A show of force

Hi again everybody!

I am still in the same place, and have not done much to write about. I'm having a great time though. I played some soccer, been jogging a few times, a 23 mile bike ride yesterday - all feels totally luxurious to have the time to do! I went to see the money factory known as the Bureau of Engraving and Printing - I've been curious about that since childhood, as we used to drive by it every time we visited DC.

Today I decided to make myself a bit useful today and give the upper body a workout. So, I got the "macho" and smashed up a 8' X 6' concrete slab. See the before and after picture (out-of-focus, but you get the idea). That was fun - it's always satisfying to do something like that and be able to see the change you made.

It's about time to start plotting my next adventure - hopefully I can find a way to swing a canoe/kayak trip...

Washington, DC

My how time flies when you are being lazy! I've just been hanging out here in DC with my friends. Trying to be helpful here and there, but mostly, I'm just enjoying their company, heated shelter, and comfortable guest beds. Papa Smurf, the truck, is running again, but the repair of the fuel pump assembly cost me a serious chunk of change. My first major stop to work may not be that far in the future. I did get out of the house to go do a bit of museum visiting yesterday.

I went to the Washington Monument, the Holocaust Museum, the natural history museum, and the botanical gardens. the Holocaust Museum made me feel nervous and uneasy just walking in the door, but the parts I saw were not very graphic. It was more symbolic and reflective a place. Even at that, it is definitely an experience that helps renew one's perspective. After that, experience, I went to look at things living. The Natural History museum has an exhibit of nature photography that displays some really amazing shots. And the botanical gardens is, well, just a really amazing garden. The light was flat, and my camera was acting up a bit, but I got few shots that I thought look okay.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Limping to a stop

Well, it seems fate wants me to stop here in DC for a little bit. To sum up, my cell phone is dying, my truck has broken down, and I've lost all my tent stakes. Here's the story:

Like I said, I felt like it was time to go and head into town, and so I did, but it was still early enough in the day that I thought I'd stop my a CostCo on my way into DC - cause that's where I bought my phone (broken button and charge only lasts 6 hours now...). Okay, fine - found a CostCo and was directed to a T-mobile store in a nearby mall. On my way to the Mall, my truck sputters out and the engine dies. Acts like it's running out of fuel. After it stops and I couldn't restart it, I fortunately saw a repair shop across the intersection. Those are friendly guys, at Craven Tire and Auto, and they agreed to grab a tow strap and their truck and tow me out of the three-lane DC suburban road in the middle of rush hour. But when they got there - the truck started! Hooray! Until 50 yards later when it dies again.

Now, at this point, the fellow is convinced it's just out of gas, so they give me a lift to a gas station to get some gas. This takes 20 minutes, because of traffic. But when we get back and put the gas in the tank, it still doesn't go. It just coughs and sputters and dies out again. Bugger. Well, they relented and conceded there is something else going on, and tow it back to the shop, where it will get examined today to see what's going on.
Again I was lucky I was close enough to my friends' house that they were able to come give me a ride the rest of the way! Otherwise, I would have been spending the night in the garage parking lot. Thanks Blake and Marcia! So, I made it here, with a little help, and now I'll see what it will take to repair all this stuff. I am glad and fortunate to have a place to stop for a little while.

Shenandoah National Park

Shenandoah National Park is a beautiful place, that seems to have three major hallmarks: panoramic mountain vistas, waterfalls, and deer. The deer are everywhere, and almost totally fearless. They will not run unless you are approaching them directly, and even then, not until you are ~10ft away. The forest is beautiful, and even at this late a date, there was still quite a bit of color in the leaves. I did not see any black bears, but the rangers say there are quite a few out here. I think this would be a great place to visit earlier in the season, but right now it is more like winter than fall up there. Most campgrounds and visitor centers are closed.

I cut my trip to the park short, and the picture of my campsite should show you why. I had intended to go out for a 2-night backpacking trip. I have gear for cold, and I have gear for wet, but cold and wet at the same time - no thanks. I mean, really, if given the choice between spending the 14 hour night alone in the woods, wet and in sub-freezing temps, or warm and dry, and in the company of friends, who really is going to choose the former? I suppose I could have stayed in the campground, but at $17/night, I felt it was time to go.
I did take a couple hikes before I left, probably 7 miles or so, in total. One of my hopes for this trip was to go places people don't usually, and I think that includes when as much as where. So, standing at the bottom of Dark Hollow Falls, at 8am in the morning, in the middle of a snow shower - I think that counts. It was a good moment.

The blog of too many photos

Too many pictures! I know, but I like them all and want to share!

After spending the night at a truck stop, I was up early on Monday to drive to the Abbey of Gethsemani. A picturesque Kentucky farm and monastery. Thomas Merton? you guys heard of him? Anyway, it was a good place to reflect, think some dep thoughts, then buy some cheese for my friends in DC.

