Walkin' man
Pictures taken while walkin' around. Most by me will be from my lunch hour strolls. Feel free to post your own.
I'm going to kick this off with some pictures I took a while ago, and liked for one reason or another. So I kept them on my phone.
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Very cute.
Except it's probably driven by a serial killer.
Some more of your food based photos plz.
look for it...
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I was trying my hand at taking candids for a while, but then decided to stop doing that in case somebody noticed and the situation became awkward.
That picture above was my favorite candid, but here are a couple more.
These guys were pulling cables through tunnels under the street.
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A meter maid giving directions or something.
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and this guy is a fixture around here. He often stands at this one street corner and just dances. A still picture doesn't do him justice. It looks like he's walking, but he's dancing.
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This is the headquarters of the DC fire department. You might think it's a burn building for practice, but I'm pretty sure admin offices are in there. This was two weeks ago during an arctic vortex.
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These are the photos I wish I could take.
Most excellent.
It's raining today. But I still have a couple old ones.
No parking on Wednesday morning from March 15th through September 15th because that's when they sweep the streets. This was March 19th. Somebody forgot to pay attention to the season change.
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There's a famous painting of Marylin Monroe on a building in DC. This painting of Liz was one I had never seen before. I like it.
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Another shot of that DeLorean. They are really low.
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Walkin' Man went for a walk today after all.
And I saw that dancer guy. A couple of kids on a field trip to Washington thought he was hysterical.
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Then I wound up behind some (I think) French guys who were on their way to the Youth Hostel in DC. You always think of the backpacking youth hostel thing being done in Europe, but it happens here in the US too. The blue awning with the flags above is the youth hostel.
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Right next to the youth hostel is a derelict building covered in a billboard. The building is rotten inside. Huge hole in the roof. But there are some nice architectural details on the face. And they recently put in some fake windows and doors to cover the plywood over those openings. It's a nice touch.
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Edit; Oops. I should resize that one.
At first I thought this was a thread about a Burning Man type event for the over 40 set.
You may want to check out "Street Photography." It's got a long tradition. Here are links to a couple of famous photogs, but I highly recommend you get some books from the library and or find their work in museums and galleries. You are in good company. I really enjoy looking at the world through your POV.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_photography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Winogrand
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Atget
One of the things that is cool about Atget's work is that in much of it the streets are deserted. I don't remember if he went out early in the day or if the lack of people was a function of extremely long exposure times.
Very enjoyable work, Glatt.
I look at a building like that I wonder about its 'bones.' I wonder what the layout of the interior is. I wonder if any of the original features are still there: the staircases and the flooring and the decorative moldings. I wonder if there are hidey-holes and I wonder who lived there in days past.
Beautiful in its dereliction, imo.
keep the photos coming glatt. I wish I could take good pictures.
Today I wanted to show you the local fire station. I like it. This old building surrounded by modern glass offices.
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And walkin' man briefly ponders what it must be like to be sittin' man. The grass is always greener, isn't it?
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Lots of construction right now. I'm momentarily wishing I had a hard hat on.
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First time I've seen one of these in person while walking around. I was right in front of the Whitman Walker Clinic. So keep an eye out for me.
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walkin man envies sitting man until sitting man becomes running into burning building man, eh?
It's cherry blossom time in our nation's capital. And I hadn't been down to see the blossoms in a year or two. So I walked over there on my lunch hour. A four mile walk, just for you.
I'm lucky to live in a city with such serene nature's bounty within walking distance on my lunch hour.
The scaffolding is off the Washington Monument, and they promise to open it back up to the public one day soon.
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And the Jefferson Monument on the Tidal Basin is surround by cherry trees. A gift from Japan some decades ago.
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Beautiful to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city. If you are a tourist, this is the time to come to DC. Avoid those winter crowds. Join a couple people on the basin by renting a nice paddle boat.
Of course, camera angles have nothing at all to do with how the pictures come out.
;)
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Wow, gorgeous.
I immediately thought of Japan before scrolling up and seeing you'd referenced it too.
Sundae! As I was typing the post up, I kept thinking of you for some reason. ;)
I'm lucky to live in a city with such serene nature's bounty within walking distance on my lunch hour.
Glad you get to enjoy and appreciate it, 'cause it costs us a fortune. :haha:
Sundae! As I was typing the post up, I kept thinking of you for some reason. ;)
Because I'm such a fragile little flower, must be.
In response, Penny in the Garden.
An RFN portrait of
Dwarf Cherry in Blossom with Singapura.
My bro has agreed to foster her (the tree) in case I get a place with any kind of outside space.
Otherwise she'll have to go my one of Mum's gardening friends for her forever family. Sigh.
First time I've seen one of these in person while walking around. I was right in front of the Whitman Walker Clinic. So keep an eye out for me.
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Google Street View car captures Google Street View car:
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Lower Grosvenor Place, London.Of course, camera angles have nothing at all to do with how the pictures come out.
;)
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Ha!
Good Grief, Walking Man! how fast can you walk? Four miles there and four back and time to take pictures in your lunch hour! I knew you had long legs but... wow
(Nice pics, thanks ;) )
Two out and two back make a four mile walk, returning to the office at the end of the lunch break.
I later measured it in Google Earth and it was only about 3.5 round trip. But I do walk pretty fast.
Oh, how cute.
Great that you got that shot.
How do they get those construction trailers up there?
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They were renovating a building that looked like it may have been from the 40s or 50s, and they went through great effort to save the facade only. I think that's awesome. It's decent brickwork, and would be cost prohibitive today to replicate. The inside structure is completely gone and the facade is supported by all that steel.
I was walking over this way to take a gander at the line that divides the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. (at least according to 1800s USA)
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This was all over by the George Washington University. And this is the time of year that the students are counting down the days until summer. And looking to make some extra cash by selling back books. When I was a student, you had to go to the bookstore to sell back your book, and they gave you around 10% of what you paid for it. Now there are numerous third parties that will buy them from you. Including a slew of hot dog vendors. "You want ketchup on that hot dog? Really, not mustard? Got a chemistry textbook to sell?" Ok. *Looks book up on laptop.* "I owe you $26 in change."
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A ladder truck backing up is a jaywalker's dream.
Sorry for the shaky video quality.
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I always wondered how they decided what borders to lay down between those western states. Always figured they were arbitrary and done from afar. now I know.
Agreed, very interesting. So that American meridian is about 75 degrees 3 minutes from the prime. Talk about obscure trivia. :haha:
They lift those trailers with a crane, probably they same on that lifted all that steel.. They’re not heavy but a crane is safer than a giant forklift.
This was all over by the George Washington University. And this is the time of year that the students are counting down the days until summer. And looking to make some extra cash by selling back books. When I was a student, you had to go to the bookstore to sell back your book, and they gave you around 10% of what you paid for it. Now there are numerous third parties that will buy them from you. Including a slew of hot dog vendors. "You want ketchup on that hot dog? Really, not mustard? Got a chemistry textbook to sell?" Ok. *Looks book up on laptop.* "I owe you $26 in change."
We rented some our our kids' books.
I always wondered how they decided what borders to lay down between those western states. Always figured they were arbitrary and done from afar. now I know.
There's more to it than that. On H2:
http://www.history.com/shows/how-the-states-got-their-shapesThere's more to it than that. On H2:
That is why, this is about how.;)
This gentleman was mowing his front yard today. With a knife, I think.
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I'd just buy a weedwhacker.
The electric ones are not even that pricey, and you wouldn't need a long cord.
But then when you're his age would you still be able to get down, and back up, if you used a weed whacker all along?
Why not scissors at least?
Yes, scissors would be a better choice... but then he couldn't run to the lawn and back.:blush:
Anti genetically modified food protest car, parked in a residential neighborhood.
