Hiking Log

I have created a page on this blog to list the hikes I have taken, where they were, how long, etc... It's a simple list of when and where I have been. I have a few entries in, and will try to complete it as best I can before being diligent about keeping track going forward.

Eric Johnson at the Colonial Theater - 1/7/12

...continued...
Andy McKee's 40 minute 8 song set ended at around 9:00pm, and Eric Johnson and his three piece band took the stage about a half hour later at 9:30. Johnson was touring with a bass player and a drummer, and that was it. They took the stage. Johnson mumbled a brief "hello"to the audience, and they launched into their first song.

That would be pretty consistent over the set that would last for about an hour and a half. Sometimes Johnson would say something to the audience between songs, but more often than not, one song would just move into the next. Generally, the extent of his banter with the crowd would be along the lines of "how's everybody doing tonight?". But what Johnson may lack in charisma and stage presence, he more than made up for in ability. I have seen some great guitarists live, including Clapton several times, ditto Mark Knopfler, Stevie Ray Vaughn once (Spectrum 1982 opening for the Moody Blues), and Derek Trucks, and I can honestly say that none of them could match EJ purely on speed. The man's fingers simply flew across the neck of his Strat (or Gibson SG some of the time), and perfectly cleanly and with fantastic clear tone. Words cannot really do justice to his technical ability.

The other thing that would become obvious over the course of the evening was the number of different types of music that he could play well; blues, rock, a quick-picking country song off his new album, pure jazz, and covers of a number of different songs. Scattered throughout the set he did Dear Prudence by the Beatles, April Come She Will by Paul Simon, a Coltrane jazz song (Mr. P. C.), and The Wind Cries Mary by Hendrix (as one of the two songs in the encore). And due to the majority of the songs being all instrumental (with many long jams), the show definitely had a different feel to it. Not bad by any means, just different. Most concerts by a musician of this stature would be one known song after another (the "greatest hits on tour" phenomenon); this was a good old fashioned jam fest. Sure, they were songs, but the feel was of three good musicians just airing it out onstage.

My autographed CD...

I have to admit that while liking Eric Johnson, and knowing a little bit about him, he is one of those artists where I have a couple of albums, like him, but for the most part couldn't name many of his songs despite being able to hum or sing along with the ones on the discs I have. So for a few of the songs last night, I recognized them, but couldn't name them for you. The one obvious "have to play it" song is Cliffs of Dover, which was his last song before leaving the stage prior to the encore. It was fantastic, and mostly made up for my disappointment in him not playing SRV. As I said in my post about this upcoming concert, SRV is the one song I would be disappointed if he didn't play. He didn't play it. Oh well. What he did play was astounding. I have left many concerts by my favorite bands saying "that was fantastic", but not many where I have left saying "wow, what was that I just saw?!?!". Last night was one of those. I suspect that I will own most if not all of his available works by the end of the week...

Merry Christmas to me!

[Afterthought and update - A little digging around after writing this post found that some of the names of the songs he did were When the Sun Meets the Sky, Zap, and Dry Ice (by the Electromagnets, an early Eric Johnson band) as the final encore song. Songs I have since positively identified from the newer Up Close album include Fatdaddy, Gem and On the Way, but I am sure there were others as well.]

Opening Act - Andy McKee - 1/7/12

The Colonial Theater
My Christmas present from Dave and his family was tickets for Dave and I to go see Eric Johnson at the Colonial Theater in Phoenixville last night. I love live music, I have always liked Eric Johnson, and the opportunity to see anyone good in a small venue is a treat.

I work right down the street from the venue, and have driven past it hundreds of times, but have never been inside. Having looked at the website linked above, I knew that it is a 658 seat old style movie house, from back in the days when the town movie theater was the only game in town. They tend to be beautiful ornate old buildings (although generally in various states of shabbiness). When we got inside and make our way to our 8th row seats, this proved to be no exception. It was pretty well maintained, and seemed smaller than I would have expected for the seating capacity. There was a small stage with a drum kits, some mikes and some amps, and that's about it. We were perhaps 30 feet from the stage front. (I also picked up an autographed CD/DVD combo of EJ's legendary 1984 Austin City Limits concert on the way through the lobby...he was 29 then, and is 57 now).

As it turned out, Lori bought a single ticket at the last minute and went with us, but would be sitting by herself. She had a seat next to the mixing board at the very back of the floor, but when she went to sit down, and usher told her that they should not have sold that seat to anyone and put her in the front row of the balcony instead (a much better seat).

Opening Act - Andy McKee

I hadn't realized that there was an opening act until Dave had sent me a message earlier in the day, but he knew of the guy, Andy McKee, and had done some YouTube searching to see him. He told me I had to see it to believe it, and he was right. McKee plays what he terms "percussive guitar", meaning that he both plays the acoustic guitar but also uses the body of the guitar as a drum.

Wikipedia calls him a fingerstyle guitarist. He plays with an amazing combination of strumming, plucking, finger tapping, hammering on with the left hand only while the right hand is doing something else entirely, and probably a bunch of techniques I can't even describe. He played about 8 songs in a 40 minute set, and Dave and I were flabbergasted by the end of it. I swear he had a third hand somewhere that we couldn't see. It truly was wizardry. I am a fan. A big fan. He was funny, engaging, and talented in a style of playing that I can honestly say I had never seen before. What a treat.

