September 12th, 2008 ydant
A good friend of mine has an incredibly clever shirt from a fundraiser by the Pecos, NM EMTs. It’s a great conversation starter and usually people think he’s an EMT until they see the back. Judging by the list, I’m definitely a potential supporter of my EMT community.
The back:
PET THE ELK.
FEED THE BEARS.
CLIMB ON THE ROCKS.
PASS ON THE DOUBLE LINE.
LOOK AT THE SCENERY, INSTEAD OF THE ROAD.
WE THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT.
PECOS, NM EMTs
And the front:
The two bears, btw, are in front of an awesome coffee shop and cafe in the middle of nowhere, US, The Purple Fiddle. Definitely worth checking out this large coffee shop with awesome food including a turkey dinner sandwich with all the fixings (turkey, gravey, cranberries, stuffing, mashed potatoes).
The decoration is eclectic at best including advertisements on a safe:
For refreshments they offer coffee and a good beer selection.
For entertainment they have live music every weekend night:
And a bit of a geeky humor:
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June 16th, 2008 ydant
Actually, it’s more like the tortoise and the other tortoise, but I took some artistic liberty.
Last week when the temperatures were soaring to the upper 90s I went for my semi-regular run at the local Sugarloaf Mountain. On the weekends Sugarloaf is home to an excessive number of otherwise exclusively urban explorers out looking to have a little fun in the wild unknown. During the week, however, it is a local treasure that I’m overjoyed to have been able to live near for the past year. This (relatively) small park is home to some awesome running trails, climbable rock, and a lot of wildlife. All within just about 10 minutes fun drive for me.
This last time, despite the heat, I decided to reenact an old fable. The contestants:
This was taken post-run. It was hot.
Sadly, I think my opponent won, but I can’t be entirely sure, as I saw him only after I finished.
These were all taken with my Canon SD870. I am having a really hard time getting it to focus on macro shots. The last picture, for example, is focused really well, just not on the object I want. I guess I should get a DSLR, but I don’t remember it being quite as difficult with my old SD800.
Still, these were some good shots of a very photogenic animal.
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June 16th, 2008 ydant
…as well as an awesome weekend in a cabin in the woods.
When life hands you a heart shaped hot-tub, missing champagne glasses, and a missing TV… Well, you adapt.
And how about a little mood lighting…
What, should we have given up our episodes of Bones?
At least now I have pictures to explain why I’m always carrying around computer speakers and a pair of coffee mugs.
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May 12th, 2008 ydant
I recently had another opportunity to visit Ireland for business and again (due mostly to the price of tickets over the weekend) I was able to spend the weekend in Dublin. This is my third visit that included a weekend, so I decided this time to roam outside the city. Ideally, I would have liked to rent a vehicle and travel the countryside myself, but this time I didn’t think I had the time and/or resources to do such. Instead, I turned to the professionals to show me the sights.
The tour I opted for is operated by
Rail Tours Ireland and promised to take me to “
The Cliffs of Moher, Bunratty Castle, The Burren and Galway Bay“. Being a big fan of rocks (it comes with having a fascination with rock climbing), this sounded like a good place to start.
The tour started off with a two hour train ride to Limerick, on the western coast of Ireland. There we switched to the bus that drove us around for the majority of the day. The dark red light is our path for the day, with the trip starting off going the southern route and then returning by the northern route.
The first stop on the bus tour was at Bunratty Castle, which wasn’t really what I had previously thought of when I heard the word castle. It’s an impressive building, sure, but just not what I was expecting.
Although it’s not very big, it was complete with a dungeon, turrets, and beautiful stained glass windows. The majority of the adornments are authentic from the same time as the castle, but actually came from other castles. This includes the furniture and glass windows.
Outside the castle is a folk park designed to mimic the style of the time when the castle was in active use.
This features reconstructions of historical cottages and buildings, recreating the general feel of the 19th century with a period style village main street. Old tools, furniture and artefacts are displayed, with the village kept alive by some inhabited shops, an old home bakery and peat fires in cottages. –Wikipedia
This included thatched roofs, waterwheels, and a church.