That's a fish/tomato hybrid on the roof.
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Please tell me it works like a bobble-head.
Almost never happens, but today I got caught in a rainstorm a mile from my building. I've already waived one bus away from my shelter. Just patiently waiting. I'm guessing 5 more minutes.
This gentleman was mowing his front yard today. With a knife, I think.
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Maybe he's harvesting wheat grass for his juicer?
Before I got rained on, it was a nice day for a walk. Light cloud cover. Comfortable temperature.
And then this guy whipped past me from behind. I was slow getting my camera phone fired up, but cropping saves the day.
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WTF is that thing? It looks like one of those caveman wheels from BC comics.
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Google Fu says it's a solowheel.
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And that guy's mom is saying, "How many times have I told you to roll up your pant legs just look at those tattered cuffs what if someone I know saw you I'd be the laughing stock of the sewing circle and..." :lol:
Apparently, it's *a thing*.
I saw my first one an hour ago when I looked at glatt's picture. Ten minutes later, I spotted this one in the wild. They're very agile and elusive, shy even.
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grrrrr.
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Dammit!
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Oh, COME ON!!!!!
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Gotcha! haHA!
I caught him at the light, and it was a lucky thing too, cause he just rooooollllled right on through, never even pausing. I did notice that he had his on a serious leash, looked like orange seatbelt nylon webbing, also camera shy, natch.
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Wow, V. I guess it is a thing.
Re: The sign on the corner in V's last pic:
"Only Chucks"
Wait, they only let in guys named Chuck? It's that kinda bar, huh?
Maybe it refers to the chucking I asked about in foot's thousand points of cut thread?
All I know is, I want the Grilled Cheese Experience, and I want it NOW!
We have this one intersection nearby that lets you cross diagonally every other cycle. All cars stop for 30 seconds or so.
Can you cross normally, as well as cross diagonally, on those cycles? I suppose they tell you which cycle is up next.
We have this one intersection nearby that lets you cross diagonally every other cycle.
The world has gone whackadoo.
They have walk signals pointed diagonally, in addition to the regular ones.
That makes sense with all the tourists DC gets.
As you can see, few people cross diagonally. It just goes against their instincts.
Oxford Circus, London.
I've no experience of this junction but, given the layout, I suspect that it operates in a broadly similar manner to yours, glatt.
The whole thing looks an absolute horror. See it from ground level here.
Street View.
Google seem to have sent their camera car along Oxford Street very early on a Sunday morning. I can't think why....
When the pedestrians outnumber cars about 20 to 1 it makes sense to have these.
What do you expect from people who drive like this. :lol:
What do you expect from people who drive like this. :lol:
Ah! Swindon's 'Magic Roundabout'.
Not for the faint hearted. There's a similar horror at
Hemel Hempstead.Yesterday I visited one of the museums. If I go infrequently enough, they sometimes have new stuff on display.
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Don't kiss her, she's covered in spots!
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That song pops into my head every time I think of this thread.
Here are a couple I took around a week ago and never got around to posting.
I'm not sure what happened. Somebody went when they weren't supposed to.
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Maybe they were dodging a pedestrian in the diagonalwalk.
A thing I've noticed recently is that for medium and small jobs, dump trucks don't deliver sand, gravel and dirt any more. It's delivered in big sacks.
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It's much neater and contained with probably less waste. You don't walk past piles of sand or soil any more.
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single serving sand[/tyler durden]
Whoever did this patch did a good job. The color is a bit off, but other than that, it's perfect. I don't think I could even come close to doing as nice a job. Just look at it.
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just look at it! would you look at that.... just look at it.
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It seems
they are building a maze in the National Building Museum hall.
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It's pretty cool looking. I first saw it several days ago, and went back recently to check on the progress.
It was hot out and I was just enjoying the air conditioning while absentmindedly watching the movement of the workers three floors below me. After a couple minutes, I started paying attention to what they were doing.
In the lower corner of this picture, you can see the cutting station where they are cutting the thin sheets of plywood to sheath the walls. In the upper right corner, you can see the guy who is installing the sheets of plywood.
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They framed the walls all at once like you would normally do with construction, and are applying the skin of plywood to the studs.
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There is normally a real benefit to doing all the framing at once followed by the wall sheathing. You can quickly lay out the walls and then just slap the sheathing on all at once. It's an economy of scale kind of thing. But I think it was a mistake with this maze.
Every time they cut a sheet, they have to work their way through the maze to get it to the guy who is hanging it. The stud bays are open in many of the walls, but because the walls in the middle are only 4 feet high, you can't step through them.
So it takes 3 guys to pass a cut sheet over to the guy who is going to hang it.
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I think they would have been better off putting up the perimeter walls first and leaving the middle completely open with a clear path to the cutting station, much like painting a floor. I'm sure they are experts by now though and realize their mistake.
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It's really cool looking though.
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I think they would have been better off putting up the perimeter walls first and leaving the middle completely open with a clear path to the cutting station, much like painting a floor.
As they got closer to finishing they'd get jammed up in the middle. Better to lay out the pattern on the floor, marked with wall height. Then start raising walls from the center out, always having room to work.
I assume the fire inspector is looking the other way on this?
Why that's the finest matchstick grade luan an art budget can buy. :haha:
I was actually wondering why they bothered to frame 16 inches on center stud walls. There is no load to carry, and it's a temporary structure. I bet they could have done 24 inches and the walls still would have been sturdy enough.
If they get a lot of people in there and it backs up, they'll be leaning against the walls. There's no bending resistance strength in that stuff.
Have you seen this, glatt?
From.Ha! No. I'll have to go over there. It's about 15 minutes away.
I'll take a picture with my cellphone in the cellphone free zone.
could use a few freeway lanes marked that way .....with a big ditch next to the cellphone lane. should quickly reduce the size of the problem
I am dissapoint. That article had yesterday's date, but the sidewalk art was long gone.
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I don't see the flowers either? :confused:
Must have been back in Spring.
Nope, only two weeks, but it might as well have been last spring. Sorry for the bum steer. :blush:
As part of their Mind Over Masses television show, National Geographic divided a one block-long sidewalk into two sections; one for cell phone users and the other for those not using a cell phone in downtown Washington, Thursday, July 17, 2014. The walkway warnings were put there by the brains behind a National Geographic television show as part of a behavioral science experiment.
I've been remiss.
This was from this morning.
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THEY SAY there's a lid for every pot.
But I don't think that's the right lid for that pot.
I wouldn't have gotten that close to that guy (?).
Once your airbag has deployed, you have a salvage title.
ftr, I'm not seeing any images in this thread anymore, only a line of text representing the filenames and the number of views.
what the heck??
Did you try viewing from another device? They are there for me. Although maybe just in my cache
I gots images.
Firefox 29.0.1, ftr.
Three unmarked white vans pulling huge generators parked in front of this house down my street. What are they doing?
Getting you disappeared if you're not careful!
Close!
I was walking by and saw the guys unloading industrial sized fans. About 5 of them. And what looked like short segments of metal duct work, but turned out to be powerful electric heaters.
The owner came out, just as I got in front of the house, and shouted to another neighbor that they were getting rid of their bedbugs.
The service is very discreet, with no signs on their trucks.
When I got home, I looked it up. Apparently the homeowner has to open all drawers, cupboards, and closets. Remove all candles, aerosol cans, cans of soda, oil paintings, flammable fluids, pets, plants, etc. from the house, and unplug everything and turn off the HVAC. Then the service runs the powerful heaters off the generators and heats the house up to about 150 degrees and holds it there all day. That kills everything in the house.
They were setting up at around 8am and just left at 4pm.
The only way you can tell anything is going on is that you can see the generators running and heavy cables running in the front door and into windows.
