Bezabor: (posted from home)

Sunday, 30 April-
Today I spent much the day cleaning up my older Miata and the KLR motorcycle after their long layups. I had stored them back in August because we were going to be away for September and October and they would be better off in enclosed storage than sitting out in the driveway. Then the colder weather was coming on so it didn’t make sense to bring them home in the colder weather just to put them back in storage a month or so later. After washing the Miata today, I drove it in to Starbucks to work the cobwebs out of it and just enjoy the perfect day for a convertible. In the afternoon I installed new footpegs on the KLR, replacing the stock rubber footpegs with more substantial (and less slippery) metal ones and taking care of the oxidation of the plastic bodywork. Labashi and I went out for subs late in the day and when we came home I washed her car.
In the evening, I worked on the blog while Labashi did some research on the web.

Saturday, 29 April-
Today Labashi and I went to visit my brother and my Mom, who live about an hour from our house. It was good to see them and catch up. We took Mom for a drive and stopped for ice cream, one of her favorite things to do…. (mine too)! In the evening, I mowed my section of the lawn. I’m sorry to say it’s now clear that the dandelions are a lot smarter than I am.
That evening we watched ‘Saving Face’, a likeable little comedy about a Chinese girl coming to terms with coming out as a gay woman and how to deal with her family about it.

Friday, 28 April-
Though I wasn’t supposed to do anything for two days after the dental implant, I thought I’d like to talk a little walk. I drove my beater van (‘Cherry Larry’) to the Appalachian Trail crossing on Whiskey Springs Road, between Dillsburg and Boiling Springs. As I got out of the van, I noticed two backpackers coming northbound on the trail and I hailed them as they approached. They turned out to be ‘Skyrider’ and ‘Captain’, two fellow recent retirees, both from Air Force jobs. They are from Hampton, VA and were on the last day of a six-day hike. They are planning to section-hike the AT from Pennsylvania to Maine and this was their first section. They had left PenMar five and a half days ago and were headed for Boiling Springs today. Skyrider was pretty happy-go-lucky but I believe Captain was overtired and was particularly unhappy at the prospect of the uphill sections between here and Boiling Springs. But we had a great chat. I was full of questions about how things were going compared to what they had expected. I apologized for breaking their stride with my questions but they said they were quite content to just socialize for awhile. After twenty minutes it was time to move on and they loaded up and headed uphill. I went back to the van for my day-hiking gear and then followed. I stopped at the top of the hill to check out a geocache I had learned about in preparing for the hike. My GPS took me near a climbing area among large boulders. It indicated the cache was in an open area but I knew that the GPS is only approximate. I sat it down and soon it changed by some fifty feet, indicating the hide to be among boulders nearby. I spent the next twenty minutes searching in that vicinity and finally came upon the hide, a one-liter screw-lid container wrapped in camo duct tape. I signed the log and started my dayhike in earnest. I took the AT northbound and in about two miles came to the Kennedy shelter, the same shelter I had visited just two days before. Again I took the red-blazed side trail but this time I turned left onto an unmarked and un-mapped trail leading around the hill. The trail kept pulling me on as it changed from a forest road to a narrow walking trail, then hit a tee at what looked like a pipeline cut. I took the steep cut up the mountain to the top and came to a beautiful trail up there. I believe it may have been the old AT. I followed it until it started down sharply and marked my position via the GPS. I’ll have to plot that position and see where I was. I think that trail comes out into the White Rocks development. That would make sense since I remember years ago parking near that development for one of my first hikes on the AT.
As I retraced my steps, I came to the intersection of the pipeline cut. But I wanted to continue exploring the mountaintop so I ignored it and continued on the old AT. That soon led me to another tee and it was time to get out the GPS and figure out whether I’d be able to hook up with a trail below or should retreat. I could see my track from two days ago on the GPS and thought I’d take a chance that the now-descending trail would connect to that track. But near the bottom of the mountain my trail ended at a forest road going the wrong way. So now I had to decide whether to bushwhack to intersect my trail or retrace my steps. I decided to bushwhack and about 1000 feet later I intersected the AT I had been on two days ago just as my GPS ran out of battery power. I would have been okay, though, even if the batteries had run out earlier--- I could see I was going to intersect my old track so all I had to do was keep going in a straight line and I would have to hit it. A couple of hours later I was back at the van, having done about ten miles today, perhaps a little more, in my six hours of walking.

Thursday, 27 April-
Today I rode the Concours into town and went looking for some endurance and muscle-recovery drink mixes for my hiking. I’ve wondered whether the so-called endurance drinks really help. I’ve found that Power Bars do indeed work for me but they aren’t the most convenient thing to use while hiking. I thought I’d like to try a mix so I can carry a lightweight powder packet rather than something like a quart of Gatorade. Also, I want to be able to sip a bit every twenty minutes rather than have a chewy, hard-to-swallow, hard-to-store-once-opened bar periodically. The trick was to find some single-serving packets so I could try them and not have to pay $15-$20 for a large bottle of it only to find that I didn’t like the flavor. I found a PowerBar version at a local running store and a version called Hydro-Pro at a General Nutrition store in the local mall. More on this later.
In the afternoon, I had a dental implant done. This was my first implant. The procedure went fine and there was little pain. I’m now the proud owner of a titanium dental implant. But it’s not clear whether my bone graft ‘took’ as well as it could have so I still have several months to go to find out if additional work will have to be done.

Wednesday, 26 April-
In the morning I worked for a little while on the web then worked for an hour or two with Labashi on her new birdhouses. They are actually three birdfeeders which she is preparing to mount on a tree in our side yard. They are going to be a classy little addition to our yard. I was just helping to set up the radial-arm saw so Labashi could cut the trim for the mounting platforms.
In the afternoon I rode the Concours to Boiling Springs for a hike. I hiked in to the Alec Kennedy shelter, then explored a red-blazed side trail I had seen nearby in a winter hike there. Once again the trails kept beckoning me on. Along the red-blazed trail I came to an enticing unmarked trail and thought I’d just see where it went. That one came out on a forest road and not far from there was another trail leading upward. That took me to a pipeline cut and I took that to the top of the mountain, which felt very remote. All in all it was a long, splendidly-remote day. I hiked about 12 miles and never saw another person until I ran into a guy walking his dog on the AT as I neared Boiling Springs again.
When I got home, I looked for the birdfeeders and indeed Labashi had them mounted and they look great.
That evening we watched the remainder of the extra features on The Virgin Spring DVD. Good stuff!

Tuesday, 25 April-
Today I blogged in the morning then rode the Concours down to Rocky Ridge park for a walk in the afternoon. I had a nice workout from hiking the three steepest trails in the northwest corner of the park, hiking up and down each one twice. That evening we watched Ingmar Bergman’s “The Virgin Spring”, a 1960 film described in IMDB.com as follows: “Set in beautiful 14th century Sweden, it is the sombre, powerful fable of peasant parents whose daughter, a young virgin, is brutally raped and murdered by swineherds after her half sister has invoked a pagan curse. By a bizarre twist of fate, the murderers ask for food and shelter from the dead girl's parents, who, discovering the truth about their erstwhile lodgers, exact a chilling revenge.”. I loved this film the first time I saw it and was not disappointed tonight. I was therefore surprised to learn that even though it helped establish Bergman’s reputation, he does not consider it among his best work.