Check out his biggest YouTube hit "Drifting" here, and another song that I absolutely love, "Rylynn", both of which he played last night.

As an aside, he also played a guitar the likes of which I had never seen. The frets weren't perpendicular to the neck, but fanned out from the middle; the center fret bars were upright, but those nearer the neck leaned toward the neck, and those nearer the body leaned toward the body. He also re-tuned his guitar to all sorts of crazy tunings between each song while bantering with the audience. That's harder to do quickly than it looks.

Next... The Main Event

Eric Johnson - coming soon!

Just a teaser... Guitarist Eric Johnson is scheduled to come to the 658-seat Colonial theater in Phoenixville tomorrow night at 7pm. Dave and I are in the 8th row. Merry Christmas to me, and thanks to Dave and his family for the terrific gift! Expect a full review after the show. If he doesn't do my favorite song of his, I will be disappointed.

If anyone out there in the ether happens to be at the show, stop by and say hi. We'll be the two middle-aged guys who can't dance... (That's probably not specific enough, but it's the best I can do)

Words

Words are simple. Or perhaps not so simple. There is a wonderfully written post here where a mom talks about use of the word retarded. It's a simple enough word. As the writer points out, all too often the word is used to mean stupid. People don't necessarily mean harm by it, they just use it out of ignorance. And I don't mean malicious ignorance. They have never stopped and thought about it. Of course, some people do actually believe that retarded is synonymous with stupid. But those of us whose lives have been touched by the word, or shaped by it, know that it means something completely different...

I don't intend to preach, but the link is worth the couple minutes it would take to read.

Fiction Reading Recap - 2011

This will be a necessarily brief post. Over the past few years, I have consistently read at least a couple dozen fiction books, and posted short reviews of most of them here. I had some goals for this year that were very reasonably in line with what I had managed recently. But pretty much none of that happened.

In prior years I had read 25-35 books. This year I think I read 4 (not counting a few fluff books, to be a snob about it...). I am not even going to bother to go back and look, the number is so paltry. There are some caveats around this precipitous drop in output. For one thing, I read quite a few short stories this year, both in magazines and in story collections, but since most of those were not part of finishing an entire book, I do not count them. And in general, I did read plenty, just not fiction. This year I got back to reading way more history than I had read in the prior few years. These I don't generally keep track of or write reviews of (though I am not sure why not...).

The one fiction reading goal that I definitely got an A+ in was the one about not buying ridiculously more books than I read. I read very few books. And I only bought a few more than that. So I got something right...

Batona Trail hike, Pine Barrens - 12/28/11

The Batsto River

Dave and I had discussed the possibility of getting out for a hike at some point over the holiday week, and I was pleased to get an email several days ago to the effect that he and Leo were looking at a few dates. We settled on yesterday as a day that would work for everyone, and a day on which the weather was supposed to be pretty good. It was forecast for cold but clear, with a high in the low 40's. Leo's friend Tim would be joining us.

Dave's initial suggestion was for a Pine Barrens hike, which suited me fine. The scenery would be very different from what we would have seen last time out on the Pennsylvania appalachian ridges, and wasn't very far from home. The final plan was for four of us to meet in Springfield near the Blue Route exit at 9am. I had to drop Grace at a one-day gymnastics camp, so I would be closer to 9:15.

Everyone was on time, I grabbed a few juice bottles and a couple of bagels at the bagel place where we met, and then we all piled into Tim's car for the drive to historic Batsto Village, near Hammonton. The drive was uneventful, other than finding our way around a "bridge out" detour. We parked a little after 10:30am, and were ready to hike shortly before 11.

Trail sign at Quaker Bridge

The hike Dave had selected for us was to start in the parking lot of the historic site on the east side of the Batsto River, follow the Batona Trail up the east side of the river, cross over at Quaker Bridge, and then return to the car on the yellow trail down the west bank of the river (between the Batsto and Mullica rivers). It was an estimated 12 miles in total distance, but over easy flat ground. Depending on our pace and stop time, it would take 4-5 hours to complete. Another nice thing about hiking in the Pine Barrens is that there are many geocaches, and I had my gps loaded and ready to get a few. If I could find some close to the trail that wouldn't take too much time for stops and detours, I might be able to have a decent day at that too. As much as I like to take the time to mix geocaching and hiking, I realize that those who are not at all interested (half our group in this case) will soon find it tedious to have me making a 5 minute stop every few tenths of a mile to try to find a cache. Hopefully some of the ones I see on the map will be right off the trail (and not too hard to find).

The weather was as promised, clear and cool. There was a cold breeze pretty much all of the time, kicking up to a real wind in places. Fortunately, we were somewhat protected in the pine woods. The hissing sound of the wind through the tops of the pines would be a constant companion throughout the day though. As Leo noted at one point, the wind through winter pines and bare trees sounds different than wind through leafy trees, and I would agree with him.

The hiking was easy, with the ground being level as expected. A slight up or down slope here or there was the extent of the exertion, other than the pure miles we would cover. I did want to make sure I got a few geocache finds out of the way before I lost track of that, and managed to make three easy finds within the first couple of miles. It's a good thing that I wasn't planning on making too many caching stops though, because after the third cache I needed to replace a drained set of rechargeable batteries. I did so, only to find that the replacement set I had brought were also drained and had not been recharged. Oops. I had downloaded the Groundspeak iPhone geocaching app onto my Christmas present, but the reception was so spotty out in the woods that my geocaching day was effectively over almost before it began.

