Shame on me. Long time; no post

I've already been up for a while taking a nice ride along the river road feeling almost apologetic for disturbing the egrets in the water filled ditches who were not especially grateful for the rumbling of a Harley Davidson on a mild summer morning.

The sun had not completely risen and the mixture of dark blue clouds with orange edges reminded me of a saying I learned years ago, "Red skies in the morning; sailors take warning."  It looked like it may rain later.  Still the clatter of the pipes sang a morning hymn and comforted my soul.  I talk with Him quite a bit with the V-Twin choir singing in the background.

Still there were no rain drops on my windshield and there was hardly any traffic on the roads. It seemed I owned the world and as I returned back to my neighborhood, I sort of wondered how many neighbors I was waking as I downshifted and rounded the corners sometimes scraping my floorboards on tight turns.

It felt great to be alive.

Call it writer's block, apathy, laziness or whatever but I've just haven't had the drive or will to post.  Not only that, I've not been all that excited about hauling out the Nikon because for the past few years, it was like another body part.

Anyway, this year I have had a short assignment in Atascadero, California.  I only had a couple of weekends to do any exploring.  A lot of that was visiting Morro Bay and watching the sun set on the rock.  

As the sun began to set, a boat pulled through the channel to spend some time for a late weekend evening sunset.



You'll have to pardon the dirty sensor and lens.  Consider the sun dogs as just being artistic.

Knowing I couldn't get that far north, I thought I'd ride on up to see how far I could go.

Anyway, I did cruise north toward San Simeon stopping along to see the smelly and noisy Elephant Seals and checking out a zebra near Hearst Castle.  

 I did not go into the castle.

I did get on up a few more miles as far as Ragged Point Inn before the road was closed and sent me back south where I spent some time back in Atascadero at the Tamale Festival.  It was a typical small town festival selling, yes you got it, tamales.  One on the best things was seeing the Azteca horses with riders singing as they ponies seemed to dance to the beat of the Mexican band.

With such a short time there, trips were cut short but manage to meet my old friend Jon Zeller up in Paso Roble in Central California's wine country.

I appreciate the chance to get back up there but am a bit disappointed I could not get further north on Big Sur.

My Ohio Weekend

This weekend, I found myself up for a little exploring.  Cruising the internet, I found the locations of a few waterfalls, for which I have a huge penchant.  The other is ("stalking" is such an ugly word), Amish watching.  So, I decided to do a bit of both.

(as usual, clicking the photos should enlarge them and increase resolution)
I warmed up a bit with a water sculture at the community center near my hotel in Dublin

then progressed down the road, not far away, to Hayden Falls

 where I met a duck.

I set my GPS toward Holmes County, Sugar Creek, Berlin and Millersburg in search of the Amish.

Along the way, I passed a huge 7 story office building that was the home office of Longaberger Baskets in Newark, OH.  It was pretty impressive.

The first thing I try to remember is upon seeing the first road apple on the pavement is start watching, because the roads are sometimes winding, hilly and limited shoulders in some places.

We don't want to run over one of the Yoder boys.

Everything in that region is geared, of course, to Amish.  I even suspect there are folks just pretending to be Amish (I digress) just for business but that's another story.

 It's not like you have to look hard for them

  they come out from small roads and streets and just appear.

 One thing I found interesting was how most of the big box stores, such as Walmart, even had dedicated parking spots for the buggies.  I would guess to protect them from being run over and also, being the cash cow they are, to cater to them as well.

Leaving Millersburg, I started heading back south and found a couple of covered bridges in the process.  One being an active one for anyone to use and another that had been closed only to non-motorized (buggies) vehicles.

 

 This one bears the title of Ohio's longest covered bridge.

At the information sight of the above bridge, I read of another set of waterfalls near there on the road back to Columbus.   It's Honey Run Falls.  A little off the beaten path but still very nice.  It took forever to get shots of it because of kids in the nearby campgrounds playing in them.

Yes, I was more than patient.  I was a kid once myself, so I have been told.

Seriously, it was such a nice place watching the kids and several other photographers trying to grab just the right angle.

Well, outside of going to church with some friends who invited me, that's been pretty much it up here in Ohio.

Until next time...

Wasting away in Middle Tennessee

Having a break from the 20 and 30° temperatures and now in the mid sixties, brought lots of rain along the I-40 corridor in middle Tennessee.  Being literally 40 miles from a town of any proportions that would have any restaurant of acclaim, I stopped in at the Hot Spot Barbeque for dinner.

If you get past the idea that you're stuck out in the middle of nothing, you begin to look around at the curiosities and odd little things that the locals do.  Here at the Hot Spot, you're confronted with a collection of corny gun and Harley Davidson signs (although there is no evidence this is a biker place), handwritten menus on the walls, plastic table cloths and..........9 pound turnips.

At first I thought it was fake but the owner soon confirmed it was the real deal  The 11 pound sweet potato behind was an added benefit.  I was amused and almost brought to tears at times as the locals bantered with the owner and kidded the two 70ish something waitresses about wearing sexier clothing.  Can you imagine Granny Clampett wearing skinny jeans?  Me neither.

Saturday, I had to get out of the hotel so I took a ride through Bucksnort, heading south through small back roads that sometimes became dirt roads where deer, turkey and rabbits abound.   I think I saw 6 deer in various places, 5 of which did not have a tire track across their bodies.

Looking down at my instrument gauge, I saw that I had a very low tire so I began to seek out a service station with an air pump.  Stopping at a small convenience store near Ethridge, I was amazed to see an Amish looking buggy pulling up.  Sure enough, two young men dressed in traditional Amish attire got out and went into the store.  Later, after checking the internet,  I found out there is a small enclave of Amish in middle Tennessee.  As one website says, it's in no danger of out populating Lancaster, Pennsylvania or Holmes County, Ohio but there is a presence as well as a few in Alabama and maybe even in Oklahoma.





Amish with a southern accent.  Who knew?