When I returned from grocery shopping with pancake mix and a hankering for a flapjack dinner, Maya and her friend Fiona seized upon the opportunity to create chocolate chip Halloween-cakes. I was too busy enjoying the ones pictured here to document the subsequent works of culinary art.
Jeanine spent the weekend in Indiana where she celebrated her Lebanon High School 35-year reunion. Pictured here with life long best friend Kris Earle (above) and high school beau Jake (below) it is clear she is enjoying herself thoroughly.
Today she spent the day with sister Lauren and brother-in-law Bob Basile getting out for a hike on the Monon Trail. It has been more than a week since we have seen each other and I am looking forward to her return tomorrow.
I flew back from Minnesota this morning so that I could attend Maya’s soccer match this evening. The team needed a win to advance into post season competition and Maya provided a pivotal contribution to their 1-0 victory over undefeated and highly regarded Newton South. Midway through the first half Maya intercepted a loose ball, dribbled to about midfield where she made a perfectly weighted pass into open space, splitting the defense. A teammate ran onto the ball, took it to the flag and crossed for the goal.
It was arguably the most important goal of the season and a great way for Maya to close out her high school soccer career. The team was euphoric over the goal and I am sure this is a game Maya will remember for the rest of her life.
A complete set of photos from the match can be found here.
When I first spoke to my mother after learning of my brother’s heart attack, I assured her he would be back in his kitchen cooking pasta by the end of the week. I was wrong. He chose to make popcorn. He arrived home late this evening after making the seven-hour drive from Marquette with his wife Marie and cousin Heather. He is still quite sore from a cracked sternum and ribs sustained during his 19 minutes of CPR. He has also been fitted with an implanted defibrillator which will shock him back to life should his heart decide to take another siesta. Mark really dodged a bullet and we are all very thankful this story has a happy ending.
While my nieces were in school today I visited the Minnesota Zoo which resulted in a huge collection of photographs, some of my favorites are included below.
There are many things I do well. Cooking is not one of them. My first attempt at baking waffle fries for my nieces resulted in loud and enthusiastic acknowledgement from the kitchen smoke detector. Not one to give up at anything, I made a second attempt this evening with a highly satisfying golden-brown outcome. Please understand that these potatoes came frozen in a bag and the only skill necessary to prepare them is to sit around doing nothing for the appropriate amount of time. I confess that sitting around doing nothing has never been one of my strong suits either.
In addition to maintaining high nutritional standards for my nieces, today’s after-school activities included a visit to Clifton French Regional Park and a game of “chase the gerbils” (I am referred to as the Gerbil Master), driving lessons in the parking lot and gymnastic class for Sophia.
I spotted a total of four bald eagles while visiting the Long Meadow Lake unit of the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge after dropping my nieces off at school. I happened upon the pair above about two miles from the visitor center. Even though they were rather far away it was hard to miss their distinctive silhouettes.
Nearby Minnehaha Creek was swollen due to significant recent rain making its plunge over 53-foot tall Minnehaha Falls that much more dramatic.
I hiked down the creek until it converged with the mighty Mississippi River. Along the way I encountered more raptors and a single bubble gum decorated tree, the first of its kind that I have ever seen.
Cameras were not permitted at the Excel Center where we attended a concert featuring the acapella quintet, Pentatonix. Although I really enjoy the group’s music, the concert was a tad too loud for my taste and a pair of screaming teens in the row behind us did little to enhance the experience. Fortunately, the girls enjoyed their first concert and staying up until midnight on a school night.
I had the great fortune to spend her 11th birthday with my niece Sophia. After dropping her off at school, I stuck around to witness the “move-a-thon” event for fifth graders. She completed 70 laps of the beep test and raised a ton of money for an up coming field trip. After school I asked Sophia where I could take her and Rose for a birthday dinner. She requested Chipotle, one of my favorite restaurants. I did not bother to mention that I had eaten there for lunch.
At around 7 pm, she was surprised by a group of friends and adults for a proper party. Mark and Marie and several other family members attended via FaceTime.
Comfort food for this Italian takes the form of rigatoni with home made marinara sauce. It is also one of the few things I can cook well and hence on the menu this evening as I prepared dinner for my nieces, Sophia and Rose, and their friends Tray and Charlie. I arrived in Minneapolis in time to pick them up from school and will remain here until my brother and sister-in-law are able to return from Marquette, MI. The heart attack my brother suffered this weekend appears to have been caused by an electrical/heart pacing problem rather than coronary blockage which means he should be able to make a full recovery. He will, however, need to get an implantable cardioverter defibrillator which will shock his heart back to a normal rhythm should it go wonky again. It remains to be seen if he will have that procedure completed in Michigan or after returning home.
