Minnesota Milky Way

I went out with a few local youth last night to look for the northern lights. While the aurora was visible, it was very, very faint. The Milky Way, however, lit up the sky! This image was made at about 12:30 a.m. Exposure time was 30 seconds, aperture f4.0, ISO 6400. It was also the coolest night (temperature-wise) that we've had in a while. It actually dipped slightly into the 40's last night. This was good for high ISO photography, as the temperature cools the camera's sensor doesn't build up as much heat and therefore generates less noise in the final image. Enjoy!

Limestone glade

We discovered a small limestone glade. It's not near our place, but it's in the same county (Blount county).

Plants in these glades thrive in unusual conditions: very thin soil on dry rocky ground.

A rocky pocket. From above, these flowers bring starfish to mind.

Widowscross, Sedum pulchellum. A.k.a. Pink stonecrop.

Most of them were white rather than pink. Definitely, they fit the description of "locally abundant".

Drifts of sandwort surrounded the sedum. I believe this is Glade sandwort, Minuartia patula.

In the shadier areas, there was a little Miami mist (Phacelia purshii). (Sounds more like a soft drink than a plant to me.)

I love the fringed petals.

Construction Update - Silver City

Yesterday (Sunday afternoon) I headed down to Silver City to check out the construction on the Wabash Trace. Also, planned to ride - perhaps as far a Malvern and back.
The first thing I noticed was that the approaches to the street (L-55) and the connectors to the side walk are completed. The "Trail Closed" signs at the street are gone.
I heard that there was a barricade across the Trace about a mile up from Silver City. Time to head North. Out of Silver City, the shoulder was not yet leveled. Up at Dobney Road, there is a gap in the pavement (for the cross road). See top photo.
From Dobney almost to the end of the pavement the shouldering has been done. The was no barricade across the Trace at that point.
The pavement extends about 1.1 miles north from downtown Silver City. If you are riding South from Mineola, The second photo is what you will see at the transition from crushed limestone to concrete.

I rode back down to town and headed South towards Malvern. Shouldering is being done South of town. The pavement extended until the bridge at the edge of town (0.2 - 0,3 mile). There, I was surprised to see a big barricade across the trail. Signage was for North-bound traffic. Perhaps they forgot to remove that one?
Anyway, there is an opening along the side to walk the bike past the barricade. From there, I continued my ride to Malvern.
Had a good ride. Was a strong wind from the South - head wind - on the way. Was looking forward to the tail wind on the way back!
Stopped to take some photos along the way. Several taken of the Silver Creek Bridge. Some of them may find their way on my facebook page and perhaps on the web site.
After an uneventful ride back to Silver City, I saw a notice stapled to the barricade just before Silver City. The notice includes a map with a detour for the Trace and estimate of the construction duration.
Someone took some time and effort to create the notice. It would have been nice to have such for the web site. Time to recommend such for the construction in Malvern.
Last time I heard, the construction crew is on a different job this week - returning to the Wabash Trace on the 13th. Do nit know if the barricades will go back up at that time until shouldering is completed.

Quotes on Reading

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside a dog, it's too dark to read." Grouch Marx
"In a very real sense, people who have read good literature have lived more than people who cannot or will not read....It is not true that we have only one life to live; if we can read, we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish." S.I. Hayakawa
"When I am dead, I hope it will be said: His sins were scarlet, but his books were read." Hilaire Belloc

Grandma Anna's Pfeffernusse

This post was written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose blog.

When I was a child, my grandmother made pfeffernusse cookies. My younger brother liked them better than I did, but he also liked licorice - which I hated. Anise may not be quite the same as licorice, but the flavors and scents were similar enough to turn me off. And pfeffenusse were hard! No wonder the nickname was Pepper Nuts. Adults liked them with coffee but the children preferred chocolate chip cookies.
We didn't have the recipe after Grandma Anna died so my mom tried recipes from cookbooks and the kind of pamphlets that were often passed out with ingredients bought at the store. The results were okay, but they didn't have the same texture as the adults remembered. Years went by and Anna's grandchildren grew up to have homes of their own.