Bezabor: The Decalogue finale, Cove Mountain geocache visit, Pennsylvaniac (posted from home)

Monday, 24 April-
I hiked in to my geocaches on Cove Mountain today to check that all is well with them. I parked the Concours at the Duncannon end of the 8-mile Appalachian Trail segment which crosses Cove Mountain. That approach requires a fairly strenuous half-hour uphill walk to a lookout at Hawk Rock. There I met two German women (and two dogs) who had arrived at the rock just a few minutes before me. The first of the two women is about 50 and has been living in the Duncannon area for three years. Her husband is assigned locally and has two more years in his work assignment and then she can go home to Germany. The other woman, about 35, is a friend visiting from Germany for a few weeks. The older woman walks five days a week and often makes the climb to Hawk Rock to exercise her dogs. Today they were headed up to the AT shelter so the visitor could see it and write in the shelter’s log book. I went ahead while they took in the view and was soon on top of the ridge and making good time to the first geocache near the shelter. Everything checked out there. The cache box was still well hidden, dry inside, and in good condition. I took a few minutes to read the log entries and realized that not everyone logs them both in the log book at the cache as well as on the web. I was also happy to see that someone (Airnut) had left a gold dollar coin, a Sacagawea dollar, as a trade item. That’s cool!
I quickly moved on to my primary goal for the day, my ‘Lights in the Night’ cache. For that one, my listing on geocaching.com provides coordinates to a spot on the trail, from where you must use your light to follow a trail of reflective tacks to the hiding spot of the cache box. Most of the adventure in looking for this geocache is that you have to be there at night. I had visited this cache in January and found there were two reflectors missing but I hadn’t brought any new ones along. I came up with a temporary jury-rig that day but today I had a supply of reflectors and could fix the problem properly. Since I was doing this in the daytime it took me quite awhile to find all the reflectors, even when I knew where they are supposed to be. I spent two hours getting the trail right and doing some exploring of other possible sites for the hide but in the end left it where it was.
Toward the end of my work, I heard noises on the trail and it turned out to be the two German ladies. Someone had told them there was a side trail a half-mile past the shelter that they could use for their return. But they had already gone a mile and no trail so they had just decided to turn around. Fortunately, I knew the side-trail was nearby since I use it as part of the geocache directions so told them about it. We chatted some more and because the woman is afraid of snakes, I learned that the German word for ‘snake’ is “schlange” (pronounced shh-LAHNG-a). But soon they were gone and I resumed my work. And shortly thereafter I got to use my new-found word; there was a “schwarze-schlange”, a black snake, basking in a coil in a sunny spot. The ladies had walked right by it and had never seen it.
Back on the trail, I headed northbound and soon arrived at the Cove Mountain Shelter, the location of a smaller shelter previously known as Thelma Marks Shelter. Here’s a link with a photo:
http://www.whiteblaze.net/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=1687” (and follow the link at the bottom of the page to learn about the Thelma Marks shelter).
The Cove Mountain shelter looks much the same as the picture today and was very pleasant. I stayed for an hour or so, listening to the birds and getting some water from the spring, then moved on.
Back at Hawk Rock, I met two high-school-age kids, a boy and girl, who said they’ve been coming up to Hawk Rock each day for the last week because there’s nothing to do “down there” (in Duncannon). I asked if they had ever heard of geocaching and they were soon excited about going home to check it out on the web…. I just hope they have, or know someone who has, a GPS!
On the ride home I came upon a Pennsylvaniac. I was riding down US15 along the river between Enola and Wormleysburg. I came to a two-lane passing zone and passed a few cars, then noticed that a car pulled out of line up ahead as if to pass, but he got just ahead of the car he passed, then stayed there, not pulling back in. He purposefully stayed there, blocking the lane. As we came closer to the merge zone, he merged in a little and I thought I could pass but as I started to swing around him, he swerved back out into the lane, again blocking me from passing. He hung just behind a slow car on his right as we closed on the merge zone. I’m sure he was chuckling as we got to the merge zone. Once he had to merge, I just blasted around him and the slow car before he knew what happened, waving bye-bye as I passed. Young, pimply-faced guy in a beat-up old Ford. Smart-aleck. Pennsylvaniac. Last I saw him he was still stuck behind the slow car.


Sunday, 23 April-
We spent most of today at our computers. Labashi was doing some work for a book project she manages. I spent a lot of time on web video sites.
That evening we watched the last episode of ‘The Decalogue’ and the additional features on the DVD. IMDB.com describes it as follows:
“This is a series of ten shorts created for Polish Television, with plots loosely based upon the Ten Commandments, directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski. Two of these, Dekalog 5 and 6, have since been expanded into longer, feature-length films--Krotki film o zabijaniu (A Short Film About Killing) and Krotki film o milosci (A Short Film About Love), respectively. They deal with the emotional turmoil suffered by humanity, when instinctual acts and societal morality conflict.”
We at first had mixed feelings about the films but have since realized we were expecting the films to more directly address the Ten Commandments. They are loosely based on the Ten Commandments but they are stories about people dealing with conflicts. We also liked seeing Polish life in the late Eighties. Also, the DVD additional features, particularly the one called ‘100 questions’ were great in providing a sense of who Kieslowski was.

Saturday, 22 April-
Today was a rainy day and it was supposed to rain pretty much all day but we didn’t want to be stuck inside. Labashi has been looking for a birdhouse or birdfeeder at local stores without much success so we decided to spend the day shopping for just the right one. We drove to an upscale shop in Wrightsville and two antique shops in Columbia where we’ve seen unusual and larger birdhouses before but they had nothing in stock and prices were too high anyway. We then thought to try some of the Amish woodworking shops in Lancaster County and headed for the towns of Bird-In-Hand and Intercourse. It only took a few stops to find what she was looking for at a good price and we also were happy to find a large wooden clothes-drying rack to replace one ruined in last year’s sewer backup incident. At one of the stops I tried a homemade root beer but it wasn’t nearly as good as the root beer my mom used to make.
That evening we watched the highly-rated movie ‘Crash’ on DVD. IMDB.com describes it like this: “For two days in Los Angeles, a racially and economically diverse group of people pursue lives that collide with one another in unexpected ways. These interactions are always interesting, and sometimes quite unsettling. The film explores and challenges your ability to judge books by their covers.” We thought the movie very interesting and, in fact, somewhat disturbing. We both had very active dreams that night after watching it.

Bezabor: Bergman films, Victoria Trial, AT hike to Clark’s Ferry Shelter, (posted from home)

Friday, 21 April-
Time for a little break from the hiking. I have to be a little careful about over-doing it. I’m finding that my body isn’t recovering as quickly as I’d like from my little walks. I feel like I’m walking a fine line between pushing it a little and injury. This morning I rode the Concours in to Eastern Market for some fresh orange juice and of course a required stop at Starbucks for an iced mocha. This afternoon I mowed the ‘lower 40’ of the lawn and then helped Labashi with her favorite part, the ‘upper 40’. I cleaned up the Concours and covered it for the rainy weekend ahead and cleaned up Mocha Joe from my trip earlier in the week. We were thinking of taking Mocha Joe to check out some gardening retailers earlier this week but Labashi decided she’d rather enjoy the fine weather working in the yard. I spent the evening blogging and Labashi spent it shopping for gardening ‘stuff’.

