Hiking the Bald Mountain and Discovering Dandruff

Today I took a hike up Bald Mountain. It is located in the Glastonberry wilderness next to the Appalachian Trail and rises to around 2,800 feet with a 1,600 feet elevation gain from the trailhead. It is 2.5 miles to the top and the runoff made the first mile of trail quite muddy, something that Loki, my canine companion, decided to utilize by walking down the middle of any puddle. It probably helped him keep cool, it was 85 degrees and 50% humidity.
Along the way I ran into this guy, not sure exactly what species but he was about 3 inches long. The blue spike was brilliantly colored, something the picture doesn't do justice.
So the commen nomenclature in Bennington for Bald Mountain is The White Rocks, named for the large exposed white rock face on the western slope. During this climb I learned that it is white because the mountain is mainly marble. The chunk in the shot above was one of a multitude that covered the trail. Note, marble when wet is slippery.Just another cool rock, I wish the focus had turned out better. Poor Loki was suffering towards the summit, he is a bit porky and it was damn hot so I let him set the pace and kept stopping to let him breathe.This at the summit, the ground is white with marble powder, rather surreal and the reason for the title of this post. The pines there only grew to about 6 feet at the most so I stood on the pile of rocks to get a view.
Self portriate with the auto timer. I had my camelbak with me and drained all 50 oz. by the time I got back to the car.This is the view from the top. It was hazy so it didn't photograph well but it overlooked the Green Mountains and it was stunning. I took a seat and called my girlfriend Heather to share with her the exerience and as I am sitting there two backpackers walked up. Sure I am sitting on the summit of a moutain on my damn cell phone. Silly. Loki was very tired and going through heat exhaustion so we decended quickly to find some drinkable creeks. It was a good hike, I want to go up the other side so I can get to those white rocks and take some shots there.

Because you know it is true. I made this for fun in the peak of procrastination about other projects. The inspiration? Well simply this car was parked out of my apartment in Pittsburgh for the year plus I lived there...

What happens when you soak a Phoenix

After a couple days of insanity running around for my move up to Burlington I took today and its beautiful weather as a sign and decided to put the Phoenix back in the water at Lake Paran. It was quiet when I first got there.
This is the dam at the end of Lake Paran. After all the rain it was running strong. It is a small lake and has a serious problem with this invasive seaweed. Almost half is filled almost to the surface with the stuff and I had to be careful not to catch my paddles on it.
The launch is really nice and I did a couple trips out and around. I am getting more comfortable with the balance of the boat and when I would get close to shore I would try my harder paddle strokes and turns while tilting the hull. Once I relaxed and settled it was quite nice and dragonflies kept landing on the bow. I also saw a turtle surface for air, which was a nice surprise. Believe it or not this was on purpose. Knowing how tippy this is I wanted to do some more tests with worst case scenarios. I flipped and filled it as much as I could and tried wet reentry to see if I could paddle it filled with water. It was slow and ponderous but still functional. And with it filled with water and therefor lower, the kayak was notably more stable. I tried a partial flip with me in it to see what it would be like getting out of it inverted. I have my hands on ground in case I needed it and I discovered that it was incredibly awkward experience. I am going to practice more when I have someone there to flip it back up in case I get stuck. Over all I had a great time and all my clothing is hanging all over the room drying.

Beginnings...

You can always begin in the middle, anyone who has had to face the trials and tribulations of life knows that sometimes you gamble, sometimes you lose and have to start again. The greatest danger is being taught as a child this is a bad thing, that failure is the end of days. In truth the most important lessons are learned from mistakes and the greatest successes come from failures. History may only record the successes but there are many that can testify that while necessity is the mother of invention, mistakes are how you get there. Some of the most important advances in science and common useful items (x-rays and post-it notes anyone?) are products of mistakes.

Today I struggled with finding a temporary job to earn me enough money to move to the place I want to be, seemingly losing the temporary job I already had because times are tough, searching for apartments and jobs in Burlington and resolving a thousand other issues. If I faced each of these problems and defeats as indicative of a large failure of character then by the end of each day my world be destroyed. Instead by taking each in stride and moving onto the next step it become part of a larger and more powerful process.

Time has taught me that almost consistently my expectations and predictions bears almost no relation to what has happened. So what I try to take from that is to instead focus on making my day amazing and empowering. With these thousands of little beads I can make a remarkable life.