One year my sister Josie hauled Grandma's old cabinet-style treadle sewing machine up from our parents' basement, wanting to clean & polish it and give it a place of honor in her home. After a stuck-shut drawer was opened, Josie discovered a cache of silk and cotton embroidery threads, along with a tattered yellow newspaper clipping with the recipe for the pfeffernusse.

Josie kept the threads but the clipping was turned over to me - by that time I loved to bake for the family and I'd also learned to enjoy the flavor of anise.My dad and uncle gave the Pepper Nuts a thumbs-up after tasting them, agreeing they tasted like Grandma's.
There was no clue on the paper to tell us where Grandma got the recipe or how old it was, although we're sure it was in use before the mid-1950's. In a few weeks I'll use this recipe again, to bake and pack and share the cookies with my far-flung family.
PFEFFERNUSSE AKA PEPPERNUTS
Heat together until blended:
1/2 cup molasses ( I use dark full-flavored)

1/2 cup light corn syrup

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup lard (the original recipe called for lard but I always substituted vegetable oil.)
Cool the mixture for 45 minutes. Add 1 beaten egg*.
Combine the following spices and stir into the molasses mixture:

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon powdered anise (or 1 and 1/2 teaspoons anise extract)

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon allspice

1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
Sift together 3 and 1/2 cups flour

1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda
Mix well. Cover dough and let stand overnight at room temperature.

Roll into 1-inch balls. Bake on parchment paper at 350 degrees F for approximately 12-15 minutes. When cool, roll in powdered sugar. Store in tightly covered tins in a cool dry place for several weeks to mellow the flavor.

* Since the dough sits out overnight I prefer pasteurized eggs for this recipe.

I have a vague idea that some of the dough used to be rolled out and cut with an angel cookie cutter to be tied on the Christmas tree as an ornament. I can remember the angels hanging, but I'm not sure if it was really the pfeffernusse dough or if it was gingerbread dough. Either one should work.

This post was written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose blog.

Ride like the wind!

Morning at Currumbin.



It's been blowing a gale here for most of the day. Thankfully it's from the South, meaning that it's a few degrees cooler than it might otherwise be. I have to admit I get a strange sensation of delight from pedalling into a wind of that nature. Especially on my commute, where some of the gusts between the buildings can really be heightened by the funnel effect. It's like a game of cat and mouse, the wind gusts like crazy, then drops slightly, and I respond by upping my pace, until the next gust, and so on. Then there are the exposed bit around Narrowneck, where I go right on the defensive, ticking over a small gear at just 23km/h or so, then the traffic jam in Surfers blocks it, then back into the buildings where it's on again!

Of course, this may well just be practice for the big ride to Wilson's Promontory in a couple of weeks time (just two weeks away as of tomorrow). Like the lead-up to my last tour, everyone is trying to make it as crazy as can be just before I go. At work clients are dumping their rubbish on me left, right and centre, then there is a GST audit to deal with just two days before I fly out. It's absolutely crazy, but in a way that might help me appreciate the time off even more. Two weeks really isn't enough though, but I have to settle for that if I want five or six in New Zealand next year.

Maybe it might be worth checking the job market for accountants in New Zealand. Today I read that John Howard and his cronies "promise not to abuse senate power" (they now officially have control of both houses of parliament in this country). I guess abuse is in the eye of the beholder. Some of the policies they tried to get in last time around were scary, now there's nothing to stop them. I think we can only hope they were decoy points that the could back down on (i.e. so they could look like making a "compromise"). We'll just have to wait and see on that one.

Hmmm, maybe I will go to O'Reilly's on Sunday after all.

Orange goo

Me: Did you see this wierd orange fungus stuff all over the grass?! What is it?
Hubby: Isn't it from that cedar tree right over your head?
Me: D'oh!

