Late Nite Biking

On the trail at night.

And by day...

...same place as last night.

Hot Weather Ride

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And not far away:

Meet me at the corner of Browning and Garand.

There really is such a place, at Quantico MCB.

Earthquake

We just had a pretty strong earthquake (at 1:51 PM). Lasted about 30 seconds. The interior walls appeared to be shaking back and forth about six inches. No apparent damage, not even any cracked windows, but wow.

In Woodbridge, VA.

These days, if all it is, is an earthquake and not a shock wave from a nuclear explosion, I'll consider myself lucky.

Mosquitos

I'm reading "The Traveller's Tree" by Patrick Leigh Fermor, a reprint of his 1950 account of a voyage through the Caribbean. Staying at the Hotel des Antilles in Guadeloupe, he was besieged by insects, even under mosquito nets, and wrote,

Joan's plan - still, alas! as I write, no more than a plan - of sleeping chained to a chameleon seems to be the only practical way of neutralizing the unceasing siege of the insect world. With this alert little basilisk camped on one's bosom, suitably camouflaged to melt into the slumberwear; prepared, at the faintest buzz in the surrounding ether, to fire half a yard of tongue at the foe, and swallow it without blinking an eye, one might snore the night peacefully through. Not otherwise.

Delightful book, so far, but contemporary readers might be a little put-off by the author's attempts at amateur ethnology.

Busy Day

I took an eleven-mile bicycle ride in the Prince William Forest Park this afternoon. It's adjacent to the big Quantico Marine Base. This bridge is over the Quantico Creek. Sometimes, if I'm in a part of the park close to Quantico, I can hear the "pop-pop-pop" of our nation's youth at play.

And this evening I took in a minor league baseball game. This seat cost me $12. I had a wonderful view of a bunt in the fifth inning. The ball rolled down the first base line, about a foot to the left of the stripe. The first baseman charged it, but the batter sprinted ahead and passed the ball before the first baseman could reach it. The first baseman picked up the ball and did a wild spinaround to try to tag the batter, but the batter arched his back and the tag missed, by about an inch. The umpire and the manager had a heated discussion about that play, but I think they called it right: safe at first.

The commercial tie-ins were amusing. Nearly every inning was sponsored by a business or product. The first inning was sponsored by a car wash, "The Official Carwash of the Potomac Nationals." The second inning was sponsored by a cookie company, "The Official Cookie of the Potomac Nationals." The third inning was sponsored by a spa, "The Official Spa of the Potomac Nationals." And the fourth inning was sponsored by Kraft Singles, "The Official Sliced Cheese of the Potomac Nationals."

Why Wasn't I Told?

You might enjoy this article from the Feb/Mar 2010 issue:

Fetch Daddy A Drink: How To Apply Gun-Dog Training Methods To Your Children
by P.J. O'Rourke

Turning Mushrooms Into Gold

Two Canadian "wilderness hippies", Shawn Ryan and Cathy Wood, were eking out an existence picking mushrooms in the Yukon Territory. A government geologist encouraged them to bring back soil samples from their treks deep into the wilderness in search of mushrooms.

Now they control vast gold mining claims and are worth millions.

Wonderful long magazine story in the NYT.

Long Ride

Friday was a beautiful day. Bright overcast, high seventies. No wind to speak of. So I took a long bike ride. Packed a lunch and set off from the old Lorton Prison, now called the "Workhouse Art Center". I pedaled up route 123 toward Fairfax along the paved bike trail. It's called Ox Road in Prince William County, and Chain Bridge Road in Fairfax County. Then back by the same route. I pedaled for 4:45 and rested for 25 minutes to cover nearly 35 miles. Not the longest trip I have ever taken but a grueling slog; I haven't biked in months and I'm out of shape.

Check out the display from the iPhone:


Notice how little battery is left after less than 5 hours of continuous GPS use. That battery was in a car charger until the minute I pushed off at 12:20. I brought along a neat little USB charger like this one:

But the iPhone didn't like it; it reported, "The charging device is not supported..." So the iPhone was nearly dead after five hours. This is an app called Cyclemeter.

Here's a snapshot from near the end of the trail:

Waples Mill Road in Fairfax. Just a mile from the NRA's HQ the country is surprisingly wild; I saw a large adult red fox a hundred yards farther down the road. And an eagle carrying a squirming fish in its talons.

The NRA building is at the 16-mile point. As you can see, I had some trouble finding a bicycle route across I-66!

When I got home I was exhausted and fell asleep for a couple of hours. Then I took a shower and the salty taste of the water surprised me.

Fire Leapt From Their Telegraph Keys

It was the worst solar storm in history, the Carrington Event in 1859:

In addition, the geomagnetic disturbances were strong enough that U.S. telegraph operators reported sparks leaping from their equipment—some bad enough to set fires, said Ed Cliver, a space physicist at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory in Bedford, Massachusetts.

NatGeo.

Decimation

I was trying to come up with a good pun for a title, but this is the best I could do.

I drove down to Glen Allen to check out Green Top Sporting Goods. GT is a venerable gun-and-tackle store and over the years I've bought a lot of things from them. Today the excuse for my visit was to get some 10mm ammo. But there was none to be had!

