Category Archives: Travel

July 1, 2024 · 22:53

One Step Back

Thank goodness for the multiple steps forward in our lifetimes, because it feels like we took a HUGE step backwards today. It’s scary enough to see the damage, racism, incompetence, and outright treason being carried out for the last decade or so by one of the two major US political parties, which led to the deaths of over a million Americans from COVID in the last five years among other small details, but even with some of the evil, stupid, vile decisions that have come out of the increasingly illegitimate Supreme Court in the last few years, today’s tops them all. By a number of definitions, we are no longer a democracy. If the President is above the law, then we don’t have laws, and if we don’t have laws, we’re a failed society.

That’s on top of some of the personal angst going on, including the annoying pain and dental problems that don’t seem to be getting better.

It seems that my feeling of impending doom about July 2024 might have been justified. It’s not like we can’t expect the worst from the evil chucklefucks in the GOP and far-right white supremacists who want to take us back to the Fifties. (And that might be the 1850’s.)

So let’s stop doomscrolling and just breathe and calm ourselves. The Calm app helps, and here’s a picture of a peaceful, warm, beach and seagull, to help.

Tomorrow’s another day, I still (deep down) have faith that folks are good, and together we’ll get through this.

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Filed under Photography, Politics, Travel

June 30, 2024 · 23:19

Goodbye June 2024

While there was definitely “room for improvement,” (I’m looking at YOU, dental health!) I’m trying to accentuate the positive, so I went back through the month’s pictures. There were a few high points and things that didn’t suck.

(Photo: Ronnie Willett)

Mid-parade – tell me again why they start down at the bottom and walk uphill (it’s not THAT steep or that much of an elevation rise, maybe 50-75 feet or so over two miles) when they used to do it the more sensible other way around?

Never ignore the moon.

Always go out to a play, even if it turns out to be a bit on the “Meh!” side. (I was NOT the target audience.)

The stairwell where ten years ago I almost woke up the entire hotel in the middle of the night, wanting to scream and yell when the Kings won the Stanley Cup in double OT.

(Photo: VT park ranger Pat)

At the top of the observation tower on Ascutney, sweaty and probably smelling bad, but unbowed.

NEVER turn down a window seat and NEVER sit there for the whole flight with the window shade down.

I wish that I didn’t have such a feeling of impending doom about July.

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Filed under Photography, Travel

June 27, 2024 · 23:59

A Rogue Beaver?

While walking through Springfield, I found this:

It’s a telephone pole near the town Commons (where the baseball field & park is) and across the street from the cemetary.

Did this get hit by a car or some piece of heavy equipment or is there a rogue beaver wandering around town?

Our old house was only about 200 yards down the hill – I’m about 99.999% sure there isn’t any water around that might be home to a beaver, so I’m going to go with something man-made or accidental. It was the only pole I saw with this sort of damage and it did leave me wondering.

A small town Vermont mystery!!

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Filed under Critters, Photography, Travel

June 25, 2024 · 23:48

Tree At Castle Rock

As you’re walking/hiking/climbing your way from the parking lot near the top of Mount Ascutney to the actual top of Mount Ascutney, you have the option (assuming you’re a masochistic, delusionsal fool who has conveniently forgotten that you’re 68 years old and you sit at a desk all day) of going off on about a 0.2 mile side trail pretty much straight up to get to Castle Rock. I couldn’t recall ever having gone that route in the past, and they had a BOGO special on delusional that day, so off I went.

It’s not so much extra climbing and altitude gain as it is going the hard and steep way just to see a big rock with a view. I had a good time and apparently lived.

You’re probably still 100 feet or so below the summit and off to the side, but the views are nice as you pop out of the side of the heavily forested mountain and can see for quite a ways.

Sitting on Castle Rock and looking back in, there are a great many trees that look like this. The Vermont winters can be brutal, cold, icy, and windy, and the first rank of trees next to the rock are fully exposed to those elements. They’re doing their best, but they regularly get the shit kicked out of them. Yet all of them still had some fresh, green spring growth somewhere. They weren’t dead and they weren’t giving up.

And when I slipped and almost fell off of the freakin’ rock, they were there for me to grab onto.

These trees are my favorites. We are kindred spirits.

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Filed under Deep Thoughts, Photography, Travel, Weather

June 24, 2024 · 23:42

Big Sky, Small Wing

Back in the 1970’s, Mount Ascutney in Vermont was a leading location for those experimenting with hang gliders. To this day, there are side trails off of the four primary trails up and down the mountain that lead to launch sites.

