Mommy, can I keep it?

I finally got to bring it home yesterday, my firs drive of my new car. It was different than any car I have driven before, the feel of the ride was soft, not drifting like a truck but just soft. The drive home is through countryside and what a way to drive through it. I had the windows open and the sunroof retracted in my new (old) Mercedes.

In the driveway at last with my own plates on it.
The backside.
The leather clad doors with wood panels. This is an all metal car and you can feel it when you close the door. It sounds like a bank vault shutting.
The interior. With the exception of the radio antenna retractor all of those work. Quite stunning in a 27 year old car. I am estatic with my new purchase and even though it isn't motorcycling weather yet, I have a feeling I am going to be using it a lot just for the hell of it. One surprise came from going for a drive with Heather after she got out of work: it has the turning radius of a small car. It is over 16 feet long and I have a feeling I could do a u-turn in the middle of the road.

As I start to dig into the engine I will be documenting that as well, outside of my usual collection of outdoor activities. I am looking forward to it all.

My new car

This is going to be short and sweet but finally after many years I have a car. Specifically I have a 1983 Mercedes Benz 300SD Turbo Diesel. For a crazy cheap price. Under a thousand dollars. Lots of miles but runs and all the parts work. And just look at it....

A New Door and My New Window

Jurassic Park eat your heart out. The hole in the eye socket is so we can look out...

Pharaoh Wilderness/Whortleberry Pond 8/7-8/8/10

I have spent the better part of two hours bring my blog up to day, partially because it needed to be done and also because I wanted to put up the pictures of our latest adventure. This was our second overnight trip to the Pharaoh Lake Wilderness. This time our approach was from the south and promised at least a 8.3 mile hike, more given a couple of detours.Ahhh trailhead signs...
And off we go. It was a claustrophobic hike, the undergrowth was heavy and mostly blackberry bushes, but it didn't slow us down. An attack by bees did though.
This was a rusted gas range left over from what looked like a camp. There were a lot of weird things this hike: a beheaded body of a falcon or owl in the middle of the trail, a random wicker backpack filled with empty beer cans and nobody in sight in the middle of the trail and a couple of odd people walking as well.
We detoured to a small pond off the trail for lunch. Behind Sal people were camped on the rocks.
Then Sal slipped. It was funny.
During the course of the hike we were taken by the variety of mushrooms on the trail. No clue what kind this was but wow, it was cool looking.
So the long and short of it, this is not Pharaoh Lake's far shore where we were planning on camping. When we got to Pharaoh Lake all the lean-to's and most of the campsites were filled. One guy had hung an American flag across the front of the lean-to and had a rifle leaning against the side. Weird. It must be hunting season or something. So we continued past Pharaoh Lake and tried to find the trail for Whortleberry Pond. However the trail was in such disuse we couldn't even find it but instead found the trail to the privy. Going past that we finally found the old trail. Our map showed the trail going right at the pond and only after climbing over downed trees did we find it again. Above is what greeted us.
We found what must have been a campsite but it obviously had not been used in at least a year. We had the whole pond to ourselves, a true treat. Heather found a huge set of wild blueberry bushes (perhaps originally called Whortleberries?) and we got down to picking and eating. I even showed Sal how to pick and eat them. Within minutes he was a pro.

Over the last couple of weeks my ears have been plugged up so I can't hear that well. That night Heather had to bare the burden of hearing all the wildlife sounds. We woke up multiple times for bathroom break and Sal's intense curiosity. Finally around 5:30AM I got up, started the fire and made some tea. It was stunning on the pond, mist had settled in and nothing but the sound of birds (or so Heather tells me).
I mean, how could you not enjoy this view.Sal certainly did.
A combination of campfire smoke and mist.
On our hike back Heather finally got a feather in her cap, so to speak.
In all we covered 10.6 miles the first day and 8.8 mile or so the second day. What was remarkable that we completed the return trip in 3 hours and 30 minutes. We were moving fast! By the time we got to the car we were all exhausted.Sal was even more so than usual and wanted to curl up with us in the front seat quite badly.

This was a truly stunning hike. I must keep the exact access to our campsite a secret because it is the first time we have found a spot no one knows about but it was wonderful to have some privacy and some peace. It requires a return visit.

Long Trail (Clareton) 7/31/10

After so many hikes in New York we figured we should try to do an overnight in Vermont. We headed south to join the Long Trail around Rutland and Clareton. There was a cool cable bridge across a gorge then a sharp ascent to this lookout. We had seen so many splendid vistas in the Adirondacks that this was rather tame and dull in contrast.The airport was down there. I think this was looking north.
It was very busy that day, we passed tons of people on the trail. As we continued on past the first lean-to we saw that it was full and there were five tents in spots around it. As we continued we saw more and more people with overnight packs. When we stopped for lunch we decided that given the number of people on the trail it would be likely that the spots we were planning to camp would be slammed with people. We had about 15 people pass us as we sat for lunch.
So we turned around and went home...

Dix Mountain on 7/24/10

We had originally had a plan to do an overnight through the peak of Dix Mountain (4,840 ft) to a shelter on the far side but we ended up doing a day hike instead with a total of 13.6 miles.
The trail head sign doesn't show that 2,000 feet of that ascent was in the last half mile or so. On the way I found two piles of rocks, I rebuilt the smaller one with Sal's supervision. Intense supervision.The view from the sorta base of the mountain. Of course this is 5 miles in. These cleared batch of rock was really cool, water was streaming down it.
Yeah, this what we still had to climb.
As we pushed on the slope must have been close to 45 degrees. The view off the side showed more of those exposed rock faces.
See? Damn steep. We got a little further then reluctantly turned around. It was at least another half mile to go and maybe 1000 feet ascent left and it was late in the day. I am glad though, we were tired enough that climbing back down was hard and that extra ascent would have done us in. Still sucks to turn back.
Sal was a bit tired at this point but at least he had the sense to enjoy the view.Heather pointed out that a bear hadn't made this and the claw marks were cut by a knife. And I totally knew that from the beginning.
Back at the parking lot with our feet up on the back of the car. Sal was a good pillow.

Mount Belvidere on 7/18/10

Mount Belvidere is actually about an hour and a half north of Burlington on the Long Trail. Located south of Jay's Peak it promised a clear view of the northern extent of the Green Mountains.
It wasn't too far to the fire tower and it was a stunning day.It got a bit a steep in parts and the trail was exposed rocks.
The view of Mansfield was different from what we were used to. It was windy enough that even I felt disinclined to go further than the second landing. Which means I got up there and my brain just shut down. Hell of a view though.
The view from Heather's boots...
And ignore the creepy guy behind the curtain.