After the castle we started the part of the tour I really was interested in - seeing the Cliffs of Moher and then the countryside. The first stop was at a O’ Connor’s pub in Doolin, where I had an unexpected surprise:
Yes, that sticker is from the very pub I mentioned in a previous post - one of my favorite Irish pubs in the DC area!
The view outside the pub was awesome, even despite the bad weather:
The Cliffs of Moher were incredibly crowded, but were very impressive to see. Careful examination leads me to believe these would be very climbable, except for the lack of somewhere to stand at the bottom. With some proper traditional gear and a little gumption, these would prove to be an enjoyable climb.
The Irish, apparently, do not always follow directions. The paths past the “do not cross” signs were very well trampled. The guards also seemed to ignore the trespass.
After the cliffs the bus proceeded down some very narrow and very twisty roads. Quite a few times we had issues passing other traffic, including one very close incident with a huge excavator that prompted the entire bus to applaud when the driver made it through without incident.
After a little while on these roads we arrived at The Burren, a very barren part of the west coast of Ireland where large limestone fields dominate the landscape. We got a chance to see some of these, and they proved to be quite photogenic:
Our guide told us that a large variety of species end up growing in the cracks between the limestone, likely due to deposits left by the various birds. Plants that wouldn’t be normally found in Ireland can be found here, including some very nice flowers.
Our bus is off in the distance in this picture:
I spy rock climbers!
After that, it was more coastline driving and a few more scenic shots.
All in all, the rail tour was a lot of fun, but I probably won’t go for that sort of thing again. Rail Tours Ireland was nothing but professional, but I’m just not really suited for that type of adventure. I’m too independent when it comes to travel, and I’d rather not be directed everywhere. Schedules don’t belong on vacations, either, and we were definitely constrained by time the entire tour.
I ended up leaving my hotel at about 0600 on Saturday morning and didn’t return until 2200. I was lucky that the hotel was right beside the train station where the tour started and stopped, or my day would have been even longer. Next time I’ll rent a vehicle or get a cheap flight to somewhere else in Europe.
On Sunday I took a quick bus and walking tour of the city where I took a few more interesting pictures.
A busker making sand sculptures
Christmas decorations in May
The top of a double-decker tour bus
Sunday had awesome weather
I posed for the camera
As usual, the full set of pictures are available in my album for the trip.
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April 11th, 2008 ydant
Spring is finally here, and the weather has been taunting us with beautiful days and yet we’ve been spending most of our time in the climbing gym instead of going out on real rock. By yesterday we’d had enough - the weather was perfect and the rock was calling out to us. Forget pesky work (that’s what vacation time is for), we were going climbing. The crew this time was my original partner in climb, Nick, and our new climbing partner Vivian.
Legend: Nick is in the blue shirt and I am in the orange.
When I say the weather was awesome, I mean it. Mid 70s, clear sky, nice breeze, few bugs. We couldn’t ask for a nicer first day of the season outside.
Great Falls Park is a a National Park split by the Potomac river and it extends on both the Maryland and Virginia sides of the river. Here Nick is surveying the route ahead. The rock you see in the picture is on the Maryland side and, despite looking pretty steep from this angle, is not that amazing for climbing. The river is significantly higher than it was last year, so we were a little worried about finding a good place to stand on the bottom.
Before shots
We start the abseil down, with Nick going first. There’s a path we can walk around, but it’s good to go this way when the water’s high. We also want to become as comfortable with doing so as possible on the small pitches as we might have to finish out long multi-pitch climbs with an abseil down.
And the climbing begins!
Vivian coming back down after successfully reaching the top
Random candid shot
Nick forgot his climbing shoes, and sneakers are almost useless for this sort of stuff, so barefoot it was. He did remarkably well, despite the obvious painful nature of such climbing:
I belayed Nick mostly, due to Vivian being much lighter than him. Although she can handle the weight difference, it does lift her off of the ground if either of us falls, which can be a little treacherous on the rock.