If you left out trays of sliced vegetables, you'd have a nice set of dehydrated chips when you came back!
Did you try viewing from another device? They are there for me. Although maybe just in my cache
yes.
turns out, my computer's browser's cache needed cleaning. good clue. thanks. all is well now.
snip--
The owner came out, just as I got in front of the house, and shouted to another neighbor that they were getting rid of their bedbugs.
The service is very discreet, with no signs on their trucks.
--snip
:facepalm:
Good thing they didn't have any indications on their trucks or equipment.
Unless.
Unless they were setting up something else, like a panic room and they used those big boxy things as distracting camouflage.
Three unmarked white vans pulling huge generators parked in front of this house down my street. What are they doing?
Shades of "Breaking Bad"...
What would you bet that all the people working on-site for that company have bedbugs*? That they brought home from on-site.
*More than the rest of us I mean.
One of my cow-orkers was giving SEIT services in a particularly sketchy home. She would only work with the child in the middle of a hardwood floor and would then go home and throw all her clothes in the dryer at high heat.
Glatt, you missed it in DC but here's another chance. :haha:
I like how they put the dunderheads next to the traffic. :lol2:
Seen the Cuban's portrait
on the mall?
Haven't seen the portrait yet. Need timed tickets to go up the tower.
But I went for a walk today and saw this.
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And took pictures of these things that I have been meaning to shoot.
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And this is pretty cool. Just the right height for somebody to pose in front of so the wings fit.
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I'm sure there is a story, but I don't know it.
I dunno why, but that Obama/Bill Cosby one is cracking me up. How long has that one been there? These pictures are so great!
That mural has been there for a while. A year or two at least. Both Obama and Cosby have eaten in that dive of a restaurant, and they are very proud of that fact. Ben's Chili Bowl is turning into a minor tourist attraction, but I've never heard anybody say the food there is good. I think that's supposed to be part of its 'charm.' I have no plans to eat there.
Lunch time at the Navy Memorial
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That used to be a pigeon.
This is what I hate about sidewalk cafes.
Some sort of hawk. I'm no expert.
Looks like a Red Tailed, certainly not a Falcon.
This is what I hate about sidewalk cafes.
Men in red hats grinning inanely rather than watchin you eat?
I hate that too.
70 years ago. V-E day
Antique airplane flyover in DC.
It was CROWDED as I walked to the mall. But I kept pushing my way through the crowd and toward the Tidal Basin so the sun would be behind me instead of turning the planes into silhouettes.
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The first planes were slow and easy to shoot. These fuckers were FAST. This was the only picture that came close to being any good.
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I had a spotting guide that came in the paper, but I only know what a few of these guys are. But even I knew that this guy was a P-38 Lightning. It's a cool looking plane. This one apparently went on the mission to shoot down Yamamoto
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This guy is a B24 Liberator, according to my spotting guide.
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And the little guys next to him are P-51 Mustangs
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B-17 Flying Fortress
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Not sure what this one is. A Grumman Avenger?
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But these guys are Corsairs, I think. If I remember my Black Sheep Squadron tv show history correctly.
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Corsairs again. these guys are so freaking cool looking
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And this is a B-29 Superfortress
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Grand finale was a missing man formation made up of a few misc fighters.
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Superb!
Thanks glatt.
And thanks US Military, V-E indeed.
Well done Sir, planes are hard to photograph under the best conditions. You did a great job under way less than optimal circumstances. I like the Corsairs because they always look like they'll flap their wings any second. :haha:
I saw a bunch of WWII vets in wheelchairs and walkers shuffling around after the celebration. It was cool to see them. Kind of gave me shivers. Those guys will all be gone soon. I bet that was the last time I'll see that many.
Those guys are disappearing at an alarming rate.
They literally saved the world.:notworthy
I kinda thought Walkin' Man might post some pics of this. Long time no see, and thanks.
If they hadn't we'd be up to our asses in Jap and German cars. :rolleyes:
I to my shame have a German car made in North Carolina. Who really won that war?
Geez, no wonder the VA is broke.
:lol2:
The VA is broken not broke, the government just keeps printing money. But that is a story for another thread.
I to my shame have a German car made in North Carolina. Who really won that war?
Well,
you got the car, so...;)
Well, you got the car, so...;)
I guess I won.
What's this? Batgirl coming out of the Cato Institute?
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And is this the Riddler sending out tweets?
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What's this? Batgirl coming out of the Cato Institute?
Sure, they're both in the same reality zone.
I to my shame have a German car made in North Carolina. Who really won that war?
I have a Mitsubishi made in Illinois and a Toyota made in Texas...
And the profits went where?
Distributed across labor, parts suppliers foreign and domestic, and stockholders.
Not costs, PROFITS go to Toyota and Mitsubishi in Japan.
Toyota, Honda and Nissan all have factories in the UK.
Even 'British' car manufacturers with factories here are foreign owned, eg Jaguar Land Rover (Tata Motors India), Rolls Royce (BMW Germany) and the Mini plant is also owned by BMW.
That only really leaves the Morgan Motor Company as British owned and based and they aren't a volume car manufacturer.
Times change.
Not costs, PROFITS go to Toyota and Mitsubishi in Japan.
True, profits beyond industrial investments and labor (unionized at least in Illinois) go to Japan to be distributed among stock-holders worldwide. No taxpayers were mugged in this transaction unless state and local governments did it.
snip--
And is this the Riddler sending out tweets?
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No, that's
Harley Quinn.
The character is a frequent accomplice and girlfriend of the Joker, and is also a close friend of the supervillain Poison Ivy, from whom she gained her immunity to poisons and toxins.
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These guys I saw were attending an early gathering at Awesome Con in DC at the convention center near my building.
Apparently that neighborhood is lousy with these characters today.
ugh
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This is what I see... IS that something on my computer or on the upload?
FTR - I've been having issues with FF freezing and having to restart the whole Kit & Kaboodle.
I think that's the photo he intended to post, focusing on the "feels like" number.
Clodfobble's brain gets it again.
We apparently felt like the hottest location in the country yesterday. Fairly hot and super muggy. The heat index got up to something like 108. Not that it's anything to brag about. But it sucks when you are walking man going for a walk in that.
No problem, I'm just on high alert with this computer.
I think it was the same here. Hard to breathe outside the air was so thick.
Came out of the bar last evening and it felt like I'd walked into an oven.
Had to chew the air before I could breath it.
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what in the wide world of sports is going on here?
The Beach, without the heat, sticky sunscreen, sand in the nether regions, or man eating sharks.
That's one big-ass ball pit.
Izzat the same place that had the maze set up?
Same place.
It's pretty cool.
This guy was doing flips and cannonballs.
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It's a art installation at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.
Glatt, I adore this thread.
I've looked back just to enjoy it, and realised I'd never told you.
I bet that's more people than the building museum has seen in a long time...
Sort of. They have functions there in the evenings fairly often. (Clearly not while this exhibit is set up.) The biggest ones are probably the Presidential inaugural balls. But the museum itself, with its exhibits, gets very few visitors.
These two cranes
are going to do a choreographed dance in four hours or so with loud amplified music. I won't be here to see it, so pretend that this is a video and they are dancing, and you can hear music.
I went back to that giant ball pit with my good camera to get some better pictures.
Some people were not sure about jumping in.
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Some people were just hanging out in the shallow end.
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Most people were taking pictures with their phones.
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And a few were just soaking in it.
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And then two people showed up in shark costumes. They were a big hit.
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As you can imagine, kids gravitated toward them and were tugging on their fins and punching them and stuff.
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Fun. It's good to have it.
Walkin' man must use lunch time, because commuting is a zoo.
Ve haf vays to make you pay ze fines und return ze books. :lol:
Library police???
You gotta be shitting me.