Batsto Lake, behind the dam

The 6 miles up the east bank of the Batsto to Quaker Bridge took us about two and a half hours at a leisurely pace, and with stops. The scenery was nice for winter, with bare oaks interspersed with scrubby pines and large stands of taller cedars. There was enough variety to keep things interesting, and the few places where the trail paralleled the banks of the little river were especially nice. We saw the same kind of "cedar water" here that we saw in the summer of 2010 on the Pinchot Trail hike in upstate PA. It made me wish for a warm day and a canoe or kayak.

We had a chuckle when we got to the road at the Quaker Bridge crossing and realized what the map referred to as a named road was a dirt and sand road that was little better than some of the fire access roads the trail had crossed back in the woods. These "roads" were on maps and if you didn't know the area, you could very easily show up in a car and expect to be able to drive on them. Depending on the weather and depending on the vehicle, I wouldn't try it. My car would sink to the axles in the soft sand patches.

Batona trail section had been. On the east bank, we were generally on a hiking trail, crossing a number of fire access roads, but usually not following them. On the return loop on the west bank, we spent too much time on these dirt and sand roads, or right next to them. The scenery was still nice, but there is something about a trail vs a dirt road that makes a big difference in my mind.

Batsto Lake, with clouds

Pretty much on schedule, after a slight detour for the last mile or so due to a washed out trail section, we arrived in historic Batsto Village from the west. The village is a collection of shabby old wooden buildings that were cool nonetheless. There were some beautiful views of the lake behind the dam, and I got a few very nice pictures of clouds reflected in the waters. A short walk over the dam itself had us back in the parking lot having covered 12.9 miles in about 5 hours. I am pretty sure that is the longest day I have had hiking as an adult, but I didn't feel too bad when all was said and done. I was footsore, and had some stiffness once we sat down, but my joints all felt good, which I am sure would not have been the case if there had been more elevation changes mixed in. This was a fun hike, a nice day out in the woods with a good bunch of guys, and something I would gladly do again in a different season. I can't wait to come back to this area.

Longwood Christmas - 2011

As always, one of the highlights of the Christmas season is the visit (or in most years several visits) to Longwood Gardens. This year we were here for Brunch with Santa, as well as a nice walk around the grounds. I've written about Longwood before, so I will just post a few pictures this time around.

Santa and the girls

Santa and the whole gang

Ridiculously fancy gingerbread house

Julia and Amparo

Orchid

Philly Pops Holiday Concert 2011

Over the last bunch of years, it has become a tradition that Amparo has gone to the Philly Pops holiday concert with my Mom and brother Chris. Dad went in some years before it became too difficult for him to get around, and I believe Lori went to one or two of these as well. Last year, with Grace being older and Julia being able to sit still for extended periods, the whole gang went for the first time. I thought it was very nice, and the girls enjoyed it enough that they wanted to go again (see last year's post here). We continued this new tradition (new for me, anyway) by going to the matinee show this afternoon.

Like last year, the show was very entertaining. The holiday music program is cheerful, up tempo, and always has some interesting arrangements. Between the Pops Festival Chorus, the Philadelphia Boys Choir and the African Episcopal Church of St Thomas Gospel Choir, there is a good amount of variety, and the program is delivered with subtle humor by Peter Nero, who is also a tremendously gifted pianist.

The program itself was very similar to that of last year, as you might expect from a holiday show, and was a mix of jazzy and big band arrangements of the well-known holiday classics as well as a liberal dose of choral music. Each of the choral groups had chances to be featured individually, and also contributed throughout the show as the vocal component of a lot of the Pops' numbers.

Highlights of the show for me included the gospel choir, the full assemblage performing the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah, the bits where Peter Nero soloed on the piano, and everything involving the guest soloist, Ashley Brown. Ms. Brown is a 29-year old award winning Broadway performer best known for spending parts of 4 years in the title role in the Broadway production of Mary Poppins. She has an amazing voice, and contributed the funniest part of the show, which was a variation of Jingle Bells performed as an opera aria (it was intended to be funny...). Hilarious stuff.

At two and a half hours (with a twenty minute intermission), we got our money's worth, and everyone had a great time. I asked the girls afterward if they would like to do this again next year and they both said "yes", although Grace did ask if the show could be a little shorter next year...

Remember Pearl Harbor

As a history buff and wargamer, it is all too easy to think of battles, campaigns and wars as abstract events; things to enjoy reading about, painting figures for, and playing games about. But a day like today reminds us that war is indeed terrible. It was terrible before we had the written words to record it, it was terrible 69 years ago, and it is still terrible today.

Rest in peace all those who have fallen throughout our long and violent history.

Geocaching Update - Fall 2011

It has been a very quiet second half of the year from a geocaching perspective. Since beginning in April 2010, I had managed to maintain a pace of around 50 to 60 finds a month, and while this slacked off somewhat earlier this year, things didn't take a nose dive until this fall. July and August were decent months mainly on the strength of the caching day with Ellen in Lancaster around the 4th of July holiday, and the finds made with Dave while on the Dakotas trip. After the end of August though, a strange thing happened - not a single find between then and the middle of November. Seventy-nine days without a find.

