Sunday, October 28, 2012
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Death Valley :: Scottys Castle
Be forewarned – this post is graphic intensive – lots of photos!
Thursday, March 8th - - Continuing on with today's excursion, it was only a few miles further north to Scotty's Castle. Walter Scott was a shyster. Using the lure of untold millions of dollars worth of gold in his mine, he duped wealthy business men into financing his imaginary mine – though they didn't know the mine really didn't exist! He eventually incurred the favor of a wealthy business man from Chicago. Albert Johnson, in poor health found another kind of wealth from the dry desert air and an escape from the busy life he led. He enjoyed Scotty's company and the tales he told, whether true or not.
In the early 1920s Mr. Johnson began construction of a vacation home – his wife didn't care much for camping and sleeping on the ground but she enjoyed being in the desert. Within a short time, the palatial house became known as “Scotty's Castle” and the Johnson's went along with it all, perhaps getting a great deal of pleasure in the ruse they were playing on friends and guests who visited the ranch and listened to the stories told by Scotty.
You can read more about the story behind Scotty's Castle on the Death Valley website. It's a fun and interesting story!
As you are driving in from the south, through pretty much barren land, nestled in a small valley at the end of Death Valley National Park there is a little oasis, likely the only potable water in that end of the valley, and nearby is the site upon which Mr. Johnson chose to build his little house.
The courtyard between the two buildings with the clock tower in the background.
Inscribed above the door is “Death Valley Ranch” which is the name the Johnson's gave the place.
The interior of the house is dimly lit, the windows are covered with the original draperies some of which were made of leather. The draperies are closed to block out the sunlight and help preserve the furnishings. Oddly enough, photographs are allowed to be taken inside – even with flash!
The main entry-room was impressive with its floor to ceiling fireplace spanning two floors. The second floor has a balcony that goes completely around the entry-room.
The tour guides dress in period costumes from the 1930s, which is when the Johnson's opened their home to tour groups to help pay for the upkeep of the ranch.
Decorative tiles over the kitchen sink.
The kitchen stove, with copper cooking utensils. The little white appliance on the left of the shelf above the stove is a toaster. Their vacation may have been in a remote area, but the Johnson's had the latest and most modern features.
A floor level view of that fireplace, taken from the kitchen doorway.
A corner fireplace in one of the guest rooms upstairs.
The music room. To the left was a long alcove with a player organ. As part of the tour, they turn it on and play one song. It was beautiful and quite loud.
The elaborate ceiling of the music room. The cables are part of the original construction, used to keep the walls from bulging outward.
A beautiful stained glass window in the west wall of the music room.
Looking up the spiral staircase that leads to the top of the tower, which can be seen on the right side of the photo below.
A front view of Scotty's Castle. The pool in front goes the entire length of the house, and more. The tour guide said it had never been filled with water. If you look closely you can see a cross on the hill above and behind the house. Scotty's grave is to the left of the cross, he died in 1954.
I was amused by the “old prospector” weather vane atop the front tower, probably depicting Scotty on one of his legendary mining expeditions.
Thursday, March 8th - - Continuing on with today's excursion, it was only a few miles further north to Scotty's Castle. Walter Scott was a shyster. Using the lure of untold millions of dollars worth of gold in his mine, he duped wealthy business men into financing his imaginary mine – though they didn't know the mine really didn't exist! He eventually incurred the favor of a wealthy business man from Chicago. Albert Johnson, in poor health found another kind of wealth from the dry desert air and an escape from the busy life he led. He enjoyed Scotty's company and the tales he told, whether true or not.
In the early 1920s Mr. Johnson began construction of a vacation home – his wife didn't care much for camping and sleeping on the ground but she enjoyed being in the desert. Within a short time, the palatial house became known as “Scotty's Castle” and the Johnson's went along with it all, perhaps getting a great deal of pleasure in the ruse they were playing on friends and guests who visited the ranch and listened to the stories told by Scotty.
You can read more about the story behind Scotty's Castle on the Death Valley website. It's a fun and interesting story!
As you are driving in from the south, through pretty much barren land, nestled in a small valley at the end of Death Valley National Park there is a little oasis, likely the only potable water in that end of the valley, and nearby is the site upon which Mr. Johnson chose to build his little house.
The courtyard between the two buildings with the clock tower in the background.
Inscribed above the door is “Death Valley Ranch” which is the name the Johnson's gave the place.
The interior of the house is dimly lit, the windows are covered with the original draperies some of which were made of leather. The draperies are closed to block out the sunlight and help preserve the furnishings. Oddly enough, photographs are allowed to be taken inside – even with flash!
The main entry-room was impressive with its floor to ceiling fireplace spanning two floors. The second floor has a balcony that goes completely around the entry-room.
The tour guides dress in period costumes from the 1930s, which is when the Johnson's opened their home to tour groups to help pay for the upkeep of the ranch.
