Warm Spring Day In Tennessee

While yesterday was less than wonderful with temperatures ranging from the high 30s to the low 50s with gray skies, today was a gorgeous day. 

This afternoon, I explored local things near my hotel. One being something called the Old Stone Fort which is really an Indian mound but that's another story.

I walked some trails along the Duck River, managing to only fall flat of my face only once without breaking me or my camera. The tragedy could have been sliding off a 25 foot cliff into the waters.  It didn't look that deep but it was probably pretty cold and I wasn't ready for a swim.


Wild flowers were coming out along the rivers edge causing bugs to be out as well. While lying on the ground taking close-up pictures of some flowers, I had the uneasy feeling I was being watched.  I snapped off a couple of frames, slowly go up and saw a couple of Geezers (that would be someone my age or older) looking at me as if I were some kind of (please be kind in the comment section) nut.  I got up and nodded to them as if I were doing something important and headed back up the trail.  I suppose they don't see people wallowing around on the ground eye level to a dandelion very often.

It was a nice day.  I think there's even a full moon out tonight.

30 years ago, April 10

It's hard to believe how fast 30 years passes.  Little did we know how the roads would twist and turn as we started this journey which had no map or destination.

Tennessee

In case you had not noticed, I'm working in middle Tennessee and staying in Manchester.  When I arrived a week ago today, the gas station across the street from the hotel had prices of $3.49.  I have seen them raise prices twice in the last week up to $3.62 and three cents higher at the next exit.

April Fools

I wear hats much of the time

..these days and standing in the grocery store in Lenoir, North Carolina, intently reading the label on a jar, I felt a light tug on my jacket and turned to see a small older woman with tight curls in her thin blond (Clairol) hair.  She had this weird little impish grin on her face as she asked me without any introduction, "Do you know what kind of man wears the biggest hat?"

As my mind whirled trying to figure out if this was an off color joke or maybe just being a busy body attempting to make a point, I finally decided to bite and ask, "No Ma'am, I sure don't."
She gives me this Goober Pyle smile and blurts out, "The man with the biggest head!"

"OK..," I'm thinking, "What's this all about?"  I gave a nervous little laugh as my eyes darted around looking for the TV cameras.  If I had any notoriety at all, I would be looking for an Ashton Kutcher Punk'd crew hanging out but this is in hard core Mayberry RFD territory and wasn't likely.

With no film crews visible, I then began looking for an escape route down one of the aisles in case she pulled an ice pick or Beretta from her purse but just before I took flight, she perked up and said, "Made you laugh, didn't I?"

I nervously chuckled, "Yes ma'am, you did."  They say some folks laugh when they don't know what else to say or do and I was still looking for an escape route.

Still smiling, she perked up again, blinked her eyes and told me "Bye!", as she ambled off down by the pasta.

This Mayberry thing is going to take a little more "getting used to."

Spring is bursting out all over

As the buds begin to pop open and little creatures come out to play in the sun, so do the denizens of Lenoir, North Carolina.  Warm temperatures and shiny days bring the best out in everyone.  Reminiscent of times 50 years ago, the spirit of Andy, Barney and the characters of Mayberry burst forth with innocence as you hear gospel singing in restaurants and warm greetings between the street sweeper and shop keepers addressing each other by their first names.

Almost script like, the mannerisms of this small town, where hosiery companies and furniture lords once prospered, takes you back to kinder and gentler times.  With deep fried southern accents all the norm, you almost want to believe it's all a hoax and somehow you've been caught up in some corny play or a glitch in a time machine but the charm is very real and I like to think the world is a better place for communities like this.


Perhaps, I'll be working here another few weeks but it will take much more time than that to grow an affinity for livermush (look it up) and Carolina styled barbecue. 

Super Moon

While in Raleigh, North Carolina, this weekend, I slipped out to take a shot at the Super Moon.  It's trajectory brings it closer to Earth than it has in 18 years.  Fear mongers were crawling out of the woodwork, predicting more earthquakes, tidal waves, and natural disasters bigger than Al Gore's global warming head.

I admit, the moon would have looked better had there been some other objects in the frame with it but there simply wasn't anything near me that would have worked.  Plus, I really needed something in the 1000 mm range to make it really work.

On a tripod, Nikon D60, 200 mm digital (equivalent to a 300 mm in film cameras), ISO 100, Aperture 5.6, shutter speed of 1/500 second.  Cropping was necessary.

In North Carolina

A couple of weeks ago, I said adieu to Sonoma, California wine country and headed east to North Carolina.

Being in North Carolina.  Pros: the food is down home and folks here do not have that much of accent.  Who am I kidding, they think I talk like a Yankee.  Cons: the hardwood vegetation hasn't developed it's green yet and it's hard to find something that isn't gray.

This has been the first weekend I've had free to roam so I spent most of it hiking through some of the parks along the Blue Ridge Parkway such as Linville Falls. Waterfalls, yep there are a few.  I've hiked so much, my bunions are complaining but it's been very nice.

The falls on the right were only .7 miles from the parking lot but the experience gave me an intimate knowledge of North Carolina's rock, mud and tree root system.

From the Blue Ridge Parkway

Near Linville Falls

I am a fan of Timothy Allen

If I could go back and change a few turns in my life, this is how (at least on the surface) I would have done it. 

In 1993, after receiving a degree in zoology at Leeds University, Timothy Allen spent 3 years traveling Indonesia before signing onto an aid convoy to Bosnia for a report while working toward another degree in photography.  Six months later, he dropped out of school and began working with the Sunday Telegraph.  Through a series of changes, he has worked all around the globe.

If you have 7½ minutes, entertain yourself with collection of some amazing photography.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12618167

 If you have even more time, here's a a lot more.

President's Day Weekend (or "Doing the City")

Instead of flying home for a quick turnaround, Darlene came to see me, arriving Wednesday night.  Years since she had once lived on Travis Airforce Base, she wanted to see how it had changed in 43 y......er...a few years ago.

Darlene doesn't travel well so it takes a day or so for her to catch up after flying.  With that, she pretty much laid up in the bed Thursday while I worked.  Friday turned out to be a wet and drizzling day so we pretty much went shopping, did a winery/olive tour and changed hotels.  Stopping off at the Jacuzzi Winery and Olive farms, we had fun tasting dipping oils and a moderate amount of wine tasting.

Saturday proved to not much better weather wise and eventually wound up in Old Sacramento for a nice dinner after the kind folks at Travis AFB deemed Darlene a threat to national security and wouldn't let us on the base.  Actually security, as you might imagine, is pretty strict these days and since we had no sponsor to vouch for us they told us to hit the road.

Sunday, we could see Mt Diablo from our hotel room in Suisun City so we did the city, the whole ball of wax....bridge, downtown, trolley cars, cheap camera shops, Ghiradelli, Fisherman's Wharf, Lomard and pretty much the whole nine yards.

It was Chinese New Year so we thought we'd see what that was all about.  Driving up Pacific, we see this guy in the middle of the street pointing at us and yelling something.  As we got a little closer, I rolled the window down, I found out he was a street person engaged in free enterprise.  "Mike", it seems, found street parking signs for people, held back cars while they parked and insinuated he would watch over the cars while we did China Town.  Unspoken, it was a GREAT idea to tip Mike so that the car would not be broken in to while we were out.  It was worth the five bucks.

Monday, Darlene and I had a great time traveling over to South Lake Tahoe.  The place recently had a huge snow and snow machines had left banks of the white stuff so deep we couldn't really get out and take pictures along the way.  However, we did get out near the lake and play around.

Putting her back on the plane Tuesday morning, I hated to see her go because we had such a great holiday weekend.