I still have a strong interest in this, and have every intention of making more of an effort to get back to it. But I don't realistically expect to get back to the pace that I was on for the first year or so. There are too many other things going on, and I just don't have the quantity of caches around home to get numbers of finds without making at least a several hour trip somewhere. I expect that I will find the time to grab a few local caches around home as new ones pop up, day hikes and family trips will continue to be opportunities to grab a few caches in other areas, and I will manage to find a chunk of a day here and there to get some numbers. Beyond that, we will have to wait and see.

My favorite part of geocaching continues to be the fact that it takes me to places that I wouldn't ordinarily go, and makes me stop and take the time to see little things I would never have noticed otherwise. I like the idea of filling in maps with finds in new counties and new states (and new Delorme map book pages), filling in calendar dates (working toward a find in all 366 dates), filling in difficulty/terrain combos and the like. Pure numbers don't hold the same appeal that they used to, at least at the moment, but knowing myself, I suspect that feeling will go in cycles. I still would like to get to 1,000 finds in the not-too-distant future. I am currently sitting at 882.

With all that in mind, what little recent activity there has been has bagged me two new PA counties; Dauphin on the way back from Sunset Rocks hiking on 11/26, and Lebanon on the way to the day in Hershey with the family on 12/4. One of three finds on the way to Hershey was a virtual cache, which are not all that common and are worth going out of the way to get. A find on December 3rd filled in my only empty calendar date between August 26 and January 26, completing a nice sized chunk of the year in a solid block. And a grand total of 9 caches since September 1st. Oh well.

A Hershey Christmas

We tend to do many of the same things each Christmas season, and while it is nice to have family traditions, it is also nice to seek out and do some different things. Amparo had been looking for something new this year, and we decided that we should make the drive out to Hershey take a day to do a chocolate Christmas. The weather for this weekend was supposed to be unseasonably warm, and with today forecast for a high around 60, we decided to head out for the day.

Hershey Park itself doesn't open until noon on a Sunday at this time of year, so we had a leisurely morning at home before leaving at around 10:30am. It would be almost a 2 hour drive, and I wanted to take the opportunity to grab a cache (or two or three) in Lebanon county, which is a new one for me that we would have to drive through to get where we were going. We didn't really have a plan, but we knew that one of the highlights at this time of year is a car ride through an extensively decorated area of lights. The light show started at 5pm and ran through 10 or 11pm, so we knew that would be the last thing we did before heading home.

Victorian Candy House

After an easy traffic free hour or so on the Turnpike, we got off the same exit we did last year for the Renaissance Faire, and headed north to a slight detour through the little town of Quentin. We made quick work of a virtual cache and two others and were back on the road west to Hershey in short order.

We arrived in Hershey shortly after noon, and made our way to the combined parking lot for Chocolate World (the indoor museum/store) and Hershey Park. Everything was decorated for the holidays and looking very festive. Everybody was hungry, so we had a quick (and pretty bad) lunch in Chocolate World before heading to the Park for the afternoon. The weather was nice for December, and we thought it would be nice to spend as much time outdoors as possible.

On the Monorail

The Park had a good number of people wandering about, but was not crowded by any means. Everything seemed to be open with the exception of all the large roller coasters. That would be disappointing to many people, but I have never been overly fond of amusement park rides for whatever reason. It's not that I dislike them, they just don't excite me. Except for any ride that spins; those I absolutely dislike and cannot ride because they play havoc with my stomach. Julia tends to find rides that move quickly to be unsettling, whereas Grace is fearless for her age.

Over the course of the next few hours, we rode some of the smaller rides, played a bunch of carnival games, won a bunch of stuffed animal toys (which will soon be making an appearance in a Goodwill store...), and just generally having a great time. It was nice to be doing something that everyone seemed to be enjoying, because these days it is often difficult to get the girls to agree on anything. Today they couldn't agree on what they wanted to do next, but at least they were both getting some of what they wanted.

Visting Santa's Reindeer

One of the highlights of the afternoon for the girls was the visit to the stables to see Santa's reindeer. There were nine reindeer, and I have to admit that they were pretty cool. They aren't very large animals, appearing to be smaller than the adult white-tailed deer we see around home, but some of them had very large antlers.

Grace also especially liked a Pirate Ship ride that was a boat shaped thing that swung back and forth like a pendulum. She loved it and rode it more than once.

At a few minutes before 4:00pm, we lined up at the theater to watch a Christmas themed song and dance show. It was an entertaining enough 35 or 40 minutes. The singing was pretty good. The dancing was... less so. Lots of repetitive moves and lots of arm waving. But the girls liked it.

After three hours or so at the Park we were all starting to get chilly, so we decided to head back to Chocolate World for a snack and to do some candy shopping. I am a dark chocolate fan, not milk chocolate, and it was amazing all the different items that Hershey makes in dark chocolate that don't appear in stores. As a matter of fact, they seem to make a dark chocolate version of just about everything, from Kit Kat bars to Peanut Butter Cups. Yum. We got out of the store with a nice bagful of things, but I thought we showed remarkable restraint. I would have bought as much dark chocolate as the girls could carry, loading them down like little pack mules... Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed.

