I have posted some pictures from our trip to the Norfolk Zoo in my photo gallery. Click on the link here or use the one on the left under the “Photography” category.
Category: Photos
Spooky in the House
I adopted a shelter cat today. A friend works at an animal hospital in Fairfax, knew I was looking for a cat, and hooked me up. She’s a gray tabby, the cat that is, and was injured in a house fire. The house was totally destroyed and sadly the family could not afford to pay for the cat’s care. The folks in the animal hospital took care of her and she stayed at one of the vet’s house while they looked for a permanent home for her.
So, barring unforeseen circumstances, Pookie, who I think I am renaming Spooky, has found a permanent home at my place. She certainly seems easy going. She has been exploring my apartment extensively for that last hour or so and is now dozing on my couch. What a sweeties! Here she is….
Lycian Tombs Carved Into the Cliffs in Dalyan, Turkey
Istanbul, Turkey, Day 5
20120702
It is my last day in Istanbul. I am leaving for Dalyan, Turkey, tomorrow for a week on the Aegean Sea with family. I have greatly enjoyed Istanbul I am not sure that will miss it. After 4.5 days of doing the tourist thing, I am ready for a break. I remember asking my Uncle Cliff, who will be in Dalyan with us, whether he was interested in seeing Istanbul with me. His response was that he was not much of a city person which I realize but it was worth asking.
Looking back I realized Cliff would have gone nuts in this city of 17 million natives and God knows how many tourists. My hotel is at the heart of the tourist district. All I have to do is walk 200 meters to insanity that lasts from about 0800 until 2000. The fact that I have seen everything I wanted to see in four days and still have not been in a vehicle is a testament to the location but I am done. I do not need to see another mosque for quite a while and I look forward to not having some many cool thing to take pictures of if that makes any sense.
I am still an overweight beer swilling slob but at least I got another good day of walking in today. If ever I could use and enjoy a hot tub, now would be the time. I think if I were flying home to D.C. today, I would have to be paraplegic so I could manage the flight without my legs driving me nuts. I walked from the hotel to the Mosque of Suleymaniye the Magnificent which was awesome but, as I said, I am starting to feel like a character in the “Red Mosque of Death.” I am no longer minaready!
From the mosque, which was built on of the seven hills of the city, think Rome, I walked down to the Spice Market and across the street to the Galata Bridge, famous for being a hot fishing spot for locals and a so so place for seafood for tourists. On the way, I came across yet another huge mosque, the New Mosque. The fisherman do their thing from both sides on the top of the bridge and restaurants are located underneath with a break in the middle for boats to get through. My intent was to cross the bridge and go up into Galata tower which was reputed to have the best view over all of the city.
The tower lived up to its reputation but I am lucky I lived walking up to it. Thankfully there was an elevator that took you up nearly to the top. There were the usual tourist traps near the top, a restaurant and a night club that no one was really using. I can see where the club might have been cool, at night with a 360 degree view of the city, including the Golden Horn and Old Districts. I cannot imagine getting down the hill from there after a few drinks though. Talk about rolling drunks….
Anyhow, after exiting the elevator, you go up two more stories on a spiral staircase…more on spiral staircases later. The staircase is adequate for one person, one way but had to handle multiple people both ways including those individuals who thought for some dumb reason that they needed to take pictures of each other on the staircase. Slowly we turn and all that.
The capper, pun intended since we were at the top of the tower, was the instruction to go around the outside viewing area passage way, which was about as wide as the average back street in the Old District, two feet. The sign clearly said to go around to the right, clockwise. There was no clock wisedom for about half the crew. As I worked my way around to the right, I battled the idiots that didn’t get the picture. Oh, and speaking of pictures, did I mention that getting around the viewing area was made difficult not only because of the wrong way Randy’s but because of…wait for it…the people that had to take pictures of each other while on a narrow walkway 100 feet off the ground.
Before I forget, I have to mention that today seems to be the driest day I have had here with a wicked nice breeze blowing off the water. I have been up on the rooftop terrace for about three hours and am just loving it, Laughing Gulls notwithstanding.
And so, after a lotta Galata, I headed back down from the tower and back across the bridge. I stopped at a seafood restaurant for lunch which was good but expensive. I ordered the grill swordfish with a salad. That came with bread and spices and herb in oil to dip it in. I only ate have the bread and half the salad but the swordfish came out grilled on a skewer with only five or six pieces on it. At 55 TL with tip I thought that was pricey but it was recommended. Once again, I wish I could have had a doggy bag. I could have cut my meal expense by a third if I could have taken my leftovers with me.