Mark was very lucky and we are all incredibly thankful for this outcome. The prayers and well wishes of so many have been much appreciated.
Maya lit this candle for my younger brother Mark who suffered a heart attack on Friday. The entire family was on a bike ride when he collapsed to the ground. His son, Mario, immediately began performing CPR which no doubt saved his life. When EMT arrived on scene they used a defibrillator to restore his heart beat and then Medivaced him to Marquette, Michigan some 100 miles from Houghton where the family was vacationing. He was initially intubated, sedated and chilled for a day and a half. Earlier this morning he was extubated and was responsive to questions although groggy from the medications and had difficulty talking due to a sore throat and possible cracked ribs. More tests will be conducted tomorrow to determine if further intervention is necessary. I will travel to Minneapolis in the morning where I will care for young daughters Sophia and Rose during the week while Marie stays with Mark at the hospital. Only months after suffering from a stroke, I am left to wonder if the two events are not connected in some way. We are all praying for his full recovery.
My soccer match this morning was rather depressing as we squandered a one point lead and had to settle for a tie despite controlling most of the action on the pitch. After the game I took the annual team photo before we enjoyed a fine barbecue at the home of Erik Jarnryd.
Later I joined Maya and Jeanine downtown as they volunteered at the Crop Walk as part of their work for the National Charity League.
Pictured above is a photograph of a live model I took while attending the PhotoPlus Expo in New York City today. Booths for the larger camera manufacturers often feature such scenes so that attendees will be tempted to audition their latest products. The set, model, and her clothes were painted by an artist creating what could easily be mistaken for an oil painting on canvas.
I decided only this morning to attend the show which was held inside the Javits Convention Center. With traffic, it took four hours to get there and five to return. A lot of driving for a half day on the show floor but I am very pleased I made the journey.
It has been 13 years since our family moved from Indianapolis to the Boston area. When we arrived Jeanine and I planted a small Japanese Maple tree just off the deck in our backyard. Today it stands some 20 feet tall and is the source of great pleasure year round but especially in the fall as it turns orange and red.
Hard to explain how much time and grief this failed piece of technology (3TB hard disk drive with 128GB solid-state cache) has cost me. I spent the entire day trying to coax my precious data from it to no avail. Fortunately, my backup archive was fairly up to date and the only file of consequence that I have been unable to restore is Maya’s 18th birthday video interview. Perhaps she will allow me to film another. I am also tempted to make another video featuring me, the above drive, and a sledgehammer.
Jeanine prepared an end of garden soup from the ingredients pictured above combined with many others not shown. I can say with both pride and confidence that no one makes better soups than Jeanine. Of the hundreds I have enjoyed, this one may well be my favorite.
As if to punish me for abandoning it during my “drive about,” my iMac computer failed to boot up when I returned. It took Apple a week to replace the defective hard disk drive and I picked it up this afternoon. I spent the balance of the day reinstalling software and restoring all of my archived photos. Unfortunately, I lost about 2 weeks of photography and my archived e-mails. I am still working on recovering these files but the probability of doing so without employing an expensive recovery service is rapidly diminishing.
Another perfect fall day compelled me to get outside for some local photography. Searching for and locating these idyllic settings is as much fun as shooting them. In another week or two such scenes will have disappeared and I intend to squeeze every bit of color out of this autumn as I can.
I was honored when Maya’s best friend, Sarinnagh, asked me to photograph her senior portrait. For 13 years I have enjoyed watching her grow up hand-in-hand with Maya. She is as sweet as she is beautiful and it would be impossible for anyone to take a bad photo of her.
The results from my soccer match this morning were not nearly as satisfying. We squandered a 2-0 lead and had to settle for a 2-2 tie against the number one team in our division. My 16-day road trip took its toll on my conditioning and let’s just say I have some work to do to get back into shape.
Maya’s interest in a nearby college compelled Jeanine and me to join her there for an all-day computer science open house today. I have been admonished from sharing any additional details for reasons known only to the women of the family.
A more perfect fall day I can not remember. Cool weather, clear skies, and autumn color in full glory. I made an afternoon excursion to Mount Monadnock in Jaffrey, NH stopping frequently to take photographs along the way.
I paused for an hour to climb the tiny (1832 feet tall) Mount Watatic. Views from the summit were somewhat limited although I did manage the shot below, taken through a gap in the trees. Fall colors this year are outstanding, perhaps due to the severe drought. I can’t recall a time when the full spectrum of hues were so abundantly present.
By the time I reached Mount Monadnock it was too late in the day to climb so I had to settle for a photograph of the mountain itself.