By the time we were done our snack and shopping, it was almost 6:00pm, so we got in the car and followed the directions to the "Sweet Lights" drive through. It turns out that how they rig this display is to close a road in the woods back behind the Hotel Hershey to public traffic, hang a million lights on 600 displays, put a tool booth at the start of the road, and charge $20 per car to enter. After you pay your way in, you spend the next half hour or so driving slowly along the road, looking at the lights from your car as you drive by, and listening to holiday music on the local radio station. It was impressive in its own way, but I think we were all getting a little numbed by the time we were most of the way through, and were definitely impatient with the guy a few cars ahead of us who kept coming to a complete stop. What should have been 20-30 minutes turned into 45 minutes. It was an awful lot of lights, an awful lot of the same thing, and the extra slow pace didn't help. It was nice to have seen once, but having seen it, I wouldn't be in any hurry to see it again. But worth seeing once, for sure.

When we finished creeping through the light display, it was 6:45pm, we were still in Hershey, and everybody was getting pretty hungry. Rather than finding a place to eat in Hershey, the consensus was that we should get most of the way home before stopping for dinner at Buca di Beppo in Exton. We got to the restaurant at 8:10pm and ordered quickly. The place was mostly empty and would be closing at 9pm. Grace was falling asleep on the bench of the booth we were sitting in, but we had a good dinner and headed for home.


We were home and the kids were in bed by 10pm. That was a little later than we had wanted to get home on a school night, but it was well worth it. We all had a good time at the Park, Chocolate World was fun (what we saw of it), and the lights were great. For anyone who hasn't spent a day in Hershey during the holiday season, it is worth the trip.

Sunset Rocks Trail, Cumberland County, PA

Dave and I did get out for a hike yesterday, and we did end up doing the Sunset Rocks Trail out beyond Gettysburg. Even though getting out there would require about a 2.5 hour drive each way, the weather was forecast to be unseasonably warm, and we had basically the whole day set aside, so we figured what the heck. The hike as planned is a counter-clockwise lollipop, with about two-thirds of the planned 8+ miles on the Appalachian Trail, and the remainder on a side trail that climbs a ridge to a rocky overlook, Sunset Rocks, the namesake landmark for the hike. Guidebooks list the hike at 8.x miles of moderate difficulty due to a few modest climbs and a section of rock hopping on the ridge top. It should take around 4 hours with stops.

To make the most of the day, I got up at 6:00am, was out the door by 6:45am, and was at Dave's house shortly before 7:30.

First bridge over Tom's Run

9:50am - The day is forecast to be in the mid-60's and sunny, but as we shoulder our daypacks and set out from the Fuller Lake Day Use parking area, it is 38 degrees. Dave and I are both wearing long sleeve fleece, which is unusual since neither of us feel the cold easily. From where we parked, the first several tenths of a mile are through the picnic areas in the park, along roads, and past buildings. This would normally be a drudge, but we did see one cool thing. The halfway point of the AT is within a few miles of here, and it is a tradition for thru-hikers to stop at the Pine Grove Furnace general store and eat a half gallon of ice cream. At this time of year the store was closed, but it was fun to see.

We are almost 7/10ths of a mile from the car by the time we finally get out of the main park grounds and turn off Pine Grove Road at the white blazes and follow the AT up the hill into the woods.

Midpoint on the AT... 5 miles down, 2176 to go.

10:47am - We reach a nice stream crossing over a little bridge near the junction of the blue blazed Sunset Trail and the Appalachian Trail. We are about 1.6 miles into our hike. This junction is the end of the "lollipop stick" portion of our route, and we will be going counterclockwise on the AT for a few miles before heading left onto the Sunset Trail and eventually ending up back here. To this point the hike has been relatively easy, with only a few minor ups and downs, and good footing with minimal rocks. It feels good to stretch the legs. Dave and I both discard the long sleeve fleece at this stop, as it is warming up nicely. We stay here for a few minutes and have a drink and take some pictures of the streams, as this is the first picturesque spot we have come to.

11:43am - After having walked for the last couple of miles along wet trails, we reach the midpoint marker for the AT. I am surprised to see it here, as the guidebook I have been using says that this marker is on the AT section that is a part of the Pole Steeple hike several miles from here, but not on this hike. I know that they move this marker around as the length of the AT changes due to rerouting and the like, and I guess they must have done so in this case since my guidebook was published only a few years ago. Dave and I take turns taking pictures of the sign and each other standing by it, as this is a famous hiker landmark. It has been slow going the last mile-plus, as the ground is very wet, with a lot of runoff from recent rains making the trail itself a small stream in many places. We spend too much time watching our feet and not the landscape. Shortly after crossing Michaux Road we would have passed the ruins of Camp Michaux, a WW2 era prisoner of war camp, but we saw nothing obvious as we sloshed by. Apparently this POW camp was set up to hold German naval officers, but was later expanded to include German Afrika Korps officers as well as Japanese officers. It was officially classified as a POW interrogation camp, one of only three in the country. More information on this area can be found here.

Tom's Run shelter on the AT

11:53am - We reach Tom's Run shelter almost exactly two hours after setting out. We have only covered about 4 miles of easy trails, so our pace is not very good, but the soggy condition of the trails and the constant little detours around puddles and marshy spots has slowed us considerably. The shelter area is very nice, with two wooden shelters in very good condition, a half a dozen tent spots, a critter pole for hanging packs, an outhouse, and a number of fire rings. All overlooking pretty little Tom's Run, which can be heard running over the rocks a short ways down the hill. This is my first sight of an AT shelter, and it seems like a very nice spot to spend the night.

