Even in the age of instant digital photography, we still have to take the time to assemble our photo albums either during or after a vacation tour. Although the day-to-day blogs have features selected photos, I decided to group all of the photos that were fit to print (and some that are questionable, but fall under the category of “art” or convey a sense of the journey not captured otherwise) into a group of video montages.
To do this, I merged photos from our still cameras and phones, renaming them as needed to fit them in the proper sequence. I wrote a short Perl script that uses ImageMagick to crop and resize the photos into wide-screen format suitable for the movie software, then renames them in the sequence pattern needed by the film editor. I then created an image sequence film, specifying the number of frames per photos to generate a fairly rapid slideshow sequence, and set it to music obtained from the royalty-free selections on www.freemusicarchive.org, with titles. I use the OpenShot video editor on Ubuntu Linux, and upload to the Vimeo video streaming site. I ended up with three short clips, averaging three minutes each, of the Michigan, Wisconsin, and train trip portions of our tour.
I have an hour or more of video footage taking with the GoPro handlebar camera that I am working on editing down to short films representing the stages of our tour, as well, but that will take a bit more time…
After a very busy winter and spring, in which we joined more organizations, participated in more events, and volunteered for more offices and committees, in the midst of combining an ambitious physical training plan for bicycle touring with our committee work, we crashed, putting everything, if not on hold, at least in perspective. While we haven’t yet ventured back out on the bike, we haven’t slowed down, and remain, as always, just outside the flow of “normal” life expected of old people.
A few weeks later, we went on vacation, during which we worked at gaining back some of our physical mobility, on foot rather than on the bike as we planned, but continued to work in the meantime: Judy on a weaving project, and me on a programming project, to the extent we had a computer network set up in our hotel room and the various fiber projects spread out on the extra bed intrigued the hotel staff no end. I think we still managed to visit a few local attractions, shops, and restaurants in the process.
We also, during the “season,” which runs roughly from April through October, open our home to members of Warm Showers, a bicycle touring lodging exchange. Last week, we were inundated with bicycle tourists, ten in three days, with five showing up on short notice on the first day. This week, we are at a weaving workshop—or, at least Judy is, while I attempt to catch up on technical reading and work, since there is no Internet connection at the workshop location (an old Navy prison, now part of a city park), but there is a place to set up a computer. The workshop is another “left turn off the grid,” covering techniques of turning the draft to swap warp and weft. We are in Seattle, exploring the neighborhoods between Sand Point, Wallingford, and Green Lake in search of good coffee and wholesome food, driving up and down impossibly steep hills on narrow streets lined with astounding landscaping in full spring bloom surrounding a mix of old shingled cottages and bungalows, stark “contemporary” boxes, and modern northwest cottages of cedar. Sunlight and rain sweep through in various densities, and we often sit in gridlock traffic watching bicyclists outpace us, even uphill.
Class sample on Judy’s loom
One of the side-effects of travel is television. We don’t have one at home, but motel rooms often lack radio sets, so we frequently spend a few moments channel surfing in bewilderment before finding an old movie or reruns of syndicated series we once watched (NCIS—the original–being the last holdout, and which seems to have its own channel). These links to an earlier era bereft of TV-land inside jokes and unreal reality are at least comprehensible. This time, we find ourselves in a room where the secondary audio program, a technology of which we were previously unaware, is permanently on, with a mismatched controller that, like our watching experience, predates this feature. So, we are treated to what seems to be an audio book of the screenplay, with actors reading the dialogue parts, which makes it unnecessary to actually fix our gaze on the unfamiliar device on the other side of the room.
Next week, if all goes well, we are spending a few days at our truly left-of-center, off-the-grid cabin on the lower slopes of the Mission Mountains in Montana. This is intended to provide more perspective on slower, unconnected living, though we do have a small solar panel to power reading lights and radio, our home phone is now a smart phone with limited Internet connectivity, and the neighbors might have Internet access we can borrow. And, there is the possibility of a day or two paid work on behalf of our Montana clients, since we will be close enough to pay a visit.