After lunch, I generally followed the tram line back up to Hagia Sophia from where it was a short walk back to the hotel. As usual, I washed up, read, and cooled off for awhile. Since then I have been on the rooftop terrace writing and talking to Craig and Karen, the Aussies. I wanted to work on photos but the brilliant sunshine made viewing the laptop screen difficult enough that doing so was nearly impossible.
I think it is time now to get some grub. I might see about getting a small pizza so I can save half of it for breakfast tomorrow. Since I am heading off to the airport at 0500, I am not sure what my eating opportunities are going to be in the morning.
I ended up going to the Sultan Hostel Cafe where I had a couple of brews and ordered a the pizza. I ate half of it and saved the rest for breakfast as planned. While there there was a woman who I assumed was Turkish. She looked very pregnant and apparently felt very pregnant. One of the waiters at the place appeared to be the father of the child. She was riding him unmercifully.
First she demanded candy and after he brought it to her, she chowed down on 2 or 3 chocolate bars and a bag of gummy worms. Then she ordered some salad that she just shoved into her gaping maw complaining about the food the whole time. Meanwhile, the future father sat with her to eat a pizza out of which he got only about two slices. It was pretty funny to watch his coworkers come over and steal slices when he wasn’t looking!
Last night was the Euro Cup soccer final featuring Spain vs. Italy..only a moderately huge rivalry. They had three wide screens in the place and the manager was, in a very biased manner, giving out the best seats to his cronies. Eventually he asked ne if I would move over join the pregnant monster at her table. I was afraid but I agreed. Come to find out the woman is from Swansee, Wales, and has been teaching preschool for five years in Istanbul. She was not as far along in her pregnancy as I imagined. She was at 6.5 months and preparing to head home to have the baby in Wales before she lost her National Health coverage.
She got all excited when told her we were going to Dalyan noting that she had been there a couple of times and really enjoyed it. I bailed out of the eatery shortly before the soccer match. It was really filling up w/ spectators and I had no interest in the match so I gave up my seat for someone that cared. Oddly, I noted on the way back to the hotel that after one block there were hardly any lights on. I stopped at my usual corner store to get some water where the proprietor told me that power was out all over the district.
That did not seem to be the case because lights were still on in some places. The desk clerk at my hotel told me that power outages are common enough that some places, including hotels were required to have generators. Of course mine did not have one. Thankfully, as per my custom, I had a flash light with me. I went in and packed up my bags then went out and chatted up the cabal of desk clerks in the area and the the Aussies, Craig and Karen.
I crashed at about 0030 which was stupid because I had to be up at 0430. Thankfully it had been a fairly cool day with a strong wind so I opened up my balcony door which made for a comfortable, albeit short, sleep. the off to Daylan.
On a final note for this entry, if I never see a another spiral staircase again in my life I won’t regret, after repeatedly climbing the spiral staircase up and down three flights between my room and the roof top terrace in my hotel, I am done with them. They were narrrow and dark and since I was drinking beer on the roof I kept having to go down three flights to my room to use the bathroom.
Istanbul, Turkey, Day 4
20120701
Well, again I sit on my balcony at 0600. I hit the fart sac at about 0030 this morning and still woke up at about 0400. I shut off the AC and opened the door to the balcony since the temperature was 70 degrees or less. Of course the gulls were raucously laughing like drunks at a Robin Williams show but by now I just block them out. I managed to cheese out a another hour and a half of sleep before succumbing to the avian comedy show.
I spent some time last night on the rooftop terrace chatting up some of the other guests in the hotel. It was the first time anyone hung out there in the evening other than myself. I had intended to work on my photo collection, which continues to grow, but that was a wash. Instead I learned a bit about Jason and his wife, whose name escapes me. They are both living in Bahrain and stopped here in Istanbul en route Sweden where the wife is from. Jason, who hails from near Whitefish, Montana, teaches ancient history but I am not sure what his wife does. She’s been in Bahrain ever since her Dad, who is a tennis pro, moved there.