Decorative tiles over the kitchen sink.
The kitchen stove, with copper cooking utensils. The little white appliance on the left of the shelf above the stove is a toaster. Their vacation may have been in a remote area, but the Johnson's had the latest and most modern features.
A floor level view of that fireplace, taken from the kitchen doorway.
A corner fireplace in one of the guest rooms upstairs.
The music room. To the left was a long alcove with a player organ. As part of the tour, they turn it on and play one song. It was beautiful and quite loud.
The elaborate ceiling of the music room. The cables are part of the original construction, used to keep the walls from bulging outward.
A beautiful stained glass window in the west wall of the music room.
Looking up the spiral staircase that leads to the top of the tower, which can be seen on the right side of the photo below.
A front view of Scotty's Castle. The pool in front goes the entire length of the house, and more. The tour guide said it had never been filled with water. If you look closely you can see a cross on the hill above and behind the house. Scotty's grave is to the left of the cross, he died in 1954.
I was amused by the “old prospector” weather vane atop the front tower, probably depicting Scotty on one of his legendary mining expeditions.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Winter!
As the season wraps up for the remaining climbing rangers here at Mount Rainier, we would like to thank everyone who came out to enjoy Mount Rainier this year. Whether you were climbing, skiing, camping or just day hiking into the alpine, we hope your trip was enjoyable, even if it was during one of those seemingly frequent stretches of stormy weather.
Remember the park doesn't close, just some roads and buildings do. So if you want to come out and enjoy this wonderful area over the winter please do! The road to Paradise is maintained year round and open, weather permitting, throughout the winter. The other roads in the park close as the snow comes, but for the hardy few who aren't turned off by the longer approach these more remote areas of Rainier can lead to some incredible climbing and skiing opportunities all winter long.
Stay tuned to this blog throughout the winter for updates (although less frequent) about conditions on Rainier and happenings related to climbing. Check out the route conditions pages for pertinent winter information about the mountain and high camps before you come out to climb.
Have a safe and enjoyable winter!
Remember the park doesn't close, just some roads and buildings do. So if you want to come out and enjoy this wonderful area over the winter please do! The road to Paradise is maintained year round and open, weather permitting, throughout the winter. The other roads in the park close as the snow comes, but for the hardy few who aren't turned off by the longer approach these more remote areas of Rainier can lead to some incredible climbing and skiing opportunities all winter long.
Stay tuned to this blog throughout the winter for updates (although less frequent) about conditions on Rainier and happenings related to climbing. Check out the route conditions pages for pertinent winter information about the mountain and high camps before you come out to climb.
Have a safe and enjoyable winter!
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Daydreams
Cycling through the city yesterday, I almost felt as if I was being shown one of those videos of "How Boston Could Be 5 Years from Now"... except it was real.
Passing through a stretch of the Charles River trail, it seemed that almost everyone sitting by the water had arrived there by bicycle. And the majority of the bikes looked to be personalised and well-ridden - rather than the sort of bicycle that is either a rental, or ridden once in a while on a sunny weekend. The velo-atmosphere is distinctly different from last summer.
Having crossed the BU Bridge, which is now under construction, I then looked at it from the trail and thought about the Charles River Bridge Campaign that I had mentioned in a previous post. This campaign aims to ensure that along with the scheduled repairs to the bridges, practical improvements will also be made that will make the bridges more walkable, more cyclable, and generally more enjoyable. The possibility of benches and shady promenades was mentioned.
Can the huge, dangerous bridges over the Charles really be made to resembles these lovely smaller ones? That would be utter Utopia.
And Utopia is not necessarily impossible.
At least the bicycles of Boston are hopeful.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
More Petzl Nomic pick feed back?
This from Petzl America recently:
"- We are NOT bringing back the Cascade pick for the Nomic. Perhaps this rumor is based on availability of the Cascade pick for the previous generation Quark, which is still in production.
- Same story for the 1st generation Griprest. We have no plans to bringthis one back, although there still may be some stock out there which could be feeding these rumors.
- There is no new Griprest on the horizon, however, the latest (post* Quality Alert) generation of the Nomic Griprest will fit the 1st Gen Nomic."
The still available 1st gen Quark Cascade picks can be easily cut down and used in any version of the Nomic for those that preferless "stick" water ice pick. And for durable dry tooling the old 4mm T rated Quad pick will work with little effortas well. Quad is my choice in the alpine if a lot of rock is involved. Might be better tothink of the Nomic as having 4 different picks available directly from Petzl.
Ally's originalQuad pick in a 1st gen. Nomic with a CT hammer. Winter of '10/11in Chamonix.
Either way easy enough to copy the Nomic blade pattern and reshape the lower back section of the older Quark picks to fit the Nomic. Only adding the clip inhole, if required, is difficult. The Quark Cascade pick tooth and back edge patterns are exact copies of the older Nomic Cascade picks. A few minutes work with a grinder and files. Add a spacer,bolt the new pick in and you are ready to rock!
