Category: Recreation

Recreation

Rain “On Your Scooter” Much?

Posted on by chappyshi

I started off two Saturday’s ago at about 1100 on the scooter (2003 Kawasaki ZRX-1200R) for West Virginia on Route 50.  Route 50 has some great curves from Gore, VA to Rt. 219 in West Virgina.  I had intended to take 219 south to Elkins, WV, where, if I remember correctly, my old boss, Charlie Adams, went to college.  From there I hoped to find the most entertaining roads that would take me back east to Centreville.

Unfortunately, I just got into the curves on Rt. 50 and did not even make it to Romney, WV, when the clouds and weather began to look most ominous.  I stopped at a gas  station at the intersection of 50 and 29 South.  It was about 1300…I dismounted…used the restroom…and started on my lunch.  It was about then that the rain started.

I was able to finish my lunch and get my gear on my bike  covered up without too many issues.  I put the rain cover on my tank bank since my valuables, cell phone, and cameras were in that.  My tail bag had only a pair of sandals and my flexible cooler, in which was my lunch and water bottles so I wasn’t to concerned about how wet that got.

Thinking that I was going to be able to ride out of the rain by heading immediately south, I only put on my upper body rain liner.  After encountering more rain and coming to a store at an intersection, I stopped to put on my rain paints.  I am darn glad I did!

I had about a 50 or 60 mile ride south in front of me and then about 90 miles  back to Centreville.   I kept the rain gear on the whole time.  Headed south after putting on my rain pants,  I rode through some serious rain squalls with heavy winds and downpours.  My rain gear is pretty good.  I stayed pretty dry considering the conditions.

Unfortunately, the rain put a damper on the technical aspects of the ride.  It made me think though.  Heading east on Rt. 211, you cross over two mountain ranges with great curves going up and down the mountains.  Unfortunately, the road is very popular with bikers, many of who are not good riders and/or take the curves at speeds beyond their abilities.

At the top of the mountain coming down from Skyline Drive, there was a sign saying that the next three miles were locations of lots of motorcycle accidents.  Sadly, as I carefully, it was sprinkling, took my corners down the mountain, I came around a corner and saw a police car and a fire truck parked on the outside of the next corner.  There were the ruins of a sport bike wrapped up in the guardrail on the outside of the corner.  Stupid.

While trying to find out about that specific accident, I found that that route is notorious for rude, obnoxious sport bike riders and accidents as a result of their inexperience.

NTL, rain and bike accident not withstanding, it was a pretty fun ride.  I saw a Sunbeam Tiger and a Willy’s Jeep, not very common occurences these days. (Pictures from the Internet.)

The coolest thing I saw on the trip, forgive me if I don’t get it exactly right, was a street named, “Keister Hoover.”  From my experience, the word “keister” means rump.  So the street name then is named a “butt vacuum?”

Paddling in Burke Lake Park

Posted on by chappyshi

I had a real nice paddle in Burke Lake a few weeks ago.  It was just an awesome day with perfect weather and not too many people on the water.  I did the circuit pulling all the way into all the little coves exploring and seeing wildlife.  Mostly all I saw were blue herons.  I’ll often see a green heron out there but didn’t see any this trip.

Susan Tedeschi and Buddy Guy at Wolf Trap, Vienna, VA, June 21, 2009

Posted on by chappyshi

I just got back from seeing Susan Tedeschi and Buddy Guy at Wolf Trap in Vienna, VA.   I couldn’t find anyone else that wanted to go so I dropped $75 and got a 3d row seat right in the middle of the orchestra pit.  The seating was not comfortable…think unfixed metal chair with thin cushion and no arms.  I had two overweight people on the left of me and an asshole on the right of me.  I never could sit all the way back in my seat because I couldn’t scrunch my shoulders together enough.

However, and this is a big however, I have never been that close at a concert and it was well worth it.  I wish I had ignored the “No Photos” rule because everyone else seemed to including the ushers.  Buddy Guy was all in the crowd playing his guitar and the cameras were flashing left and right.  I could have brought my Nikon D60, used no flash, and got some awesome pictures from the 10 feet I was away from the stage.  Oh well.

Susan Tedeschi, who isn’t a big name by any stretch but could be, was awesome.  She  writes some very good songs.  The version of the title song from here 2008 album “Back to the River” was stunning.  She is married to Derek Trucks (nephew of Butch Trucks of Allman Brothers’ fame) and  she appears to picking up a quite a tips on lumbering from him.  She was working that axe!

Buddy Guy was a different story.  He got up there and started wailing on his guitar and put Susan to shame.  But his act was all a show.  He is such a powerful guitarist I justed wanted to hear him crank out the jams for his set.  As it was, we got about an hour and 15 minutes of his “show” which featured way too much audience participation.

