Well, it took me 22 days to write my first post in 2019. Happy new year to you!
All this “Blood Moon” talk hyped up this event which is really just the earth passing in front of the sun casting it’s shadow on the moon (lunar eclipse). It does glow an odd color when in totality. That’s about it though. All the drama in the “news papers” made it more than it really was.
I did get a nice photo of the moon in totality.
The “Blood Moon”, January 21, 2019
At my home in Virginia the sky is always very clear if there are no clouds. This night happened to be one of those super clear nights so taking a picture of the moon would normally be a piece of cake. Enter the 40 mile an hour wind, 10º temperature and the location of the moon at 90º to the horizon.
The photo was taken with a 600mm lens which is not the smallest, lightest lens in the world. Attached to the camera and a tripod it’s steady but unwieldy. The wind was so strong that I had to use f-stops much higher than I normally would so the photo was not blurry. Had this been in the summer, for instance, I could have laid on my back and peered into the sky indefinitely. Not this night!
I did three sessions each about 5 minutes long. At the end of each session I could not feel my fingers! This photo came at the end of the last session after I dialed in the light and shutter speeds that I could use with a shaky camera(man). It wasn’t until I saw it on my computer that I knew I didn’t have to go out for a fourth session. Shew!
The camera was pointing straight up in the sky making it very difficult to focus on the moon and set the camera up to take the photo. But I finally managed to get a good one. It would have been fun to spend more time outside but it was just too uncomfortable.
Some astronomers have captured a meteor striking the moon during totality. That would have been cool to witness. You can find that on the web if you are interested. I don’t think it was fake news. It’s always possible these days.
Lunar eclipse are fun but if you really want to see something cool make plans to see a total solar eclipse! That’s a sight to see for sure. The next one in the USA is on April 8, 2024. I’ll be there!
I’m not a morning person. Today I made an exception.
For what ever reason I got up early and looked out the window and saw the foggy-ness before the sun had come up. Others in the house had to get up early as well to go to meetings and such so there was movement that probably woke me. We swapped inside cat with outside cats. I ran out the front door with my drone.
The air was calm and cold with fog so thick you couldn’t see very far. Mongrel and I were gearing up for a walk together like we do some mornings. Normally it’s down the gravel road to keep paws as dry as possible. Today it will be in the tall grass thick with moisture which he didn’t seem to mind. I found this interesting and fun to watch. Normally he does not like his paws to be wet like this. Today he was wet to the middle part of his body. Totally soaked. Remember, it’s like 40º!
I was struck by how cool the sun looked coming through the fog in some of my favorite places at home.
I never leave without at least one camera. This has paid off a number of times. It felt good today when I reached for it and took this photo.
The promise at first light; My day yet to be written.
The light was super soft and contrasty. This is the “lonely tree”; a name I gave it because it’s all alone in the field near our home. It’s a frequent subject of some of my high-contrast photography.
The photo is not edited and I used no filters. That’s the way it looked this morning. Very moody. I recall thinking, “I can do anything today!” as I walked with Mongrel who was beside himself exploring this “new” landscape wet from head to paw.
Just before our walk I flew the drone up to get this composite photography of the sun rising. Totally different perspective than being on the ground shrouded by the thick fog.
Drone’s eye view of the sunrise above the morning fog.Looking away from the sun.
Mongrel patiently waited on me to finish taking my photographs. He does this. He seems to know that when the “bird” lands that we will be on our walk soon. When the drone powers down he gets all giddy, arches his back, bends his tail and hops towards the way he wants to go. He knows we’re going for a long walk.
This week we experienced the first snow of the 2018/2019 winter season. It’s a little early for this much snow so soon but not unusual either. I have some media to share with you
The first to are some time lapse videos I put together from my cheapo Raspberry Pi cameras in the windows. These computers put three time lapse sequences a day together for me so there is nothing I have to do to make these happen.
I was a little surprised at how heavy the snow was at times. Normally we don’t see this heavy of snow this early in the season. It will snow then go away. 5″ of snow is a little unusual. To have this much show meant that it snowed from morning until evening on this day (November 15).
Weather station in heavy snow.
I didn’t have to look too far to find the deer finding refuge from the wind in the tall brush eating the leaves still on some of the trees there.
DeerDeer
This blue spruce tree was bought in 1999 from a nursery in Frederick Maryland to use as a Christmas tree when we lived there. The idea was that we would plant the tree once we moved to our new home. We did do that when we moved in here. First it was planted by the mailbox and then we moved it to this place after we wanted to plant the silver maple trees down the driveway. It has thrived in this location.
Christmas Tree – Blue Spruce
It’s sunny out now and 40º. The snow is melting off of the paved surfaces and things turning back to normal. The snow on the grass/ground is going to hang around for a while.