In addition to two of my soccer games, I have missed several of Maya’s as a result of my recent travels. This afternoon the CCHS Women’s Varsity was in action against Acton-Boxboro. After a scoreless first half, Concord Carlisle gave up two avoidable goals in the second half. Maya has mostly recovered from a foot injury that has nagged her but did not get any playing time in today’s match. Photos from the first half of the game (rain and darkness infringed on the second half) can be found here.
One of my bucket list ambitions is to visit all of the US National Parks of which there are currently 59. My recent road trip added 8 more bringing my current total to 40. The National Park Service administers all manner of national sites including monuments (124), preserves (19), historical parks (50), historic sites (89), battlefield parks (4), military parks (9), battlefields (11), battlefield sites (1), memorials (30), recreation areas (18), seashores (10), lakeshores (4), rivers (5), reserves (3), parkways (10), historic and scenic trails (23), cemeteries (14), and heritage areas (49). Of the ten maps/park brochures I collected on my “drive about” see if you can guess which two fall into a category other than national park.
Stopping only for fuel, food, and bio-breaks, I completed my 16-day, 7,417 mile “drive about” road trip today arriving at home just before midnight. In total, I visited 8 national parks and 2 national historical sites, traversed 18 states, and listened to 10 audio books. Spending time with Jeanine and Nicolai in Colorado was by far the highlight. Although I am momentarily exhausted from today’s 15-hour dive, I am already starting to think about my next road trip.
After visiting Carlsbad Caverns earlier in the week, the Mammoth Cave (both a National Park and a World Heritage Site) does not initially seem quite as impressive. It contains a small fraction of the speleothems which are to be found in the former. What is amazing is the sheer scale of the cave. With 405 miles of surveyed passageways Mammoth Cave is by far the world’s longest known cave system, over twice as long as the second-longest cave system, Mexico’s Sac Actun underwater cave, a portion of which Kyle and I explored during his coming of age adventure.
In my quest to one day visit all 59 national parks I have now reached the two thirds mark and consider myself qualified to say that the Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas does not really meet the standard of a National Park. It should properly be designated as a National Historical Park, akin to the Minute Man National Historical Park in my home town of Concord. The tiny natural portion of the “park” is largely unremarkable while the hot springs have been capped and plumbed into a common feed system for the entire downtown area Bathhouse Row. Fordyce Bathhouse serves as the park’s Visitor’s Center and is really more of a museum.
There are a very small number of places where you can still see the hot springs and I am afraid this park will be near or at the bottom of my list.
There is very little to see between Midland, Texas, where I spent last night, and the Choctaw Nation town of Broken Bow, Oklahoma, my destination for the evening. The 8 hour drive is sprinkled with windmill farms and oil fields and damn little else. I can not really say that my first visit to the Sooner state was worth the extra mileage but it does lift my visited state tally to 47.
Big Bend National Park, located in Texas, has national significance as the largest protected area of Chihuahuan Desert topography and ecology in the United States. Covering 801,163 acres, it contains more than 1,200 species of plants, more than 450 species of birds (including the above pictured Peregrine Falcon ), 56 species of reptiles, and 75 species of mammals. When I entered the park early in the morning, the sky was totally clear. By the time I arrived in lovely Chisos Basin, I was literally racing to stay ahead of a rapidly advancing fog bank that quickly inundated and totally obscured the mountains.
With nothing left visible to photograph in the mountains, I made my way to the Santa Elena Canyon.
Here the Rio Grande has carved through the mountains to create a very narrow and steep-walled canyon. The hike in is generally easy except for the necessary waist-deep water crossing of Terlingua Creek.
On the return leg of the hike, I extended the creek crossing to include a brief visit to Mexico. The slow moving Rio Grande, pictured below is only about 30 feet wide at the bend and no deeper than 3 feet. If Donald Trump gets to build his wall, this park will forever be spoiled and such an impromptu international excursion will no longer be possible. I spent about 10 minutes on Mexican soil before crossing back to the US and continuing on to Rio Grande Village at the opposite end of the park.
The Carlsbad Caverns National Park makes my short list of favorite national parks. I arrived just as the park was opening and spent the next 5 hours underground. What a treasure trove! The fact that tripods and flashlights are permitted allowed me to get some nice photographs in the “Big Room.” Many of the speleothems are already illuminated for the visual enjoyment of tourists but not in a fashion that lends to nice photographs. With long exposures and using my flashlight to “paint with light,” I was able to create many images that I am very pleased with.
Saguaro National Park is located in southern Arizona on the outskirts of Tucson established to protect its namesake—the giant saguaro cactus. Many other kinds of cactus, including barrel, cholla, and prickly pear, are abundant in the park.