As I mentioned, he did go up into the crowd which is apparently a signature thing for him.  He also did some partial covers or imitations of the likes of Marvin Gaye, John Lee Hooker, and Ray Charlies.  He somewhat redeemed himself by bringing Susan out on stage for an impromptu duet of  “Feels Like Rain.”  Buddy put on good show and was entertaining, but I would have preferred he spent his time picking and grinning!

200905 Vacation in Salvo, NC.

Posted on by chappyshi

Thanks to my sister Kim and her husband Don, I got to spend last week in Salvo, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  We ate well: beef tenderloin, Caribbean Jerk chicken, bratwurst and hotdogs, Talapia with mango, habenero, and tequila sauce, Chicken Divan (an old family favorite), shrimp, and pizza.  We drank Margaritas, Pina Coladas, Mojitos, and beers, including a very good Bell’s Brewery IPA called Two Hearted Ale.

It was a pleasure to share the house with, at various times, Kim’s  ex-husband’s sons, Brian and A.J, and Brian’s wife Sarah as well  as AJ’s girlfriend Tina.  Kim’s ex-husband’s first wife,  Judy, who is a beach fanatic and the mother of Brian and AJ, joined us on Sunday and stayed the night.  That was good since she could be with her two sons for Mother’s Day.

I must say I enjoy the company of all  these people.  The relationships are very comfortable even though not blood  kin by any stretch.  I’ve known everyone for so long that the are like cousins, nieces, and nephews I never had.  I look forward to the time when my blood nephew Henry and niece Ava can hang out with us all.

The house was cool and within easy walking distance of the beach.  I must admit, that since it was early in the season, we didn’t spent too much time on the beach.  The house had a pool and a hot tub which we made good use of.  The water in the pool was a bit chilly but quite refreshing.  The ocean in contrast was much colder and rougher.  The waves and the undertow were intense.  Any time spent in the water would have involved a struggle and a swimsuit packed with sand.

We did bring the Cornhole  boards down and get some good action going.  Tina was very competitive.  She and Julie did their best to dominate the men but AJ and I were able to fairly consistently come out ahead.

I paddled twice in the Pea Island NWR.  That was okay, basically on the Pamlico Sound  side, but there were times when the water was just too shallow and I had to get out of my boot and wade to deeper water.  I had hoped to paddle twice at the Alligator NWR but worries about the weather kept me from going there for a second day.  And of course the weather was fine but by the time I saw that,  it  was too  late.

Overall, the weather was nice, and cool, enough that I slept out on the balconies for four nights!  That was good training for camping  out this holiday weekend at a friend’s  house on the Shenandoah River!

Creatures sighted include:

  • Great Blue Herons
  • Snowy Egrets
  • Great (American) Egrets
  • White Ibis
  • Red-winged Blackbirds
  • Scarlet Tanagers
  • Goldfinches
  • Ducks
  • Brown Pelicans
  • Laughing Gulls
  • Common Terns
  • Tri-colored Herons
  • Plover, Willets, etc?
  • Alligators

I am terrible at identifying shore birds so I can’t be too specific on many of the birds I saw.
Here is an alligator I spotted on Sawyer Lake in the Alligator River NWR.
Alligator from Sawyer Lake

There were hundreds of these butterfly’s feeding on these plants as I drove on the wildlife routes in the Alligator River NWR.

Monarch Butterflies?

Here I am at the end of Sawyer Lake starting my return trip…before I saw the alligator.

Sawyer Lake Water Trail

These are the remnants of a shipwreck on the beach right near our rental home.

One of the Many Shipwreck on the Outer Banks

These are White Ibis’s…many of which I saw in two paddles in the Pea Island NWR.

What I Think Is a Whte Ibis

Pictures from Visit to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center (located at Dulles Airport Close to Home)

Posted on by chappyshi

A few weekends ago I ventured off to stretch my still ailing knee and play around with my relatively new digital SLR (Nikon D-60).  Udvar-Hazy is right down the road for me and though I have passed by it every day for years I have never stopped in.

It is well worth a visit though a bit overwhelming for those of us who are not serious aviators or aviator want-to-be’s.  It was a good chance to explore the manual settings on my camera and take advantage of existing light, wide apertures, and slow shutter speeds.  See more pictures from the visit here.  All pictures were taken with existing light…no flash was employed.

It was amazing how many planes were on the deck and in the air at this place.

Udvar-Hazy Planes

Wright on Bros!

A retired SR-71 Blackbird.

It’s No Fun Anymore!

Posted on by chappyshi

I know everyone says you cannot look back or do the retroactive “what if?” scenarios but I cannot help it.  Had I not skied out of my comfort zone on the last run of the last day of three days of skiing last month, I would be in Vermont  skiing this week.  I had a three day package booked for Killington.  I would have been in the Baja Cantina at the Chalet Killington right now having drinks and eating a half-price burrito or appetizer.

