Wordless Wednesday: To boldly go...for the next 5 days!

Trying (and failing) to beat the heat

It is a few degrees cooler out on the river, but when the only shade is made by the bridges you go under, it's still awfully hot down here in South Texas in August.

But we weren't the only ones heading for the river in hopes of some respite yesterday. There were lots of bikers, walkers, and even some joggers along the Mission Reach of the San Antonio River, up on the trails above the stream.

Of course, we were right down on the water, where I imagine we were a little cooler than those joggers!

please excuse smudge on lens

We put in at Padre Park and then headed upstream for a while. The handy chutes that the River Authority has constructed make it fairly easy to do this: you just get out and walk/line your boat up the chute. Although after a while, as the morning heat intensifies, even these easy transits start to be a burden. (And there was one place where a naturally-made chute—a result of some spring flooding—caused us some minor problems.)

Several of us went all the way up to the chute just upstream from the Roosevelt Avenue bridge, but others were content to turn around earlier.

It was smart to do the harder work first; that meant that as it got hotter, we could just turn around and coast downstream. Yes, the chutes aren't too hard to manage going upstream, but they are a lot less work—and more fun!—when you're going down them.

As I noticed on our last trip in this area, the birds are coming back to the refreshed ecosystem in impressive numbers. The loveliest of these creatures, I think, are the Great egrets*. And I was able to get a few reasonably good pictures of these magnificent birds...

I was particularly pleased with the picture below. I took a little too long get my camera out and turned on, and the sun was so bright I couldn't see if I had the bird framed in the shot or not. I just hit maximum zoom and pointed it in what I hoped was the right direction...and I just barely caught it!

As much fun as it is to see these birds, and as nice as it is not to have to drive for an hour to paddle, I think I'll wait for cooler weather before joining another Mission Reach excursion. Maybe in October? November?

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*Thanks to Henry for insisting I be more specific than just saying "egret." And by reading the Audubon description, I learned that what we had always called "common" or "American" egrets (we have a very old edition of Birds of North America) are now called "Great egrets." A much more fitting name for these regal-looking birds! They might not be rare (I saw at least half a dozen yesterday) but they certainly don't look "common."

On top of the world

Blogging about our time in Colorado, when here we're happy to see the high temperature at only 95, is almost a torture. But it's also a pleasant reminder of cooler days. 

And better scenery...

My last recreational activity before heading home was a very enjoyable hike along the Continental Divide near Monarch Pass.

I have blogged about these vantage points before, and have hiked this particular trail more times than I can count. But it's always a delight. 

And it's so easy! You just park at the Monarch Crest parking lot and take off walking south along the trail. You can walk as far as you feel like walking (or, rather, half as far as you feel like walking) then turn around and come back. With scenery like this, you certainly don't mind going over the same ground twice.

We walked as far as Mt. Peck, probably a couple of miles, and at one time thought we'd take a sidetrip and climb it, but decided to be a little lazy and just stop at this saddle, where I took a 360° video, to try and capture the heavenly view. I don't think it does the place justice, but you might get a small idea of what it feels like to be on the top of the world.

Strolling along the trail, I became rather taken with the flowers and tried taking some ground's-eye-views of them...

...as well as some more conventional shots...

It was great that there were still so many flowers blooming in spite of it being almost August. Which, in the high country, is really the end of summer. The unusual amount of rain we'd been having might have been the reason for the profusion.

But no matter how often you look down at the flowers, your gaze is always brought back up and out to the spectacular mountains. From this trail they seem to blanket the whole world!

These two peeping over a lower hill have an especially interesting story to go along with their rugged beauty. On the right is Mt. Ouray (climbed by some of our family members many years ago) and on the left Mt. Chipeta. They are named for a Ute Indian couple that are well-known figures in Colorado history. I think it's pretty nice to think of them being together, in spirit, anyway, forever. 

Or at least until these mountains erode to the sea. Which, I think, pretty much counts as forever in most frames of reference. At least I know they'll still be there when I go back next summer!

