Monday, May 30, 2016

The North Carolina Arboretum


Finally, I am all caught up on my blogging (with this post). Today is a relaxing day. In the morning, headed to The North Caroline Arboretum. Spent a couple hours walking around and shooting flowers.
Admission to the Arboretum is free. There is a parking fee (currently $8). The first Tuesday of the month parking is free. Check their web site to verify since motel rack cards are out of date.
While the Arboretum opens at 8am, the Baker Exhibit Center, Education Center, and Bonsai Exhibition Garden open at 9am. I was starting early to beat the heat (though that is not so bad as it has been).
I was thinking of walking some of the trails of the Arboretum, but my legs still need the rest. I could have brought a bike to ride on the grounds. Actually, I am feeling its time to load up the bikes for the trip home, too.
Later in the day, it was a nap and packing for the return trip. Glad i spent another day here before heading the road again.

Thursday, May 26, 2016

Happy New Year


This was the image on my sister's Christmas card this year, but I think he makes a good New Year's Koi too, don't you? (It seems like he's swimming in confetti.)
I was impressed that my 4th grade niece had colored such a pretty carp. Then I found out that she'd actually drawn it! She said they'd had something to copy from, but it isn't traced.
I think we've got a budding artist in the family.

Monday, May 23, 2016

Simplicity or Multiplicity?




More from Gift From The Sea: "Life today in America is based on the premise of ever-widening circles of contact and communication. It involves not only family demands, but community demands, national demands, international demands on the good citizen, through social and cultural pressures, through newspapers, magazines, radio programs, political drives, charitable appeals, and so on. My mind reels with it. What a circus act we women perform every day of our lives. It puts the trapeze artist to shame. Look at us.
We run a tight rope daily, balancing a pile of books on the head.
This is not the life of simplicity but the life of multiplicity that the wise men warn us of. It leads not to unification but to fragmentation. It does not bring grace, it destroys the soul. And this is not only true of my life. I am forced to conclude, it is the life of millions of women in America. I stress America, because today, the American woman more than any other has the privilege of choosing such a life.
Woman in large parts of the civilized world has been forced back by war, by poverty, by collapse, by the sheer struggle to survive, into a smaller circle of immediate time and space, immediate family life, immediate problems of existence. The American woman is still relatively free to choose the wider life."
She really knows how to nail a problem, doesn't she? I'm truly glad that we American women have choices, but for me, I have to choose simplicity. When I widen my circle too much, I get fragmented and frazzled. None of my pieces are beneficial to anyone. If I want to be whole, I must have a simple life, and that mostly means staying at home.
Ever since school has been out and I've been able to stay home more, the difference has been amazing! I'm much calmer and can actually complete a thought. Maybe I even get to write it down in a journal or blog post. This is the way I need/want to live.
I'm going to spend July and the first two weeks of August getting my heels dug in so that when school starts I can hang on to this way of life.
And to think Anne wrote her book BEFORE the internet and social media were invented. I wonder what her book would say if it were written now?

Friday, May 20, 2016

The first century



It's perhaps astonishing, but it took me until January 31 to ride my first real century of the year. Some would argue that Tuesday's epic at Lamington National Park, which included both a metric century and a 23km hike in the mountains was more physically difficult, but riding 100 miles (or 161km) is a completely different achievement. On the other hand, I need to get cracking if I'm going to complete the 25 I was planning to ride this year.

The plan on Sunday was just to ride a Tweed Valley circuit, a slight variation on the route that was my first ever century a little over 10 years ago. The weather forecast offered strong winds and occasional rain, but more importantly, the temperature was only expected to reach 28 degrees C. In fact, it hit 29 near Tyalgum, but that was still the first day not to break 30 around here since about August 15. I opened with a decent climb on Tomewin instead of finishing that way -- I figured I could shelter from the southerly wind early and catch a ride home on a tailwind. That would prove to be a mistake.

Somehow I managed to miss the rain for most of the day -- it seemed that the rain had just stopped everywhere I went, meaning that I had to negotiate wet roads without having the pleasure of being drenched. I made the one big mistake of the day's ride when I left the first food stop at Uki without refilling the water bottles. Fortunately Tyalgum was only 30km away, but that 30km did include the bulk of the day's dirt roads as well as some decent hills. To combat this I rode through the biggest puddle I could find as soon as I realised it, and the drenching my feet got managed to keep me cool for most of the ride.