Thursday, 20 April-
I wanted to see how well I was recovering from the recent walks so decided today I’d take on the climb of Peter’s Mountain via the Appalachian Trail at Clark’s Ferry. I rode the Concours to the little exit at the east end of the Clark’s Ferry Bridge and parked there in the commuter parking lot by the end of the bridge. I crossed the railroad tracks and started the long climb up. I was pleasantly surprised to find the steep trail leveling off to a steady climb that I could do without stopping to catch my breath. My goal today was Clark’s Ferry Shelter which the map showed lay about three miles from the start, almost all uphill. The climb went well though I did fuel up with a power-bar not long into it, thinking I’d probably need all the help I could get. After about three-quarters of an hour I saw a wild turkey come flying over me. That seemed odd—that the turkey would fly over me instead of away from me. But I soon saw the reason. Another hiker was coming down from above. I believe the turkey had been staying out ahead of him but then ran into me and panicked. The hiker turned out to be an overnighter. He had stayed the night at Peter’s Mountain Shelter and was now headed for Duncannon where he was to meet his wife for a ride home. We chatted just a minute since he had a schedule to keep. Not long after meeting him, I topped out for the first time. What I mean by that is the trail appears to be at the top of the mountain but it was a ‘false top’… there were more to come. It took me about an hour to get to the first top but then another 20 minutes and four more mountaintops to finally reach the toppiest top. That last 20 minutes was more rugged too, since the trail was now weaving around and in some cases going right up over large rock slabs and boulders. The views up there were great and were in both directions. You could look upriver and see the Clark’s Ferry Bridge and downriver you could see the Harrisburg bridges. And the water was a perfect blue-green with a ripple on it from the wind—very nice!
I finally reached the shelter a little after noon and took a break. I read the log and saw that two hikers had spent the night here last night. And I could see from the logbook that there have been some thru-hikers here, typically ones doing the trail by starting somewhere in the middle and going north, then catching a ride back to the middle and taking some time off before starting the other half. It won’t be long till the thru-hikers from Springer Mountain will be coming through.
That evening we watched the final two episodes of ‘24’ Season One and the DVD extras.


Wednesday, 19 April-
Today I needed an uphill walk on this wonderfully sunny, breezy day. I rode the Concours over to the Joseph E. Ibberson Conservation Area, a 350-acre park in Powell’s Valley north of Harrisburg. The park actually lies astride Peter’s Mountain and I knew its trails would serve the purpose. I chose the historic Victoria Trail which leaves the Ibberson parking lot in Powell’s Valley and intersects the Appalachian Trail at the top of Peter’s Mountain in 1.8 miles, then descends to SR325 in Clark’s Valley 1.2 miles later. I started out on rocky trail but once I reached the steeper part of the mountain I ascended to the top via a very pleasant two-track jeep trail with stonework supporting the downhill side. I stopped at the top for a power-bar pick-me-up before turning north on the AT for a hundred yards or so to catch the Victoria on the southern side of the mountain. The trail started switch-backing down and was just wonderful. I like side-hilling on a narrow trail and this was just perfect. There were no leaves on the trees yet so I had a great view down the mountain and I had a nice warming sun but also a gentle breeze. It was so pleasant I took my shirt off and enjoyed the feeling on my skin, alternating between front and back as I’d descend the switchbacks. Part-way down I came to a side trail, the Whitetail Trail and checked the map—it’s not on there--- I’ll have to look into that later. The rest of the descent went well, soon changing to set after set of rock steps. Somebody put a lot of work into placing those big rocks. At the bottom I took just a minute to orient myself on SR325 so I know where to find the trailhead, then turned around and headed back up. At the Whitetail trail branch, I saw that the sign said it intersects the AT so I decided to take it back; it shouldn’t add enough distance to be a problem and I’d get to explore the off-the-map trail. That turned out to be a good decision. The Whitetail not only topped out at the AT, it continued down the other side. Its intersection with the AT is .8 miles from the Victoria Trail crossing and I could have gone that way but I wanted to see what the Whitetail trail did in the steep talus rock on that side of the mountain. The Whitetail trail also had stone benches. I’ve not seen that before. The one on the south side of the mountain is best. The seat is a long, flat rock cut into the hillside and the back support two flat rocks placed perfectly into a deeper cut in the hillside. It looks like this perfect bench has always been there, patiently awaiting hikers needing a break along the trail.
The answer to the question of how the Whitetail Trail handles the talus comes in one word: steps. Someone spent many hours placing rocks to form the steps, including a set of steps radiating out in a gentle curve around a switchback turn. Very cool.
Once back at the bike I was pretty well tuckered out. I rested a bit in small open-air education pavilion. I was the only person in the park.
Back home that evening, we watched the commentary to Bergman’s ‘Wild Strawberries’. This commentary was done by film historian Peter Cowie and was really well done.
Tuesday, 18 April-

I spent most of the morning writing up today’s blog entry. I’m surprised how long it takes me to write the entry for how simplistic my entries read afterwards.
That afternoon I rode the Concours to Camp Hill for an appointment with my periodontist. The appointment had been originally made for yesterday but I had missed it while out hiking; I just never thought of it over the weekend. I was happy to learn from the periodonist that the day had been an extremely busy one for them so my missing the appointment had actually helped them out. The news on my bone graft was not great. The x-ray appears to show that the graft did not take as well as hoped. But we decided to go ahead and schedule the implant for next week and he will get a first-hand look at it then. If there’s a problem he will debride the existing bone again and try another bone graft. If instead it turns out to be okay at my appointment next week, he will proceed with the implant.
That evening we watched ‘Wild Strawberries’, Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 film about a man (‘Isak Borg’) approaching the end of his life. Here’s a mini-review from imdb.com which seems to fit:

“The sweet things in life, the loves and honors, grow wild and uncontrollable. Often the basket gets spilled before they reach us. But in the end, enough of them do reach our lips to make it all worthwhile. The film is a journey from Borg's bitterness about the "strawberries" in his life that have been spilled, stolen, or otherwise lost to acceptance and appreciation of those he has received. There are no earthshaking discoveries or revelations for Borg. Nothing much changes, except for Borg's own awareness. All of the change is in terms of a subtle shift in perspective and understanding. But that change is enough to transform his life from the nightmare at the start of the movie to the sweet dream at the end”

I ordered this film on our Netflix account as part of a review of Bergman’s films. Back in the 70’s I used to check out a 16 millimeter projector and four or five films from our local library. Among those films was Bergman’s ‘The Virgin Spring’, and I’ve been fascinated by him but never got around to learning more about him and his films. I ordered the oldest Bergman film available on Netflix and that was ‘Smiles of a Summer Night”, which introduced Bergman to the world in the mid 50’s (the film was released in 1955). Bergman had been popular in Sweden but it was because of ‘Smiles’ that his popularity suddenly exploded. An IMDB.com mini-review says of ‘Smiles’:
“A rare comedy from director Ingmar Bergman.It takes place at the turn of the century. Fredrik Egerman is an old, cynical man who is married to beautiful, young (20) Anne. She can't have sex with him--she's too afraid. He knows and agrees to be patient. He also has a son from a previous marriage (Henrik) who is attracted to Anne. He's also attracted to the maid Petra. Then there's Desiree, a former mistress of Fredrik who is now sleeping with Malcolm (who's also married) and still attracted to Fredrik. Got all that? They all end up spending a summer weekend at a beautiful house in the woods. Things come to a head.”