[COLOR="Red"]We need more cops.[/COLOR]
[COLOR="Blue"]We don't have the money.[/COLOR]
[COLOR="Red"]Well find some money.[/COLOR]
[COLOR="Blue"]We've already raided ever budget but the Library. [/COLOR]
[COLOR="Red"]Well?[/COLOR]
The only thing I can think of is that the DC library has an enormous homeless population during the hours it is open. Maybe they feel they need more than just some security guards.
Shouldn't the vehicle markings say:
[SIZE="3"]EMERGENCY[/SIZE]
[SIZE="7"]451[/SIZE]
LOL.
Or use the Dewey Decimal System
352.2 Police
or maybe
022.1 Library - Administration of physical plant
Shouldn't the vehicle markings say:
[SIZE="3"]EMERGENCY[/SIZE]
[SIZE="7"]451[/SIZE]
That's the D.C. Public Library
Fire Dept..
Shit. I gotta scrub this mental image. Saw a cyclist or maybe a pedestrian tangled up under the rear wheels of a tour bus on my lunch walk. I looked away as soon as I realized what I was sort of seeing, so I am not sure which it was. This was before emergency personnel arrived and there was just a traffic cop who had been in charge of that intersection standing there blowing her whistle furiously at all the cars that were trying to drive around. Nothing for me to do for that guy under there.
She's got to feel some responsibility since that probable death happened in her intersection while she was directing traffic. I hate it when cops direct traffic in intersections. They are not good at it and everyone gets all panicky and behaves erratically.
They appear to be not good at directing traffic, but I think much of the blame goes to the drivers who can't understand hand signs. In their defense, they rarely see traffic lights replaced with a live person, but some are really clueless. They can't even follow simple commands from road construction flagmen.:rolleyes:
I didn't see the accident, but I imagine she waved the bus into its turn without stopping pedestrians and bikes first. If that's the case, the pedestrian/bike should have used their head and stopped as they saw the bus turn, and the bus driver should have used his head and stopped when he saw the pedestrian or bike in his side mirror as he was turning.
If you think about everything going on in an intersection, there are 20 different legal traffic movements that the traffic cop has to be constantly aware of and directing. Lights do a better job without losing focus. Although people (including me) ignore lights pretty regularly.
You're right, both drivers and bikers/pedestrians have to think, and watch out for there own ass.
That's awful, glatt. Sorry it happened, and sorry you had to see it.
Better to see it, than be it. :(
Looking back, I am glad to say I had forgotten all about that gristly accident.
I'm here to post this one I took last night. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, the engine of a semi is reached the same way, but this was a bizarre sight from a couple blocks away until I got close enough to see what was going on. The flashing lights were shining all sorts of weird directions on the nearby buildings and I couldn't figure out what was going on until I got closer.
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On my lunch hour today.
President Underwood's portrait hanging in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, one floor down from George Washington's portraits. Right by the front door.
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Somebody done painted up they self a
Verbal portrait.
He's had some good roles over the years.
He was one of my alltime favorite villains...in
Se7en.
:devil:
A goal for Walkin' Man.
Walt Whitman's haversack is going on display at the Library of Congress.
Moved by the horror of the war’s damage to helpless young patients, Whitman made hundreds of visits, toting the haversack packed with fruit, brandy, sweets, tobacco, clothing, money, newspapers. He often sat with dying soldiers, comforting them, holding their hands. He wrote letters to their families after they died. He even dressed a few wounds and stayed for days and nights in a row. He wore his gray hair and bushy beard long, to seem more avuncular, but was always clad nicely to help cheer the men up.
The library plans to exhibit the haversack, which is extremely fragile, along with some of Whitman’s letters. Also on display will be one of his notebooks, in which he has penciled his terse observations: “Dec 20th Sight at the Lacy house — at the foot of tree immediately in front a heap of feet arms and human fragments . . . bloody black and blue swollen and sickening.”
The items will be presented some time next month, as the library removes pieces currently in its Civil War in America exhibit for preservation purposes and replaces them with new objects.
In combing the archives for Civil War material, they're finding many of the letters Whitman wrote for hospitalized solders because many of the letters were returned to Washington to prove the injuries were war related when applying for pensions.
linkThis is my building.
The gate is open today, but should be locked starting Wednesday night. Some Nuclear Summit is being held across the street in the convention center, and multiple foreign delegations and/or heads of state will be in attendance for a couple of days.
I should have some interesting security pics in a couple days.
Last time we had one of these, a woman on a bicycle was run over by an army truck and killed a block from here. I'll need to be alert.
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It's hard to get over that kinda thing.
Watch out for female suicide bombers on bicycles.
Don't over look the fat bottomed girls on bicycles either.
They make the rockin' world go 'round.
It's been a couple weeks since this area was locked down for security. All the fences are gone, and cops are back to regular numbers. The one thing that remains is the security seals on the manholes.
I've been walking by these for weeks, and decided it was worth further investigation. First of all, there are hundreds of these things (I didn't count them) in a multiple block area around the convention center that hosted international delegations for the nuclear summit.
At a regular walking height, you hardly notice them. If you bend over to look, they look like this:
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When you get closer for a nice shot, they take on some texture:
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If you try to pry one up, you notice immediately that instead of being like a paper or tape label, they are a stretchy rubber. You curl your fingers underneath and keep pulling until the stretching gives way to tearing.
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And they have a little lingering sticky glue on the torn edges, but are otherwise just some flappy rubber sheets with perforations.
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You start to see a story in some of them.
This manhole shifted since the summit.
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Storm drains, even right next to the summit have no seals at all. That because the gutter part can't be closed off, so why bother with the rest. Plus, if you are small enough, you can crawl in through the storm drains from another neighborhood. Train a racoon and strap a bomb to it.
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This manhole was opened and then resealed.
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And this guy went crazy even taping a water shutoff cover. This wasn't done consistently.
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Did you know they can get fingerprints from a photograph?
♫ Oh the NSA is coming to your house
♪ Anytime now, night or day
♫ Yes, the NSA is coming to your house
♪ So it may be time to pray
:lol:
And maybe the craziest thing I saw was sealing off light poles to the ground. And in this particular case, doing it while leaving the access hatch to the wiring un-sealed.
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Just think how much planning and paperwork, recording all those seal numbers which the government will probably keep forever, and not in a jar on Funk & Wagnall's porch, but a top secret high security(expensive) location. I wonder if the seals have RFIDs in them.
No RFIDs. Too stretchy. RFIDs would be pulled apart.
Alert:
Small Stories reveals the fascinating tales behind some of London’s Victoria & Albert Museum of Childhood’s best-loved dollhouses, taking you on a journey through the history of the home, everyday lives, and changing family relationships. The exhibition is traveling worldwide with an exclusive U.S. engagement at the National Building Museum beginning in May 2016.
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WTF?
Oh yeah. Awesome Con this weekend.
I turn the corner, and yup.
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I was too slop to get Kylo Ren
I used to get slop and walk around town. Then they started arresting ppl for that...:unsure:
I think I was trying to type "slow" but the keys are on opposite sides of the keyboard. I must really be too slop.
I didn't take this picture. I found it when I was Googling who the hell that band was playing in the park on my lunch hour half an hour ago.
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Who's that handsome devil in the corner?
glatt the photobomber. ;)
How cool to accidentally find yourself on the interwebs...:)
But if someone were actually stalking glatt and trying to discreetly take photos of his every move, that's exactly what they'd do--pretend to be taking a picture of some random couple, but actually have the camera focused on him in the background.
It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you.
I didn't take this picture. I found it when I was Googling who the hell that band was playing in the park on my lunch hour half an hour ago.
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Who's that handsome devil in the corner?
And why is he cupping his junk?