I shouldn't be surprised -- I have a hard enough time recognizing people when I see them out of context.^* So I guess not recognizing the cedar-quince rust I wrote about last year when it was in the grass (instead of on a tree) is not so surprising.
This is near a bird feeder, so I'm not sure if the birds knocked it off, or if it just fell off.
-----
^* If I normally see Ms. XYZ only in a certain place, then I'm not guaranteed to recognize her if I see her somewhere else. For example, I might not recognize my librarian if I run into her at the grocery store. This has gotten worse since we started doing craft shows and see a LOT of people. It probably also has to do with age. (I just realized that this doesn't usually happen if I know the person's name. But since I'm so bad at remembering names that revelation is probably not going to help me much.)
-----
If it had been cedar-apple rust (see last year's post) I think I would have remembered those alien-invasion-looking things, even in the grass!

Tiso Outdoor Experience

In the entrance to the Tiso 'Outdoor Experience' shop in Leith is this magnificent working compass. The shop was very busy when we were there, and I couldn't get a photo without someone's foot or leg in the way. Unlike the centre of town, where tourists and locals alike keep out of the shot about to be taken with almost painful politeness, these lovers of the outdoors were intent on their shopping. I don't blame them, as the sale was still on. In the end I gave up trying to get a clean shot, but I rather like the foot in the corner and the movement of the coat. They show the size of the compass, and give a flavour of the bustle in the shop. Recession or not, Edinburghers were kitting out for the great outdoors.
We were there to look for a new rucksack for my daughter, who will do the expedition for her Duke of Edinburgh's Bronze Award in March. A two day hike in the hills and an overnight camp in tents. In March. In Scotland...If I'm lucky she'll take some good photos along the way - she was the photographer for yesterday's post.

The entrance doors leave you in no doubt that you're about to boldly go. Thankfully the serrated edges of the ice axes are covered in plastic.

An Easy Day and a Long Drive

High Temp: 86F (30C); low humidity

There was a definite chill in the air when we woke up at 6:30a; what a difference from our first few mornings here. It didn’t get much warmer when the sun came out. Undaunted, we put on our sweaters and enjoyed breakfast and computer time on the balcony so that we could better appreciate the morning and its promise of clear, blue skies and low humidity. As the sound of engines revving up and jets taking off from the nearby airfield filled the air, it quickly became apparent that today was a workday for some … not for us!

Some might interpret blogging as work; for me, it’s fun.

We waited for the temperature to rise a bit before heading to the beach at 8:30a for our daily dip and walk. We’d been dreading the inevitable onslaught of biting flies; but surprise … NO BLACK FLIES TO PESTER US TODAY :-)

Heading towards the lighthouse, we enjoyed a quiet walk. We encountered some people fishing from the beach, and saw some guys trolling the waters with their nets, collecting any tar balls that might have been swept ashore by the currents. The good news — the nets were empty, except for one or two small bits and pieces. It’s great to see that there’s been no lasting damage from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill of .

Wearing my Dalton Highway / I Crossed the Arctic Circle t-shirt as a swimsuit
cover-up on a beach in Florida — that’s what I call a contradiction!

Someone has put a lot of effort into expanding the sandcastle I saw on my walk yesterday.

The castle comes with its very own alligator guard!

Visitors can climb 177 steps to the top of the lighthouse. We were going to do that today,
but you need to wear shoes or sandals with straps; I have neither on this trip. Next time!

A forgotten piece of the miles of boom that was laid after the oil spill.

We could keep going, but this is our turnaround point for today.

The temperature — both in and out of the water — was a little too cool for my liking. So while Mui went for a swim, I played in the shallows, watching schools of fish swimming by and ghost crabs popping in and out of their burrows. Unlike the ghost crabs we saw in the Galápagos in July, these crabs are smaller and, as befits their name, they are white in color. They blend in exceptionally well with the sugar-white sand on the beach. I didn’t see the sand balls I saw all over the beach at Cerro Brujo, so these crabs must not be deposit feeders. (Click here for pics of the Galápagos ghost crabs and a short video of how they feed.)