I was somewhat disappointed in ‘Smiles’ when compared to the power and starkness of the later ‘The Virgin Spring’--- it’s just a different thing entirely. But it’s interesting to learn about Bergman’s background (from the extra features on the DVD) and to see the interaction of the characters and the representation of genteel Swedish society as well as Bergman’s dialogue.

‘Wild Strawberries’ was more interesting, particularly Bergman’s use of a harshly-lit dream sequence. The features include a 90-minute-long 1998 interview with Bergman which is very revealing of his character and life and art.

Bezabor: Concours pegs, another Fowlers Hollow trip (posted from home)

Monday, 17 April-
The temperature overnight dropped to the high thirties so I was glad to have parked in a spot that allowed the sun to warm the van as it came up. I could have plugged in the electric heater overnight but didn’t really need it. We’ve found that we’re very comfortable without heat overnight into the low forties so I didn’t bother. I had over-done walking yesterday and was in no rush to get up. By the time I had breakfast it was nearly ten. I then drove to the district forest office near New Germantown and picked up the latest forest map and trail map and chatted with Sharon, the lady who issues state forest camping permits. These permits are free and allow you to camp at designated camping areas in the forest, typically an open area with nothing but perhaps a fire-ring. The good news is you get a campsite well away from anyone else, some of them in pretty remote areas. The bad news is that the office is only open Monday-Friday, you have to register in advance, and you have to have the permit on you while camping. Last year Sharon allowed me to register via fax one Friday afternoon and then left the signed permit outside the office for me to pick up on Saturday but that’s about as automated as it gets.
After my visit with Sharon, I drove to a horse-camping campsite at the Alfarata Trail along Hemlock Road. I’ve seen horse trailers there in the past and wanted to look around; there were several trails in the area. And that led to my finding an unmarked trail which led to a nice view at the top of the knoll and then on to the back side of the dark-sky observation area. As I came back down the trail, I saw another large turkey running through the hitching-post area behind the parking lot.
Then I drove to campsite 66 along Hemlock Road at the top of Rising Mountain and parked there for lunch. On the way up Hemlock Road, a largish bird had flown across the road and landed in a tree nearby. I stopped and wished I had had my camera— I believe it was a red-shouldered hawk (see http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Red-shouldered_Hawk_dtl.html) At the campsite I was making lunch when I heard many small-bird sounds come into the trees around me—very raucous. It was a herd of goldfinches! They were at the tops of the trees and were feeding on the red buds of the trees. These were American Goldfinches and looked like this: http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/American_Goldfinch.html
There were birds in each of the plumages shown but of course it was the fantastic gold of the male in breeding plumage drew the most attention.
After lunch I drove back to Fowlers Hollow and took a walk along the stream bank to see if I could see any fish. I only saw two and the water us ultra-clear so I imagine fishing might be a little tough. I went up the bank opposite the campground which leads in five minutes or so to shelter number 1. There I read in the logbook that the write had caught two native trout and a stocked trout nearby on Saturday.
I then drove back across the mountain into Henry’s Valley and the Ant Hill Trail. I had seen it on the map and thought I’d like to take the Ant Hill trail to its intersection with the Middle Ridge Trail and see what that area looks like, i.e., if it was as nice as the section of Middle Ridge Trail I had been on yesterday. The Ant Hill trail leads past a remote cabin, crosses a beautiful stream, and then ascends the ridge. It’s a strenuous hike for the half-mile climb up the ridge but once it levels off it’s heaven. It took me about 45 minutes to reach the trail intersection and then I decided to continue out the Ant Hill Trail to its intersection with Cowpens Road and then come back and if I still felt like exploring, then I’d do the Middle Ridge Trail section. But once again the trail led me on. The section to Cowpens Road was fantastic, alternating between a narrow trail through overhanging knee-high greenery to expansive views of the just-starting-to-bud forest around me. At the road, it seemed like the Ant Hill trail should go on. The map showed the Tuscarora Trail to be only a short distance into the woods on the other side but it was paralleling the road and therefore perpendicular to the Ant Hill Trail. And a short distance to my right- about a quarter mile- Tuscarora Trial crossed the road. So I decided to see the trail crossing. There the sign said “Colonel Denning State Park, 9 miles” northbound and “Three Square Hollow Road, 2 miles” southbound. I had passed Three Square Hollow Road turnoff just before finding the trailhead for the Ant-Hill Trail so that would make a nice loop. I then noticed that another trail, the North Fork Trail would work even better – it would get me back to the van without any road-walking.
The Tuscarora Trail across the top was one of the best trails I’ve seen. There were almost no rocks, just a nice, soft carpet of leaves and needles winding through the forest. The descent was much less steep than the Ant Hill Trail and it wasn’t long till I hit the North Fork Trail. That trail was more rugged but eventually led my to a perfect area for camping and fishing along the stream, then out an old forest road to its intersection with the Ant Hill Trail and my van.
By that time it was 1700 and home beckoned. But there’s still a lot more to see.