Walking Man is in one of the most photographed locations in the country. I'll bet he's in a shitload of photographs scattered around the world from MI6 to KGB to Mossad to NKMSS, to ASIO to CIB to... well you get the picture... they did. ;)
And why is he cupping his junk?
I was actually taking pictures. But I feel self conscious holding my camera up, so I just take pictures from down low. Chrisinhouston should examine this technique.
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What an odd turn of events.
And why is he cupping his junk?
That's his phone, and it's on vibrate.:cool:
This old truck has been parked for years on the edge of my neighborhood. Same spot. Current inspection, property tax, and registration stickers. It's right next to the gas station, where cars are parked that are waiting to be worked on.
Several months ago a note appeared on the inside of the passenger window.
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Not sure what it's about. Maybe people have been throwing trash up into the bed? It's got high walls and I can't see into the bed.
Nice handwriting though. Doesn't look like a sociopath wrote it.
I was curious, so I went to Google Earth. It's been in that same spot since at least October 2012.
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Well, that's a little odd.
It's a tradition here at Walkin' Man to see what sort of summer exhibit they do over at the National Building Museum. But don't pay for it.
So on July 5th I went over there. I had seen workers making the thing a couple weeks before, but it wasn't very impressive while under construction.
It's the
Icebergs exhibit.
Sixteen dollars to see what's behind the blue curtain. No way. I'm way too cheap for that. It looks cool and intriguing, but not $16 worth.
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Let's go upstairs instead for free and see what we can.
Here we can see the tops of the icebergs poking through the "water." Those people looking around seem to be enjoying themselves. But so am I. And I didn't pay $16.
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Like a real iceberg, I get the sense that most of the action is underneath the surface where we can't really see. What's going on down there?
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I went back downstairs and stood right next to the mesh curtain. That close, you could see almost perfectly inside. Bean bag chairs, some slides, and a small snack bar. Cool.
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And as I was leaving I got this shot. I wonder if the lady on the left is thinking about how she just paid $16?
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$16 to walk around and look at triangles?
Yeeeaaahhh, no.
I'm glad they paid for it though. Because I feel like I got my money's worth, and there would have been nothing for me to see at all if they hadn't paid.
Walkin' man is a free rider?
Wtf?
Building is free. It's owned by you and me. Exhibits cost money. But you can see the exhibits from inside the free building. If you pay your money, you can experience the exhibits up close, instead of looking at them from afar.
Just yankin yer chain man
My son is in high school now as a freshman, and it's my daughter's last year, as a senior. The boy tried out for marching band, and got in, so now both of them are in the same band. That's most excellent.
Yesterday, I went to their first band competition of the season. They were good, and won their division, beating out the one other band in the same division with a score of "Excellent."
This is a picture thread though, so I present to you the band that was on the field immediately prior to them. That band was in a different division, and I arrived just in time to catch their performance.
I was testing the lighting and my position in the stands by snapping a few shots of this earlier band. The are Kettle Run High School Marching Band, and their show is called "Evolve." They started off with a fife and drum pair, and then proceeded to demonstrate different marching band styles over the last century or two. It was neat, and then they wheeled out this contraption that was supposed to represent the future of marching bands.
This is where my pictures begin.
They wheel the thing out, and the boy with the amazing hair climbs onto it.
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He lies down.
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They hand him a drum.
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They hand him a freaking motorcycle helmet
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You can see that he is all strapped in. Feet and everything.
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They wheel him to the far right on the field.
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They stand him up, and he begins to play.
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And then they start rolling him across the field while he is playing.
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It was quite a sight, but needed to be in video. So I pulled the camera down from my face and without my reading glasses on, started looking for the little icon that represents video mode on the dial on my camera. A few seconds later, I found it, and was able to capture the last bit of the stunt.
[YOUTUBE]Pqf63yovai8[/YOUTUBE]
[YOUTUBEWIDE]Pqf63yovai8[/YOUTUBEWIDE]
I heard later that they came in second place in their division. I didn't see the first place band. I also heard they their uniforms were on back order or something, so that's why they were wearing their shorts and casual band t-shirts.
"I got it! Strap me to an elephant stool and roll me around the joint while I bang on me drum all day."
I like how they left him hanging sideways
I should have kept filming. They left him there for like twenty seconds. The band started leaving the field and the parents in the pit crew went out to get him.
I can't view the video in the library, but I love the photos.
A Glatt picture post always lifts my day.
And this one - so cool. The shots, the colours and the freaking weirdness of the rolling drummer of death...
Thank you.
Excellent. Thank you Sundae!
RDOD!!:lol2:
I've kinda missed Walkin' Man...
RDOD???
Responsible Dog Ownership Day (American Kennel Club)
...and the freaking weirdness of the rolling drummer of death...
Strolled by the White House yesterday.
They are building the Presidential review stand for Trump's inauguration.
[ATTACH]58493[/ATTACH]
It's a sign of the times.
Pretty cool Christmas market next to the National Portrait Gallery selling crafts and trinkets. Live music in the middle.
And in this day and age, the temporary anti-terrorist barricades to keep trucks from smashing the throngs of shoppers on the sidewalk like that dude in Nice a while ago.
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Sigh. I miss DC, loved the time I spent there in 2014 and love it every time I visit my kids. I'd move to the area if circumstances were right.
In the meantime, keep on with this thread, glatt!
And in this day and age, the temporary anti-terrorist barricades to keep trucks from smashing the throngs of shoppers on the sidewalk like that dude in Nice a while ago.
:sniff:
It might be nice if a) they linked them
b) had enough of them to link them
c) put them in the proper orientation to link them.
Oh wait. This is just Security Theater® brought to you by the folks who brought you the TSA
Based on this past election cycle we should all be clear that politics and government are mostly for show, something to amuse and distract the little people.
I've always wondered, is there something to the notion that security theater, while making some of the idiot masses feel better, also tricks some malicious idiots into thinking they couldn't get away with it? The kind of actions we're talking about, you only get one shot. Some combination of attention and power is what they crave, and I wonder how seriously they take into account the possibility that they'd be harmlessly deflected, locked up, and (at least in their own mind) laughed at?
Well, I guess there is a spectrum of intent with both parties. People who are serious about actually securing tings will actually put effort into it, same with bad actors. Dillitante crazy folks, yahoos, to committed, institutionally backed professionals.
Dillitante crazy folks, yahoos, to committed, institutionally backed professionals.
Like that fake news story pizza parlor vigilante.
There's a fake vigilante out there?!
That damn pizza better be real, cuz if its fake we are gonna have SERIOUS issues!
I heard there was a security theater update yesterday, so I walked by to get a picture today.
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Oh yeah, that'll stop a 40 ft trailer loaded with steel. :rolleyes:
I just read yesterday they arrested an African distributer with multi-tons of this stuff.
Coming to a processed food near you... globalization, what the fucks for dinner
Got a Home Depot gift card for Christmas with the idea that I would buy the particular table saw blade that I want.
Took my son with me and he talked me into this instead.
He's a wise young man.
This one is a thing that provides entertainment and brings the family together for years to come. I hope.
Now he can burn the shit he's been tripping over in his basement.
And evidence. :p:
Protip:
Use the handle that looks like a claw, like a dutch oven lid lifter to manage the screen. How do I know? Don't ask questions you already know the answer to.
Man, nothing relaxes like watching the fire.
Good decision, Glatt.
Make sure the Glatts are upwind if ya burn treated and or finished/painted wood.;)
Accompanied by proper liquid refreshment, of course...
Walkin' man stretched his legs at lunch time today.
There's a buzz in the air in Washington DC. Literally. Police helicopter flying around and scattered sirens with a chance of street closures.
The hotel across the street has a Trump supporter staying in it. He alternates between parking this rig in front of the hotel and driving it around through the downtown with carnival music blaring. Waves to everyone as he drives by. I waved back and smiled.