If I were not drooling over the food, I  would have been salivating about the conditions.  They got 11″ inches of snow in the last 48 hours and a total of 44″ for the last week.  The conditions were as good last year when I skied there at the end of February.  13″ of snow  fell the day before I arrived on the mountain.  It was awesome.  I am sure it is just as good right now if not better.  The conditions were pretty darn good  when I was  there in early January this year.

Ah me.  What is one to do?  I guess I just have to keep working on getting my knee strong.  Hopefully I will be in my kayak paddling and on my motorcycle riding in a month or two and skiing again next winter.

Getting a Leg Up After Skinny Skiing

Posted on by chappyshi

I sprained my knee in a bad way three days ago on our last ski run of the day.  Over the course of three days, we had been occasionally dropping/jumping off this eight foot or so drop off from the Giant Boulder trail at Seven Springs Mountain Resort in PA.

We have a group trip there every year that is good skiing and great companionship.  Last year we started doing a race that is comprised of the four Black Diamond trails on the north side of the resort.  The race went well this year though we had only four participants.  Two of them took the wrong lift up after the first run and ended up winning the race.  More on that later.

We had figured for a more leisurely run down one of the Blacks to wind up the day when Dan Elbon suggested we hit the drop off one more time.  We were all game for it but both Dan and I ran into problems.  According to friends and family on the lift that had  a great view of the action, Dan didn’t stick well and rolled down the whole drop zone.

I got a good stick but lost it shortly after that.  Dan was okay but with skis and poles akimbo.  I somehow managed to keep everything close.  My downhill (right) ski bindings finally popped, albeit too late for my knee, and one of my poles broke loose.  I got one good roll in that smacked my, thankfully helmeted, head into the ground.    I think perhaps I should have  just taken the fall.  I may have tried too hard to stick to my line which torqued my knee.  What can I say?  Can’t look back, eh?

So why “Getting a Leg Up After Skinny Skiing?”  I am keeping the knee elevated per the doctors orders…I  guess to keep the swelling down.  What to I know?  And I broke my streak of not falling.  Then last night I watched Caddyshack on TV.  Chevy Chase is talking to Judge Smails niece who says she likes “skinny skiing.”

I haven’t fallen in four or five years.  It was my mantra.  Then I kept bringing it up so I had to have jinxed myself…truly.  I skied in Vermont for five days in a row two weeks ago and stayed erect the whole time!

As regards the knee…it did not  feel good on the mountain.  I could not put weight on it in a way that I felt like I could get down the rest of the run.  As I mentioned,  a few people  I know saw me take the spill and there was a ski patrol shift supervisor going up the lift right about the time I realized that I needed help.  We talked, he came right down after he got to the top.  After a quick evaluation, he called for a sled, they splinted my leg, loaded me on a sled, and took me down to the First Aid shack

…that was scarier than getting out of control on a speed run…I was strapped into the sled upside down with my head on the down slope…perhaps the ski patrol dude was pissed off at me…he did not waste anytime getting down the hill…

where they loaded me up in a Suburban to take me to ski patrol central.  There they did another evaluation and someone like “Stuttering John” took my personal and accidental information for the records.  My sister Julie had tracked me down and had her hubby bring my hiking boots down for me so I could get out of my ski boots.

As I reflect back on the questions they asked about the whole incident, I wonder why they didn’t ask what the hell  I though I was doing running off the drop off.  I have only seen a few people do it and they mostly just drop off from a dead stop where as we were keeping up speed going off the thing.  Oddly, the ski patrol guys that I was talking to as they loaded me up in the sled agreed with me that it was a good drop off.  I guess they figured if I had the balls to go off the thing,  I was probably okay.  They said it was awesome earlier in the week when there was some fluff and the snow in the drop zone was softer.

Even considering the spill and risk I took, the ski  patrol did not give me any grief.  I am sure that they had seen  me on mountain.  My Budweiser pants  are hard to miss.  We had actually almost got shut down after the first run of our race.   Could have been anyone of us that got called for it because we came into the lift  area hard but Lee and I passed through to the next, and correct, lift while Matt and Dan stopped.  I think  it was Matt who was chastised for coming into the lift line too fast.

So I am sitting here with a leg, actually both, up the sofa.  It has been three days but I can put weight on the right leg and walk without support, though having my walking stick helps.  I got some crutches when stopped at my doctor’s on the way home  yesterday but they suck.

Many thanks to Julie and Ed…Julie took Ryan back to school at WVU and Ed drove me and my car home.  And thanks to them for taking care of me including moving all my baggage around and such.