Green Top does have some interesting history in a display case: one of their first bills of sale for a firearm, from 1956, when they were called "Green Top Service Station." And, from December 16, 1968, their very first form 4473.

So, I consoled myself with a couple boxes of .30 Carbine and moved on.

Moved on up the street about two miles to the Bass Pro Shops Superstore shown above. But they were out of 10mm, too. So I had lunch in their Islamorada Fish House and watched the tropical fish in their aquarium.

So, any improvements on the word "decimation" to indicate a lack of 10mm?

Amazing Shot

During the solar eclipse on January 4th, a photographer caught this unusual image:

The big yellow ball is the sun, of course, and the black disk is the moon. In the lower right is a sunspot. But what's the speck in the upper left? Look closely. Resembles a TIE Fighter from Star Wars, no? It's actually the international space station, whooshing by at 17,000 mph at an altitude of 300 miles. Click on the pic for a much larger version, and details on how the shot was made.

via Neatorama.

Snapshots

Some photos from my bicycle ride:

The Browntown General Store

RC Cola sign (actually a thermometer - 92 degrees)

The bridge across the Shenandoah River - it's about a hundred yards wide here, and about three feet deep.

Mailbox made from a tractor

The ubiquitous "Posted" signs...

...and black lace panties hanging from the tree.

Beautiful old weatherbeaten farm buildings.

And another.

Weathered wood.

After work on Sunday my attention was arrested by this flower in a big planter at 6th Street and Pennsylvania Ave.

Rural Bicycling II

Today I saddled up and took a long ride on the bike, about 20 miles round-trip I believe. Crossed the Shenandoah River at a little one-lane bridge.

The GPS didn't start working for the first three miles. Blackberry GPS's are like that: they expect to have a working data connection, and if they don't have it, they'll keep looking, sometimes for hours, even though the GPS satellites are coming in loud and clear. Oh, well.

Here's the aerial view:


This was the most exhausting ride I have ever done. Nothin' but hills. I pedalled up one hill on the opposite side of the river from an elevation of 550 feet to an elevation of 850 feet. The road was "paved" with dusty, powdery dirt and gravel, and it was so steep that it was difficult to balance the bike: I had to lean forward to avoid toppling over backwards, but if I leaned forward too much, the rear wheel would lose traction. At the top of that hill, I decided, "OK, that's all I can take!" and I turned around and descended the hill; that's the steep drop in the graph.

Wheeeeee!

Over thirty minutes to climb, and then back down in about two minutes.

On the way back I stopped at the little campground store and bought an orange Popsicle: 35 cents. Best-tasting Popsicle I ever had!

I was gone four and a half hours and I was near collapse when I got home. I had plenty of water; I took a Camelback with three trays of ice cubes... I'm just outta shape!

Rural Bicycling

Started at the eastern end and worked my way west, then returned. A 14-mile round trip. Very hilly; about 1200 feet of elevation at the eastern end and 743 feet at the western end.

In the upper left corner you can just see one of the many bends of the Shenandoah River.

At about the mid-point of the trip there is a very sharp hairpin turn. It's a lot of fun on a bike because it's sharply downhill on the way out; not so much fun to climb it on the way back.

I'm thinkin' about puttin' a still in my back yard. But how to keep the revenooers away? Any suggestions?

Five Months Ago

So I'm not complaining about the heat.

Thunder In The Mountains

During a bicycle ride this afternoon, a brief thunderstorm appeared. It's two miles to the nearest mailbox.

Fog-shrouded Skyline Drive.

This looks like the famous shot from
Gone With The Wind.

Thunderstorm well and truly coming in now.

Track Rabbits

Send Us Your Subway Rat Snapshots!

And...

“They jump two feet from a running start; they can fall 40 feet onto a concrete slab and keep running,” said Solomon Peeples, 86, a former director of the city’s Bureau of Pest Control Services. “We’re no match for them, as far as I’m concerned. Man does not stand no chance.”

from the New York Times.

Hot Pink Honeysuckle

I went for a fifty-mile bicycle ride today. The weather was hot and humid and it was like riding through a mixture of steam and honeysuckle. Not that I'm complaining.

There are mountains of honeysuckle growing beside the trail.

Some of the honeysuckle is pink. I've never seen that before.

I saw a groundhog. Just a little one.

On the way home, milepost one is where the beehives are. It looks like the beekeeper has remodeled her hives.

Long Haul

Yesterday was a glorious day. Just look at these flowers blooming outside the Embassy of Turonistan. So some bicycling was in order.

The W&OD Trail was in wonderful condition after the brutal winter we suffered. Just look at all of those beautiful buttercups!

I don't know what these wildflowers are called, but there were millions of them lining the trail.

Pretty far from home now, but not quite as far as I wanted to go.

That's it, Milepost 31. From my house to the trail is 4.5 miles, then thirty-one miles on the trail is just over 35 miles, making a round-trip of 70 miles.

Pedaled for over 7 hours. I was exhausted when I got home. Had a couple of cold beers and a quick bowl of spaghetti and fell into bed at 9 PM.