Lamport and Draughton via Brampton Valley Way

10 of us - Barry, Barrie and Vera, Norma, Sue, Steph, Gordon, Phil, Jill and me. 5.3 miles. Mostly fine with a couple of brief showers.

A bucolic scene

We started from Lamport High Street, and turned right along the Harborough Road which we followed for a short distance before turning left and following the path downhill to the Brampton Valley Way.







We turned right along this pleasant path and crossed over the A508, then continued for about a mile and a half.















We turned off to the right, near a disused footbridge.

We crossed a field, hugging the edges, to the road between Maidwell and Draughton. We turned right and along the road to Draughton. Snack stop was outside Draughton church.

A few hundred yards further along, outside the village a footpath led to the right. We walked along the edge of a recently harvested field gently uphill to a spot marked as a tumulus - some vegetation and a round pond. This was when another shower hit us.









We made our way down to a gap in the hedge to the road,

and crossed over to pass Shortwood house and a couple of cottages on the left. There's a large area where they keep young game birds, possibly partridges, in long runs. At the top of a short hill we turned left along a sheltered path, then across further fields. It's a flat walk following the path and a very short distance after a left turn along the road we arrived in Lamport. Another left turn, and we were back at our starting point.

Here comes the ice!

We are moving into one of my favorite times of the year... when the ice starts to form and build up on the shores of Lake Superior! Its a bitter cold time of the year, but I look forward to it anyway. Ice is easily one of my favorite things to photograph. In the last week of January there were numerous interesting ice formations to photograph. I'm sure there will be much more on the way!

Still having some fun!

At the parkie again!
Throw it again!

Gopher checking.....
Still having fun, but can't wait for mom and dad to get back!

Williamsburg Watercolor

I took this photo at the Powhatan Plantation outside Williamsburg where we usually stay. As ya'll probably already know, I'm a sucker for fog and impressionistic images.
Here I tried re-creating it in watercolors. I haven't viewed them side by side, but as I'm looking at them, I didn't capture the right colors of purple that was in the photograph.
I also felt that I had to make the road more distinct or the whole thing would have been a dark blob. I'm still happy with the outcome. After all, I wasn't striving for photographic realism. It makes for a good excuse, anyway.

Glove, with snow

That's about it, really. Life is super-busy in our household just now, so anything more tonight is beyond me. As an example of our busy-ness: next week teenage son will be in Geneva for 3 days, visiting the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, off to Loughborough (England) for more aerospace engineering interviews 15 hours after he returns from Switzerland, at school for a day, then up to Aberdeen for a weekend orchestra project. There's more, but it makes me feel quite faint to think about it.

Snake doctors

Dragonflies are tough. I can't make this one exactly fit any of the pictures on BugGuide or Giff Beaton's site. I think it's one of the Libellula species but I'm not even sure of that.
Possibly a Slaty Skimmer (Libellula incesta). (!)
Or Bar-winged Skimmer (Libellula axilena).
Or Great Blue Skimmer (Libellula vibrans).
Or I'm just fixated on Skimmers and it's not actually one of those. None of them look quite right.

I think this one is a female Common Whitetail (Plathemis lydia).
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WikiThings I learned while trying to ID these dragonflies (sometimes called Snake Doctors here in the south):
The fossil record shows a Permian-period dragonfly with a whopping wingspan of almost 30 inches (76 cm).
The largest modern-day dragonfly has a wingspan of 7.5 inches (19 cm), and the smallest reaches only .75 inch (20 mm).
They are the world's fastest insects.
They have nearly a 360° range of vision.
Libellula was also the name of some prototype aircraft with odd wing designs.
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If anyone knows what the first one is, please leave a comment or email me.
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Update:
Nuthatch has given me a positive ID: female Slaty Skimmer. And a new word: pruinose! (Having a whitish, waxy, powdery covering or bloom on the surface.) Thanks Nuthatch.

Wander No More

Our Phaeton wanders no more!

Fear not; I don’t mean that we won’t be wandering around North America as planned.  We still intend to do that, but as we drive the highways and byways, we will be doing so with improved steering play and wander.  The SuperSteer SS100 Bell Crank will see to that.

I could enumerate all the reasons and explanations Mui gave me when he said he wanted to have this bell crank installed.  In all honesty, my eyes glazed over as he talked and I tuned him out.  So, I’ll refer you to the SuperSteer website instead.  All I know is that Mui was happy with the results of the install as he drove the backroads today to return the Phaeton to storage, and expects to see even better performance when we next roll down the highway.

a cat

We got a cat yesterday.