Craig, who needs to take a chill pill…talks incessantly, and his wife Karen are from Melbourne, Australia. Craig is an HVAC tech but I am not sure what Karen does. Her family emigrated to Australia from Holland in the early 1950’s. They are on a crazy trip that took them from Australia to Holland, Ireland, here in Istanbul for eight days and then they are stopping in Dubai on their way home. On another human interest note, while having a brew at the Sultan Hostel and Restaurant, one of the waiters saw me reading the Washington Post and asked me where I was from. I said Washington, D.C. of course. He asked me if I knew where New Jersey was and when I told him I was born there he got all excited. He had lived in central and norther Jersey for 12 years.
Speaking of the Sultan Hostel and Restaurant which is on the strip hotels, bars, and restaurants near my hotel where I have been hanging out when not seeing the sights, I must address the silly traffic on that road. Yesterday, early evening, on my fourth day of hanging out there, and enduring the traffic, including tourist bus after tourist bus blowing nasty, hot diesel dike fumes on me, I realized that the level of traffic could not be normal. There is no way all those eateries almost everyone of which has outdoor, roadside tables, could have survived.
I know from having walked it that the only place that traffic could be going was the coastal highway to which the only route was through a two lane underpass that the tram passed over. It was no wonder the traffic got so backed up. I found out from the waiter who had lived in Jersey that, due to road construction, all the traffic including every stinking tour bus, from the tourist area that included Hagia Sophia, the Hippodrome, the Underground Cistern, the Blue Mosque, and Topkapi Palace has to take this route out of the area. What a buzz kill!
As mentioned in the previous paragraph, I learned a bit more about the area I am staying in. I misread the directions to Topkapi Palace, my first destination yesterday. Instead of what should have been a ten minute walk to the Palace entrance, I took an hour walk all the way around the grounds of the palace on the coastal highway path. As one should have inferred from my previous notes, I needed the exercise.
The morning was beautiful, people were jogging and biking on the path and even at before 1000 in the morning, men were fishing and, apparently, swimming in the, what I have read is not very clean, water. The landward side of the path consisted mostly of the ruins of what I assumed were the old city walls. I managed to get all the way back around to the entrance to the official palace grounds by walking through a lovely, shaded stretch of parkland bordered by the palace, a military compound, and the Museum of Islamic Technological History.
The touring agenda yesterday was Topkapi Palace and the Grand Bazaar. Both were a bit overpowering. As previously mentioned, what should have been a ten minute walk to the palace turned into an hour. By the time I got there the madding crowd had already arrived. I had to bypass the kitchen area because that was already closed. Some of the interior parts of the complex had lines so long that I just did not have the patience to wait. Accordingly, I ambled about, saw what I could, which was a lot, learned a bit about Ottomand history and took lots of pictures.
As has become my routine, I came back to the hotel to rest, read, and cool off for a while before heading back out. It was recommended that one take the tram to the Grand Bazaar but it was only about 400 meters to the tram and then another 400 meters to the bazaar from there so I hoofed it. Let me say before I forget that hoofing it around here is not unlike most places I have been in Asia. The tourists are clueless stopping everywhere and anywhere to take pictures of the sites and their travel mates. Digital cameras have done for tourism what the Nazis did to Europe. The locals, probably immune to the rudeness, barrel through the crowds like bulls in Barcelona.
Nonetheless, I made it to the bazaar intact which might have been strange. Since the bazaar is reputed to be pickpocket hell I didn’t carry my usual load of cameras, binos, accessories, etc., but just took my point and shoot and my travel guide. The travel guide, which has a suggested tour of the bazaar, was virtually useless. Once you get inside that maze of corridors in the bazaar you might as well just give up the plan. Having to stop every 30 meters to consult the map and the signs made it pretty difficult to enjoy and get a feel for the place. I had no intention of buying anything so I did not really need to get anywhere in particular.
As it was I just rambled about totally lost, took some pictures to record the feel of the place, had some lunch and somehow miraculously exited the labyrinth at exactly the point the guide said I should. 800 meters later I was back at the hotel for round two of rest and relaxation, cooling off, reading, and showering up. The best part of the bazaar was stopping for a late lunch at a restaurant recommended by the Rick Steves Istanbul travel guide, Kardeslar (Brothers) Restaurant. It was tucked up two flights of stairs in a han. There was a party of Israeli’s eating there with a Texan who obviously live here and one very Oriental looking Turk there when I arrived. The dining area sat only about about 25 people on an open terrace protected from the sun by an arbor of grape plants. Speaking Turkish would definitely have helped because I wound up eating what the waiter recommended; stewed meatballs and potatoes, a variety of mezes, and beans. The food was awesome and, since there was enough food for two people, the price at 29 TL was quite reasonable. Wish I had a doggy bag…or maybe not…
After that I had intended to have a couple of brews on the rooftop terrace and work on my photos but ended up doing some maintenance tasks such as backing up the photos and wiping the flash disk so I could have a fresh start. It was then that I met the folks from Australia and then later the folks from Bahrain came up so it turned into social, instead of anti-social hour. Much later I ended up at the Sultan for a night cap before returning to the hotel for much needed sleep.