Off I went next to Lexington, where I saw a marker at Phoenix Park, with of course, a statue of a man on a camel on top?!? The pedestral also marked the direction North, and said it was the "zero marker". Got me what's going on, I just thought it incongruous, and I like camels...

Then on to Natural Bridge state park, which is an absolutely beautiful place - I'm very glad I checked it out. It was cloudy and rain/drizzling most of the morning while I was hiking around, which made the lighting difficult, but I got some good pics anyway. The surrounding forest is tall and varied, with Hemlocks, oaks, maples, pines, rhododendrons the whole gamut. It's like a little temperate rain forest micro-climate in there - I'm kind of glad it was raining, since it added to the mood. The bridge itself is hard to picture (I've used my photo of a postcard trick again), but I got a few. I made sure to include a couple of the top, to prove to all that I am being careful.

Bonus of showers at the campground, so I cleaned up my camp and myself, then headed across the highway to Koomer Ridge campground, were I spent the night before packing up and heading east.



Two more stops before taking a break in DC for Thanksgiving: New River Gorge National River, then Shenandoah National Park.

Mammoth Cave

I took two tours and spent 6 hours underground, and Mammoth Cave really lives up to its name. The thing is just big, everything about it is big. 50ft tubes, 200ft pits/domes, 367 miles of explored passageways, underground rivers (did not get to see these), 60 ft hills. It's really, really big! And, in many places -really small. We went through some passageways as narrow as my shoulders, and the tours pass by many side passages that look like human mouse-holes. Of course, pictures down there without a tripod are pretty much a futile effort, so I photographed some postcards for display here, to show you a couple of the neater features of the cave. It's quite a sight, and well worth the tour prices, should anybody reading ever find themselves in the neighborhood.

Also, I'm pretty sure that animal in the woods is a screech owl. This recording I found sounds similar, but is still not quite the same. Last night one sounded off really near the campsite, loud!, like a car horn. Seconds later I heard the little girl in the adjacent campsite start crying...

A couple more days here in Central Kentucky, then I'll head East some more...

Western Kentucky

First off, I have to give a big THANK YOU to Arleen Amato for letting me crash at her pad Wed. night. A hot shower , steak dinner, and free laundry facilities was was greatly appreciated.

In Paducah, I stopped at the National Quilt Museum, which is a pretty neat place to spend a couple hours. Here, quilt making has been raised to an art form, and there are some really original and intricate examples housed there. All the colors was a bit of sensory overload for me, after all this time in the woods.

The next day, I bee-lined it for Mammoth Cave National Park, where I am as I write this. MC is a pretty neat park, but to get inside the cave, the only way is to pay for a tour. So I spent Thursday and Friday in the backcountry part of the park, which is beautiful in it's own right, if a bit soggy in places. One cool thing I'd never really seen before is a little two car ferry, which has been installed in two places instead of a bridge to cross the river.

I found out in this trip that deer have an alarm call - it sounds kind of like a cross between a dog bark and a bird call. I saw a deer bounding away from my campsite making this really odd sound. I'd heard it before and had no idea what it was, so I'm glad to be able to match it to it's source. There is something else out there in the woods that makes a sound that's kind of like a police siren, but imagine it coming out of a bird. 'Woot, woot, wooohhhooooo' It doesn't sound like an owl - it's more shrill. Really kind of disconcerting to hear that in the middle of the night, then all the dogs in a two miles radius going nuts over it. (Campsite was only 0.5 mile or so from the park boundary).

Backpacking by myself with such short days is not really all that fun. A lot of time to self-entertain out there, and the nights at this point are over 12 hours long. Maybe it would not be so bad if my brain had more than one channel playing, and it wasn't all re-runs.

What about the cave? That deserved it's own post, which I'll do tomorrow, after my second tour...

Even more camping!

Yep, even more camping. A few more relatively uneventful days in the woods. I stopped at the Trail of Tears State Park in MO for a night, then spent two nights in a shutdown campground at Lake of Egypt, Illinois.

Trail of Tears park sits at a site used as a crossing for the Cherokee's forced march to Oklahoma. There is a small memorial site here which people seem to come and place tribute items on. I saw a dreamcatcher and a staff with several items tied to it placed there.

The campsite is not as good as it looks on the map. Yes, it's next to the river, but at a boat landing, and with railroad tracks in-between. I got one sort of neat picture of a train at night as it blew by. There is a pretty regular flow of barges (you thought a coal train looked like a lot of stuff - a coal barge is really impressive!), and nearby dredging operation keeps the air filled with the hum of distant diesel engines. The surrounding woods are realy nice though - lots of bluffs, gullies and hillsides make for a pleasant walk in the woods. I biked all around the park and took a couple short hikes to the tops of some bluffs. That's a really big river!