So it goes. We are supposedly in our retirement years, but have somehow managed to keep working, learn new skills, become involved in the leadership of several organizations, and become amateur innkeepers in our attempt to fill up what we anticipated would be idle time, while studiously avoiding sitcoms, reality TV, and Fox News. As usual, our “vacations” tend to be watching the scenery go by on the way to visit relatives or clients or work as usual but with different vistas out the window. Our “leisure” activities tend to be 40-60 Km bike rides at 20Km/h, preparing for longer “vacation” tours of 75-100Km per day, or the annual “birthday mile ride,” now approaching 120Km. At least the runners on our rocking chairs aren’t going to wear out soon.
– …be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity. [Horace Mann]
No seasonal affective disorders here, just a brief return to winter. On this last day of April, a quiet Monday, when most of the skiers have gone home and the golfers, mountain bikers, hikers, and fly fishers have not yet arrived, we took advantage of the solitude to venture up into the Kananaskis Country, south of Canmore, climbing to an elevation of 1724 meters (5600 ft), where winter was in full force yet at the Kananaskis Lakes, which won’t begin to fill with snow melt for many weeks yet.
Lower Kananaskis Lake
We chose not to bring our bicycle on this trip, figuring the bike trails would not yet be open. Well, we were partly right. Although there is an extensive trail system throughout Kananaskis Country, some trails are closed to bicycles, as seen here, and some are just closed, anyway, along with many roads, services, and all the campgrounds.
No Bikes Allowed on this trail, even if you can find it...
We had set out for the day up Alberta Highway 40, which was still closed for the winter about 50Km up the valley. After a short hike for views of the lakes, we headed back, following the GPS, which pointed out the shortest route back was via the Spray Lakes, most of which was unpaved, but, for the first 50 Km or so, was very wide and relatively smooth and empty of traffic.
Spray Trail, along the Spray Lakes Reservoir
The scenery was great, even though visibility was low.
Spray Lakes Reservoir
Despite having dropped quite a bit in altitude, the lakes were still frozen, and we were getting quite close to town. At the dam at the head of the main reservoir, the road narrowed and deteriorated, and, more ominously, quit descending, until we came to Whitemans Pond, perched on the edge of a cliff, 400 meters (1300 ft) directly above our resort. The narrow gravel road turned sharply left across the face of the cliff and descended at a double-digit grade. Suffice it to say that, had we chosen this route outbound to the high country, we would not have attempted the journey. As it was, we were within 5Km of town and no turn-arounds, so we plummeted down the slope, transmission screaming in low gear (but, to her credit, the Nice Person, white-knuckled in the infelicitous downward-view seat, was not–screaming, that is).
Spray Trail (diagonal cut above the trees in the forground)
Meanwhile, between adventures in the wilderness, work goes on for the Unix Curmudgeon. Email correspondence tended, files uploaded, advice rendered, and life goes on. Hmmm, wonder where to go tomorrow on coffee break?
Finally, our Canadian spring bike getaway comes to an end. Out at 0830, with just a snack, we get in line for the 1030 MV Coho sailing back to the States. After a bumpy crossing, we are starved, pick up a bagel at Olympic Bagel in Port Angeles–too many choices! We decide to take the long way home, continuing anti-clockwise around the Olympic Peninsula.
First stop, Crescent Lake. We wanted to check out the Lodge, but it is still closed for the season.
Storm King Mountain and Crescent Lake
Crescent Lake is one of the most beautiful, with clear, blue-green waters and surrounded by the northernmost peaks of the Olympics. We’ve hiked the Spruce Railroad trail on the north side of the lake, many years ago when we used to spend Labor Day at Whiskey Creek Campground near Joyce, on the Strait, just a few miles to the north. This photo is looking east from the west end of the lake.
We head on west through a rain squall, over the hill into the Sol Duc River drainage, which US101 follows to Forks, a formerly quiet logging town at the confluence of the Sol Duc, Calawah, and Bogochiel Rivers that form the Quillayute River running just a few miles to the Pacific. Now, Forks is the center of the the Twilight book and movie franchise, as the setting for the tales of vampires and werewolves in the remote Pacific Northwest. As we pass through, we note little has changed in the 20 years or so since we last visited, except everything has been renamed with a “Twilight” prefix… The gloom of rain passes and the sun comes out as we head south.