It was 11:30a by the time we were done with our beach time and ready for the next part of our day. First on our agenda was a return trip to American Home Base to pick up some mail. We haven’t switched our mailing address to Florida yet, but anything that has to do with our domiciling has been coming here — such as the county clerk domicile registrations and the Florida titles for the Phaeton and CR-V. We could have asked them to send the mail to us in Virginia, but figured we might as well stop by since we’re here. Besides, we wanted to meet Tena, our contact at AHB, and thank her in person for helping us get this far in the process.

By the time we got on the road to our planned destination — Destin — it was already past noon. With an hour’s drive ahead of us to get there, we probably should have re-thought our plans. But hey, we’re on vacation with plenty of time on our hands. The GPS took us there via I-10, but we made the return trip via the more scenic Route 98, which took us through Navarre and Fort Walton Beach.

This Google Maps image shows the location of American Home Base (blue flag) and our
lunch spot in Destin (fork & knife) in relation to the Navy Lodge on NAS Pensacola.

Although the beautiful days of sunshine and warm temperatures we’ve been enjoying bely it, this is the slow season for this part of Florida. That’s evident from the lack of crowds on the beaches, and the easy traffic on the roads — especially on a weekday. Another indication that the peak season is over is that many of the restaurants are closed for lunch. That was the case with the first two places we tried. The third time, though, we hit the jackpot with Dewey Destin’s Seafood, overlooking Choctawatchee Bay, just before the bridge that crosses from Destin to Fort Walton Beach.

The place is literally a shack on stilts. The road leading to it goes by some rundown buildings; enough to scare one off from proceeding any further. But the place was ranked #24 amongst 175 eateries in Destin, so we decided to take our chances. And a good thing it was that we did.

Placing our order at the kitchen, we took a seat at a bench table on one of the piers jutting out over the water and entertained ourselves by watching the gulls flying about. There were signs everywhere asking patrons not to feed the gulls. People must be abiding by the request, as the gulls left us in peace to enjoy our meal without having to shoo them away.

There are a few other other patrons, but we have this part of the pier to ourselves.

our view from the table on the pier.

Screeching to keep away other gulls, this bird patiently poses for the shutter-clickers.

Mui ordered the steamed shrimp basket, and I ordered the grilled shrimp. Both were good — but seeing as how he had to remove the tails from his shrimp before he could eat them, Mui said he’d get the grilled shrimp next time so he wouldn’t have to work so hard to earn his lunch :-)

We passed on the homemade key lime pie for dessert, opting for a walk at the Marina Village and some Blue Bell ice cream we’ve heard so much about. That turned out to be a mistake … one that we won’t repeat now that we know this brand of ice cream is not to our liking.

The return drive to Pensacola via Route 98 was about an hour, but at least we had some scenery to entertain us, and we spotted a couple of campgrounds along the way that might do nicely when we return to the area in the Phaeton. Had we more time, we would have checked to see what Eglin AFB and Hurlburt Field have to offer in the way of campgrounds, too. We’ll do that next time.

Though the hour was getting late by the time we returned to the Lodge, Mui wanted to take another dip in the ocean. I accompanied him, but opted to just play in the shallows. Again, there were no biting black flies; perhaps yesterday was just an anomaly.

The beach scene at near dusk.

We skipped dinner since lunch was such a late affair. Instead, we hopped in the car and drove over to the lighthouse beach access. After catching glimpses of last night’s beautiful sunset from the balcony, I wanted to make sure I got some good shots of the sun going down tonight. Alas, I was out of luck; this time there wasn’t as much color. Still, it was a a good excuse for one more walk on the beach.

Not a lot of color; nonetheless, a nice end to our day .

We have a treat in store for tomorrow. Actually two treats, but the one I want to mention here has to do with meeting up with Chuck and Anneke, fellow–bloggers of Goldenshoe RV Trip fame. They recently got off the road after full-timing for several years and have settled in the area. Reading in our blog that we’re in Pensacola, they reached out to us via email; we’re looking forward to having lunch with them.