Older Quark Cascade pick on the bottom, Nomic Cascade on top.
Obvious where you need to remove metal on the earlier picks to fit.
"- We are NOT bringing back the Cascade pick for the Nomic. Perhaps this rumor is based on availability of the Cascade pick for the previous generation Quark, which is still in production.
- Same story for the 1st generation Griprest. We have no plans to bringthis one back, although there still may be some stock out there which could be feeding these rumors.
- There is no new Griprest on the horizon, however, the latest (post* Quality Alert) generation of the Nomic Griprest will fit the 1st Gen Nomic."
The still available 1st gen Quark Cascade picks can be easily cut down and used in any version of the Nomic for those that preferless "stick" water ice pick. And for durable dry tooling the old 4mm T rated Quad pick will work with little effortas well. Quad is my choice in the alpine if a lot of rock is involved. Might be better tothink of the Nomic as having 4 different picks available directly from Petzl.
Ally's originalQuad pick in a 1st gen. Nomic with a CT hammer. Winter of '10/11in Chamonix.
Either way easy enough to copy the Nomic blade pattern and reshape the lower back section of the older Quark picks to fit the Nomic. Only adding the clip inhole, if required, is difficult. The Quark Cascade pick tooth and back edge patterns are exact copies of the older Nomic Cascade picks. A few minutes work with a grinder and files. Add a spacer,bolt the new pick in and you are ready to rock!
Older Quark Cascade pick on the bottom, Nomic Cascade on top.
Obvious where you need to remove metal on the earlier picks to fit.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
No Mojitos at Winkel van Sinkel
Blondine and I had lunch at Winkel van Sinkel yesterday Saturday. Blondine had the salmon bagel while I had some omelette. They were OK--4 stars out of 5.
The meet up is not just for our usual girly lunch update but to also further excite ourselves (now that sounds like this sentence needs some censoring, lol) for our up and coming CUBA TRIP which will happen in 2 weeks’ time. Yep, 2 more weeks!!! Flights have been booked 2 months ago. Hotels have been booked last week as well. Right now I am checking out the rental car.
Winkel van Sinkel, quite busy during lunch.
A quick trip to the WC (toilet). This is the basement of the restaurant that used to be a warehouse exiting to the wharf. In the old times, businessmen trade their wares by coming to Utrecht on boats and loading the wares on the below the street level wharfs.
Nevertheless we are bursting with desolate anticipation. WE CANNOT WAIT TO GO TO EXOTIC CUBA!
You know, Blondine and I have promised ourselves that we will go to Cuba before the country changes. Cuba right now is time warped. In the 50’s. We all know that Fidel Castro won’t live forever, so who knows, before we know it, Cuba might look like Miami? Oh dear, please no. So NOW is the TIME TO GO.
Now, we chose to meet up for lunch at Winkel van Sinkel because we’d love to have some Cuban introduction: MOJITOS. Trivia: Did you know that Mojitos originally came from Cuba?
The Winkel van Sinkel restaurant on Utrecht’s Oudegracht is famous for its salsa dancing and Caribbean cocktails. However, since the restaurant was packed with diners for lunch, they had nobody to concoct the cocktails for us. The waiter probably thought--Silly girls ordering Mojitos at this early hour. Haha.
Let’s just say that Sauvignon Blanc saved the day.
The facade of Winkel van Sinkel at night. Foto from http://themeet140.com/
Tonight, we might check out the free market and Queen’s Night celebrations (Koninginenacht) in Utrecht Centrum.
Visit Period: April
The meet up is not just for our usual girly lunch update but to also further excite ourselves (now that sounds like this sentence needs some censoring, lol) for our up and coming CUBA TRIP which will happen in 2 weeks’ time. Yep, 2 more weeks!!! Flights have been booked 2 months ago. Hotels have been booked last week as well. Right now I am checking out the rental car.
Winkel van Sinkel, quite busy during lunch.A quick trip to the WC (toilet). This is the basement of the restaurant that used to be a warehouse exiting to the wharf. In the old times, businessmen trade their wares by coming to Utrecht on boats and loading the wares on the below the street level wharfs.Nevertheless we are bursting with desolate anticipation. WE CANNOT WAIT TO GO TO EXOTIC CUBA!
You know, Blondine and I have promised ourselves that we will go to Cuba before the country changes. Cuba right now is time warped. In the 50’s. We all know that Fidel Castro won’t live forever, so who knows, before we know it, Cuba might look like Miami? Oh dear, please no. So NOW is the TIME TO GO.
Now, we chose to meet up for lunch at Winkel van Sinkel because we’d love to have some Cuban introduction: MOJITOS. Trivia: Did you know that Mojitos originally came from Cuba?