This particular day it was rainy but warm. Normally the colors of fall happen around mid October but this year it’s the first week in November.
Sugar Maple trees in my front yard
A cold front is coming marching through today with warm air ahead of the front that’s causing it to be all raining looking. Then the puffy clouds did finally dump 1.3 inches of rain today as of this writing.
Cold front November 2, 2018
I’ve got a photo session with a friend tomorrow morning so I hope the rain is going to be gone. Maybe there will be some nice landscape photos to be had. We won’t know until we get there.
One of us is faking. One of us isn’t.
It was a very long day at work followed by helping a friend move a motorcycle. Then date night which was the fun part of the day.
The route from home to Jefferson, Texas is not that exciting. I’ve driven the route many times before. This time I’m towing my motorcycle with me so we can do a “Shamrock Tour” once we are there.
I managed to take a little longer route to visit my friend John who lives in Brevard, NC. We both love to ride in North Carolina. He likes this area I like the area around Andrews. Back in 1996-1997 we were looking to move to Andrews because I could not stand the traffic in Atlanta when I worked there. I decided it would be better to fly to work every day than sit in my truck. Just before pulling that trigger I was transferred to Memphis but my search for a spot to land near Andrews has never subsided.
The trip through Brevard added another hour+ to the trip but it was nice to see John and have a place to lay my head for a day. I had meetings I needed to attend on Monday morning so it was also good to be stationary for those.
Back in time – Model A Ford – Model A father checking his phone messages. It’s nice to be stationary for a while.
The term Shamrock Tour was apparently created by RoadRunner magazine at some point in the recent past. The idea is that you go to one town and from there you will do 4 days of riding with each one of the legs the leaf of a Shamrock. I call it a clover leaf tour. They have the copyright on their term so I recognize that here.
We are, in fact, following one of their tours from the magazine. Sometimes at 80 miles an hour depending on who is leading. Today we did the shorter of all the days because we were fighting with the weather a bit. When we woke up the air is moist and cool but not raining. The weather is coming though.
Weather on day 1. Luckily we are on the leading edge of this so the rest of the trip will be clear.
It changed the way we rode. We didn’t go quite as far as we normally would but, looking back, we probably could have done the route as originally planned. The rain was predicted to start earlier than it did then rain more than it acutally has.
We can ride in all weather but it’s not that much fun in the rain. Sure, if you have to go to your next destination you’d go no matter what. But these kind of tours give you the flexibility to hang close to a hotel, go to a museum, read a book or take a nap.
The four clover leafs of this “Shamrock” tour.
We did the shorter ride towards Shreveport today. That was going to include a river boat ride but it appears that may have been a weekend only thing at this time of year. Everything is shut down on a Wednesday afternoon. We suspect that come the weekend that people will move into this place and the attractions will be available again. For example, there is a Museum Of Measurement And Time that doesn’t open until Thursday at 10am and only through Saturday. I definitely want to go into this cool place.
On Thursday (October 25, 2018) we are going the longer route down towards Nacogdoches made famous by Bonnie and Clyde. The route is approximately 250 miles. We’ll leave after breakfast, of course. One thing for sure is we have three squares a day. Not sure which way we’ll do the leaf but we’ll likely do it all just like it’s published. Paul has published the route on Google Maps so I’ll have that in my phone.
It’s October 25, 2018 and I’m up early. I find this mildly ironic because I am not a morning person and didn’t go to bed last night until about 2am. Interested in the state of the covered bike this morning I got outside to check out the elements. My bike is covered but wet, the air is moist and cool with no wind. It is going to take a while to burn off the moisture but that is exactly what will happen today.
It should remain clear the rest of the week now.
We made it to Nacogdoches without anyone being lost or injured which I found to be interesting since some of the group was doing over the limit and others well under. We have two types of riders on this trip; those that want to cover ground and those happy to stay above it. Riding happens at two very different speeds.
After lunch in Nacogdoches, Mexican of course, we split into three groups. One group headed back to the hotel, I needed to go to a local Wal-mart for sundries and the other making tracks for the next city on the route. Being the longer of the days we have to cover ground in all directions when we split up. Paul and Dad head to Gallatin, TX and I meet them there. Since I left first it was odd that they beat me there. But they did. Richard and Ed headed for the hotel.
Except for one evening we at at one single restaurant for dinner every evening. The name of the place was The KnightLight Theater with friendly wait staff and good food. We dined here 4 of the 5 nights we stayed in Jefferson. By the last night we were well known there. All of the food was good but my favorite was crawfish linguini.