A few hundred yards after leaving the shelter area, we turn left onto the blue blazed Sunset Rocks Trail. It continues to be an easy if mucky walk, with fairly run of the mill scenery. We do pass through a nice rhododendron thicket at around this juncture, which is a nice thing. Other than that, it is a lot of the same: waterlogged trails, fire access roads, and fairly ordinary terrain.

At around the 6 mile mark according to Dave's handy-dandy iPhone app, we have climbed onto the southern end of Little Rocky Ridge, and the hiking along the side slope has made me begin to feel my right knee. Typical. A little soreness but nothing bad. The climb onto the ridge is no big deal, but it was one of the few times that I have been breathing hard today. It feels good.

Dave at Sunset Rocks

The last 2 or 3 tenths of a mile approaching the overlook is as advertised; rock climbing and boulder hopping. I love this kind of hiking and this is my favorite part of the day. I would have liked it even better if my knee weren't acting up, and I felt more stable hopping from rock to rock. But it was still terrific, and reminded me of the rocky sections east of the North Lookout at Hawk Mountain. Very nice. A few hundred yards from the overlook we leave the main trail, which heads left down the ridge, and continue on a short rocky spur.

1:09pm - We reach the Sunset Rocks overlook. At first I am not 100% sure that we have reached our destination, as there still seems to be some ridgeline ahead of us, but a quick investigation shows that the blue blazes do end here, and there is no more spur trail ahead. We stop and enjoy the view across the valley. We do lament our lack of planning. It is lunchtime, we are at a nice scenic spot, and a sandwich would taste real nice right about now. If we had a sandwich, that is. Unfortunately, all we have are various protein bars, which will keep body and soul together, but that's about it.

After maybe a ten minute stop for a rest, a snack and some pictures, we head back to the trail that heads back down to the AT and will complete our loop. The descent off the ridge is very steep, and I set a very slow pace as this kind of downhill is a killer on my knee. Level ground is fine, uphill is a little sore, but downhill is rough. And this is rough. I feel old at this moment; much older than my years.

Things get better once the slope levels out, and before long we are back at the junction with the AT near the nice bridge (picture at top). We see what appears to be a family in the distance out for a walk, and note that they are all wearing blaze orange. Dave is wearing red (by coincidence) and I am wearing royal blue. We make a bunch of "I am not a deer" jokes and begin retracing our steps back along the AT to our starting point.

2:00pm (ish) - We arrive back at the car, a few minutes beyond 4 hours, and having covered 9.6 total miles according to Dave's iPhone hiking tracker app. Dave is pleased that this first test of the new app has allowed his phone to run on gps mode for a little over 4 hours and still have perhaps a third of its battery life left. I am a little tired, my feet are sore, my right knee is a little sore, but in general I feel terrific. We could hardly have expected a better day for a hike in late November.

Final thoughts - We had a fun hike on a beautiful late fall day, and it was nice to take the time to go somewhere relatively far from home. The hike, while pretty long by my standards, was not tough at all from an elevation standpoint. Other than a few moderate but brief climbs and the one very steep downhill stretch coming down off the overlook, it was mostly flat (or flat-ish). The last two or three tenths of a mile getting to the overlook was a lot of rock scrambling, but that is one of my favorite kinds of hiking, so I loved that part. As for "rating" the hike itself, I would say that it was a good solid hike but nothing spectacular, and while I am certainly glad we did it, it wouldn't go on a list of hikes worth repeating. The overlook was nice, but not "wow". The scenery was typical eastern PA hiking, with a mix of hardwoods and some pine understory, a few pretty patches of rhododendrons, and a few noisy little streams. Time of year may be influencing my opinion, as the leaves were off the trees, and the extensive soggy stretches of trail had Dave and I spending too much time looking at our feet and not enough at our surroundings. But simply put... good but not great.

I wonder as I write this if my recent experiences out west have spoiled my expectations, and in a sense I am sure that they have. But there is more to it than that. Certainly after having hiked Harney Peak, Little Devil's Tower and Teddy Roosevelt National Park, this would pale in comparison, but even by my limited Pennsylvania hiking experience, this was nothing special for Pennsylvania. Hiking around Hawk Mountain and the Pinnacle has better views and scenery in general. The Pinchot trail backpack (summer 2010) had better scenery in terms of mile after mile variety and interest (although granted it was summer). And the up and down in and out of the Port Clinton Gap was a much more vigorous hike if that is what you are looking for. So I don't think I am being too harsh. If Harney Peak was a 9.5, TRNP was a 9, Scotts Bluff and Wind Cave were 8's, and Hawk Mountain is a 7, then this would be maybe a 6. Or a 5.5. If it sounds like I didn't like it, that's absolutely not the case. It as a nice hike, and a great day out with my big brother. But this is a nice hike, not a great hike.

Hiking Tomorrow

Dave and I are planning on getting out tomorrow for what would be my first real hike since the Dakotas trip. On the one hand, that is disgraceful. On the other hand, I am excited about the prospect of actually getting out and doing something.

I was at the annual Friday-after-Thanksgiving get together with a bunch of old friends, including Dave, and we are not sure as yet where we will be going. Dave had a couple of ideas, as did I, but we didn't settle on anything. All I know for sure is that I am getting up at 6:00am and picking Dave up at 7:15. The rest remains to be seen.

