Thanksgiving from the top of Mount Mansfield

This was the view from 4,030 feet on Thanksgiving Day. That is right, those are clouds at eye level. The hike was up the Sunset Ridge Trail, around 3 miles in length and around 2,600 feet in elevation gain. This is looking up a the Chin summit, one of a couple on Mount Mansfield. The summits are named after the parts of a face because some drunk mountaineer thought it looked like a profile.
The clouds would come in and then departs with strong gusts of wind. It was like being inside a pillow, white all around and this eerie silence.
Heather, bundled against the cold, taking a picture of me. I will post those shots later once I have loaded the camera into this computer.
This is looking towards Camel's Hump. Just surreal. These were all shot with my dinky iPhone camera. It was a beautiful hike and a great Thanksgiving.

Just up for a day

Made my bed and slept in it too!

Yep, made a bedframe with Heather this weekend for our foam mattress. Very strong design carefully constructed the easiest and cheapest way possible. So, materials cost about $38 including paint that has not yet been applied and it took about 6 hours to construct.

Halfway up a Long Way

Even though fall foliage has started to pass... wait, no because fall foliage has started to pass this Sunday was spent climbing up a pleasantly deserted Long Trail that crosses over Camel's Hump east of Burlington. It was beautiful, this was one of the trailside rivers.

This is MY island...
A view, not even close to the top of anything.
At this point we weren't sure how far we were in and given how old my map was and that we were on a new Long Trail leg. At this point we were about 1.5 hours or so and then we found this viewpoint after a struggle up a steep part of the trail.
Yep, that is Camel's Hump, well over 2 miles away. We only had about 3 hours of daylight left so we decided to turn back.
On the decent the leafless trees provided nice views of some of the surrounding landscape. The overall estimated stats: 2 hours and 40 minutes, approximately 1,500 ft elevation gain over approximately 2.5 miles (5 miles round trip) .

Once Again the Phoenix Descends

Shelburne Museum in the London Fog

Shelburne Museum, for those who don't know, is located just south of Burlington, actually south of South Burlington as well. It isn't a traditional museum with a single building and a collection, it is instead holds a multitude of replica and transported building from all over the northeast on a large tract of land. There is a certain life-and-times-in-the-Northeast-over-the-last-couple-of-hundred-years theme, but not exclusively. It has a variety of buildings and exhibits to say the least.

This is the steamboat Ticonderoga, it sits on a drydock and is beautifully restored. I loved this as a kid and still do.
Their print shop is impressive and we got a private tour from the Blacksmith Don because it was closed and he appreciated my interest in movable type (given the sets that I have and haven't been able to really use). He has worked in the print shop as well as hammering metal and we talked a bit about how to do it. It was very helpful.
What I dream of at night. This was only half of the exhibit of Shaker hand tools. Just stunning both the woodworking and the metalworking that went into these.
Because how can I resist a boat. Or the beautiful girl photographing them. Too much?
There was a motorcycle show as well. This is a custom bike that looks like the builder should be sent away and told to add the proper parts so it would run.
For those who know the term Wankel Engine this is one of the few bikes with one and specifically, this is the weird exhaust port.
A Royal Enfield...
Another custom bike, and the one good thought to end with: I have motorcycle goggles that match.

Making Scratch

Again another short and sweet blog post. This is a bookshelf I made from scratch by hand in about 6 hours. Total cost was $35 and only a little blood. It is serving as a dresser actually, but I still say Ikea can go and suck it.