By the way, we stayed at the Historic Kahn Hotel while we were here. We used this as a home base and start/stop for all of our rides. The hotel is sandwiched by cobblestone streets on two sides. From the hotel everything we wanted to do was a short walk away. We walked to breakfast and dinner each evening. I never got in my car to do anything once I was here. Our stay here coincided with Halloween on a busy Saturday night. It was fun to see children dressed up going from business to business with their families. And some grown-ups doing the same. I swear I was with some witches at dinner. They sounded like it anyway.
On the 26th we got up, shared breakfast and headed to do a tour of Caddo Lake where we would learn about this natural lake and 500 year old Cyprus trees that live there. It afforded me an opportunity to sit in the front of a boat with my professional camera and take some photos against a high-contrast sky.
Caddo Lake, Texas
Looking back, any of the other skies we experienced this week would not have produced such pretty photography as you see here. The wind was cold and blowing the Spanish moss all around. I could spend some serious time just on the lake taking photographs. The trees are so majestic and old. There is a way of life here that is clearly different than any other part of the US.
Caddo Lake, TexasCaddo Lake, TexasCaddo Lake, Texas
We were lucky to meet Rich McFarland of Caddo Lake Bayou Tours for our guide. Rich is soft spoke and easy going. From the front of his boat I was able to snap the pictures above. Rich gave us a nice tour of the lake near his boat ram and history lesson of the area going back to it’s lawless years. It was one of the highlights of my trip this week.
Caddo Lake – Bayou Tour launch point
After the lake tour we headed back to the hotel to suit up for our ride for the day. We still had 200+ miles to ride and it was already the noon hour. Since it had only been an hour we last ate some of us were getting hungry and ate a hamburger while the rest of us took off on our bikes for tour #3. #3 was the northwest tour towards Sulphur Springs, Texas.
I like to call this particular tour the “Express Tour”. Not sure where we were headed but we were going there fast! And some of this trip was on “goat trails” including deep ruts of Texas red clay. I still have some of that on my bike to prove it.
We made it back to the hotel about the time the sun was going down. We gathered up the old folks and headed to dinner. You guessed it, back to the The KnightLight Theater! This night there was someone playing acoustic guitar and doing some singing. This was a hit for a couple of us who enjoy this kind of atmosphere and music.
It’s September 27. This day is just with the three of the Westerman clan. We shared breakfast at the Port Jefferson Outpost. I think we at here every morning before our riding. Like the other places, this little place is nice with good breakfast and helpful staff. 2 eggs, bacon, biscuit with gravy and some sweet tea. Good stuff. 5 stars from me.
We start the trip like every other on the assigned route given to us which included goat trails early and often. It wasn’t long before we were doing our own ride on the basic route outlined in the maps with copious “ad libbing” along the way.
I have trailer bearing issues and have to cut the trip short about 3/4ths the way around. Those issues behind me, the bike loaded on my trailer and my truck mostly loaded sets me up for an early morning departure. My trip home will be mostly interstate highway (30, 40 and 81). This is why I have the trailer. Slabbing 1,200 miles on a motorcycle on interstate highway doesn’t do anything but make your butt hurt and go through tires.
Me and my rig(s). New trailer bearings when I get home.
I am very glad to have access to my trailer on trips like this. You arrive in decent shape after several days of driving. I’ll be using this trailer a ton in the coming years.
Google – rubbing it in. Plane ride is < 5 hours.
So that’s it. Another successful motorcycle trip just about completed. In total, we drove about 850 motorcycle miles on this tour of the Jefferson area. By the time I got home I had driven 2,530 miles in my truck to get there and back. It took me 2 days to get back home (18 hours of driving).
A bonus was a stop in Memphis where I had lunch with both my sisters and brothers-in-law.. That was nice!
Work starts again on Tuesday so I have to B-line it home. I need to be rested and ready to go. Lots of new projects on the table at work.
It was a busy day at my work today. Friday’s are always busy. At the end of the day I took one of my drones up for some photos and a video. The above is the result of that.
Matt, a bee keeper, came over to check out the bees which I didn’t notice until I saw him in the video feed. We have 11 hives now and keep approximately 385,000 bees on our property. I hope that rises over the years. I like the bees. With the bees come the birds, flowers and butterflies. It’s good having them around.
Big day tomorrow with a meeting early followed by the “80TH Annual Ladies Board Rummage Sale“. The Largest Rummage Sale in the Mid-Atlantic is a two-day event spanning more than 50,000 square feet all under cover. It’s a fun place to show up every year. This is the place I found that 185 year old clock that was broken. I fixed it this year and its a nice addition to our family. Oh, and the 5 airplanes last year. … the list goes on. Maybe I shouldn’t go?!
Then load up the motorcycle and point in a southerly direction.