Crossing the Hoh River, we turn west toward the sea, coming to the coastal strip of the Olympic National Park at Ruby Beach, an icon for the sea stacks, rocky prominences that jut out of the sea, remnants of a drowned coast where the San Juan tectonic plate is being pushed under the Pacific plate.
Sea Stacks at Ruby Beach, Olympic National Park
A few miles to the south lies the broad, sandy Kalaloch (Clay-lock) Beach, where a hundred or so clam hunters stalk the succulent razor clam during the short spring season. Armed with “clam guns,” three-foot-long metal tubes with a vent at the closed end, or with long, thin clamming spades, the hunters watch for the siphon of a razor clam in the retreating tide, then pull or dig a core of sand, hoping to unearth one of these Pacific Northwest culinary delights. If no clam surfaces, they drop to their knees in the wet sand and dig by hand, sometimes up to their armpits, as the clam furiously digs deeper. Those lucky enough to bag their limit of legal-sized clams take home a plateful of one of the rarest seafood delicacies known. I’ve done this once, nearly 30 years ago. Today, we’re just passing through.
Razor Clam hunters at Kalaloch Beach
At the Queets River (rhymes with Keats), the highway turns inland, even backtracking northeast for a ways. We detour at Lake Quinault and drive past Quinault Lodge, one of the few old log lodges remaining, where we honeymooned 25 years ago. Alas, in semi-retirement, the room rates have outstripped our budget, so we make a U-turn and head south on US101 to Aberdeen, where we turn off at the western terminus of US12 to WA8 and WA108 back to the tail of US101 as it nearly loops back on itself around the Olympic Peninsula, arriving home just at sunset. The cat and grandkids are happy to see us, and we’re glad to be home, too, even if the trip wasn’t long enough. There is lots more to see and do on Vancouver Island and on the Olympic Peninsula. I guess we didn’t use it up back in the 1980s and 1990s after all.
Yesterday, my tandem bike stoker (and life partner of the past 25 years) and I headed to the Big City by automobile to run a few errands and check out the bike-path/walking trails around Capitol Lake.
Since the day had started cold and threatened to turn wet, we parked at metered parking on the downtown side of the lake, rather than out on the parkway on the far side of the lake. Standing in the cold breeze from the lake and looking at the rain-laden clouds sweeping in from the Coast, and, with the closed-for-repairs causeway less than 500 meters down the shore, I thumbed enough of our dwindling supply of nickels into the meter for what seemed to be a generous 40 minutes of brisk walking.
As we moved into the lee side of the hill on which Washington’s Capitol campus sits, the wind didn’t seem so cold, and we noted a switchback trail leading to the Capitol, so we diverted. In the 30 years since I first came to Washington State, I had never been to the Capitol itself, so it seemed like a good idea at the time to check it out. After reaching the top and strolling past the domed seat of government, we noted that we only had eight minutes to get back to the car before the meter expired.
It wasn’t far as the raven flies, but ravens don’t walk down switchbacks, and the eight minutes expired by the time we reached the lake shore, where we noted, in the distance, the flashing red light of the Parking Enforcement vehicle as it moved down the street–away from our car. One more nickel would have saved us: the time stamp on the $15.00 parking infraction was three minutes after the meter expired. Officer Lisa must have sat in front of the car waiting for the LCD to flash all zips. The car next to us also had a ticket, so it was obviously a good place to just hang out and watch the meters tick.
Needless to say, the afternoon gloom intensified inside the car as well as out on the drive home. Parking meters are evil: you can’t add more time unless you are physically there, and they don’t record how long the meter has been expired, or know if the same car has been in the spot for more than the 3-hour limit. In some municipalities, the parking enforcement folks make more than one pass to check for deliberate violators. Obviously, there is no “grace period” in Olympia, especially during the legislative session when parking space is at a premium.
So, the moral of this story is: be generous with your supply of nickels at the meter–if you return on time, pass your good fortune on to the next car, or consider it a tip to the city for having a convenient spot for you to have parked in. Or, bring your bike and park the car in a free lot outside the city core. Next time, we will.