The ride through the forest to Tyalgum, and then over the hills from Tyalgum obscured the fact that the wind had now swung around from the North, meaning I was going to get hammered both ways today. In reality it just meant the ride would take a little longer to finish, but over the last two years it's been almost impossible to finish a ride with a southerly wind -- irrespective of what the wind is doing every other day of the week. I did get some protection riding home through the rainforest of Urliup, but I knew it would be on after Bilambil.
I took an unscheduled stop for some more food and drinks, before decided to take the wind head-on for the last 25km of the ride. I'm still not sure where the power for that attack came from, but it seemed to work. In fact, it worked so well that the wind swung around again, and actually gave me a tailwind for the last 5km. It doesn't mean a thing I know, but at least it was something. All in all it was another rewarding day, and if the "cool" weather continues, I might make a few more of them happen.

Thursday, May 19, 2016

Monday, May 16, 2016

Pioneer Point - Curecanti Creek Trail

Last week we did the Morrow Point Boat tour and saw the little inlet. We decided to do the hike down 800'.
There were some bridges

Steps

and more bridges
Several small falls

We finally make it to the bottom

This is theview from above:
Tucson thought the water was fine!

Hey, there goes the Morrow Point Boat!

Hey! Wait for me I didn't get to ride the boat last week!

After a swim Tucson hangs out with some friends.


Till Later!
Meanwhile, we keep on Trek'n
Melissa, Gary & Tucson

Gold Discover Days in Custer, SD

This weekend was Gold Discovery Days in Custer. We're talking Hot Air Balloon Rally, Parade, Antique Car Show and Hospital Bed Races. Life in the Fast Lane!

Hey we have Friday Night off so we head into town to check out the Hospital Bed races.


video

Saturday Gary starts at 9:30 and I start at 2:00 so we get up early to see the Hot Air Balloon Rally that was supposed to go off at 5:30 a.m. Got there but they didn't get out till almost 6:30 - could have used that extra sleep time!









Next we check out the Antique Car ShowLoved the jean upholstery in this one

Gary missed the Parade cause it started at 10:00. Gold Discover Days started in 1923.Mitch our resident General Custer

Just love a small town parade

Till Later,

Meanwhile we keep on Trek'n

Melissa and Gary



Friday, May 13, 2016

Not meeting expectations


Beavers have dammed up the creek, so we moved the game camera to the path that had been worn between there and the pond. After a couple of weeks, I was sure we'd have lots of mug shots of the little orange-toothed destructivores.

But there were only masked bandits! Wet ones. Coming...

... and going.
-----
Raccoon, Procyon lotor.
For more on the game camera, click the "Game cam" label below.

Back to Pohick Bay

After spending most of last weekend’s outing settling into the coach, this weekend’s outing to Pohick Bay Regional Park (PBRP) was intended to be all about fun and R&R.  Some hiking; maybe even trying our hand at kayaking.  We had a productive day, and we did enjoy ourselves, but not in the way we thought we would.  More on that later.

PBRP offers plenty of hiking opportunities.

We got a later start than planned and didn’t get on the road until 3:30p yesterday.  The culprit was a phone call from Mui’s office to discuss next steps in the event the impending Government shutdown came to pass.  (As we all know by now, there was a last minute reprieve, so he’ll be going to work on Monday.)  Our delayed departure put us right in the middle of rush hour and it took us nearly 2½ hours to collect the coach from storage and drive the 54 miles (86 km) to PBRP.  The rain didn’t help matters at all even though it was relatively light for most of the drive.

Our chosen route is longer, but it keeps us off I-95 South.

Because of the location of the storage lot, we ended up taking a circuitous route to PBRP … thank goodness for small favors.  Had we jumped on I-95 heading south from the Beltway, we would have been stuck in a major traffic snarl that would have delayed us for who knows how long.  I have no idea how long the back-up was, but we passed vehicles at a standstill for the entire 9½ miles (15 km) or so we were on I-95 N before making the turn onto US-1.

No one’s going anywhere fast (or slow) on I-95 S; we could have been in that mess ourselves.