The message came into focus for me via Clipboard. It was a NatGeo article about a “movie” abut a dude that free climbs. It caught my attention. Yesterday we had a date night and went to see this movie. Watch the trailer and I’ll give you more information after.
Alex Hannold free climbs El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. Its a National Geographic documentary film that’ll keep you on the edge of your seat at times. We were excited to see the movie itself and then were surprised to have the producer of the film, Jimmy Chin, show up and answer audience questions afterwards.
It’s 1 hour 40 minutes long. At the end it only felt like you were there for 15 minutes. It’s a great story of focus, passion, persistence and perseverance.
I have no fear of heights but still don’t think I would want to climb this mountain. See it? Yes. Climb it. Not really on my bucket list.
I’m glad we went to an actual theater to see the movie. Having Jimmy show up after was good fun. They asked that we help them since most of these movies succeed by “word of mouth” reference. So, go see it for yourself.
This past weekend we celebrated fall in our small community of Lovettsville at the 9th annual Lovettsville Oktoberfest. It’s grown from a small event taking essentially one city block, a few vendors, beer truck and such to the event it is today supporting tens of thousands of visitors to the small town.
I flew the drone over the event and visited the main tent with the music and merged the two together.
I’m there primarily to help the Loudoun Amateur Radio Group (LARG) support the communications for the event. We play a critical role in helping coordinate public safety of the event each year. Our time is purely voluntary but the effort is very professional. This is our 9th consecutive year of supporting Oktoberfest at Lovettsville.
Oktoberfest 2009 to 2018
One of the more compelling events of Oktoberfest is the Wiener Dog Race. The dogs and training staff work on their skill set all year long to pull off this compelling event. Here is a very brief video of one of the races of this day.
We set up in two locations each year and then many of the members “roam” the event and provide another channel to help with anyone who many need it. It’s proven critically important the last few years.
2018 Lovettsville Oktoberfest – Radio Crew at the small tent
The crew above was just who was there when this picture was taken. There were many others who helped this weekend. Hats off to everyone who helped us!
The venue has changed in a very big way from when we started years ago. There are so many more people there now! The first event was likely less than 1000 people. This year it was tens of thousands but I have no idea how many were actually there.
If you come next year and want an easier parking experience come on your motorcycle! That’ll shorten every bit of your time fiddling with traffic at this crazy intersection we call the “Squirkle”. It’s not quite a square; not quite a circle and takes 119 signs to help people navigate it properly. When it was first put in and operational it was quiet a fiasco. Lovettsville is different. I’ll leave it at that.
The food was great, the crowd was well behaved and seemed to have a good time. Lots of people were in the tents listening to the music, dancing and mingling with their friends.
After helping here I picked up my wife and we went for a motorcycle ride. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday.
It’s inevitable that the days will get much shorter now that the sun has past the equator as a highest point in the sky. We’re into fall now and headed to winter. The trees have started to change color once again.
Sunset past the solar equinox
For me the mood can be a bit melancholy in the winter months. We seem to have more cloudy days than sunny and even the sunny days will be uber short in the coming months. I prefer the longer and hotter days of summer. Its 59º outside as I write this on September 23, 2018. It’s as hot as it’s going to be today. And, of course, it’s raining all day today. Since I can’t really work outside I’ve decided to hang out inside all day.
Looking north towards Harpers Ferry and the Potomac River
We live at 39º north latitude which enjoys a pretty wide swing of all of the seasons. Here’a 10 second video of two sunsets. One is on the longest day of the year around June 21 and the other right at the equinox three months later on September 21.
The taile of Two Sunrises
The sun will continue south until around December 22 when it’ll turn back north and signal the start of winter. That’s when it gets really cold around here.
Since we go on walks every day together we’re going to have to get used to the colder weather coming. The seasons change just slow enough that we figure out how to tolerate the cold before it’s thrust upon us. All of the cats do the same thing when they go out in the cold; they shake their front paws and whence before they jump outside. They would never wear a boot/sock or “clothes” to keep warm preferring instead to just be outside. Well, Mongrel anyway. The girl cats prefer to be inside all the time. Still their coats will become very thick soon as a part of the changing seasons.
Tolerating my shenanigans before going on a walk
Neither of us are totally happy to be stuck inside while it rains. Mongrel meows at me as if I can turn it all off and we can go for a walk together. You see, he doesn’t like his paws wet either. And I can’t turn off the rain. It’s interesting he thinks I can. It’s an elevated view of this clowder leader.
He doesn’t like me at my computer. His reminders to go on walks help me get out of this office and outside when we can. Today just won’t be one of those days where we take our three walks a day. Or tomorrow, Tuesday and likely most of Wednesday. But later in the week looks super. We need 4-5 days of sunshine and no rain to finish some projects around here.