Sunday, 16 April-
With more unexpected good weather again today I was at a bit of a loss this morning to decide what to do. I was still a little stiff from yesterday’s walk but thought I’d like to go back to the Tuscarora State Forest in Mocha Joe for a day or two. Labashi had decided she wanted to work in the yard again today so I was on my own.
I drove to the Tuscarora State Forest via Landisburg and entered at Laurel Run Road which soon turns to gravel. At the Frank Masland Natural Area sign I saw a nice little red-blazed trail leading away— the Garrett Trail. I was only going to walk it a short way to get a feel for it but it kept drawing me on. I just wanted to see what was around the next bend, then the next, and before long it was descending toward a trout stream I knew lay at the bottom of the valley. There the trail intersected with the Sheriff Trail, about a half-mile from my starting point. I turned upstream onto the Sheriff Trail which is a particularly beautiful area—no wonder it’s preserved as a Natural Area. The stream is crystal-clear and winds through hemlocks, some of them old-growth size. I ambled along for a half-mile or so until it intersected the Deer Hollow Trail. As I stood there, a sharp-shinned hawk came zooming down through the trees, crossing from right to left at high speed. Just as it reached the trail it flared right, only a foot or two above the ground, showing me the vivid white of its underside. It looked just like the hawk we had seen at Buck Lake in Florida’s Ocala National Forest and later identified as a sharp-shinned. I continued upstream, now on the North Bench Trail, thinking I should be able to make a loop out of this walk if I continued following the stream to the bridge, then I could return to the van by the forest road. I came to a ribbon marker someone had tied to a tree along the trail and I could see a line of markers leading toward the stream bank. I followed out of curiosity, wondering whether I’d find a favorite fishing hole, a stream crossing, or a good hunting spot or maybe a treasure chest. At the stream bank, I saw the reason for the ribbon: there was deer hair all about. A hunter must have shot a deer and dragged it to that point, then marked where he left it to seek assistance getting it out of that remote spot.
As I returned to the trail I realized I might be letting myself in for a longer walk than I realized. I didn’t have a map and I was only guess-timating how far it would be to the bridge. I did know that it’s a long, long uphill slog on the forest road from the bridge to the parking lot. In the end, I decided to return downstream to the Deer Hollow trail and use it as a steeper-but-shorter way back to the van.
Once back at Mocha Joe, I moved it to another parking area at the top of the hill where I knew there was another trail I wanted to try later and had a late lunch. With the warm sun streaming in it wasn’t long until I decided I needed a nap. It was wonderful to have the van doors open in the light breeze and before long I fell asleep. A half-hour-or-so later I heard a car approaching on the forest road. Actually there were two vehicles, apparently traveling together and they stopped—which seemed odd. I sat up to look and at that moment heard a little cluck right outside the rear door of the van. It was a turkey, a hen, easing along and apparently pecking tiny stones from the parking lot, perhaps as grit for its gizzard. The vehicles soon tired of watching the turkey (and I’m sure they wondered what the heck the story was with the turkey right beside the open doors of my van) and moved on. I laid back down and tried to nap a little more. But after 20 minutes or so I got up and there was the turkey again, wandering around the parking lot, pecking at everything. I had been purposefully staying out of the line of sight of the turkey or moving only when it was looking the other way. But now I stepped outside the van and walked around to where she could see me. No big deal—she just walked a little further away! For some reason Ms. Turkey wasn’t nearly as wary of humans as she should be.
I then headed out on the Middle Ridge Trail and it turned out to be a winner. The first part of the trail is two-track forest road and would make a great bicycle ride. Then the trail turned up into the woods along a deer exclosure fence until it brought me out to a jeep trail. Way ahead, I saw a much larger turkey cross, running for all it was worth. I topped out and the trail turned into beautiful rhododendron but it was getting too late—I had to start heading back to make it out before dark.
Back at the van, I drove on to Fowlers Hollow State Park. Since it was a Sunday evening I expected to be alone or nearly alone in the campground but there were four sites in use. I later learned that three of them were occupied by a group from the Harrisburg area, dads who had brought their kids fishing since Monday was a holiday for them. Cost for camping Sunday through Thursday is $12 a night and is a good deal considering that they’ve just upgraded the campground facilities and run electricity to all the campsites.
The evening was very pleasant. I just had time to make supper as it grew dark and then I sat out watching the stars come out. I realized that the state forest’s dark-sky observation area is actually quite close—probably within a half-mile as the crow flies so I should be able to see well. And that indeed was the case. Even though there were clouds occasionally, there were so many stars I had a difficult time recognizing the constellations.


Saturday, 15 April-
It was supposed to be a rainy day according to the forecast most of the week but suddenly that changed and today’s weather was fine. I decided to install a footpeg lowering kit on the Concours. These adapters move the footpegs down and forward slightly so your knees are not bent quite so sharply. The Concours is a ‘sport-touring’ motorcycle, meaning that it has characteristics of both the so-called ‘crotch-rocket’ sports bikes (it has a modified Ninja engine, for example) and also characteristics of touring bikes (a full fairing and windshield). The rider position had a little too much of the sporty forward lean and the pegs are a little high for longer-distance touring. I replaced the handlebars to provide a more upright seating position and a higher aftermarket windshield back in the summer of 2003. I’ve been OK with the footpeg position until now but that’s mostly because I don’t ride long distances. I’ve only done four 300+ mile days and my knees were talking to me toward the end of those rides. Now that I have some time available, I want to do some longer, multi-day rides, thus the change to the pegs.
The installation was supposed to be easy enough that my mother could do it (according to a set of instructions from one of the Concours Owner’s Group guys) but Mom would have had some extra work to do this time—the parts didn’t fit! I had to use a rat-tail file and my bench grinder to modify the adapters slightly so they would fit. I also had problems with the threads on the brake-lever adjuster and with the brake light switch but finally, even though Mom wasn’t there, I got it all working properly. The foot and leg positions now feel more natural and that’s a good thing.
I took the bike for a test ride to be sure the adjustments to foot position, transmission shifter, and brake lever all worked together well. Then I zoomed in to Rocky Ridge park and took a walk. This one was a long one, starting out with a 20-minute jog, then a walk to the far end of the park and back, jogging for a few minutes here and there for a total of two hours. That did me in – I could hardly put my motorcycling safety gear back on for the trip home.
That evening we watched part of the Ingmar Bergman ‘Wild Strawberries’ DVD. We started with an interview done in 1998 on Swedish television and that lasted longer than expected so we’ll do the movie another day. The interview was quite interesting—Bergman was a tortured soul for much of his life and frankly talked about being admitted to ‘a nut house’ for three weeks and how he must today (at the time of the interview) have an hour-by-hour plan for his day to avoid going crazy.

Friday, 14 April-
Today I went into Eastern Market in York to get some fresh orange juice and a nice eye-round, hopefully for a roast this weekend. Traffic was terrible—the worst I’ve seen it around the market place and it took me a few minutes to realize that it was because today is Good Friday—lots of folks are preparing for the holiday. With the fresh food along I had to go straight home but later in the day I took the mountain bike over to Pinchot State Park to play a little more. I only lasted about an hour but that was enough to get my heart rate up several times. Despite all the talk about the lack of rain, the trails had lots of mud and some big puddles so I spent more time on the campground roads. I was surprised to see how many people are out camping already but again, I suppose that’s because of the long weekend.
That evening we watched another Decalogue episode and two episodes of ‘24’.

Bezabor: Fowler’s Hollow, mountain bike (posted from home)

Thursday, 13 April-
Today I pulled my old mountain bike out of the barn. The bike is a Raleigh Technium Obsession 18-speed I bought years ago when mountain biking was first starting. It was a decent bike at the time but that was in the days before front-fork suspensions (nevermind rear suspensions) had even been invented. I eventually upgraded it with a more comfortable seat, riser handlebars, and less-aggressive FatBoy tires and we took it along on several trips. I started taking it to work in the back of my work-van and would ride it at lunch occcasionally. In 2003 I got into motorcycling and put it away since I was riding the motorcycle to work daily. But after seeing all the mountain bikers at Rocky Ridge park recently, I thought I’d like to give it a try. So after giving the bike a general cleaning I dug out my old bike-repair stand and chain cleaner and gave the chain a thorough cleaning and paraffin lube and checked all the adjustments. I then loaded it up and drove down to Rocky Ridge. The ride went fine and was quite a workout. The bike is geared so low that it feels like it could climb a tree if the tires could somehow grip the bark so that was a lot of fun. I came very close to dumping the bike when I lost momentum just as I approached an off-camber series of rocks… but I somehow saved it at the last micro-second. I did learn that I needed to make some adjustments to riding position and I need to tweak the derailleur settings to shift a little more reliably. Once I got back home I adjusted the seat back and that took care of the feeling that I was about to go over the handlebars at any moment and raising the handlebars slightly seems to have taken some of the pressure off my hands, so we’ll see how it goes on the next ride. This is fun!
In the evening we watched Decalogue 7 and two episodes of ‘24’.

Wednesday, 12 April-
Today I took a 200-mile motorcycle trip to test out the seat and riding position in preparation for a longer trip. Over time the seat foam had compressed so this winter I had a local upholstery shop cut out some of the compressed foam and add a denser pad in its place. I had also noticed that I was getting some knee pain on rides of over a hundred miles or so. So today’s ride was undertaken to determine if the new pad is comfortable enough for longer rides and whether I might have to consider buying a footpeg lowering kit to change the knee angle slightly to avoid the pain. I learned that all I have to do is seat myself back an inch or so more from the tank to have a much more comfortable ride.
The ride today took me on a tour of motorcycle shops near Pottstown and Lebanon but I didn’t see anything new or interesting in the motorcycling world. I suppose that would be a tough order since I just came back from Bike Week and there was so much to see all at once.
That evening we watched Decalogue 6 plus four episodes of ‘24’, season 1.