I haven't had a cat since I was a kid. One year we had like 15 cats running around our house. The first cat, Sonia got pregnant and had kittens and then we gave them all away except for Grey Kitty who then got pregnant and had babies and then we gave most of them away and then Mutli-Colored Kitty got pregnant and so did Orange Kitty and someone else and so on and so on.
Every so often my dad would round some up and take them over the the "lady with the big farm who loved kitties". She would let them all run and run and play on her farm land.
Just the other day my brother told me that there was no farm. Apparently he was in on one of the trips to the shelter.
On that trip to the shelter the worker asked my dad if they were all from the same litter, all 12 of them in varying sizes. He said yes, because it was cheaper that way. But then my brother piped in with the explanation of who was from what litter and who was so and so's mother and brother.
The shelter lady wasn't too happy with my dad. And dad wasn't too happy with my brother.
Anyway, the cat we got yesterday is from a shelter. Apparently he was adopted a few months ago but returned because he was too much of a kitten and too wild. He seems fine to us. He slept all night last night without a peep. And woke up when we all woke up. And he likes to play and he hangs out well.
And now he's following me everywhere. He's like my little assistant.
But the name. I'm not too thrilled with it. The humane society called him Pilgrim. And I want a different name. But nobody likes my names. Hector is apparently an annoying kid in Lulu's class. Elvis is dumb. Pilchard is silly. Rickie is boring. Blah, blah, blah.
Morgan likes the name Dale.
That's the thing about kids, they always want silly little cute names. Not good solid names. But I'm going to call him Hector I think. They can call him whatever they want.

New Years Nordic ..

About six years ago, Jennifer and I had the perfect New Year's Day snowshoeing in Quebec. A wonderful cold sunny day in knee deep powder. This was the first time we had paid to go snowshoeing as we were at a resort and may have been on some Nordic trails leaving the lodge area. It marked the first time that we decided we wanted to learn to Nordic ski, as it appeared enjoyable. For the past three years January First has been reserved for the Polar Bear Plunge. So this year the second was when we went Nordic skiing.
The original hope for the weekend was a getaway trip to a lodge or hut of some sort. But with higher temps and rain in the forecast, it just didn't seem worth it. And since we didn't really have our trip planned out well in advance, we were scrambling to make something happen. It wasn't worth it and we decided to stay in town and do day trips. Unfortunately, as of this writing that only amounted to one day trip, but that is how it goes.
There was supposed to be snow in the forecast for the passes until around Noon. So we planned our outing to coincide with the stoppage of precip. Unfortunately, the forecast was not perfect and it was raining for forty miles or so before the pass. There was a touch of wintry mix at the pass and the precip turned once again to rain shortly on the other side. Since this was bringing us down we drove past our intended target of Cabin Creek and headed to Lake Easton hoping it would not be raining there. Unfortunately it was raining there too, although perhaps a touch lighter. We decided to head back to Cabin Creek with the idea that if the rain was making things unenjoyable we'd shorten the trip and go home.
We arrived at the parking lot to see Ken's car there. The lot was slush soup and we geared up quickly under a light rain. Once on the trails and moving, the rain was more of an afterthought, and it varied between mist and rain and everything in between most of our lap. We had a good time, although there were lots of families to pass and not ideal passing opportunities on the trails. Near the end of our lap, I heard, then saw Ken and called out to him. He stated he was finishing up teaching a lesson and would meet us at the end of the trail. We agreed to do a lap with he and Liz.
First lap family dodging
As things go, waiting a bit at the trail head made the rain more noticeable and made us a bit cold. We were having second thoughts. But as Ken arrived we decided to go for it and had a nice second lap where blue skies were seen for the first time in a week. The second lap was nicer as we were more accustomed to the loop and neither of us fell the second lap out. While the tracks were not recently groomed the snow conditions were pretty good and we had a good time. After the second lap we parted ways.
Rare January blue sky
I'm a little fed up with the price of a Sno Park Pass ($80) and the lack of grooming going on. Many areas have yet to see their first groom, and this is not always due to snow accumulation. Ken and I discussed sending some nastygrams to the state.

But Can You Guess What I Am?

Well here we are at the Pumpkin Patch!
We are with grandpeep and she's delighted to find a funny joke here hehehee!
Meanwhile, I'm finding a zillion different scents and am investigating.
Sierra Rose, of course, has joined us and is already trying to demolish grandpeep's choice of pumpkin.
Ma, meanwhile, is trying to see if her pumpkin template of me will work on this particular gourd. Can you figure out what I'm going to be for Halloween yet?
Okay... now you should be able to figure it out!My costume!