The lost weekend

About the only nice thing I can find to say about the weekend passed is that it's over, and that whatever happens next weekend will almost certainly constitute an improvement. Having already been forced to cancel a long-weekend tour, I now had little time or motivation for riding due to a death in my family. With my mind on other things, I basically just didn't feel like it.
I did force myself into a ride of around 110km yesterday on The Black Magic, at least I think it was around that figure. I can't actually be sure because my cycle computer was only working intermittently. If all the external factors were removed, it was just about the perfect day for a ride. The temperatures were cool, the air was crisp and clear, and most of the yobbos either surfaced late or were heading in the opposite direction.

It was when passing through Urliup that I had a profound realisation brought on by a combination of the rainforest and events of the previous 24 hours. When someone close to you departs, it makes you consider your own life in a different context. This person passed away at a time when they were making plans to travel, to explore different places, to move on to another phase of their life, and yet they fell agonisingly short of those goals.
In Urliup's rainforest yesterday, it dawned on me that I take many of these things for granted. For all the complaining I do about "bogans", "yobbos" and "tosspots of the week", I have an extremely fortunate existence. I have my health, I live in a beautiful part of the world, and at different times in my life, I've had good people to guide me when I could have made wrong decisions. I was also reminded that we should always focus on the things we think are important, because life is a gift that we all enjoy only for a limited time. It's such a waste to expend that time on things we don't consider important just to try to impress others.

Further along the ride I followed Glengarrie "road" across the Tomewin ridge, and had my fifth minor crash for the year in as many months. I really need to get a handle on this -- one of these days I might actually lose some skin if I keep this up. Further on, a centipede tried to hitch a ride on one of my gloves -- and that was about as exciting as the day ever was.

Early spring game cam

My husband's last idea for a game cam location didn't work out like he anticipated. The high altitude game trail was apparently not a path in current use. No critter pics at all for 3 weeks.
On the way up to check the camera, we did get a live-action wildlife treat though: a huge flock of turkeys. At least two dozen of them strolled calmly across the hill, shuffling through the dry leaves and making quite a racket.
We finally moved the camera to the spot I'd been whining about for some time: a low-level easy creek access. I have been hankering for a mink shot and I know they like water, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

The Great Blue Heron was a surprise. They are frequently in the ponds, but I had no idea that they visited the creek too.

Isn't he pretty? Some turkeys were in the same spot just earlier, but they were moving too fast and were blurry.

There were four night shots, but at a distance. I am wondering, if we put the camera on a stake closer to the action, would the animals shy away from it? Or would they walk behind it, just to taunt us? I guess we'll try this spot a few more weeks and then see.

Coyote checking his smell-mail.
Coming up next: two mystery critters in the dark of the night.

DKVMBR

The Dirt Kurt Virginia Mountain Bike Route is now officially under way. It will entail a bit more dirt road than the Virginia Mountain Bike Trail but roughly follow much of the same beautiful terrain.




A big thanx to these guys for hooking it up.

Valley of Fires, 3 Rivers Petroglyphs and White Sands National Monument

We decide to stay a couple of days at Valley of Fire National Recreation Areawhich is covered inextinct lava flows

From there we take the tracker to the 3 Rivers Petroglyph Site where there are 20,000 petroglyphs along a 1 mile trail.





It looks on the Map that the road continues on to Ruidoso but apparently not. We end up at a dead end in the forest. Pretty dry here as well - parts of New Mexico have not seen rain since September.

As long as we are this far and our loop has reached a dead end we opt to go the extra 35 miles to White Sands National Monument - Did I mention the White Sands Missile Site - where the first atomic bomb was detonated? It is open twice a year the 1st Saturday in April and October - we missed it - darn!

The Dunes are 275 square miles of pure white gypsum sand.





You can buy sleds in the visitors center for $14.50 but we decided to just hike and maybe play a little too!