The leading candidate at this point seems to be the Sunset Rocks hike in the Michaux State Forest west of Gettysburg. I am partly skeptical, as that is 2.5 hours driving each way... but it is a hike I have been wanting to do for a long time....

Painting Table

...also known as the dining room table. It seems that a few odds and ends have migrated out of the basement again. Oh well, it happens. Much to Amp's regret...

In and around the bits and pieces of historical stuff that I am working on, Grace and I are having fun painting a few fantasy buildings from Games Workshop. I'm not exactly sure what I plan on using them for, although perhaps more on that later, but the nice thing is that my 7-year old and I are painting them together. Painting these is really nothing more than an exercise in dry brushing, but Grace is picking it up pretty well and routinely asks me if we can paint something. How could I refuse an offer like that? Now if I could just teach her how to paint 15mm Napoleonics, I'd be all set. (All in good time I suppose...)

The buildings in the picture are "Dreadstone Blight" (a ruined wizard's tower) on the left, a watchtower in the back center, and a chapel and small outbuilding on the right. All are from the Warhammer scenery range, and are very nice kits. Building a plastic model kit of any kind brings me back to my childhood, and these were no exception. Plus, I have always enjoyed painting buildings; they look great with minimal effort.

Pictures of the finished product to be posted shortly (assuming we finish them!).

Hobby State of the Union

So... What have I been up to from a hobby standpoint these last several months? The honest answer is "not too much". That being said, things seem to have taken a turn for the better. Part of it is just coming out of a general malaise, part of it is that the Fall In convention in Lancaster PA has energized me somewhat (as these cons always do), and part of it is that I never went completely dormant on the hobby front (blog silence to the contrary).

As much as anything these days, I am suffering from the attention span deficit that often (OK, always...) afflicts me. Too many interests and projects and too little time. Back to the original question... "what am I doing these days from a hobby perspective?":

• Seven Years War project - I have been packing an order to send to Sri Lanka for painting, This is an interest that I have that I will never ever be able to address properly on my own from a painting perspective. If I waited until I painted what I needed to do a modest game, it would never happen. So it is time to admit my own limitations and call in the pros. I am sending Austrians to be painted, while I still have hopes of doing some Prussians on my own, as well as a bullet point covered below...
• Modular terrain - Following the blogs of Olicanalad and others, it seems that many hobbyists use modular terrain pieces for their battlefields. I have always either used custom terrain boards carved out of foam (but not modular), or simple ground clothes with other terrain pieces. I have made a few half-hearted starts on making modular terrain pieces, but have never gotten very far. This time will be different, and I have already made some decent progress. More to follow in another post...
• Hundred Years War - As recently posted, I completed a mini project on a set of 24 archer stake bases. I had been planning to get around to this for the better part of a year, and finally set aside the 2 hours needed to knock it out. In addition to that, I always seem to have at least a unit or two of medieval figs on my painting table.
• Napoleonics - My 15mm armies need more rebasing work in order to use my existing figs better with the LaSalle rules, which we have played a couple of times and like. LaSalle seems to be a nice mix of period feel with modest complexity and fairly quick play time. In other words, a winner.
• Ottomans - Work continues, albeit at a glacial pace, on knocking out a unit or two here and there. Much more work to be done before even a modest game could be played.
• Seven Years War "ImagiNation" - It seems to be a fairly common thing amongst our English gaming compatriots to create a fictitious state for which to create an army and inject it into real history. Popular periods seem to be in the early horse and musket periods of Marlburian through Seven Years War. I have decided to exercise my imagination and create the Duchy of Alsberg, a small German state in the Seven Years War era. I have begun painting a few units and have begun sketching out the "history" and background of my little duchy. I envision my duchy as a sometimes ally of Prussia which is often at conflict with smaller neighboring states as well as occasionally getting caught up in the larger affairs concerning Prussia and Austria (hence the additional impetus to get some Austrians painted...).
• Lord of the Rings and some other fantasy stuff to be expanded on later....
• Last but not least, the Crusades Project needs to forge ahead. Theoretically this should be an easier one to make progress on as it requires little more than rebasing of figures.

So... as I said, lots of different things going on. If I could just focus on one or two things at a time, I might actually make some progress. Alas, it is not my way...

Dad - One Year Gone

One year ago today, at around 7:30am, my dad died. It has been both a long and a short year since then. They say that time heals all wounds, and in a way I am sure that is true, but in other ways it is not. The passage of time has made it such that I do not feel his loss as a painful thing, but I do still feel it as a hollowness, a kind of emptiness that he is no longer in my life. And unfortunately, I will always now associate the Thanksgiving season with Dad's passing.

I am thankful that I had him for 44 years, and sad that I didn't have him longer. I am thankful that my children knew him at least a little, and that they will remember him in some way, but sad that they didn't know him as the vibrant man that I knew. I am thankful that he was a dedicated father, an involved part of my life, and a father in action and not just in words. I didn't always agree with him in many ways, and our relationship was strained at times (as many father son relationships can be), but I always knew that he cared, and that he was there for all of us.

I will also always have a pang of... I don't know... regret, I guess, that after all those hours at his bedside I wasn't there with him at the very end.

Thanks Dad. I miss you.

Dave has posted a nice note here.