The Guadalupe Mountains National Park is located 6 hours away in West Texas and contains Guadalupe Peak, the highest point in Texas at 8,749 feet. Located east of El Paso, it also contains El Capitan, long used as a landmark by people traveling along the Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach line. I arrived just in time for evening light but not early enough to complete a planned hike into McKittrick Canyon. Instead I pushed on to Midland, Texas where, motivated by the desire (and need) for a hot shower, I stayed in a motel for the evening.
The Painted Desert was aptly named by explorer Francisco Vázquez de Coronado in 1540. Now a part of the Petrified Forest National Park it is a photographer’s dream. I have often admired this area from 30,000 feet while flying over and was thrilled to have a closer look today.
Famous US Route 66 used to traverse the park and is now commemorated with the exhibit shown below. At many sites within the park, petroglyphs have been scratched, pecked, carved, or incised on rock surfaces, often on a patina known as desert varnish. Most of the petroglyphs in Petrified Forest National Park are thought to be between 650 and 2,000 years old.
The Petrified Forest is known for its fossils, especially fallen trees that lived in the late Triassic period, about 225 million years ago. Despite looking so natural, these tree sections are now composed exclusively of rock-hard minerals. As nightfall approached, I found myself passing Biosphere 2, the largest closed ecological system ever created. Used only twice for its original intended purposes as a closed-system experiment, both attempts, though heavily publicized, ran into problems including low amounts of food and oxygen, die-offs of many animal and plant species, squabbling among the resident scientists, and management issues. I was unable to gain access beyond the security gate and had to settle for sleeping in an adjacent cow pasture for the evening.
After dropping Jeanine off for her pre-dawn return flight to Boston, I drove 8 hours to the Chaco Cultural National Monument (click on image for a more detailed view) which hosts the densest and most exceptional concentration of pueblos in the American Southwest. The scale, architecture and precision of construction are awe inspiring. Along the drive I was treated to a full double rainbow, an old fashioned steam powered train, antique Rolls Royce, and mountains full of aspens in bloom.
Once in the park, I completed a 5-mile hike to the top of the escarpment overlooking the ruins for a bird’s eye view. Vertical access was by way of a narrow slot canyon “stairway.”
Wildlife encounters for the day included many elk and countless ravens.
Perfectly timed to my departure from Chaco Canyon, the setting sun turned the red rocks to gold.
Nicolai and I started the day by shopping for a pair of proper boots which he needed prior to the onset of winter. We then joined Jeanine who had secured us a table at a very popular breakfast cafe where we enjoyed a delightful meal. We bid Nico farewell before returning to our hotel for a much needed nap. Fully rested we walked to the nearby Manitou Cliff Dwellings and Museum. These Anasazi ruins were originally located in McElmo Canyon, in the southwest corner of Colorado near Mesa Verde and Dolores. The process of relocating them began in 1904 and was completed in 1907 when the preserve was opened to the public.
Jeanine used her superior restaurant sniffing skills to identify the Jerusalem Cafe as our destination for dinner. The meal was the best of our vacation and we wrapped up the evening with a stroll through the quaint town of Manitou Springs.
Jeanine and I met Brady Grainger (mother of Nico’s roommate) for coffee and breakfast. We were eventually joined by her son (Tom) and daughter (Aliza) both at Colorado College as well as Nicolai who had spent the night on campus. Jeanine and I also made a brief stop to deliver a care package to Karuna (Nico’s girlfriend and CC freshman) who was not feeling well enough to join us for breakfast. We then drove up to the Catamount Center to see where Nicolai was living and learn more about the program. The setting on two lakes at the base of Pike’s Peak is nothing short of stunning.
Nicolai lives in a bio-thermally heated high tech structure high on campus which stands in stark contrast to all other buildings which are very rustic.
Nicolai is studying here as part of the Teaching and Research in Environmental Education (TREE) program, a 16-week, residential semester program that mirrors the traditional study abroad experience. The TREE Semester is specifically designed for undergraduate students interested in exploring both environmental and educational fields. Nicolai will spend over a hundred hours teaching a group of K-12 students while simultaneously cultivating his own conceptions of environmental stewardship and researching his students’ development.
Visiting parents were treated to astudent-ledd tour of the campus and later Nico, his friend, Cameron, and I hiked to the location where he did his solo vision quest returning to base just as the Grainger family arrived.
A subsequent hike was aborted due to the onset of a brief hail storm. The entire group had dinner together at a Mexican restaurant in Woodland Park. I joined the group later after returning to the Catamount Center to take advantage of the post storm evening light. I lucked upon a herd of elk that were perfectly positioned at the top of a ridge and am very happy with the resulting images.