Wordless Wednesday: the very tail end of the day

Colorado miscellany

I had a very nice time in Colorado after my California adventures, but not much blog-worthy happened during that refreshing, cool, two weeks.

Visiting with old friends, working a very challenging puzzle, talking over old times, etc., is great fun, but not of much interest to general readership. Here are some highlights, though...

Babysitting my adorable great-niece involved a lot of throwing rocks into the stream; here she is taking some pre-gathered rocks from Grammy prior to another fusillade

Though already late in the summer, there were still lots of nice flowers around

We happened into Salida on the day of a big bike race...

...where our main chore was running a shuttle for the boys to take a brief paddle

The time in the mountains was something more of an adventure than we're used to, since we had very little water service almost the whole time. Kudos to our good-sport friends who not only still came up to visit, but who brought us enough potable water that we didn't have to make emergency runs to the stream. But we all decided that we take running water much, too much, for granted in our normal lives.

Very little water came out of the pipes, but for several days during our visit we had nice rain showers up in the mountains, like this one, at the photographically perfect time to catch some sunset color:

We don't begrudge this moisture, since the whole state is still in drought and fire danger is almost omnipresent. This summer, with more than usual rains, has been much better on that front than last year.

And, as it turned out, Henry and I had absolutely perfect weather for our only big hike (which wasn't all that big) of the trip. I'll show you some pictures from that activity next time.

Wordless Wednesday: woman eats 10-year-old Spam & lives to blog the tale

"Home" to San Francisco

I have been very remiss about blogging since I got home and I heartily apologize. 

My only excuse is the ungodly hot temperatures I've been having to endure here...they really sap you of all energy for tasks physical and mental. All I've felt like doing after work is napping, showering (repeatedly), watching TV (I've started watching Dollhouse and re-watching Deep Space Nine, and we're almost through the first season of Deadwood) and listening to interviews on NPR and elsewhere with the Breaking Bad folks, in eager anticipation of tonight's opening of the final half season.

All very fine, pleasant, passive activities, that require less mental energy than finishing up my California saga. But I'm determined to take care of that today.

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So, enough with excuses.

After our memorable drive down California's Highway 1, we spent our last night in the Golden State in Novato, just north of San Francisco and as close as we could get without breaking the bank. The location allowed us, after figuring out how to buy a toll pass to cross the Golden Gate Bridge, to have a nice chunk of time in the city before heading to our various airports.

We had already decided that we wanted to spend most of that time in the Cable Car Museum. On our previous quick visit, a week ago, Joan and I had really enjoyed the San Francisco Railway Museum, a tiny jewel that just happened to be a block from our hotel. Where we learned the difference between cable cars, streetcars, and trolleys. (Please don't ask me what it is now, though!)

The knowledgeable and informative folks working there also told us about their larger, even more interesting sister museum, and we hoped we'd have time to see it.

(As it turned out, we could have spent even more time there, or perhaps somewhere else in this beautiful city, since our flight was—again—substantially delayed. Argggghhh!)

Of course everyone knows at least something about San Francisco's cable cars, if only from old commercials...

But it's something else again to learn about how this ingenious method of pulling people up and down the city's very steep hills actually works, and to see where the cables are actually pulled, around their gigantic pulleys...

Cable central

cable slot out on the street

car in action

...not to mention to learn more about their fascinating history. It reminded me of the London Transport Museum, which was also really fascinating. You don't think too much about how you get around from point A to point B, do you? But it's always something of a little miracle and it always has an interesting history.

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The Museum also has the benefit of being in a really lovely part of the city, Nob Hill, so when walking back to where we'd parked (yes! we found a parking place in downtown San Francisco!) we took a little time to admire the architecture of the neighborhood.

the Fairmont Hotel

the Mark, minus its Top

a handsome fountain in Huntington Park

a pretty unidentified building

railing outside another intriguing unidentified building

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Although both of these photos were taken on our way out of town, I couldn't close a post about San Francisco without some images of its most iconic structure.

