You Just Never Know

I made a spur of the moment decision this morning to take my camera to work to snap some shots. I've done this maybe once in the 3-1/2 years since we've been living here. On the way to the bus stop, I swung by Columbia's newly-renovated historic Market House for a few photos.

A nice building that serves the community two days a week with fresh produce, crafts, and other food. Looks very sharp with its new roof and repaired windows...

But who would have known that the day I took my camera to work would be the day that the whole front of a circa-1890 building downtown would collapse into the street. Fortunately, nobody was hurt too badly but a whole rack of disturbance and gridlock hit during the morning rush hour.

Tex-Mex Trip Days 5-7

Amy has done quite a good job of chronicling the last few days in southeast New Mexico and western Texas. All I can say about Carlsbad Caverns is: WOW! And for Guadalupe Mountains: sunny, dry, scenic, and extremely windy!!! But a good leg of the trip nonetheless.

(the campsite without the violent gusts)

Now, on further south to Big Bend for several days of hiking and camping along the Rio Grande...

The Tex-(New)Mex Trip: Days 1-4

After the first three nights of our trip through southern New Mexico and southwest Texas, we've finally made it to a motel for a night. Without much detail, we started in El Paso and made camp the first night at Elephant Butte State Park (sunrise at the campsite above).  On Day 2, we headed into the mountains and saw the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Very Large Array (VLA).

Night time landed us at yet another great campground, the Valley of Fires Recreation Area...

And after a couple-hour drive, we headed south to a truly amazing sight: White Sands National Monument.  The gypsum sands looked like Alaska full of snow, but the sun was shining and the weather warm.

This morning began with a 2.5-mile hike with great views over White Sands and the valley below.  The Osha Trail was a good warmup for some of the longer and steeper ones we'll be experiencing later in the trip.  But we will probably find it hard to come across the amount of snow we hiked on today...

Tomorrow morning after a good night's sleep in our motel bed, we're off to Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe Mountains.

Spring Fever Reveals a Hidden Gem

Very fitting for the First Day of Spring: 71 degrees and a sky full of sun. Not too much to complain about today. After doing a good amount of yard work, we took a spin to a small park a few miles down the road that was dedicated as part of a pretty large development. What a pleasant surprise that it was mostly ponds and wetlands...which means plenty of birds and ducks.

Not Quite the Ocean

...but having the picturesque Susquehanna River four blocks from our house is pretty nice. We hit the road this afternoon to head south about 20 miles and take a hike while the sun was out and the temps cracked 50 degrees.  The first third of the hike was a snowy path that looked great in the full sun of the day.

Anyone who spends any time on the trails is familiar with blazes that tell you how to stay on the right path.  They're the wilderness equivalent of street signs, and this tree had a full load:

Team Work!

Amy and I finished our latest venture into woodworking: a radiator cover/coat rack. It's been a gradual work in progress for about a month now, which came to a head when we put the trim and hooks on it. Of course, there is a catch...a minor issue with the narrow door on the bottom left. There is always a catch, right?

But we're happy with it, and proud. Now we have a place for guests to hang their coats.

All-Season Protection

We've been taking pictures of the house since we bought the place...actually, we started before we owned it by snapping some during the inspection. The shots chronicle the major loads of work we've done, especially in the first year. We're getting close to a year and a half in the rowhouse, and a lot has taken place. Last fall, we put insulation between the second and third floors to get ready for another cold winter. That was one hot, sweaty, grimy job. So when it came time to consider putting a radiant barrier between the roof and the attic/crawlspace, there's no better time than when it's under 40 degrees outside.

I've posted this picture of the crawlspace because it really caught me by surprise. With the camera's flash, the dark crawlspace became an odd metallic cotton candy-looking dungeon (on the top of the house, of course). The main attic part is considerably more "inviting", perhaps because it has a bunch of storage items like camping gear, luggage, golf clubs, and a pair of Christmas trees. But nonetheless, we hope that our hard work will pay off.

A Duck-Filled Birthday Weekend

Longtails, harlequins, loons, and more. We went with a small group from the local Bird Club to New Jersey for some waterfowl madness. And boy were they out there in full force off the jetty at Barnegat Light. There were some exotic varieties, and they were very close to us. Quite breezy, but a sunny day in February nonetheless!

 

  

  

Not a bad way to start off one's birthday weekend.  And we sure were lucky on Sunday too...another beautiful day for seeing the sights and taking a drive.

Making a Retreat

The snow is gradually making a retreat from Lancaster County's roofs, streets, and sidewalks. Today had a nice combination of sun and steady temps above freezing to hustle the melt along. Kinda gives you some hope for spring, doesn't it.

Oh wait, was that a forecast for wintry mix next week? Uggggh....

Biggest Snowblower I've Ever Seen

This morning, we awoke to the sounds of machinery outside. And what you see in the picture above is the biggest snowblower I've ever seen, attached to a Borough backhoe. The street crew was going around clearing out some of the giant piles of snow on the street corners from the previous days' plowing. Fortunately, it cleared out several parking spots in our neighborhood, which were much needed after the 30" or so we got in the last week. Even though it still looks like a mess in that picture, it is a far cry from how things looked a few days ago...

Back in the Blogosphere!

My return to the Blogosphere starts tonight with a few pictures that sum things up. Above is shot from Cumberland Island, GA taken on our latest mini-vacation to southern Georgia and Jacksonville, Florida. Traveling and being outdoors are big parts of our life, and we are fortunate to be able to get around quite a bit. Although my wife, Amy, is quite the photographer I try to take some shots along the way myself (when I remember my camera).

Case in point, our day on Cumberland Island was one of the most unique in our travels. For starters, one can only get there via boat...so the ferry dropped us off in the morning and we were on foot from there. Over four miles of rambling around this historic and natural island led us through swamps, across the beach for a mile plus, and onto the ruins of the Carnegie mansion shown above. What a place!

Woodworking and mathematics are a couple other things that keep me busy in my spare time. The dice table (still under construction, of course) is a nice mix of those two hobbies...I wouldn't have the table without sawing and drilling, and there wouldn't be much of a need for it without an interest in numbers, probabilities. As a wise man named Warren Buffet said once to a certain extent, one only needs to know addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and how to calculate a rate and risk. Fortunately, both games of chance and woodworking require only that level of math :)