Just as we arrived at the campground office, the drizzle that had been accompanying us turned into a downpour.  And I mean a downpour!  While I checked us in, Mui braved the elements and unhooked the toad.  Not a fun task in the drenching rain, but at least we were both wearing full rain gear and managed to stay dry through the set-up chores.

PBRP is the site of our “roughing-it-not-so-smoothly” camping experience last November.  (Click here for the story.)  When we had to check out early due to our electrical problems, the campground manager allowed us to transfer the second night’s fee to a later date … hence this trip now.  Before leaving the campground on that occasion, we’d determined that the best big-rig-friendly site was #71 and we’d reserved it for this outing.  (FHU at a jurisdiction rate of $43.58, including tax.)

Site 71 is big-rig-friendly.

The location of the site on the corner of the road allowed us to back-in with ease … much appreciated on a soggy evening.  The relatively level site made it a cinch to bring down the jacks and deploy the slides in no time at all.  Hooking up the connections was a bit of a challenge, but only because there were puddles of water and mud around the hook-ups.  I suppose we could have waited for the rain to let up, but there was no sign of that happening anytime soon, so we just bit the bullet and got things taken care of then and there.

comfortably settled in our site, I waited until this morning to take a picture. 

A warm meal, a bit of TV-watching, a bit of reading, and before long it was time to call it a night.  Cozy under our down comforter, we were impervious to the chilly nighttime temps.  We fell asleep to the pitter-patter of the rain on the roof.

Mui was up very early this morning … like 4:30a early.  When the news broadcast proclaimed that the Government shutdown had been averted, he used the time until I got up around 6:00a to prepare the presentation he’d been hoping he would not have to give on Monday.  (It’s not the speech he dreads so much as the two-hour drive he needs to make each way just to give a one-hour presentation.)

The overcast skies and the muddy trails offered no encouragement to go out and play.  So, after breakfast, we went about a few chores in the coach … I put away some more stuff we’d brought from home; Mui installed an under-cabinet light in the prep-area of the kitchen counter.

Mui takes advantage of an existing plug in the overhead cabinet to get power for the new light.

… And let there be light.

With chores done, we went for a walk around the campground.  What felt like a long drive in last night’s miserable weather turned out to be a not-so-long walk in dry weather.  A good number of the sites on the far side of the campground were occupied — some in tents; others in RVs of all shapes and sizes — but we saw few people out and about.  On our side of the campground, we counted four 5ers and one motorhome.  Even though the motorhome is in the site next to us, there’s a good bit of distance between us.  Add in the fact that we’re angled away from each other and that makes #71 seem quite private.

Our side of the campground has just a few sites occupied.

After one more chore — installing a quick-connect on the fresh water hose to make connecting to city water easier (pressure regulator coming soon) — we had a light lunch (Mui pre-cooked a few meals at home to make life simpler over the weekend).  Then it was time to set out on our main outing of the day.

the quick-connect would have been handy when we were setting up last night.

For a while now, we’ve been thinking of buying a couple of rugs to cozy-up our living space in the coach.  We knew what size we wanted, but we didn’t care much for what we found in the stores in our neck of the woods.  I wasn’t too keen on ordering off the internet since I couldn’t be sure the colors were depicted correctly.  So, when Mui found a store in Fredericksburg that had some nice options, we decided to head down that way.  The 30-mile (48-km) drive proved fruitful.

Welcome to our living room.

A matching rug is on order for the dining area.

Mui also cut up an old carpet to make temporary covers for the inside steps.  He installed those today as well to cut down on the dirt we track inside.  Eventually we’ll get something more permanent for those steps.

Dinner tonight was rotisserie chicken from the Ft Myer commissary with whole grain rice on the side … quick and easy.  Later, we sat down to watch Lost in America, a Netflix DVD we thought we might enjoy as it’s about a couple that sets out to travel around the country in a Winnebago.  Neither one of us found the story compelling enough to finish watching the movie.  Admittedly, we only got as far as the point where the wife gambles away all their savings in Las Vegas; maybe it gets better after that.

The silver lining is that I was able to put my bonus free time to good use and write today’s blog entry.  I doubt I can post it tonight, however — there’s no wi-fi in the park and the connection with our aircard is miserably slow here.  Oh well; you win some, you lose some.

(posted 4/11/)