Mommy's New Ride, Part Deux

It's like deja vu all over again. Three years ago we were nearing the end of the useful life of a 1999 Ford Explorer, and settled on a 2009 Honda Pilot as its replacement. It was, at that point, the nicest vehicle we had owned, and turned out to be as good as our initial impression of it had been. We never had a problem with it of any sort, it rode like a dream (big heavy tank that it was), and we loved almost everything about it.

Flash forward, and we have gotten to the end of the 3 year lease, and so we needed to decide what to do. As happy as we were with the Pilot (and subsequently me with my Accord from the same dealership), it made sense to check out options for both buying out this Pilot as well as rolling the lease forward to a new Pilot, or even downgrading to a CR-V...

End result, taking into account many different factors, is that we have leased a brand new 2012 Pilot. And it's even dark blue, the color that Amparo wanted 3 years ago and couldn't get at the time.

Wargames Terrain - Archer stake obstacles, part 2

In the first installment of this little how-to I described how I made the rough stands for my Hundred Years War archer stakes. This final post will have a few brief notes on finishing them along with the requisite pictures on the end product.

1. The completed stands are sprayed with Army Painter Army Green spray paint (a medium green olive drab color).
2. The stakes are painted with Citadel's Graveyard Earth (a medium brown).
3. The tips of the stakes are painted with a craft paint, Folks Art's Camel (a tan color). This color looks a little too bright in the picture, but I originally used a duller tan color and while that looked good up close it disappeared into the background when placed on the table. This color makes the points "pop" nicely.
4. Lastly, the bases are coated with watered down white glue and sprinkled with a mix of Woodland Scenics flocking and tiny stones.

An English force drawn up in a solid defensive position

I think the final result is pretty effective at representing what I wanted. The only thing I would do differently looking at the end result is that I would probably be more careful to mix the "factory tip" pieces of stake with the hand carved ones. The factory tips on the toothpicks are perfectly round and tapered and look too well finished on close inspection. The whittled tips look much more like branches or small logs that have been hand-hewn. I tended to cut them in batches and make whole stands of factory tips on the first few stands. Oh well... Live and learn.

English longbowmen behind their stakes

When all was said and done, this project cost less than $10 in materials, and generated 24 stands of stakes in less than 2 hours total time spent. It was also a nice little project in that I completed it in 15 to 20 minute increments over the course of several days. When I had a few minutes to spare, I could pop down to the work area, make a little progress, and stop easily before coming back to it later, after glue or paint had dried.

A well spent two hours if you ask me...

Wargames Terrain - Archer stake obstacles, part 1

One of the terrain projects that I began a long time ago but have needed to complete was the making of a bunch of archer stakes for my Hundred Years War English army. These would be useful little terrain bits that I could envision serving multiple purposes as generic defensive obstacles. In addition to their intended use as archer stakes for the English in HYW, I could see them serving as anything from the obstacles in front of the Ottoman infantry lines at Nicopolis to components of temporary camp protection in ancient battles.

I mocked up one sample stand of these many months ago and was pleased with the result, so I knew exactly what I needed to do, it was just a question of setting aside the time. This is a simple project. To make the 24 stands I am making, the raw material cost is minimal. Most items either came from the household toolbox or miscellaneous hobby stock materials already lying around. I used:

• A power drill with a small drill bit (the diameter of a round toothpick) from the toolbox
• A pair of medium duty snips from the toolbox
• Some craft glue (Aileen's) from the hobby stocks
• An Xacto knife from the hobby stocks
• A 3 inch wide sheet of 3/32 inch thick balsa wood (about $2)
• One pack of 250 round toothpicks (about $3)
• Some paint, flock and other basing materials from the hobby stocks

Each stand is the same size as my standard base for 25mm infantry figures; 60mm wide by 1 inch (or about 25mm) deep, this way each obstacle stand has the same frontage as a single stand of figures. The process is very simple:

1. Measure and mark bases on the large balsa wood sheet.
2. Holding the drill at about a 45 degree angle to the surface of the wood, make 7-9 unevenly spaced holes through the wood (for each base). For this step I placed the wood on top of a styrofoam sheet so I could drill completely through the balsa and into the styrofoam and not hit anything important underneath. (Note that it is much easier drilling all the holes in one large sheet of balsa than it is to drill each individual base after cutting...)
3. Cut the bases from the large balsa wood sheet with an Xacto knife. Be careful. Score, break, sand lightly (if necessary) and trim.
4. After cutting apart the bases, I bevel the upper edges using the Xacto knife held at and angle. I prefer the bevelled edge to a straight edge, but that's just personal preference.
5. For the stakes, I use so-called "fancy" round toothpicks that come 250 to a package. They are pointed on one end (obviously!) and have a decorative banded butt end. Not counting the banded end, which gets cut off and discarded, each toothpick is perfectly sized to make 3 stakes. The first third has the pointed end. After snipping this end off, the cut end of the remaining section needs a little whittling with the Xacto to get it pointed again, then this next third is snipped off. The remaining third is whittled to a point again, and the butt end is snipped off and discarded. (see the top picture for an un-cut toothpick as well as one cut into its four eventual parts).
6. A small dab of glue on the non-pointed end of each little stake gets poked into one of the holes. I find it looks better and more natural to have the stakes pointing in slightly different directions and at different angles.

After about an hour of this, I had completed the 18 stands as shown in the bottom picture. I decided I wanted a total of 24 stands after doing these 18, so I will crank out 6 more before doing the finishing work, which will be part 2 of this little how-to...