I was able to put my socks and shoes on  by myself Monday which was good.  Today my knee feels much better.  I think the swelling is going down.  I am mobile.  I can feel the soreness in my right leg muscles which I gather are compensating for/protecting the ligaments or is  a result of the overall strain on my leg.  Flexibility is increasing and swelling decreasing daily.

Wiping out was a sorry way to wind up the trip but at least there seems to be no permanent damage and it was the last run of the day on what probably would have been the last day I skied on the trip. At least I got three good days in.

News from the Road

Posted on by chappyshi

I have been on the road since last Friday when I left to head up to Vermont to ski.  En route I stopped to see my old Navy buddy Terry Boone in Avoca, PA.  We did our usual…head out with Terry’s boys and his dad for dinner and then went out for  few drinks.  Terry’s hospitality is endless.  I always enjoying seeing him and his family.

Saturday I drove from Avoca up to West Addison, VT, to visit my friend’s the Devino’s.  There’s another crew with endless hospitality.  They put me up a couple of times a year with hardly a whimper.  That night we got about 8 inches of snow.  I was dying to be on the slopes for the freshies but was committed to making chili.  Once that was  going well and needed only the occasional stir, I headed off to do some snowmobiling with little  Ed and then cross country skied for about two hours.

I had to cook the chili because everyone that tried it the the last time I made it there requested a repeat performance.  Did this one with venison.  I doubt most people would have known the difference but I could taste it in the cubed parts that I added.  It went over quite well again.  Linda made, at my request since it was my birthday, a pineapple upside down cake.  I love that stuff and rarely ever have it.  They all got me a six-pack of TB’s for my birthday…how well they know me.

Monday I had a good 2-3 hours of skiing at Mad River Glen before my legs gave out.  Tuesday I drove down to Killington and tacked a half day onto my 3-day package.  Once again I got in about 2-3 hours on the mountain.  When my legs are in good condition, I can ski about about 5.5 hours a day.  Yesterday I got about four hours in but it was in the single digits.  Today it was -8 at the bottom of the mountain when I got started at 10:30 and -1 at the top when I headed down for my last run at about 3:45.

I managed to stay reasonably comfortable by doing some serious layering, slathering my face and ears with Vaseline, and adding a thin fleece hat on top of the the balaclava I wear under my ski helmet.  Unfortunately, the toes are usually the first to get cold.  Thankfully you don’t really notice that when you are pounding down the mountain.  I did break down and buy some serious mittens at the end of the day today.  My gloves, though quite a nice pair, just weren’t cutting it.

One last note on managing the cold…as in lesson learned.  At one point yesterday I was moseying down a long cruiser trail.  I didn’t have any wind breaking pants on.  Take that as you will…  Also, for some dumb reason I was going camo.  Even though I had three layers of clothing on the lower half of the body, I darn near froze my you know whats off.  It was mighty uncomfortable.  Never again

Tomorrow it is supposed to be a few degrees warmer.  I’ll get out first thing and stay on the sunny side and try to get 4 or 5 hours in before I call it a day and head back up to Linda’s.  I’ll probably head out early Saturday to get back home.  Then we are off next Friday for 7 Springs for three more days of skiing.  Then I really have to start looking for a job.

Here are a few pics from the trip.  There’s nothing special.  Though all but one day on the mountain has been beautiful with views for miles, it has just been too damn cold to take pictures.

Leanto’s in DAR State Park in Addison County, VT.  I was cross-country skiing from my friend’s house.

DAR State Park Leanto

 View across Lake Champlain to NY from DAR State Park.

DAR State Park View Across Lake Champlain

 Mad River Glen Ski Area.

Mad River Glen

Mad River Glen

 View from near the top of Mt. Killington.

View from Near the Top of Killington

Cat’s Meow and Why I Really Have to Find a Job

Posted on by chappyshi

My cat Hamlet just will  not shut up.  If he is not meowing at me, he is roaring at something else unknown, doing his Tony the Tiger imitation.  He meows when he is hungry, meows when he wants me to go to bed so he can cuddle up to my overweight, warm body, and he meows when he thinks  I should get up,  even if all that means is that I am going to go back to bed to read.

I found something on the Internet that reflects my cat’s behavior almost exactly.  It is called “Rippling/Rolling Skin Syndrome.”  I never thought it possible that my cat was anything other than whacked, he is Korean, but there may be some some scientific basis for his behavior.  He is 18.  I just figured he was old.  Ironically, the article says the syndrome is most common with younger cats.  Unfortunately, he is also so deaf that I don’t think he even realizes how much noise he is making.

I thought it was bad when I was working and not home all the time.  Now that I am around so much more, it is making me even crazier.  If monetary needs and Hamlet don’t drive me back to the job market, nothing will.  I do have a couple of work arounds planned though.  I have three multi-day ski trips planned between now and the end of February so  at least I’ll get some respite before I start working again.