Tuesday, 11 April-
Today was a day for chores. I washed Labashi’s car first. The kayaks were still on top of Mocha Joe from our trip so I took them down and opened them up to dry out thoroughly. We’ve had some rain so I expected there would be a little water in them (a cup or so finds its way past the hatch and cockpit covers). I cleaned out the water and wiped the interiors down with Zep Odor Control to prevent odors and aired out and then repacked all the accessory gear. I then mowed the lower portion of our lawn, admiring our bumper crop of dandelions. I also washed my motorcycling protective jacket and pants, a process which requires me to remove the armor pads and repeatedly wash the mesh ballistic material, then dry it thoroughly before re-inserting the armor pads. In the evening, we watched ‘Capote’ and an episode of ‘24’. We enjoyed Capote and were very glad to have the DVD extras showing the real Capote and providing more information about him and about the making of the movie. We have a lot of respect for Philip Seymour Hoffman after watching him in so many different roles over the years; what a talented actor.

Monday. 10 April-
Today was a beautifully sunny and airy day. I rode the Concours down to Rocky Ridge park and took a long walk. I even jogged for about a half-hour of it. I then rode over to nearby Rudy park and walk/jogged for another 20 minutes or so around the south end of the park. That pretty much did me in, particularly after the nine-mile hike yesterday.
In the evening, we watched Decalogue 5 and an episode of ‘24’, season 1.

Sunday, 9 April-

I went hiking for the day at Fowler’s Hollow State Park today. Hiking buddy ‘rar’ and I met at the Pilot truck stop in Carlisle where we dropped his car. While waiting for him I bought a 12-volt hot-water pitcher I found in the Pilot’s extensive trucker-gear section. This unit is a small (22 ounce) pitcher in a holder connected to the cigarette-lighter outlet. I’m hoping to use it to conveniently heat water for Labashi and I to do our morning wash-ups when van-camping. On colder mornings we’ve learned to drape the Cottonelle or Swash towels over the Buddy Heater and that takes a lot of the sting out of a quick wash-up on a cold morning but it would be nice to have some warm water for shaving and more extensive wash-ups.
Fowler’s Hollow is a very nice little park and is little known. It’s in a fairly remote portion of Perry County and there aren’t many signs to show the way. I found it on the map years ago while checking out the Tuscarora Trail which passes nearby and the Tuscarora State Forest. For many years the only trail shelter on the Tuscarora Trail has been in Fowler’s Hollow (shelters were recently added at Doubling Gap and Cowan’s Gap). Oddly, there have long been three shelters within easy walking distance at Fowler’s Hollow but only one is actually right on the Tuscarora Trail so the literature for the Trail does not mention the other two. And since only one of the three is actually in the State Park, that literature only mentions one. You can see all three only on the Tuscarora State Forest map but they are of course hard to find on this map of the 91,000-acre state forest.
The shelters are well-placed, particularly for snow-camping. If the snow is deep and you don’t have snowshoes, you can stay in the first one. It’s close enough to the parking lot for you to reach it even if the snow is thigh-deep. The second shelter is about a mile in and the third about three miles in so you have plenty of choices and also a built-in backup plan in the unlikely event you find someone else camping at your shelter of first choice. And the state park road and parking lot are plowed in winter to serve as a trailhead for snowmobiling.
But rar and I weren’t winter camping, we were just out for a little exercise. We hiked out the Fowler Hollow Trail to the second shelter, where we were happy to see the improvements that have been made there. Now there’s a very nice hearth over the fireplace and someone has left several old tools to make it easy to keep the campsite looking nice. We then walked on to the third shelter, where we had an apple while relaxing at the picnic table. This one is my favorite shelter. It was here that I brought my young nephew on his first backpacking trip on the weekend of March 3-4, 2001 (according to the log that’s still there). We had hiked in some six miles of rough, rocky trail from the opposite direction (we had connected to the Tuscarora Trail via a side trail) and just made it to the shelter as darkness fell. We had a nice evening in front of the big fireplace and if memory serves he was asleep by 1900 or so and I didn’t last much longer. We awoke to several inches of snow and it was coming down very steadily. It was so wonderful to be in the shelter cooking our pancake breakfast while the soft, quiet snow fell all around us—an image we’ll long remember.
But rar and I didn’t have snow today, we had a perfect spring day. We had so much blue sky that rar said we’re lucky we weren’t cloud-scientists today for we’d be completely out of luck.
We briefly took the Perry Lumber Trail from the shelter but it soon merged us back onto the Fowler Hollow trail, actually a forest road in this area. We followed it to the dead-end, a wild-turkey habitat field. We turned into the woods and now followed the pretty little stream down. We were surprised to see several large patches of very white sand, apparently left behind as the darker-but-more-easily-dissolved grains of the rocks were washed away.
We soon returned to the forest road and took it to the Alfarata Trail and then back to the van which made today’s walk about nine miles. I’ll be returning yet this spring to the park. There’s still a lot more to do there. The Hemlocks Natural Area is nearby as is the state forest’s dark-sky astronomical observation site.
At home, we watched an episode of ‘24’. That Jack Bauer sure is a busy fella.

GATOR!!!! (>>>>> Click on the picture to see a larger view !!<<<<<<<<)

I took this picture of Labashi making a new friend in the Juniper Springs Wilderness on March 6th, 2006.
We had not seen any alligators in the first two-thirds of the 7-mile paddle and came upon this big fellow by surprise. Perhaps you can tell from the picture that there's a bend in the river behind Labashi and there's heavy growth behind the alligator. That made him invisible to us until we were right on him. I happened to be on the far side of the river and he seemed VERY close to me but Labashi was about to get even closer-- much closer. I had turned my kayak around and pulled out the camera, then waved my arm to warn Labashi of the surprise behind the bush. I was pointing toward the alligator but Labashi thought I was trying to tell her to stay to that side of the river because of some underwater obstruction I had seen on the other side . So she came within less than a paddle's length of this seventeen footer. Like me, she just froze and drifted by.
This picture is the only one we have of this thrill. As I took it, the camera went into rewind- it was the last frame on the roll. That's unfortunate because she came much closer to the gator than the picture conveys.
The gator appears to be approaching Labashi but was lying still, it's head in the water, just basking in the warm sun. What a great experience! (once it's over) -- Bez.

