addison, VT by about 6:30pm. The countryside is just beautiful. Full of farms (and their smells…), but drive a couple more minutes and there’s Lake Champlain. Grabbed some dinner and breakfast fixings at nearby Vergennes, a town heavily influenced by its French heritage. Spent the next day and a half just relaxing, checking out the area, a little kayaking (we’re terrible), etc. Spent some time in Middlebury, a very quintessential Vermont town. Left a couple bucks at the Bixby Free Library in Vergennes, but walked out with a couple used books. The Library is in a bit of a budget crunch – they’re $58,000 behind on their yearly budget of just $178,000. Yikes!
We could only secure 2 nights at the cabin, so Saturday morning we packed up and made our way to Burlington, figuring we’d spend the day and night exploring, then head back home Sunday. Despite a very nice farmer’s market, Burlington didn’t seem to grab us (“too many hippies” according to Adrienne!), so we decided to drive north to the Champlain Islands to hopefully find a place to stay the night and explore. After a little trouble finding something, we secured a room at an Inn in North Hero, complete with small beach and cool places to bike. These island towns have a personality all their own, resort-like in a way but far more relaxed. Hung out by the water, did some biking, got some rest, watched part of the very-crappy Scary Movie 4. After breakfast Sunday we took the ferry across to New York, and decided to explore a little into the Adirondacks. Eventually made our way to Lake Placid, where David was able to show Adrienne some of the things he remembered from his earlier visit long long ago.
Our last goal was to get a hike in before making our way home. We found on a map a medium-difficulty 2.2 mile hike that we thought would suit us, ensuring we didn’t get home too late. But it didn’t find us, who knows where it was. We spotted another trailhead as we were driving, so I pulled a U-ee and checked it out. 5.2 miles round trip, rated difficult. Goes to the summit of Hurricane Mountain, a 2000 ft ascent. Adrienne says sure, let’s do it. Just as we’re starting a father-son duo exit the trail, we ask them how long it took them. An hour and 45 minutes to go up, they say. For 2.6 miles, yikes!
There’s an immediate ascent that has us pretty quickly questioning ourselves. It’s in the low 80s or cooler in the shade, but we’re already feeling hot and tired. Having no scale of how much we’d gone up (absolutely no distance markers, just the dang red dots on trees marking the way), we ask a solo hiker on his way down if there’s much more climbing ahead. He says, well, yes…We push on. David brought his small Canon camera. Adrienne’s got 20oz of water. We’re wearing tennis shoes. We stop often and question each other if we should go on. The few other hikers we pass (all coming down) look far more prepared – good hiking boots, fannie packs, some even have a real hiking pole in each hand. Feeling exhausted but trying not to show it, we come across another hiker and ask if we’re getting close. His reply? Less than an hour to the top…
By this point we’re probably halfway up the second ascent. You look up, and there’s just more up. It’s more rock climbing than hiking. Adrienne says it’s the hardest hike she’s ever done. David grew up among corn fields, what does he know? We’re pretty much out of water when it starts to rain. Heh, go figure. It feels good, shirts are soaked with sweat. We keep asking if we should just give up, but the answer is always, “we’ve come this far…”
And so we push on to the top. David was hoping to beat the father-son time, and I think we may have just barely. Bugs are bothersome at the top, but the view is beautiful. There’s a reason they put a fire watchtower up here, though it’s no longer used. Rain continues lightly, and soon enough we decide we better start on our way down. David finds going down to be more taxing on his quads (or is it just because they’re already so tired?), Adrienne thinks it’s more work for the calf muscles. It feels like slow going, especially with wet rocks that we’re extra-careful on.
We eventually make it down, still very warm and very thirsty. I guess all I can say is I’m glad to have done it and be able to tell you, without having any sprained ankles or worse!
It’s past 6pm, and we still have many hours of driving ahead of us, so we hit the road. We stop briefly to take a photo of where we went. Here’s the zoomed in view, note the fire watchtower for reference; and here’s the view from the car window. There are actually still two vacation traditions left unfilled – Pizza Hut and fudge. We stop at Glens Falls, NY and cross off the Pizza Hut stop. Why is it a tradition? Who knows – it always seemed like Pizza Hut on family vacations was a treat when growing up, since it was an upgrade from the normal Saturday-night Little Caesars. We get a thin crust with sausage, peppers and olives, and bring the remainder of the 2-liter Dr. Pepper (just $4 more, with breadsticks!) in the car for the way home.
We eventually get home a bit past midnight, a bit late due to some map reading that should have happened but didn’t. Cest la vie. Nice to be home, nice to see the furballs. And still two vacation days before going back to work Wednesday! Better get working on that Fudge!
So now, enjoy the photos:
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Favorite Photos:
Ibrihim Maalouf
Nikki Yanofsky
Daniel Mille
Marco Benevento
Red Baraat
Neil Cowley
Favorite Performances include all the above EXCEPT Nikki Yanofsky and add in Sonny Rollins’ performance (so check these bands out, good stuff). And that’s all the Montreal stuff I’ll bug you with this year!
The icon for the headphone out…
… is an upside-down smiley face?!
I’ve pretty much dumped public transit in favor of solo transit: via bike. This comes at a nice time, since public transit trains recently raised prices 25%, ouch! Thanks to Pledge Drive I find myself riding home late at night at times. No worry, as most of my way is well lit, even without my 200 Lumen headlight. But the nice part is, there’s some nice fountain viewing at night in Branch Brook Park. I only had the small camera with me, but I grabbed a couple photos:
That’s the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in the background – the fifth-largest cathedral in the US.
This shot looked so much better in my head. I think I need to try and capture it with the Nikon.
Hope you find a reason (this month and beyond) to get out there on two wheels and work those quads!
Roosevelt Island is a 2-mile long, 800-feet wide island off the eastern “coast” of Manhattan – that is, in the East River between Manhattan and Queens. It has a long history, from its purchase from the Indians, to Dutch hog farming, to prison and hospital locations to now – a community of about 12-thousand, complete with school system, church, hospitals and more. And — you can’t drive to it from Manhattan. The island is only accessible via subway and aerial tramway (cars can use a bridge from Queens, though the island’s master plan forbids use – you park you car at a garage and walk or ride the bus). I recently saw the tram was going to be shut down for several months for repair, so I thought it’d be a good idea to get over for a visit – to ride a skycar to an island off New York City. Pics of our visit below:
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And here’s a panorama from the southern tip of the island (click for biggie version):
Photos from our ~5 mile round-trip rainy hike to Falcon Cape at Oswald State Park today, as well as stopping by Haystack Rock right here in Cannon Beach where we’re staying.
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One of the benefits of the wireless remote is you can do bulb exposures (first push opens shutter, second closes) without pushing the shutter button on the camera, which is known to create camera movement and thus blur. My D90 will allow for exposures up to 30 minutes. Why would anyone want to do that, you ask? So you can do cool stuff like this. That’s one of the reasons I’m looking forward to our trip out West to experiment with this. Anyway, here’s my first quick trial with the remote bulb exposure, about 15 seconds. Got some stars, and cool colors to boot.
