What to see in Brest? #1- The harbour

Brest is sometimes overlooked when travelling in Brittany.
If you are say to locals you are going to visit Brest when in Brittany, some people would ask you: why to go to Brest? Just a modern city, not much to see there...
Wrong!
Completely wrong!
Brest is a very interesting city to visit!
It is true that certainly isn't a traditional Brittany's town.
Most of the city has been destroyed during the II World War and the city was quickly rebuilt after, loosing its old charm, but today Brest is an interesting mix of modern and old and it is attractive in its unique style and design.
Thanks to Cathy Dolou, founder of the Walk and Talk Brest Group organizing walks for local and foreign travellers wanting to trek along the long way Grande Randonnée 34 in the area around Brest, we discovered this interesting city.
Starting for what remains of the historical Brest is the old castle, now hosting the Naval Museum.








At the other side of the harbour is the Tanguy Tower (Tour Tanguy) the most interesting and imposing monuments of the town.
Today the Tanguy Tower hosts an interesting exhibition about the history of Brest.
The entrance is free and is certainly worth a look.

But what we love more is actually the contrast between old and modern.
Just in front of the castle and the tower le Pont du Recouvrance crosses the river La Penfeld offering great views along the large harbour.








And it is from the harbour that the main street of Brest starts climbing on the hill in front.
The street has a wonderful and exotic name, reminiscent of the history of the town.
The street is named Rue de Siam. Click here to continue...




A special thanks goes to Cathy Dolou from Brest for her help in making this part post!

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I vant to be left alone

Both the Muscovy (above) and the Runner duck had to be chased off their nests. They weren't happy being forced to abandon their eggs, rotten and stinking though they were.
That poor Muscovy. She keeps trying to nest and having no luck. I think the only thing she did wrong this time was to pick the period with the record number of consecutive 100°+ days. She's not much of a weather forecaster I guess.
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Friday Ark.

Bishop Again

Bishop Again, originally uploaded by ParsecTraveller.

Here's a view up the trail on Bishop Peak taken a few weeks ago during a period of stormy weather. The mountain's chaparral is getting nice and green.

Blue Ridge Parkway

Tuesday, June 29th
After a shower and change of clothes, I was off to drive a section of the Blue Ridge Parkway. I started driving up to the Blue Ridge Parkway Visitor Center & Park Headquarters. The HQ is Northeast of Asheville on the Parkway.
I picked up some maps, literature, and a t-shirt. Learned there is a detour south of Asheville. Much of the detour was the same type of scenery than the Parkway. The detour took me past Looking Glass Falls.
Most of the rest of the drive was unremarkable. Like the Cherohala Skyway, its a limited access mountain road. Lots of turn-outs and view area. The big difference, you can really see something at the Parkway view areas.
A quick shower came across the Parkway. When the sun came back out, the "steam" started raising from the hills. The photo with this post is a view along the Parkway after the rain. The "smoke" is very evident in the photo.
The South end of the Blue Ridge Parkway is at Great Smoky Mountains National Park. So, stopped in the visitor's center there to get info. Picked up a couple book to help plan my visit to the Park.

The Eyes Have It

I became aware that there were many watching eyes, as Sparky, Toby and I took our morning walk in the Owl Wood.





Well, I walked, Toby trotted, and Sparky tore up and down trees.





She's not easy to see, but Sparky is up near the top.

Then she came down, and ran up another one, on and on, around the wood.

Toby made out that he was a truffle pig as he snuffled and poked around the place, occasionally breaking out into a trot when Sparky ran close to him.





As we made our slow way round I was looking at the colours, enjoying the time to really look at the trees and I became aware of many eyes looking at us...

They are kindly, benevolent tree 'eyes'



and once you start to look for them, they are all around.







Then, just to give a bit of balance I took a shot of a very pretty tree dressed with a few remaining leaves







Just have a look next time you are in a wood. You may be surprised - especially once you 'get your eye in'!!

Down By The River Side

This week I've been taking every road I know that crosses the Ogeechee River trying to find a 'Kodak moment' for an exhibition coming up at the end of May that'll benefit a local organization called The RiverKeepers. They're dedicated to cleaning up our local river, and our art association wanted to draw attention to them and raise a little money in the process.

The above three are the best ones so far. Each person can submit up to three works of art for entry into the exhibition. If they sell, a portion of the proceeds will go to the RiverKeepers organization. I love entering these local contests! Wish me luck or good providence.

Crevasse fall - Climber Injured on Kautz Glacier

Kautz Glacier, Mount Rainier

On the afternoon of Tuesday, July 1, a climber fell approximately 15 feet into a crevasse at around 11,400 feet on the Kautz Glacier of Mount Rainier while descending the Mountain. The injured climber, Mitchell Bell, was rescued from the crevasse by his four teammates. Bell had injured ribs and visible lacerations to his head and face, but he was conscious and in stable condition. A doctor in the team quickly determined that due to his known and potential injuries, Bell could not continue the descent without assistance. Two members of the party climbed down in search of help, leaving the doctor, another teammate, and the patient at the scene. Back at Camp Hazard about 1,000 feet below, they found Alpine Ascents International (AAI). Several AAI guides responded to the request for assistance and contacted the National Park Service. A plan was put in place for two AAI guides to travel to the accident scene that evening to assess the injured climber’s condition and bring with them materials for an overnight stay on the Mountain. Based on their assessment, the Incident Commander, David Gottlieb called for air-lift/hoist extraction the following morning.
Within an hour of take-off on Wednesday morning at approximately 6:45 a.m., a US Army Reserve Chinook helicopter from Fort Lewis successfully extracted the injured climber from the Kautz Glacier. The patient was transported to Madigan Hospital for further medical evaluation. He was released later that day.