Bezabor: Bike repair, Wildwood walk (posted from home)

Tuesday, 4 April-
We spent the morning working on the web. I then took my folding bike to The Pedal Pusher bike shop in Harrisburg for repair. After our nine-mile ride around the South Loop at Crystal River Preserve, I found that my right pedal was cross-threaded and would not come off. Since the right pedals must be removed so the bikes will fold up small enough to fit under our bed in Mocha Joe, I used all the force I could muster and really made a mess of the threads. The softer aluminum of the crank was torn up by the hardened steel of the pedal. ‘Ted’ at The Pedal Pusher tried cleaning up the threads in the crank with a 9/16” fine-thread tap but they didn’t look very good at all so I elected to have a new crank installed. We use the bikes infrequently but when we do I need to be able to depend on the fix. Ted did me a great favor and only charged $20 for the new crank. He even checked the derailleur and made some adjustments without charge.
Afterwards, I drove over to Wildwood Park to take a walk. It was a 50-degree, very windy day and I didn’t expect to see much but thought I’d like to see the park just before it ‘pops’ with new spring growth. I was pleasantly surprised to see many different birds in my two-hour walk and saw my first mourning cloak butterfly—quite a beauty.
That evening Labashi worked late on the web so we held off on Decalogue Three and watched two more episodes of ‘24’.

Monday, 3 April-
Today was a bit of a rainy day so we spent the day working on the web and reading our month’s worth of mail and I recovered from my long walk yesterday. In the evening we watched Decalogue Two and three more episodes of ‘24’. Why IS Jack Bauer such a special guy?

Bezabor: Florida Trip Summary (posted from home)

The idea for the Florida trip came from wanting to get somewhere we could be outside much of the time this winter. We had had an extra-nice January and much of February still had daytime temperatures in the mid-Forties and above and even a day in the Sixties. I was getting in quite a lot of motorcycle riding and walking but the latter half of February saw daytime temps only reaching the Thirties. I have also wanted to experience Bike Week at Daytona at least once--- just to see the crazy people if nothing else. I had also recently learned that the Florida Trail Association was to hold its annual meeting the at the end of the week after Daytona so that led to the following plan: hit Daytona for one to three days (depending on how we like it), then go east to the Space Coast area for a few days of tourist attractions like Kennedy Space Center, then hang out in the Ocala National Forest hiking and kayaking until the FTA meeting starts, stay one or two days at the FTA conference, then visit our friends Mark and Sue for a few days in St. Petersburg. Afterwards, we’d head north to Florida’s “Nature Coast” at Crystal River and Rainbow River, then start wending our way home, perhaps dipping a paddle in the Suwannee River on the way, and hopefully getting a chance to stop at the southern end of the Appalachian Trail to see what it’s like at the start of the main thru-hiking season.

Our trip started off strangely. Only a few miles from home, still in Pennsylvania, we witnessed an accident on I-83. A pickup towing a ‘bobcat’ excavation machine was coming up the northbound lane. Our attention was drawn to it as it started to swerve a bit. Then it started swerving wildly across both lanes, each oscillation getting larger and more violent. The driver was trying to correct but the corrections were making the oscillations worse. I hit the brakes and headed for the shoulder because the rig looked as if it would hit the center divider on the next oscillation and the bobcat might get knocked loose from its trailer and fall over into our lane or the entire rig might flop over or break through the barrier. But at that point the trailer came off the hitch and broke the chains as the pickup spun around. The pickup ended up facing southbound in the northbound right-hand lane. Inexplicably, the trailer spun sideways to a stop on the shoulder of the northbound right-hand lane, looking like it had been carefully parked there by its owner. The south-facing pickup could apparently see that oncoming traffic was still some distance away and he ripped the truck around, spinning the tires enough to smoke them.
He pulled around the trailer and was backing toward it when we last saw him. Can you imagine what his heart rate must have been at that point?

A few hours later we saw another oddity. We had pulled into the rest area along I-95 just south of the Washington Beltway for lunch. We saw a sport motorcycle pull in and I briefly looked up but then looked back down. Labashi then said, “Hey, that guy just crashed” and sure enough, the motorcycle was lying on its side in one of the angle-in parking spots. I got out of the van and started walking over to him when I saw another guy walk up to him and the two of them righted the bike, so I went back. During lunch I saw them checking the bike over so when we were ready to leave I drove up and asked whether he needed any tools or any help to get the bike going again. He said everything was fine and explained that his foot had slipped in a pool of oil in the center of the parking spot and he had been too cold and tired to react quickly enough to stop the bike from falling over.

But after that our trip settled into a normal travel routine and we saw only one other odd thing on our trip. I believe we saw an attempted car theft thwarted by a car alarm. We had just left an outdoors shop in one of the small Nature Coast towns. As we turned the corner to enter the main road, I noticed two men approaching a car parked nearby and something just didn’t look right. Their body language said they were doing something they shouldn’t. Both stood along the car’s doors and afterwards I realized that one of them had been jimmying the lock. But soon a car alarm sounded and the two men quickly turned and started walking away, trying to look like they just happened to be passing by. They strode across the lot and jumped into another car and sped away.

The blog entries below cover the day-to-day things we did but I’d also like to summarize my thoughts about the trip.

Florida is a great place to visit in winter. We loved central Florida and the Ocala National Forest. The lush growth and interesting plants and wildlife are calling to me to return already. I’m considering taking the Florida Master Naturalist course as an excuse to go back. We had glorious sun the entire month with daytime temps typically in the seventies or low eighties. Night-time temps ranged from low thirties for several days when a cold front came in to the almost-too-warm mid-seventies. The cold-front low temps sound ominous but they really aren’t. The daytime temps linger into the evening and the mornings heat up quickly. Typically you are in shirtsleeves by 0900 even after waking up to wake-up temps in the low thirties. And the people we met were interesting, colorful, and willing to share their enthusiasm for the Florida outdoors.

Bike Week is fun. Daytona is well laid out for an event like this and we never felt things were too-overcrowded. We were able to find convenient (and mostly free) parking and we enjoyed the different venues. I’m not enthusiastic about the overwhelming choppers-skulls-and-black-leather feel to it, but this too has its place. It’s amazing to see how many ‘rebels’ there are, all with their head-rags, sunglasses, tattoos, black leather, and stern looks. And all seem to have throttle-blip-itis at the redlights. But as I say, it was fun.

Kennedy Space Center—been there, done that, got the tee-shirt. Actually, it was nice to be reminded of the amazing things man has done in the space program. We also had a bonus on the tour bus; we got to see a family of feral pigs (big mama and three little piglets) along the road not far from the space shuttle landing strip.

Florida Trail Association. An amazingly-effective group of volunteers. We were surprised to find most of the members in attendance to be our age or older. These folks have their act together. I look forward to their new program for hiker safety.

St. Petersburg/Treasure Island — I have to go back for the kayaking and just spend more time in the area. And interestingly enough the Gulf Coast Sea Kayak Symposium is held there the last weekend in January each year.... hmmm.

Crystal River—again, we didn’t stay long enough. Highlight of this area was the coral snake we saw in the wild between mile markers 3 and 4 on the South Loop Trail at the Crystal River Preserve State Park. I also will have to do the sea-kayak trail starting below Homosassa Springs sometime (soon!).

Amicalola Falls / Springer Mountain – We thoroughly enjoyed this visit. We thought it might turn out to be a bust as we arrived in rain and fog but after it cleared we met some really, really interesting people and had a chance to get a feel for the woods in this area and thru-hikers in general.