And breakfast starts in four minutes. I have to enjoy this morning since it is my last in Istanbul. Tomorrow I will be up early again but headed of to my flight to Dalaman and road trip to Dalyan. More news from there!
Istanbul, Turkey, Day 3
20120629
The day was a busy one. I woke up at the up at the ungodly hour of 0400 and may have dropped off a bit before getting up at 0530. I ended up on my balcony IM’ing w/ Linda back in Vermont, cleaning up some photos and working on this log. Not to be confused with taking my morning constitutional…
It is now wonderfully cool without a cloud in the sky. But if I could change anything about my location it would be to eliminate the Laughing Gulls. They just never stop! The occasional tram going by is a pleasant distraction….
I went to the Blue Mosque, Aya Sophia, and the Underground Cistern in the morning. I got to all the sights early enough to beat most of the crowds thankfully. As I departed the Blue Mosque and Aya Sophia, the masses were really queuing up. Words cannot do justice to either of these holy sites and pictures seem inadequate also but they will have to do. I will post up a few in my blog and add more later in my photo album.
One thing that did not really surprise me is the inconsiderate attitudes of so many people going to the mosque. Everywhere one reads that you should cover your legs and not wear tank tops, mini skirts, and/or sleeve less shirts inside the mosques. At the entrance was a pile pile of blue clothes that the infidels wrapped around their uncovered bodies. It was humorous to see grown men in the mosque wearing what was basically a sarong around their lower bodies.
Since I am so terribly out of shape being the lazy, overweight, beer swilling, arm chair computer warrior that I am, I came back to the hotel for a breather then went out for a lunch of Lamb Shish and rice which was quite tasty. I got it at the Sultan Hostel and Restaurant which is nothing special but serves a variety of food and the local Efes Pilsen. While sitting there I ran into the Greek couple I met on the Bosporus tour the day before.
After lunch I went to the Museum of Islamic and Turkish Art which is off the Hippodrome. The museum holds a variety of Islamic arts including rugs, pottery, calligraphy, and Koran’s. Also featured were a few dioramas of Islamic life such as a yurt and classic country and city home living. Last was a mixture of paintings by modern Islamic artists interspersed with classical paintings in books of Islamic historic tales.
Speaking of being out of shape, even though everything here is within reasonable walking distance, my legs muscles were screaming by the end of the day. When I got to the museum and walked up the stairs to the display level I was sweating like a cold beer on a hot, summer day. The displays were either on a terrace, the windows of which were blocked off by heavy curtains, or in close, airless room. It took me some time to cool down.
I have never seen so many security guards in a museum. It seemed like their was one guard for every patron. Someone was always watching you which was a bit eerie.
I debated going to the Grand Bazaar after the museum but by the time I left the museum it was about 1600 and I was still hot and tired. I walked back to my hotel, turned on the AC, and relaxed with a couple of Op-ed sections of the Washington Post. After feeling rested, I retired to the rooftop terrace to look at and work on the pictures I had taken so far. They are adding up quickly.
At about 2100 I headed out for beer and some dinner. I inadvertently stopped at the wrong restaurant but was more than pleasantly surprised. I had told the host earlier in the day that I would stop in and he hailed me as I passed by so I stop in I did. There I met a Danish guy who was a traveling on business and taking a few days of time on his own after having concluded his business. He was a civil engineer specializing in hydrodynamics and seemed to have traveled extensively for his work. He told me he had been at meeting in a town near Dalyan the name of which escapes me.
We chatted for a bit so I ended up having another beer before I ordered my dinner. The dish was what the menu referred to as an Ottoman Special and consisted of lamb (yes, twice in one day), rice, tomatoes, dried apricots, almonds, and a bit of cheese. Of course in came with the standard flat bread. It was delicious! I can hardly remember a dish I have enjoyed so much. I’ll have to make sure I get the name of the restaurant as well as others I have enjoyed.