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There are jersey walls set up on the sidewalks all over downtown, waiting to be put in place across the streets to block off the entire downtown tonight.
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And I don't know why these guys are here, but they must have some mission. It's lunch time and they are taking a break.
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these guys are doing a sound check for their anti-Trump party in Franklin Square Park. This is the park I trailblazed years ago. The path is still there.
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This surveillance camera is new. Looks like a big battery pack in the base or maybe even a quiet generator. It has flashing cop lights at the top.
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Next to the camera is this mailbox. Not using it today. This is about 5 blocks from the parade route, but right next to a metro station.
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And here are the guys dropping off the jersey walls a few blocks further along my walk.
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I thought these cameras had telescoping poles that could even be dropped down level, but they are servicing it with a cherry picker. Tax dollars. Don't have to be efficient.
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And I think this is a gas sniffer. Not sure what it is sniffing for.
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At the top of this picture is a church near the White House where Trump will attend a service tomorrow morning I think. So they have these crowd control walls at the ready.
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And since it's supposed to rain on Trump tomorrow, they have a nice tent set up for guards.
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There were some Canadians visiting or something. People were taking pictures of them, so I did too.
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Here I was at the north side of Lafayette Park, 1 block from the White House. You can see the tall crowd fences in the background. They are serious about security here because this is where Trump is supposed to review the parade from behind thick bullet proof glass. Just as I got here, the police and Secret Service started pushing all the pedestrians back away from the street. Only one reason for that. the motorcade was about to come through. But my damn phone was running out of batteries and giving me grief, so I missed the shot. I saw Obama though. Or at least a silhouette that might have been him.
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I got two more pictures before my phone died.
A union near the White House sucking up to Trump.
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And a religious asshole with a megaphone. I hate those guys. Worry about yourself, man.
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Uh, the correct name is Jersey Barriers. ;)
I'm glad I had pictures then so people would know what I was going on about.
I had never known what they were called. I just think of them as "those little temporary concrete barrier things, you know, when they do construction, with the little rampy bit at the bottom so you drive up the wall instead of just sideswiping it?"
That rampy bit at the bottom is so your tire hits before your fender.
Walking home
Indianapolis cops
A little out of their jurisdiction.
They must be in hot pursuit!
As much as I like these pictures you could not pay me enough to go to DC this weekend. Of course my office mate is going because she's pissed off about Trump... As bad as his cabinet looks she's probably right to be preemptively pissed, but I'm going to give it a week or so.
Aichten lieber I got that photo of the bikes. First pic I've viewed since the change. I shall get on my knees and pray whole heartingly that I may view another.
tarheel
Is this the thread where I start posting about my despair...or is there another one more on topic?
Is this the thread where I start posting about my despair...or is there another one more on topic?
The thread? Hell, this is the
website for that very thing!:)
This is supposed to be 360
[YouTube]urtLzdT0b7o[/youtube]
Long day, but a really good time.
I think the serviceman attending the camera from the cherry picker may well be adjusting the camera's framing from its point of view, something that would be a lot harder standing on the ground with the telescoping mast retracted.
Now the NSA has you tagged. :lol:
They'll be bored to death.
There were a lot of women marching.
I guess the women in Montana ran out of fucks.
Oh no, glatt's been here too. :haha:
....
But I went for a walk today and saw this.
...
And took pictures of these things that I have been meaning to shoot.
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....
A few months ago, I saw in the news that they had painted over the Bill Cosby mural. Obama got the treatment too. The wall was compeltely white for a few months. Today I walked by and saw there was a new mural.
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No longer compeltely white.
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Must be to have his kickstand down... er, up. :haha:
Two different statues in the same location?
No, one bike-hippy standing on a utility box, probably for phone/internet, with a pose change between exposures. He may well have been dancing, that metal box probably gets hot on his bare feets.
I could post a whole series of pictures of me walking up to the intersection. If it was a dance, it was a slow dance. He was happy to be alive on that beautiful spring day, and the chemicals probably helped too.
:smack:
I thought it was an art installation. Dude doesn't look quite real. Thought he was a statue.
New phone has decent camera, looks like.:)
took pictures of these things that I have been meaning to shoot.
[ATTACH]49251[/ATTACH]
A few months ago, I saw in the news that they had painted over the Bill Cosby mural. Obama got the treatment too. The wall was compeltely white for a few months. Today I walked by and saw there was a new mural.
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I didn't mean to become the Ben's Chili Bowl mural reporter, but it looks like that's what's happeneing.
The Wizard are out of the NBA running, so they are gone.
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A mural of color in black and white.
Quaint.
Appreciating what you're doing here glatt.
Ali, Prince, Barry & his main squeeze...who is that at the top? Sojourner Truth? Harriet Tubman?
Hell, I can't tell if it's man or woman...
Wonder how many coats of white paint are on that building?
Appreciating what you're doing here glatt.
That. Loving the Walking Man.
Thanks guys.
That mural got some press here. Apparently it's going ot be colored in. And some faces got added after I walked by.
This was taken the day before, and I didn't get around to posting it. This guy is just driving around the residential streets, enjoying himself entirely too much.
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Sweet ride.
I'd be grinning like a cheese-eatin' possum, too.
Saw two things today of note.
The first was a robot just humming down the street, followed by a human babysitter. Pretty interesting. As it passed by me coming from the opposite direction, I veered a little closer to it than I would have with a person, and it veered away from me and continued on its way. The human babysitter responded by pulling out one of those vaporizers and vaping something.
The second thing I saw made me a little sad. A guy holding the hand of his little girl, walking down the sidewalk towards me. Looked like he was finishing off a joint with his other hand. After he passed by me, my nose confirmed it was a joint he was smoking. Pot is semi-legal in DC now, but c'mon. Be a role model for your toddler.
So here's the robot. I think I read somewhere how they were going to be testing automated delivery robots soon.
A couple of bystanders asked the babysitter if it was one of those delivery robots and he said "yeah."
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And then they walked along with him.
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I kept walking and then about ten minutes later I wound back to the same intersection. The robot was also returning then. That's when I got in its personal space a little bit to see if it would avoid me.
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What if you slipped a camouflaged ramp onto a camouflaged treadmill in front of it?
Or a ski mask and take the food. :eyebrow:
Soon there will be a robot to consume the food as well.
Thinking about this a little more, this robot is just plain dumb. It travels the same speed as walking man. Instead of a 5-10 minute delivery time by a dude on a moped, it's gonna be more like half an hour. The food will be cold. And you will have to go down to the sidewalk to get it because the robot can't climb the steps to the door.
That mural on the Ben's Chili Bowl wall is coming along. It looks like he colors in the faces last.
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The alley is barricaded off, so I won't be able to get close ups of the other end for a while.
...who is that at the top? Sojourner Truth? Harriet Tubman?
Anyone?
Bueller?
Buuuueeeeeelllllleeerrrrrr?
Is that because the file name of the first picture glatt posted is harriet tubman?
No, because she holding a lantern in the dark. Truth would have been in the light, probably on a stage maybe with a lectern.
Do a Google image search for her. They all show her with a lantern.
But I think she will be lanternless on the $20 bill.
I wonder if that will be painted on the side of the building?
Is that because the file name of the first picture glatt posted is harriet tubman?
:smack:
Do a Google image search for her. They all show her with a lantern.
I thought so, too.
But, not a single lantern.
:lol2:
I did a lot of walking the previous two weeks, so I figure this thread works for my travelogue.
To refresh your memory, I had been planning for almost 2 years to be going to Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. It’s a 12 day back country high adventure trip where the group of Scouts hikes much of each day, rolls in to camp each afternoon, and then gets to participate in some sort of activity, like shotgun shooting or rock climbing. Well, a couple weeks before we were supposed to go, Philmont burned down and our trip there was cancelled. I scrambled and found an alternative place in Montana that had a slot for us to fill the second half of our trip, and the other dad found a slot for us in the Black Hills of South Dakota to fill the first half of the trip.