Patchwork Storytelling Festival- We enjoyed the storytelling we heard here but would like more variety and choice (in other words a larger festival). (to hear a sample of Bill Harley’s singing and storytelling (if you have RealPlayer), try this: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5023162)

Trip stats:
Miles traveled- 4094 (avg=132 per day)
Wal-Mart free-camping nights- 12 of 31
Pay-camping nights- 13 of 31, total cost $143.31, avg pay-camping cost per night: $11.02
Hotel nights- 1 (at Amicalola Falls State Park Lodge), $80
Average nightly housing cost: $7.21
Gas: 284.5 gallons costing $682.48, averaging $2.40/gal (low= $2.19, hi=$2.60). Avg mpg: 14.4 (hi=16.0, low=13.3)
Overall cost: $2427.20 or $78.30 per day
Overall value: priceless!

Bezabor: Storytelling Festival, Landsford Canal State Park, Home Again (posted from home)

Sunday, April 2-
Today was to be a nice sunny, 65-degree day and tomorrow a rainy day so I decided I needed a motorcycle ride. I rode south to the Shank’s Mare outdoors shop along the Susquehanna at Long Level. I like to check every once in a while to see if they have any good kayak deals but not today. Afterwards I stopped in at Starbucks for an affogato-style mocha-frapp and I picked up a New York Times for Labashi. She likes to read the arts section and enjoyed reading them at some of the coffee shops where we stopped to connect to the internet during our recent trips.
I got home mid-afternoon and it was so nice I had to do something outside. I thought I’d go to a local park for a walk but didn’t want to get right back on the bike so I decided I’d do another walk over to our ‘local’ video rental store. That took me a little under four hours for the ten-mile round trip and I was a tired puppy by the time I reached home.
That evening we watched the first film of Kieslowski’s “The Decalogue” and then our first episode of “24”, season one. We were almost immediately hooked by “24” and stayed up late to watch two more episodes before going to bed.

Saturday, April 1-
Today we left for home. We thought we’d drive halfway home or perhaps a little more but once underway we realized that it was only 500 miles and we could push on through and sleep at home tonight. We left around 0830 and pulled in our driveway about 1800. Unloading the van only takes us about twenty minutes or so and we finished that up and had supper, then watched a little bit of television before going to bed.

Friday, March 31-
The storytelling festival had events for local schoolchildren through the day today so we were on our own until 1900. We drove out to Landsford Canal State Park. Upon entering I was less-than-enthusiastic about paying four dollars to enter without knowing whether there was anything to see but took a leap of faith. We first went to an old-looking building which has the park office on it’s second floor. There we found two rangers and there we stayed for the next hour or so talking with them; they were absolutely fascinating. We learned about the Rocky Shoals Spider Lily which is a rare and endangered species and the park has the world’s largest known colony of them. The rangers showed us picture after picture of the lilies as well as pictures of local wild life. When we happened upon a picture of President Bush they explained that he had visited the park as governor of Texas and had jogged the canal trail then showered in their primitive little bathroom (and one of the rangers confided that he had kept the bar of soap that Mr. Bush had used and someday he might just sell it on Ebay). Ranger “Al” was quite a talented guy. He had wonderful pictures, including a 270-degree panorama he had taken. He also did some taxidermy and had made the impressive flying barred-owl mount which hung from the ceiling as well as an intricate full osprey skeleton. The skeleton had been brought in by a park visitor in a bag and Al had assembled it on a perch to look like the skeleton was just starting to take off, wings spread, head perfectly positioned for balance. As we prepared to leave we saw some wasps flying around the inside of the windows and they told us that they kill the wasps each day and at night the white-footed mice eat the wasp bodies but leave the wings. And sure enough we could see pairs of wings-- probably a dozen pairs or so--- lying around under the windows right where the wasp had fallen.
We then hiked the Canal trail and learned about the Catawba-Wateree canal system built in 1820-1835. On the way back we took the Nature Trail and stopped briefly to rest when Labashi noticed a yellow ribbon tied along the stream. After our experience finding eagle’s nests marked by red ribbons in Florida, we now look around whenever we come to some marking like this. And today it paid off—across the trail and behind us was an eagle’s nest with a bald eagle standing guard above it. After taking a few pictures we moved on and sharp-eyes Labashi caught sight of a well-camouflaged brown water-snake on a branch. After looking at several pictures of water snakes on the web, I believe it was a northern water snake. It may have been a dark color-variant of the brown water snake.
After our visit at Landsford, we headed for the Sumter National Forest but that trip turned out to be a bust. We really didn’t have time to get into the backcountry and the road we took through the park went through a depressed area so we turned around and went back to Rock Hill.
That evening the storytellers were Beth Horner, Bill Harley, and Diane Ferlatte. Bill started things off with a funny story about the Teacher’s Lounge and Beth told several stories about her family and brother back in Missouri. But the treat tonight was Diane, who told slave stories about Br’er Rabbit and accompanied them with lively songs that you just had to join her in singing.
By the time we got back to our Wal-Mart parking lot, it was time to turn in.

Thursday, March 30-
After our arrival in the Rock Hill, SC area today, I dug out my listing of wi-fi free spots for South Carolina and found there’s a Panera Bread Company in Rock Hill. I’ve had pretty good luck with Panera (a notable exception was my connection difficulties in Ocala, FL) so we decided to have lunch there while I uploaded my blog entry and checked our mail. Labashi updated her paper trip diary and read the local paper while I worked online and then while I read the paper she went through her list of things she wanted to look up on the internet, typically information about the new animals or plants or artwork we are seeing on our trip.
We then went over to York Technical College where the storytelling event was to be held and hung out in the parking lot.
Today’s storytellers were Beth Horner and Bill Harley but we were first entertained for an hour by Polecat Creek, a really good bluegrass band. The banjo player, Riley Baugus, played and sang on the soundtrack to Cold Mountain and told a funny story about his work with director Anthony Minghella and on his song “Cuckoo Bird”.
Beth Horner told us several short stories then went into a very long one called “The Silver Spurs”. It was a long, rambling story about a four year old girl, Minnie, who watched her father go off to the Civil War to fight for the South. The title comes from the child’s last view of him and the silver spurs he wore as he rode out of her life. We learn that her father’s original commitment ended and he was forced to continue fighting. He was promoted against his wishes in order to force him to stay and he was eventually killed in battle, having never had a day of leave despite his desperate attempts to be allowed to go see his family. Years later, a family friend by chance saw the distinctive spurs on display in an Iowa business. A brother to the little girl (by now she was a grandmother) went to investigate and found that the spurs had been taken from the body their father by the business-owner’s grandfather. The spurs were returned to the family, who treasure them to this day. Our storyteller then spoke of meeting her great-grandmother Minnie when she (the storyteller) was a young child and the first time she heard the story of the silver spurs.

After that sobering story we met Bill Harley, who followed up on Beth’s story with “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda”, an incredible song about Gallipoli:

(Please see http://www.pogues.com/Releases/Lyrics/LPs/RumSodomy/Waltzing.html)

That floored me. I didn’t know what to expect next. We had seen the write-up for Bill which said he’s a family-oriented storyteller so this opening surprised us. Bill then went on to tell a story about growing up in his home town of Indianapolis. He brought back vivid memories when he spoke of Andy Granatelli and STP and Parnelli Jones and told us of organizing and competing in a doomed neighborhood bicycle race. The tone reminded me of Jean Shepard’s “A Christmas Story”, where kid Ralphie tries to convince his parents that a Red Ryder BB gun is indeed the perfect Christmas present.

That evening we had a surprisingly-quiet night in the Rock Hill Wal-Mart parking lot and caught up on our reading.