It was nearly 2330 by the time I got back to the hotel. As seems to be normal, the Turkish guys that work in the hotels on the street, hang out together having tea, coffee, soda, etc, and talking the night away. I chatted a bit with the guys outside my hotel including the desk clerk who is an English student at a university east of Istanbul. He is on his summer breaking working and making money for school. Other than the the aggressive styles of some of the merchants, the Turks seem to be very easy going and friendly.
That’s a wrap for the day. It is now 0700 on Saturday. I am enjoying the 70 degree temperature with cool breeze of the Marmara Sea. Time to work on some more pictures and clean up for breakfast. Oh great, there is a monster cruise ship coming into port. That should make for a few thousand more people hitting the sites today.
Mt. Vernon Pictures Posted
These pictures are from last year but I never posted them. My brother-in-law’s friend came down for the weekend from Vermont and somehow he and Ed and I wound up at Mt. Vernon…George Washington’s residence in Alexandria, VA, on the Potomac river, in case you wanted to know. George’s dead so we didn’t see him.
Somehow, someone decided that the way to get to Mt. Vernon was down Rt. 95 south from Washington, DC. After a wonderful tour of 95 and Rt. 1, which we eventually ended up on, someone, I won’t say who, figured we probably were not going to get to Mt. Vernon the way we were headed. So we turned around and revisited the beauty of Rt. 1 with all it’s car dealerships and sundry, sordid businesses out to take a serviceperson’s money. With Fort Belvoir and the Marine base, Quantico, in the area there was plenty of money to be made from the naive and unsuspecting serviceperson.
Anyhow, the whole reason for this post was to note that I had posted pictures from Mt. Vernon taken nearly a year ago. Follow this link or the links under my Photography section on the right side menu bar.
Kayaking and Walking, Tidewater, VA, October 2011
I headed off to see my sister Kim and brother-in-law Don on Sunday, 2 October, after working the night shift the previous night and catching few hours of sleep. I got down there in the late afternoon in time for an early dinner before heading off to church. Upon our return to the house we just took it easy. Kim was exhausted because she got no sleep the night before.
On Monday morning, I headed off the MacKay Island National Wildlife Refuge on the border of VA and NC. I never noticed it was there before though I been through it once on a road trip with Kim and Don. It looked like there should be some good paddling, walking and wildlife watching opportunities. Unfortunately, I could not figure out where exactly I should be able to put my kayak in so I ended up taking the 5.5 mile walk around the inland ponds.
I did have some good bird sightings and saw either a nutria, muskrat, or beaver swimming about working on its abode. As for birds, I saw numerous Great Blue herons, American egrets, osprey, Belted kingfishers, Eastern meadowlarks (cool birds) and the occasional what I think were Gadwalls or American Widgeons, an American Bittern, etc. I also saw a couple of smashed snakes on the trail including one that was likely to be an adult water moccasin. All in all it was a nice day.
On the way home, I stopped in at the Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant near Kim’s for a beer. There I had a tasty Loose Cannon Ale and a Reissdorf Kolsch. I also tasted the Aventinus Weiss which was very good. Hopefully they will still have it on tap the next time I stop in. For dinner we went to Cogan’s Pizza, which except for one sub par experience, I have always enjoyed.
Tuesday was a slow day for me. The mid-watches still take their toll. I was finally able to get going in the afternoon and headed off to one of my favorite kayaking spots down Suffolk way, Burnt Mills Reservoir. It was a beautiful paddle but I think I have explored almost the whole reservoir by now. I always like to see what is around the next bend and there are very few more to go around.
Finally, on my way home and back to work on Wednesday night, I put the kayak in at Deep Bottom Park on the James River SE of Richmond. That is another one of my favorites. The river flows straight through the area but also has a huge offshoot loop where the landing is. I went around the loop all the way for the first time and stopped into this huge lagoon to look for birds. Usually I see tons of Great Egrets there but that day I was limited to Great Blues.
I had a passenger the whole time I was on the river. What I gather was grasshopper landed on the prow of my kayak when I put in and stayed there for the whole trip until I landed. First time in a long time I have paddled with a companion…
Three Days in Tidewater
I went down to see my sister and my brother-in-law in Suffolk, VA, on my three day break this week. What with my work schedule recently, I haven’t done much on my days off but try to catch up on my sleep so the trip was a nice change. I drove down on Sunday after a few hours of sleep in the morning. That afternoon and evening was just hanging out, lazing in the pool, and chatting. I was good to see Kim and Don who I hadn’t seen since late February or early March. Kim’s friends the Kent’s came over for dinner which was based on some awesome ribs that Kim did in the oven. We even got to break in Don’s new Cornhole boards.