From the observation tower at the top of the mountain, I spotted the tiniest dot in the big sky, a rainbow wing of a paraglider.

(To Pat, the nice park ranger I met up there, who was asking about the difference betweeen a paraglider and a parasail, I apologize for getting it backwards. This is a paraglider, a parasail is typically towed behind a boat. My bad!)

Click on it. Blow it up, I’m giving everyone the full-sized file.

We’re looking east, across the Connecticut River into New Hampshire. I believe that’s Mount Monadanock in southern New Hampshire.

As good as this view was, I’ll bet that our flyer had a better one.

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Filed under Flying, Photography, Travel

June 20, 2024 · 22:36

Vermont Flowers

Yep, I took a gazillion photos, and I’m going to inflict them upon you share them for days and days.

There were wildflowers everywhere. Alongside the road, the parking lots, the trails on Ascutney…

Daisies, bluebells, clover, and some I can’t ID right off the bat. Wonderful!!

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Filed under Flowers, Photography, Travel

June 19, 2024 · 22:34

Skyscapes, June 19th

Back in LA, it’s clear as a bell during the day and cloudy, gloomy, and foggy every morning (“May Gray” has turned into “June Gloom” – IYKYK) but last weekend in Vermont there were some wonderful clouds almost every day.

I just wish that it had been a little bit more cloudless at night. Those stars the first night were spectacular!

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Filed under Photography, Travel, Weather

June 17, 2024 · 23:23

Travel Luck For Me!

I truly love having a window seat on an airplane when traveling. It’s a complete mystery to me why every single person on the plane has their window shade down every second. How can you NOT be looking out the window?

But I’m always in the middle seat these days, for reasons. Except for today.

We didn’t know it at the time, but there was an accident on the freeway leading to Logan International in Boston, causing a HUGE traffic jam and causing several folks on our flight to miss the flight. So some folks back in economy seats got the option to upgrade to Business or First Class, and took it. One of them was the guy who had the window seat in our aisle, so he boogied up front to luxury, while I got to shift over to the window and The Long-Suffering Wife and I got some elbow and leg room with the empty middle seat there.

I might have taken a lot of pictures.

There were some impressive thunderhead storm cells building up over the upper Midwest, so the views were great, even if the turbulence was not appreciated by everyone.

But c’mon folks! If we’re that jaded about these kinds of views right outside our windows that we can’t be bothered with, maybe we don’t deserve to make it when all is said and done.

I love binging “Ted Lasso” reruns as much as the next guy, but I can watch them any other time, without all of the lagging and breakups. Look at the reality that’s waiting for you if you care to look!!!

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Filed under Flying, Photography, Travel, Weather

June 16, 2024 · 20:03

Ascutney, Yet Again

It was a lovely day, clear, sunny, not too hot. Our final full day in Vermont for this trip, and I once again wanted to get to the top of the observation tower on top of Mount Ascutney. Not hiking one of the base-to-summit trails of three or four miles and about 3,000 feet in elevation gain, I did the trail from the upper parking lot, 0.7 miles and about 300 feet in elevation.

Piece o’ cake, right? What, 20-30 minutes up? 15 back down? FOOL!!!

True, a lot of the trail does look like this:

But A LOT more than I remembered looks like this:

So 1:19 after leaving the parking lot, with the nice park ranger asking if I would like her to take my picture and did I need oxygen, I was there!

It was clear enough to glimpse Mount Washington, 115 miles away.

It then took me 35 minutes to get down, taking care to not shatter a leg, twist an ankle, or go ass over teakettle over the side of a ravine. I survived!

Who knows if I’ll be able to do this again in five or ten years, but on THIS day I was triumphant!

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Filed under Photography, Travel

June 15, 2024 · 19:27

Small Town America Alumni Day Parade

Here’s your small town…

i.e., Springfield, Vermont

Here’s your parade, specifically the Class of ‘74 “float” for our 50th anniversary reunion.

Yes, I walked the two-mile parade and pelted small children and grandmothers with soft, gooey Tootsie Rolls that had been sitting out in the sun too long. It was fun! (Not sure what the Vegas odds are for us being able to do it again in ten years for the 60th. Or for me being able to walk tomorrow morning.)

Our reunion tonight was relaxed, calm, loud, and full of hugs and catch-up conversations with classmates whom I generally haven’t seen in 5, 10, 15, 20, or 50 years. It was wonderful! ❤️

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