The Magnet Moves

As I write this I am in Buffalo on the way back to Bennington. The last couple of weeks time has been in short supply so this is the first I have had time to blog about it.

There are points where you are presented with obvious choices and breaks that begin a distinct new chapter in your life. For me there was going to Vassar, moving to California to live with my sister, then moving to Pittsburgh to be with friends. Now my options are fairly simple: on one hand I could wait for my job to be eliminated because of State budget cuts and start searching for new work in Pittsburgh and saving up to move back to Vermont while accruing more debt in the interim, or just simply go now. My parents were going to be in the neighborhood at the beginning of July so the choice was immediate and surprisingly easy. Within a single day I had gone from trying to move next spring to moving in three weeks.

It is remarkable to think of the experience I have had in Pittsburgh, from wide-eyed innocence upon my arrival to a complicated and hard engagement which I ended I have come to a certain kind of maturity here. And the friends I have made are amazing. I held a going-away party and invited people from work and from the Northside and this is the result. Put a bunch of artist together anywhere....

So I am going back to live with my parents for a couple of months in Bennington to make enough money to move up to Burlington. Joining me in that windy city (okay, let's be honest, it is a large town) will be my girlfriend Heather, a vital part of this next chapter. It should be an interesting journey no matter what happens. My eyes are wide yet again but rather with potential than innocence.

Your Home is Your Castle

And apparently I have collected quite an arsenal. This is what was just in my bedroom. At least the samurai sword isn't sharp. And what is even crazier is that I have more in the basement. What is wrong with me?

NYC and Emiko Crazypants

When your Japanese friend from college ends up back stateside for a reunion, you go dammit. And you tell her you can't just to keep it interesting. So Conor and I headed late Tuesday night to NYC. Halfway across the state we ran into a crazy thunderstorm that lit up the clouds. It all seemed to be cloud to cloud strikes and they were happening with a rapidness that neither of us had seen before. I tried taking video and pictures, both only moderately successful given it was night and in a moving car. It was stunningly beautiful. When we finally got into the city it was dark and foggy. This is the picture I took of the Empire State Building as we drove through to get to Kew Gardens.
The next day we went to pick up and surprise Emiko. It was brilliant as, she stood mouth agape at the door. Very satisfying. After parking in Union Square we went down to Battery Park and looked for the Staten Island Ferry. Seemed like a good way to see New York with a different perspective for free. That actually isn't the ferry we took but Emiko seemed to compulsively taking pictures so there it is.Views from the ferry. I have been in NYC many times, but this was a new experience, and the fact it was free was almost astounding. You get so close to the Statue of Liberty to see the line that snakes around it and helps you appreciate the fact you are not IN it. This was from the second level deck on the bow. It was an excellent spot to stand and take pictures. The Coast Guard even came by and escorted us for a little bit.On the return trip we saw this schooner. We never got close enough to read the name but it was beautiful to watch is sail past downtown. These are busy shipping lanes and it struck me just how dangerous it would be to kayak in these waters.We walked a lot around SoHo and Downtown and some point getting lost looking for good New York style pizza we came across this building with a wall of blue and these strange I-beams sticking out of it.We finally found pizza at Two Boots. It was quite good, mine was called "The Bird" and involved Buffalo chicken and cheese. Conor noticed my unsubtle picture-taking. We tried to go see the Intrepid and all the cool planes it carries but we got there just as it was closing its doors for the day. This was after getting of the Subway a stop too early necessitating a 10 block walk. We took the taxi to the next stop.Just a cool building in SoHo. It looked like apartments to either side, or perhaps that was me wanting them to be.

After all of this we went to see Fuerza Bruta at Union Square. It was a stunning show, a mix of theater, dance, and crazy. I am not going to even try to explain it, but suffice to say that when I walked out I called one of my friends and told him to buy tickets. That moment. No questions. And sell his car and kill the cat and sell it as "street tuna" if that was necessary to pay for the tickets. Maybe even if it wasn't. I wrote some thoughts about it later on at the bar, but in truth I will just say it was the most unique theater experience I have ever had and I will go see any show this company produces because of that. And I walked out of the theater at the end of the hour performance soaked and smiling ear to ear.