The next day I was undecided where I wanted to stay and eventually settled on a "decomissioned" campground at Lake of Egypt in southern Illinois (savage Silukie territory!) The highlight for me here was finding a small downed cedar tree that was just right for making a smashing walking staff from. Tried fishing again in the nearby lake, but all I caught was a nap. At least this time I could see the bobber moving when the fish took my worms.

It is positively spooky out here in these woods by myself. Last night I got here just before sundown, so was pretty much totally unfamilar with what's outside a 20 yard radius of my camp. A distant tunderstorm was generating flashes of light, the wind rustling through the trees, and my mind was racing with all kinds of crazy scary stuff. I did note that most of it was learned stuff though - vampires, ghosts, Jason - I didn't make that stuff up on my own. Even the houselights I could see through the trees and across the lake did not help ease my nerves. I think it's this sort of experience that has generated all the ghost and monster stories over the ages. I think maybe it is just part of human nature to get spooked sometimes. It made me think of the forest animals like deer - where there really IS a monster out there waiting to get them. The stories they must tell! I don't blame them for running like crazy when they see us...

Taum Sauk Mountain

Now I'm in Cape Girardeau, MO, after a day at Taum Sauk Mountain State Park. A pretty nice place, with a really good panorama observation deck. Taum Sauk Mountain is the highest point in MO, at the dizzying elevation of 1772 ft. After getting over the vertigo, I hiked down to the Mina Sauk Falls and the Devil's Tollgate, which of course, I ate lunch on top of (see big rocks below). I make a personal appearance in my blog this time - to show you I am none the worse for the wear so far...









Using my cell-phone and a wireless hotspot to do some catching up w/ people and post this blog, then I might be relatively quiet for a few days until I wander down to Paducah, KY.

Gonna camp by the Mississippi river tonight, then move on into Illinois.

Camping on the Current River

The Ozark National Scenic Riverways are a beautiful place. I stayed two nights at a campground here, and was the only person there (well, that stayed all night, anyway).
It is a very short hike to Blue Springs, which is one of the most gorgeous places I've ever seen. That's where most of the pictures came from - they do not do it justice. Apparently, the Native American's called it the "Spring of the Summer Sky", which I think a better name, since in the summer the sun should pass almost directly overhead. That would really make the colors pop. For the number crunchers: 87 million gallons/year (~200 gallons/minute? -looks like more than that..), 310 ft deep!
Now, perhaps the more interesting story is the one I have no pictures of. I arrived around 5. The first fisherman arrived around 6. I struck up a conversation with him and he said he and a few fellows were going to go "gippin' for suckers". I found out the "gip" is a trident-looking spear, and the "sucker" is some bony, bottom-feeding rock/roughfish. I think it was this one. 2 hours later, there are 8 guys, 5 trucks, 2 generators, a 5ft high fire, a two-well deep fryer and several dozen fish in the campground! Since I know how to speak "good-ol boy" and am curious, I am invited over to partake. They spear the fish from flat-bottomed boats, fillet-'em on the boat landing, then deep fry them in the campground, while gossiping and joking around. Trash? No problem - into the fire it goes. Styrofoam plates, aluminum cans, even the deep fryer oil (which was on it's last use). They do this twice a week through the whole season, which goes until Jan. 15. Quite a tradition they have! The fish was pretty good too. Went to bed stuffed!
Coldest nights yet. 27 degrees at 7:30 the first morning - 32 degrees this morning. On to Taum Sauk Mountain, then East for hopefully some warmer nights (not crossing my fingers, though). I think I'm getting better at sealing the mummy bag, cause I have not ben as cold as the first night out...

Paddy Creek Wilderness

So, I just spent 3 nights in and near the Paddy Creek Wilderness. It is a very beautiful place! One night in a campground, 2 nights in the backcountry - I saw two other people (both in the campground). It's forest as far as you can see, and all old-growth stuff - the really good and fun forest. A pretty tame trip by backpacker standards, just 20 miles in a loop over two days, but a series of first's for me: first successful nighttime panorama shot, first solo backpacking trip (hard to believe, eh?), first trip w/o my contacts, first off-trail in a heavily forested area excursion, and my first wild armadillo sighting! So, for now, I'll count it as a feather in my cap...

After lunch and a nap atop a small cliff, I was feeling good, so decided to cut the corner of the loop trail through a drainage. Turned on the GPS and set off into the woods. In the underbrushy creek bed, I lost the GPS! It fell off my pocket! Frustrated, I retraced my steps and eventually recovered it less than 50 yds from where I noticed it missing. That's when I saw the armadillo - I never would have expected that up here!
I camped last night on a ridge above the river valley, pretty much just for this shot:

This post's sign of the times: I heard as many rifle shots and I saw deer - and 4 of them I saw while driving out of the woods!


Next up - I think I'll camp out by the riverside for a couple days. Owl's Bend, (or Powder Mill ) area in the Ozark National Scenic riverway system - maybe try to catch some fish for dinner. Then up to Taum Sauk before heading further east after the weekend...