We did it, and it was a blast. I took over 3,000 pictures and have eliminated about 99% of them to bring you the following.
We landed in Denver in the evening and drove in our two minivans up to Cheyenne, WY to spend the first night. We decided at the last minute to swing through Nebraska on the way up to the Black Hills the next day in order to stop at Scott’s Bluff for a hike and also check out the Oglala National Grassland.
Here I am at the tail end of the hiking group coming back down the trail from Scott’s Bluff. Scott’s Bluff was the perfect stopping point to eat a picnic lunch and stretch our legs.
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The Oglala Grassland was also pretty impressive, but we just drove through it, and it wasn’t easy to get a good picture of it. Picture mile after mile of rolling hills covered in a flowering grass blowing in the breeze.
We arrived at Medicine Mountain Boy Scout Ranch, and it was pretty nice. They were a little confused by our arrival, even though they had cashed our big check. The main office knew about us, but every time we showed up somewhere for an activity or to get food, the people were questioning just who the hell we were. I was happy though, because I brought coffee and a backpacking stove to make it.
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We went on an outing our first day and saw Mt. Rushmore:
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And Crazy Horse, where Scouts get in free.
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After getting back to camp in the early afternoon, we convinced the boys we should take a hike. The Black Hills of SD are really gorgeous. The elevation was an adjustment though. I was huffing and puffing hiking up those hills. I live at sea level and this is 7,000 feet.
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There was a lot of down time in that Medicine Mountain camp, and the boys played a lot of cards and Frisbee. It was nice to see them all getting along so well with one another. Some of them did mountain biking for two days, and some of them did rock climbing for two days. I didn’t get any pictures of that because I was sitting in my camp chair, reading.
We spent 3 full days and 4 nights at Medicine Mountain, and then it was time to start making our way to Montana.
First stop was Wyoming and Devil’s Tower. My son got this pic as we were getting close.
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We scrambled up the fallen rock pile to the base of the cliff and hung out up there for a while. Came down and hiked the easy paved trail around the base.
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We saw a fair number of rock climbers on the thing. My sister had climbed up there a few years ago with her partner and sent me a picture from the top so it was cool to see other climbers doing it.
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The place we were going has many names. It’s MOHAB, or Montana Outdoor High Adventure Base, or the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Ranch, or the Boone and Crocket Club, or the Rasmuson Wildlife Conservation Center. A little confusing, but it’s all those things. See, Teddy Roosevelt founded this club, called the Boone and Crocket Club. The club was responsible for lobbying congress to establish among other things, Yellowstone National Park, and both the National Park Service and the National Forest Service. In recent years they bought this huge ranch near the Bob Marshall Wilderness area to study methods of ranching being able to co-exist next to a wildlife so that the natural resources can be conserved. They built this educational center that doubles as a retreat for wealthy benefactors, and they opened it up to the Boy Scouts in the summers to run a high adventure program called MOHAB.
What all that means is that the facility is awesome to cater to those benefactors. It’s the nicest Boy Scout facility I have ever seen. The front door actually has a sign asking everyone to take their shoes off when they enter. The floors are amazing finished hardwood, and the building is really nice.
Exterior:
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And the lounge chairs by the picture windows looking out at the mountains.
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Our first full day there, there was lots of preparation. Route planning, and dehydrated backpacking meal preparation and packaging. They took us on a steady paced shake down hike with our full packs. It was standard fare for our group, because we had been doing a lot of training, but the other crew there from Georgia was complaining the entire hike. Fortunately, we were going in different directions on our treks.
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The next day we drove 2 hours on mostly gravel roads to get to the Benchmark trail head along the Continental Divide Trail. The boys wanted to see two features along this one segment of the CDT, so we wound up on the CDT for most of our adventure. This is the view from the trail bridge a few hundred meters from the trail head.
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We hiked a short 7 or so miles the first day and found a nice spot along the river to camp.
My son took this picture of me digging some clean socks out of my drybag. Our shelters were just personal sized painters drop cloths on the ground to use as ground cloths, and a lightweight tarp stretched overhead. One shelter had 5 adults, one had 5 boys, and one had 4 boys.
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Hiking such a short distance that day, we had time to fish. One of the boys caught this big cutthroat trout. It was the only fish we caught on the trip, and with all our $80 fishing licenses, this works out to about a $500 fish.
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The first night was cold. It got down to 30 degrees, and I had trouble sleeping. Woke to frost covering everything. But it warmed up the next day and we started hiking.
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This is my son. I liked the wildflowers.
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It happened to be Independence Day, and at around noon, I looked up to see a bird circling overhead in a thermal. A Bald Eagle! It was the only one we saw on our trip. The boys broke in to the National Anthem.
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I liked it that we didn’t have any established campsites. You just looked for a nice place to stop, and there was almost always a ring of stones already there that you could use for a fire. This was our second evening. We saw several deer in this part of the valley.
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The next day we had a significant distance to cover. We wanted to leave our camp set up and put only the essentials in our pack because we planned to continue hiking deeper in the wilderness to a feature called the Chinese Wall. We would come back, break down camp and load back up again with everything, and then hike another 6 miles or so back to the base of a mountain we planned to hike the next day. This section of the trail had a lot of stream crossings that were deep enough to go over my water proof boots and fill them with water. So many crossings that there wasn’t time to be taking my boots off for each one. My feet were soaking wet all day.
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Then we hit snow on the trail. The snow wasn’t so bad in the morning. Firm enough to walk on, but in the afternoon, it had warmed up enough that the snow softened, and we broke through with each step and post holed a lot, slowing us down. This is the Chinese Wall. It’s about 1,000 feet tall and 10 miles long. A spectacular feature.
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Me at the Chinese Wall
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Next morning, I woke around 5:30 with nature calling. I got up and let everyone sleep until 7:45. They were all tired from the day before, but we did have a mountain to climb. I think this is a cool shot of the shelters. The shelters weighed only 1-2 pounds each and fit 5 people, so they were ultra lightweight. Too bad we have too many ticks to use them in Virginia.
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We learned that this site was just across the stream from a wolf den, because we heard them howling close by each morning between 6am and 7am. Pretty spooky, but we all had bear spray. The valley is a narrow one and even though we couldn’t see them through the trees, they couldn’t have been more than about a quarter mile away. Maye a tenth. Our goal this day is Prairie Reef, the tallest mountain in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. The trailhead was easy to miss because a tree had fallen over it and water running under the tree made it look like just a small stream crossing instead of a trail. Be we started up.
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It got steeper and rockier as we climbed.
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The map showed a stream crossing about halfway up the mountain, but we had passed a sign that announced there was no water, and the stream turned out to be dry. We had started with 2 liters of drinking water each, but it was a hot day and the climb was strenuous. I was worried we would run out of water and have to turn around before reaching the top. We agreed to turn around when we reached half a liter of water each. And then I spotted this mud puddle where water was seeping out of the hillside very slowly. A little below the mud puddle was an extremely slow trickle of water down a steep hillside. It took about an hour, but we filled everyone’s water bottles and treated the water inside with a few extra Aqua Mira drops. This deer poop filled mud puddle saved the day, literally.
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We are almost at the summit of Prairie Reef. I was proud of the boys for making it. This day was actually one of the more difficult hikes I have done in my life. The heat and lack of water and steep terrain, and scores of downed trees to climb over or crawl under really made it a challenge. It was only about 10 miles but we had 3,500’ of elevation gain.
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That’s me pointing out to the other dad where we had been the day before. He’s a good guy but had a bad sense of direction.