Having something of a love/fear relationship with bridges, I'm always awed by their construction and appearance, especially when they're as gorgeous as this one.

It was difficult to leave this fabulous city after such a short visit, but relaxation in the mountains didn't sound like a bad idea, after our very full and rewarding California vacation.

I took something of a break from picture-taking while I was finishing up my time off in Colorado, but I did take some and we did bestir ourselves for a few activities, so I will try not to be so tardy in getting those posts up. But since school starts soon and work will be getting more hectic—plus the temperatures show no sign of cooling off...well, I'm getting my excuses out there in advance.

Looking down along the coast

No matter how spectacular the scenic vistas might be along a road such as California's highway 1, it always pays to, at least occasionally, bring your focus in a bit and take a look at the micro-scenery, too.

Anyone who's looked even a bit beyond the San Francisco skyline, either north or south, has seen the rolling hills covered with golden grass...

...this is a typical scene that I happened to snap on our "Earthquake" hike at Point Reyes, showing what that grass looks like close up.

Since Henry wasn't with us and he loves taking pictures of dead trees, I couldn't pass up this photogenic specimen, spotted along the Point Reyes shoreline...

We weren't through with live trees, either, after our magical time in the redwoods, although the trees right on the coast aren't nearly as big or as numerous. But on one short hike out to the cliff-edge, there were some lovely conifers...

Not all of the micro-scenery was flora, though; there was plenty of fauna as well...

an astonishing number of sea lions on a convenient beach

an alarmingly large banana slug! spotted at the side of a road in Point Reyes

But I admit to being partial to flowers and most of the photos I took when looking down are of these lovely California residents:

They're not just pretty by themselves, but they also make great framing elements for shots of some of the larger pieces of scenery, too...

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I'm just about finished with my California posts. All that's left is our brief return visit to San Francisco to catch our flights home. That's next up.

What else is in a redwood forest?

As magnificent and overwhelming as the sequoia sempervirens are in coastal redwoods forests, if that's all there was the groves wouldn't be nearly as interesting or photogenic.

Some of the most fascinating items in the forest are the smaller things that grow on or around the big trees.

Like the mushrooms you sometimes see (as on the right).

Or the flowers and berries that manage to thrive, despite the small amount of sunlight that filters through the boughs of their larger neighbors...

One of the prettiest plants we saw was the redwood sorrels. Their clover-like leaves provided a lovely contrast with the massive tree trunks, and they especially seemed to like the downed trees that I loved taking pictures of.

We saw a very few little buds and blooms on some of these plants, and wondered if we'd missed their

flowering, or come to early for it. Or, if they just put out a small number of blooms each summer.

Even without blooms, they're very pretty plants. The bright green of the topsides of their leaves is contrasted with a maroon-y-purple underside. I hope the photo on the left gives you some idea of the beauty of this colorful ground (and trunk) cover.

But of course the trees still provide the most photogenic elements in the forest, but not always just the sheer mass of their trunks and upper branches.

Here are some more mushroom-type growths I spotted...

this is a closeup of the delicate white growths you see in the photo just above

Downed trees, as I've mentioned often, provided some of the most gorgeous photo opps...

But the standing trees also display some great micro-ecologies that beg to be photographed...

...not to mention the many burls that, not surprisingly, adorned many of the trees...

Some of these growths could easily be mistaken for animals, or at least totems, especially given the magical vibe the groves give off...

Which brings me to my last category of forest "microscenery." Especially in the very old parts of the forests that we visited, where there was lots of moss, we "saw" all kinds of strange creatures and structures...

a dozing monkey

a downed log being slowly enveloped

a more snake-like protuberance (or is it "Stumpy," from Tremors?)

wild boar? unicorn? a yacht's prow?

But no matter how old the forest, there's always new growth to notice and celebrate:

And, of course, photograph!

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Next up: "micro" scenery along the coast.