Towards the end of the day I started to get artistic
Who watches the watchers?
The last climb up was after it already started getting dark.
Finishing up
You must be this tall to ride this ride
Finally, the Great Falls of Great Falls Park
We finished it off with a few cold pints of beer at an awesome Irish Pub in Great Falls, VA.
As usual, the full set of pictures are available in the photo album for this trip.
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July 22nd, 2007 ydant
(This was originally posted on on the Adventure Rider board at: http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=250623)At the time of writing this, I had only been riding for about 4 months, and, until that weekend, I hadn’t done any trips longer than a single day. I wanted to make a longer trip, and the Blue Ridge Parkway seemed like the perfect choice. It’s filled with long stretches of well maintained roads, lots of curves, and some beautiful scenery. The weather turned out to be absolutely awesome, so I packed up the bike and off I went.
This doesn’t really qualify as “adventure” compared to a lot of the other reports, but it was still a lot of fun. I don’t have much to say, and the pictures are the best part of most ride reports. Hopefully someone’s work day is a little less boring because of this. :)
The plan was a two day trip from Washington, DC to… wherever I felt like stopping and back again. I ended up making it to about 50 miles south of Roanoke, VA.
All loaded up and ready to go.
She’s not “adventure”, but she tries. She might be ugly, but the beauty’s on the inside (even though some of it’s leaking out in various places). The Nelson Rigg bags worked wonderfully.
Mr. Garcia watched me pack and blessed the trip. It helped.
And I’m off!
I thought omniscient would mean you don’t need guidance?
I’ll stick with my Garmin.
Finally, scenery.
Looking far over the VA countryside. The parkway gets a lot twistier and has more elevation further south, but the view in VA is always beautiful.
Pictures never capture the real spirit of the experience
… still, you can’t see these and not want to be there.
The clouds were absolutely beautiful
The bugs didn’t want me to see them.
No pants?
Signs like these are usually reactionary. I wonder what the story is. Depending on gender, I’m not sure these rules need to be enforced.
Night time… Time to find a hotel.
Unfortunately, everything was sold out where I ended up. I finally found something… and it definitely qualified as adventure! Next time I’m taking the stuff I need to camp.
The night clerk gave me a discount and gave me a room where I could park “my scooter” outside the window. Thanks!
Sunday
On Sunday I took some back roads for a bit instead of getting back on the parkway right away. The fun stuff (to see) is definitely on the back roads, but so is the gravel on the roads.
The clouds were out again.
Deer suck, but imagine one of THESE running across your path.
I FOUND IT!
Built by ancients? Magical powers?
Whatever, it’s punny, and I like it. I’d almost consider going to see it…
Guess not. Maybe it’s wrong of me, but I laughed for a bit.
I followed this stream up for a while…
… and the pavement disappeared.
Single-sport? So? I’m not afraid of gravel!
This was going to be a self-portrait, but the grass got in the way, so I gave up. This turned out to be a cool shot anyway.
I found the parkway.
Gravel roads end sometimes… Sometimes they end right where you want to be. (Proper attitude means they always end where you want to be, I guess.)
The sky is visible again.
If you don’t give the road equal attention it will throw gravel at you.
If you look closely, you’ll see the inner beauty leaking out, just like I said.
Adventure riders! I had to stop.
The first I saw of the weekend, and then suddenly they were everywhere. This couple happened to be from close to where I grew up. We spoke of gravel, the mid-west, and the rumours about a F800GS…
They didn’t have an ADV sticker, but, then, neither do I.
Kissin’ Counsins
He barely paid us any attention. Probably didn’t recognize mine for what she is without the makeup on. Poor girl.
And I’m home…
Too tired to take any other pictures. It’s all boring from there on out. Lots of traffic and lots of interstate.
All in all, a really fun trip. No incidents, great weather, and fun roads.
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