On Sunday I decided to celebrate the warmish weather and go for a walk through one of my favorite, curious local parks, Holland Ponds. (Thanks to
So, if you’d like to see some pictures from the walk, give this link a click. Towards the end of the gallery there are some interesting concrete textures that I grabbed from the foundation of a barn.
Hmm, that’s interesting. I called the EPA about the barrels I found, they took the report, then asked me to call the National Response Center, which I believe is part of the Coast Guard and thusly DHS. Interestingly, one of the phone options was to report terrorist activity.
I’ve got a report number, and we’ll see where the barrels go from here.
Hmm, so I’m thinking about calling the EPA regarding barrels I found in the Clinton River along the Superfund site of G&H Landfill.
· http://www.nuxx.net/gallery/hollandponds06march2005/DSCN0385
· http://www.nuxx.net/gallery/hollandponds06march2005/DSCN0362
Yesterday I woke up earlyish (for a Sunday) and headed out to the Detroit Zoo. I hadn’t been there since 1995, so I figured it was time for a visit. That, and I wanted a chance to use my new camera. I would really like to get a good feel for it before I go on a more lengthy vacation. Taking a bunch of crappy photos wouldn’t be much fun, nor would not having a good grasp on how to properly handle the camera.
So, if you click the picture above or this link you can check out the whole photo gallery from that trip. Most of the photos aren’t so great, but some came out pretty well, I think. After picking through, I ended up with 167 total images.
The photos which I find notable for either their quality and/or content include:
· Tiger
· A Seeing Eye Dog puppy playing with the otters: 1 – 2
· Snow Monkeys fighting over a stick
· Baby Elephant Sculpture
· Wanda, one of the two elephants to be moved to Columbus
· Giraffes visiting
· An Ass (I think)
In my driving around on Tuesday, I came across a place called Clifty Falls State Park. Per the state’s site it appears that I didn’t see all of the park that I could have. Alas, I did still have fun wandering around. Click the picture above to see the photos I took there. Also, it seems that the Indiana DNR has some videos of the park here. I missed the tunnel. :(
Well, I sure was the cheap tourist today. I managed to visit three National Park Service sites, even though one of them was closed. Whoops!
So… What did happen today. (A word of warning about the photos… Something is odd with the automatic exposure on my camera. I think that it was set to ‘center spot weighted’ from when I was doing some eBay photos, so the exposure is quite a bit…. Off… In some of the shots. I’m sorta frustrated at that. At least it can be cleaned up if need be.)
Well, first I woke up at right about 8am, got dressed, then headed southbound on I-65 towards Mammoth Cave National Park. I stopped at Burger King for some breakfast (two egg/cheese crossants, hash browns, and a coffee) as it’s the only really veggie-friendly breakfast-serving fast food place that I know of. The trip down there didn’t really take too long, and while heading southbound I somehow hit a timezone border. WTF? I was headed practically straight south… Regardless, that all put me at the park at about 9:40am CST, which was just in time for the 9:45am Frozen Niagara tour. It turns out that this particular tour is the longest one offered on weekdays during the winter season. I wouldn’t have minded something longer, but with that being the only option, I took it.
So, as most people know, tonight was the lunar eclipse which was visible all across North America (at the very least). So, what did I do? I took pictures of it, or at least tried to.
That image up above is a thumbnail from one of the images, slightly blurred to clean it up, just after the eclipse had fully taken effect. So, there you go: eclipse images.
These look a lot better once played with in Photoshop, mostly because I used some digital zoom, but this can be corrected for. Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll end up with a nice Coolpix 4800 which should help alleviate this the next time.
Last night
Of course, we can’t forget an obligatory satellite photo of the site, complements of
So, exactly 900 miles of driving later, and with lots of walking, I have acquired this.
· Lots of mosquitos. Lots. And lots. 100% DEET bug spray in a non-aerosol can is the best.
· Inadvertently started sinking in some quicksand. Have since learned that one will quickly sink into a sandbar when it is located partially across the mouth of a stream, next to a lake.
· Walking through the woods in the dark, with or without flashlights, even if one is on a wooden path, is scary.
· Taquamenon Falls are really nifty, especially in the dark, despite the path being very frightening. (See previous comment)
· Climbing to the top of a lighthouse is worth it.
· National forests are nifty. Lots of nice rural campsites, beaches to walk along, fish hatcheries to visit, lighthouses, empty roads, random trails, etc.
· Saw a fireworks store located on an Indian reservation. Should have stopped. :\
· Indian reservations also contain lots and lots of casinos.
· A GPS receiver that does moving maps, even if it doesn’t do driving directions, is great for traveling through random areas. Maps might have been enough, but not as convenient.
· 1970s tents suck. As do people at the next campsite who’s kids slam the door all morning.
· Not eating meat while up north is hard to do. Also, the waitresses seem offended if you decline all the soups because they are beef / chicken / pork based.
· THERE IS NO MAN KILLING CLAM AT SEA SHELL CITY. At least none that we could find… Lots of tchotchkies, though. Lots. (Is that spelled right?) The billboards lie.
· The showers / bathrooms at the state park are rather nice. They didn’t feel dirty or dingy at all, and the water was nice and hot. Very good for when you don’t have quite enough blankets.
I’m sure there’s more, but I’m just not remembering right now. It was a really good, very worthwhile weekend, though. So, that’s enough for now.
[UPDATE]
Also, I forgot to add…
· Chipmunks. Lots of them. Feeding them is fun.
· Abandoned military sites are pretty nifty. One in particular that we found had been converted into civilian housing, but it was still neat.
· Racoons are adept at climbing in and out of flapping-door style garbage cans.
· Again, lots of pasta and grilled cheese does not make for a healthy diet.
· It’s that time of year to see large groups of bikers (and I mean real bikers, not pricks on ‘choppers’) taking vacations en masse. I bet that’s fun.
Yay, I finally got a real GPS. I should be getting a Magellian Meridian XL with serial cable and mounting hardware sometime soon. I guess I’ll have to give some geocaching a try, too. Per Geocaching.com there are a number of sites right around Shelby Township. Woo! It might even be fun to add a new cache somewhere random.