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And it was very windy up on the summit, but on the porch of this closed lookout station I was out of the breeze and still had an amazing view.
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This is a horrible quality video at points because it's so windy it was blowing me around. But it gives you an idea.
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And here, I am out of the wind.
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On the way back down, we found a better source of water where a big snow pile was slowly meting and running across the trail. I dug a little hole where we could put our water bottles to fill them up. Thank god for Aqua Mira drops. Makes this nasty water safe to drink.
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The next day we hiked out. It was around 10 miles and the group knocked it out quickly. Everyone was ready for a shower. The views the entire way out were spectacular though.
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Getting back to the Benchmark trailhead and parking lot. It’s still 2 hours of gravel roads to get back to civilization.
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We drove for 2 days to get back to Denver. Saw over 20 deer/antelope in fields along the side of the highway over those two days. We had an afternoon to kill in Denver, but it was supposed to be over 100 degrees, so I wanted to do something inside. My bright idea was to do the Coors brewery tour because the reviews are great and I went there as a kid. But on further reflection I figured parents would be miffed at me. So we searched around and saw that Celestial Seasonings also gives tours of their factory. It was actually pretty cool, but photography is prohibited. The smells in that factory are unbelievable. especially when they open the sealed mint room and let you step inside. My eyes watered the mint was so strong. You exit through the gift shop, and the fact that they made me wear a beard net means that I had a legit beard.
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Kool pix, what are you going to do next?
Focus on kicking ass in my new job.
You salvaged a fantastic trip from the ashes of the Philmont tragedy. Kudos to you and your direction challenged buddy. :notworthy
Most excellent! This will be a lifetime memory for the lads.
There was a lot of driving. Almost 2,500 miles. The last night before we returned the rental vans the following morning, I was driving the crew back to the hotel from an amusement park in Denver, and noticed a green light next to the radio was lit up. It said EcoBoost, or something like that. Suddenly everything made sense.
For the entire trip, I had been following the other dad who had an identical minivan as me, and he kept needing to stop for gas when I still had a quarter tank left. He also liked to pass slow moving horse trailers and such on the long straight roads out west. The speed limit would be 80, and the trailer would be going 75, and when I would try to do the same maneuver, my van just didn't have any oompf. I had a few white knuckle passing incidents where I was going 90 and the car coming the other direction was going 85 or so, and that half mile of open road between us was shrinking very fast as I tried to get past the trailer. It was all the EcoBoost button. I was amazed at how much gas it saved me, but those passing maneuvers were not fun.
Wish I had noticed that button sooner. What was it doing under the radio way out of the way?
It's amazing how fast that gap closes at a combined speed of 175 miles per hour (281.6 Kph). :eek:
I remember a guy at a gas station in Utah telling me to watch out for black cows on the road at night.
Oh, you ain't lived until you've left 100 feet of skidmark in front of a black bear in the road at night.
Or a moose.
Glatt, thanks for posting the pics and the recount of the trip. Your post brings back memories of hunting trips as a kid w/Popdigr 'out west'.
Hunting/hiking, bow in hand, hotel on yer back, nothing but a paper map to tell where you are, no where to be for weeks. Get tired, you're in luck, you stopped right in the middle of a great camping spot, right where your feet are.
Looking down onto mountaintops.
New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho...Man those are some great memories. I haven't thought about some of that stuff in years.
Thanks again.
Oh, and hey look!
Walking Man!
:cheerldr:
Glatt, thanks for posting the pics and the recount of the trip. Your post brings back memories of hunting trips as a kid w/Popdigr 'out west'.
Hunting/hiking, bow in hand, hotel on yer back, nothing but a paper map to tell where you are, no where to be for weeks. Get tired, you're in luck, you stopped right in the middle of a great camping spot, right where your feet are.
Looking down onto mountaintops.
New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho...Man those are some great memories. I haven't thought about some of that stuff in years.
Thanks again.
Those are some awesome memories! The West is pretty cool. I wouldn't want to live there with everything so far apart, but it's perfect for getting away.
Man you crushed it! I wish you were my scout leader.
I've done the Coors tour, you made a better choice. :thumb:
Breathtaking out there. My daughter has showed me some of Colorado. Thanks for the fantastic pics and narrative, glatt.
Those are some awesome memories! The West is pretty cool. I wouldn't want to live there with everything so far apart, but it's perfect for getting away.
You'll adapt.
Come on out, you'll never go back.
I've done the Coors tour, you made a better choice. :thumb:
I bicycled past the Coors complex, toured the Denver Mint.
(lived in Denver for half a year)
Thanks for posting your pics, glatt. They brought back happy memories of my trips to the US.
Mine didn't require the same exertion as yours, though!
I always started from Denver and stayed in Cheyenne on several occasions.
As with your trip, Crazy Horse and Devil's Tower were on the itinerary along with the Black Hills.
Happy days. :)
I bicycled past the Coors complex, toured the Denver Mint.
(lived in Denver for half a year)
Done that. But, instead of bicycling, I backseated a Ford Fiesta past Coors. Before touring the mint. I think I still might have the proofs I got there.
We considered the mint, but we were not going to arrive until noon, and they start giving the day's tickets away in person at 6am that morning. We figured there would be a snowball's chance in hell of getting a ticket.
The tea factory was neat. They had the shredding machines behind glass, and the teabag packing machines too. But all the boxing and crating machines were right there where we could see them, and we saw the huge sacks of raw ingredients they source from all aver the world. You could sniff them as you walked by. Actually pretty cool.
Filling the tea bags would be interesting.
… I think I still might have the proofs I got there.
It would be interesting to find out. The Denver mint didn't make proof sets, only uncirculated sets; but, it did sell proof sets made by the other mints in its souvenir shop since it carried the whole line of US Mint products.
(collected coins since I was 9 y.o.)
Great pix Glatt! Well done on salvaging the trip!
Gee whiz Glatt I didn't know Philmont burned. Seems we get selective news here. I hiked the north trail in 69 with troop 77 out of Metarie, La. It has been a forever memory that I cherish. Outside the main building was a line of cherry trees that everyone walked under, but didn't see the cherries. I thought I was in heaven with all those free cherries.
I feel reconnected with Walkin' Man, and will try to see the world through his eyes again. There is interesting stuff all around if you just look for it.
FUN HOUES indeed!
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I could have used my good zoom lens here, but settled for a phone cam. There's some real thickness to the hole in the side of this house. Like entering a cave. I like it.
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Ew. I think these balls are from 3 years ago. They look a little dirty.
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I liked watching this kid. He had a little trepidation going into the sculpture. But he would run in as soon as he crossed the threshold.
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Wow, that gives a whole new meaning to balls deep. :blush:
It would be interesting to find out. The Denver mint didn't make proof sets, only uncirculated sets; but, it did sell proof sets made by the other mints in its souvenir shop since it carried the whole line of US Mint products.
(collected coins since I was 9 y.o.)
I was right around 9 when I was there. It may have been an uncirculated set.
Damn, that was 40 yrs ago.
They could have been selling proof sets also, I doubt a 9 year old would question where they were stamped. You're at the(a) mint, oh shiny. :3eye:
Low speed, traction over roadability.
Lots of air, just unrestricted. :lol:
I bet I can put that tire on GC1 and it'll go flat by itself in less than 24 hrs.
I bet I can put that tire on GC1 and it'll go flat by itself in less than 24 hrs.
Tires hate me, too. I just noticed the other day that two of my new truck tires have small bulges in them. WTF? What did I ever to do the %$#@! tire gods?!?
:mad2:
Um, did you call them %$#@!s?
Um, did you call them %$#@!s?
Not out loud. :rolleyes:
There's something I don't see every day.
Nothing like a Union bugler skeleton to brighten the day.
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