On Monday, my intent was to go down to Virginia Beach (VB) in the morning, have some lunch, and head back to Suffolk to kayak. I hoped to stop in at the Beach Brewing Company to check out their establishment and taste their beer but since they were only open on the weekends that did not pan out. I did get out on the beach for a couple of hours where I read the paper and enjoyed the scenery. Since I haven’t had good experiences lounging and swimming at the beach with much of a drive in front of me I didn’t make it into the water. They don’t have much in the way of changing facilities at VB and I didn’t relish the thought of making the drive back to Suffolk with a bathing suit full of sand.
I did have a tasty Starr Hill Brewery Northern Lights IPA and chicken Caesar salad for lunch at the 11th Street Taphouse Bar and Grill. They had quite the beer selection that made me want to grab a nearby hotel room and just hang out for the rest of the day and night. As it was, I head back west only to encounter traffic slow downs and blockages due to bridge openings and car fires. I was able to get off the highway onto a road I recognized and planned to get on eventually so that worked out okay.
By the time I got back to back to Suffolk, I decided not to kayak and headed toward a local place called Cogan’s Pizza where they have a pretty good beer selection. I missed my turn and ended up at Buffalo Wild Wings which wasn’t a bad thing. There I tasted the Beach Brewery Pale Ale but was not impressed. I did enjoy immensely the O’Connor Brewing Company Great Dismal Black IPA. Black IPA’s are quite the rage in the craft brew community this year. I have had at least four different ones this year and enjoyed them all.
Monday night was relaxing. We did leftover ribs and such and watched a movie that I didn’t make it all the way through. I was still running on a sleep deficit and despite that fact that I should be awake nights because that is the shift I work, I still had to crash. As it was, I woke up early and tossed and turned before finally giving up and getting up.
I did my two crossword puzzles for the day and read a bit of the paper before heading out to kayak on Bennett’s Creek which is just a short drive from Kim’s, and if you read anything I write, you will recall is one of my favorite places to paddle. I put in at the local park and either paddle upstream until I run out of creek or paddle down to the James River and back. The journey was a good as ever with numerous sitings of wildlife including Great Blue Herons, Great Egrets, Green Herons, Belted Kingfishers, Red-winged Blackbirds, Ospreys, and one Muskrat.
Since it was Don’s day off, we got together with Kim for lunch where I finally did make it to Cogan’s Pizza and we enjoyed a tasty Supreme pizza and I had a Bell’s Two Hearted Ale, always a favorite. We had a bad experience there earlier in the year when the service was iffy and the pizza cook seemed to be having a bad day but they were back in good form on Tuesday. Later in the day we caught up with friend’s of Kim and Don, one of whom is a preacher, at the movies to catch “Horrible Bosses.” That was an incredibly raunchy, but very funny, movie, albeit interesting to watch sitting next to a preacher.
We had a quick dinner when we got home which was about 1830. I was tired and called it a night early. I wanted to get up early in the morning to get on the road home w/ a stop en route to paddle.
I stopped at one of my new favorite spots on the James River, Deep Bottom Park, in Henrico County off Route 5. Unfortunately the tide was out and I couldn’t get all the way into this large pond off of the river that I wanted to go into. I have seen hundreds of herons and egrets in there and wanted to see if I could get some pictures.
The birds there are very skittish so I hoped to just float around and minimize the disturbance. That was pretty much a no go since there were huge mud flats exposed due to the low tide. I ended up paddling back past the launch and up a creek I had seen previously but not yet explored. It wasn’t a bad paddle overall but it was hot and my boat was leaking so I wrapped it up sooner than I intended.
Thankfully, I had an easy trip home and got a few things done before I had to go to work. I had a productive and relaxing three days and it was great to see Kim and Don.
Coolest Rainbow I Ever Saw
The pictures of this rainbow action are terrible which speaks for carrying a camera with me other that the POS on my cell phone. I was driving home from work the other morning at 0610 and was able to view this double rainbow for almost the whole drive. The brightest of the two arcs was so clear I could clearly see at six different colors of the spectrum.