And now, some fun while checking out. I will be taking a vacay with my pawrents (finally, I get to go!) next week. Look forward to seein' ya all after the first of November - woohoo! Have a great Howloween! (Oh! Answer to the joke? "I'm vine thank you" - hahahahaha!)

Black Hill Fat Tire Festival

Ladder on the trail at Badlands

Mt. Rushmore from Iron Mountain Highway

Rocky trail - Buzzards Roost
It has been a busy week. Wednesday I headed out from home for South Dakota and the Black Hills Fat Tire Festival. Stopped in the Badlands on the way. Lots of photos in the Badlands. Spent the night in Wall (home of Wall Drug).
Thursday, more photos. Was up for sunrise but overcast day. Not an impressive sunrise. Took lots of photos in flat light. Hikes some of the Castle Trail.

Off to Mt. Rushmore (scenic route). Hiked the trail there. Lots of more photos.
Yesterday the festival got underway. Rode my bike to registration. First ride was in the afternoon. Rode Buzzards Roost. VERY rocky ride. Had to stop to rest, walk some of the trail. Did just 3.3 miles.
Ended the day with the Welcome social at the Chop House (rode my bike from the motel to the social). Mickelson Trail today.

Eden's Garden to the rescue

Today's plan had been one of those challenging but beautiful Tweed Valley rides that I'm so fond of, which would have also provided November's century. I awoke to one of the most humid November morning's in living memory, and a temperature that seemed intent on just rising for the sake of it. Just as I left my cycle-computer decided to stop working. The problem seems to be in the transmitter near the sensor, probably a flat battery, because the temperature and altitude functions continued to work.

I fought my way up the climb of Tomewin and descended into the valley -- only to find it was full of smoke. Evidently a large crop of sugar cane was being burned off near Murwillumbah. After copping the smoke, the heat and the dead computer all in the first two hours, I simply decided that it wasn't worth heading any further into the Tweed Valley. Instead I climbed Tomewin a second time, for the ridgetop Garden of Eden ride.

Some storm damage from earlier in the week made the dirt roads a little more interesting than normal, but this is a stunning ride, passing through rainforests and wildflowers, with sweeping views over the surrounding valleys. I'm still planning to explore some of those tracks at the western end of Garden of Eden road, but those can wait for another day. The slightly cooler temperatures of the mountain were an added advantage.

Glengarrie road leads from Tomewin to Bilambil across the ridgetop. This is a challenging road for the short, steep climbs on the rocks. These require timing and anticipation as well as power bursts. At one point I hit a storm damaged patch and slid sideways quickly. I recovered, but received a nasty crack on the side of my knee from the frame. These things happen in these conditions. Overall, however, it was an extremely pleasant ride, which also provided some physical challenges of it's own.

The final stetch involved a descent to Bilambil village, a chance to absolutely slaughter the climb to Bilambil Heights, before a final suburban ride against the wind. These were mopped up clinically, but somehow the ride didn't feel as substantial as I'd been hoping. It was pretty, it was challenging, but a century was what I really wanted. I might just make up a few of those miles tomorrow.

Stairway to heaven

Saturday was an extremely memorable day, the kind of thing that I'll likely still remember when I'm 83 years old sitting in a retirement home somewhere. As usual, I was a little later getting started on the ride to O'Reilly's than I'd planned, but the 15 minutes was fairly easy to make up, most of it was gone by the time I reached Canungra (after riding through the beautiful gorge) and started the 900-metre climb. The views up here are great, but what I really came for was the walk to Stairway Falls with the Gold Coast Hiking group that I discovered on the Internet a couple of weeks ago.


They turned out to be a great group. Friendly, adventurous and supportive. The walk itself involved a descent into a valley to the Blue Pool, before a trek along the rushing Canungra Creek to the falls and back, and a total of 12 unbridged creek crossings. There were, of course, the obligatory leech attacks (which caused some rather interesting reactions from Louise, our "fearless" leader), and a few obligatory falls in the creek (one of which cost me a pair of sunglasses), but it was worth it in the end.


On the ride home I was left to reflect on the day, and realised just what this experience meant. I don't know if any of us would have been able to follow the "track" and make it to the falls individually, but collectively it could be done. Sometimes it's also nice to find people with whom these experiences can be shared, and this day really had everything. I plan to make this the first outing of many with this group. There's talk of a climb of Mt Cougal next month -- all I can say is "bring it on".