You can find more in the ST and PI.
~ Monica Magari

Finally

We planted the garden pretty late.

So all we're getting now, in the way of vegetables, are long, skinny things.

Japanese Eggplant, Zephyr Squash, Cucumbers. No tomatoes yet.

The little cucumber that could. We bought what turned out to be an amazingly good plant, I think from the local Ace Hardware. Never bitter, despite my horribly uneven watering. And really, really prolific! This amount is from one day. (One plant.) I see cucumber-pushing in my future.
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Don't forget the Friday Ark.

The Phaeton Gets Straightened Out … and We Go Sightseeing

Wednesday, 20 February (Part I)
Custom RV (AKA Brannon Hutcheson — Vina, Alabama
Temps: Lo 31F / Hi 40F (-1C / 4C)

Our last day in Red Bay dawned colorful, but cold. Though there was no wet stuff falling from the sky, the gloomy day was damp, which made the cold feel worse.

Having done much of the prep for today’s early departure last night, we didn’t have to do much more than bring in the slides before we pulled up stakes for our short drive to Bay Diesel where we had a 7:00a appointment to get the Phaeton’s wheels aligned.

No sooner were we in the bay that David and Anthony got to work on the job at hand. Mui had taken the Phaeton in for an alignment early last year, but it quickly became apparent that the job had not been done well. It sure feels good when you can see the before and after results on the computer for yourself and know that the job is done right.

Bay Diesel uses the Hunter heavy-duty alignment system with the cordless sensors.
Each of the front tires got the sensor in the top right photo; and the rear outside tires
got the sensor in the bottom right photo. The orange riser in the top right photo was
replaced with an alignment turn-plate, which I neglected to take a picture of.

I don’t get all this stuff about cambers, and casters, and toes,
but I do know that red is bad and green is good in these before and after photos.
We still have a problem, but it would require cutting into the chassis to fix it; we'll live with it.

We were done at Bay Diesel around 9:30a. Before we could leave town, however, we had one more thing to do — top off our propane. Yes, those cold, cold nights in Red Bay meant using the propane furnace quite a bit to not only keep ourselves warm, but the wet bay as well.

L&L Propane Gas, located just before the rail tracks when driving from Camp Tiffin into town, had been recommended by several people, so we went there. At $3/gallon it turned out to be our cheapest propane fill to date. Fourteen gallons later, we were on our way out of town.

The Phaeton gulping down 14 gallons (53 liters) of propane.

A 6.4-mile (10 km) drive put us at Brannon Hutcheson’s Custom RV just over the Red Bay/Vina town line. We were way too early for tomorrow’s 7:00a appointment with him, but he kindly allowed us to leave our motorhome there so we could go do some sightseeing before meeting up with friends for one last dinner in Red Bay.

By 10:30a, we were on our way to Tuscumbia, about 50 miles (80 km) from Vina.

#2 on the map is Swamp John’s in Muscle Shoals; #3 is Ivy Green,
Helen Keller’s Birthplace, in Tuscumbia; and #4 is Mr. J’s Restaurant in Red Bay.

Grabbing a bite to eat at Swamp John’s in Muscle Shoals was first on our agenda. We didn’t set out with the idea of going there, but since we knew from their Red Bay eatery that the food was good, it seemed as good a place as any for lunch. With colorful walls decorated with modern art pieces, the atmosphere was quite different from the place in Red Bay — in a good way. The food — my shrimp platter was good, but Mui’s po boy was more bread than shrimp … and oh boy … watch out for the horseradish!

Swamp John’s in Red Bay (top left) vs Swamp John’s in Muscle Shoals.

We made two sightseeing stops in Tuscumbia, just a couple miles away. The first was at Helen Keller’s Birthplace — Ivy Green — and the second was at the Tuscumbia Railroad Depot Museum. I’m going to leave Ivy Green for a separate post, and show you a few pictures from the latter. Unfortunately, the museum, which is housed in the Depot (circa late 1800s) was closed, so I had to be satisfied with just wandering around outside.

In 1888 the Memphis & Charleston Railroad built the depot as a division headquarter
on the site of the first railroad west of the Allegheny Mountains, which began in 1830.

This station was abandoned in 1946 when the Southern Railway built a new station
about a mile north of Tuscumbia to serve the whole Shoals Area.

With the station house locked, this was the best I could do to get a picture
of the passenger salon; I actually like how the photograph turned out.

We returned to Brannon’s shop with plenty of time to spare before our 5:30p dinner date with friends. After using the time wisely to set up for our overnight stay in front of one of his bays, we returned to town, where we had the best meal of our time in Red Bay at Mr J’s Restaurant.

This time our “Tiffin Gang of Six” included Karen and Steve (of GoneByRV), who recently arrived in Red Bay for their February 25 appointment at the service center; and Curt and Deb (no blog; sorry), who are hoping to follow on our “wheels” and leave town soon. Sure, the thin crust pizzas were good, and we all had plenty of leftovers to take home, but the best part of the evening was, of course, the camaraderie born on the road of fulltiming.

Clockwise from my left: Deb, Karen, Steve, and Curt.

What a great way to wrap up what was a long, but productive stay at Camp Tiffin.