The Winkel van Sinkel restaurant on Utrecht’s Oudegracht is famous for its salsa dancing and Caribbean cocktails. However, since the restaurant was packed with diners for lunch, they had nobody to concoct the cocktails for us. The waiter probably thought--Silly girls ordering Mojitos at this early hour. Haha.
Let’s just say that Sauvignon Blanc saved the day.
The facade of Winkel van Sinkel at night. Foto from http://themeet140.com/Tonight, we might check out the free market and Queen’s Night celebrations (Koninginenacht) in Utrecht Centrum.
Visit Period: April
Bicycle Quarterly: The Art and Science of Velo-Fetishism
[Edited to add: Bicycle Quarterly became a sponsor of this website in December . This post was written 1 year prior to that time.]As a holiday gift, I received a subscription to Bicycle Quarterly and a set of back-issues containing articles I had been wanting to read for some time. The Winter issue and the older set arrived a little while ago, and I have been in a BQ-induced trance ever since. To describe this publication is challenging, as it defies easy classification. Part quasi-scholarly journal, part illustrated adventure book, something like this could only have been created by somebody with the mind of the relentlessly tenacious scientist and the spirit of the boy explorer. The result is wild, spectacular, engaging and maddening all at once - which is probably more emotion than any periodical has gotten out of me, ever. For that alone, the Bicycle Quarterly is worth every penny of its $30/year subscription fee.
Bicycle Quarterly focuses on randonneuring and cyclo-touring, and on theclassic and vintage bicycles designed for these forms of cycling. Its content includes elaborate bicycle reviews, detailed historical articles, technical articles on frame building and ride quality, travel stories, book and product reviews, and much more in the same vein. But to leave the description at that would be to understate the unique nature of this magazine. First, there are the hand-drawn black and white illustrations. And then, there is the inimitable narrative voice of Jan Heine - both the publisher of Bicycle Quarterly and the author of most of the articles. Dr. Heine writes like a research scientist who, without the pressure of having to publish in peer-reviewed academic journals, has given free reign to his poetic side. With scientific phraseology interwoven with florid descriptions and subjective assertions, it is like some fantastic tapestry that draws me in with the eccentricity of its patterns.
To be sure, the Bicycle Quarterly contains a wealth of carefully researched information, which I find invaluable to my own learning experience. The author is detail-oriented and analytical, conducting in-depth research and getting to the very heart of the matter in every topic he explores. In particular, I have found the rare historical information, and the many articles examining the geometries of classic bicycles extremely useful.The information provided is not something that can easily, if at all, be found online, and so it is a priceless resource. I will be storing these back issues carefully and using them as reference material in the future.At the same time, Dr. Heine has a very distinctperspective, which must be kept in mind when reading his assertions, reviews and critiques. He favours a specific kind of (1950s French randonneuring) bicycle design and is convinced of the superiority of this design to a degree that, in my view, makes him deeply biased. He also has a number of theories - such as that on "planing," on the virtues of low-trail geometry, and on the superiority of flexible frames - which he tends to treat as fact, or at least as self-fulfilling prophecies. As a trained researcher myself (psychology and neuroscience), I cannot agree that the tests and reviews printed in Bicycle Quarterly are "scientific" - Yet they are presented that way to readers, and that is my biggest criticism of the magazine. Bicycle Quarterly has much to offer - as long as the author's assertions are not taken as gospel by the eager novice. It is the art and (pseudo-)science of velo-fetishism at its best, and I am addicted.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Silver Springs Nature Theme Park
Today we visited Silver Springs. This is one place we planned to visit since we arrived in this area. We were going to buy a season pass, along with Rich and Donna, and at the last minute Donna saw something on their website. They were in the process of changing ownership, and along with that they were reducing their attractions down to their glass boat rides. So we decided not to buy the season pass and just to make a trip here sometime. We were going to visit yesterday and went to Ocala NF instead. We did make it today, which was the final day at the park before it did change hands.
The employees that were working today were understandably emotional over it being the last day. One employee told us that over 300 people lost their job due to its closing. I wish we had visited this interesting place while it was in full operation, because it looked like a great place. There appeared to be animals, a water park, shows and some rides. As the website said, there is not much there at this point except the glass boat rides. The trip was worth it even with that being the only attraction. The really neat part about a glass boat is that everyone can have a front row seat.
The other neat thing is you can see just how clear the water is and just how deep the water is. It makes for a really beautiful ride.
The springs pump out 550 million gallons of water a day. It is enough to support New York City.
We saw two alligators while on the boat ride, and lots of turtles.
After our boat ride, we ate lunch there and then walked around to see the rest of the park. The rest of the park was beautiful also.
I'm so glad we did make it before it became a state park. It was nice to feel like we were a part of its history. I'm excited to see what they will do with it once it becomes a state park.
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