Ansels' Cave

Between Christmas and New Year's, I decided it would be fun to try a surprising change of pace, so I gave up robust health in favor of a head full of mucus and a throat full of dead hedgehog.  I like variety.  I also learned long ago in Oregon that when I feel that particular flavor of awful, cold air helps.  When I gave up on sleep around 4 AM last week, I went outside and shoveled the drive, prompting 66% of the house's remaining occupants to stagger sleepily to the door and chide me, but it was the best I felt all day.  Sledding was another attempt to get outside and breathe large amounts of chilled air.  Monday, after bidding adieu to The Girl's brother (Mr. Adventure), sister-in-law, and wee nephew, the rest of us went hiking at the Geauga Park District's West Woods, in search of Ansel's Cave and, in my case, more cold air.

We found the cave, and some ledges--that was easy enough, thanks to well-labeled trails.  Admittedly, the cave itself is not that impressive, and is currently closed to prevent the spread of White Nose Syndrome, an affliction of much-maligned flying mammals.  However, the ledges and affiliated waterfall are picturesque in nearly any weather, evoking images straight out of Tolkien.

I was also drawn, as I usually am, to snow that has stacked high, then warmed just enough to plasticize and contort into strange new shapes.

slide

Shortly after Christmas, The Girl and I met up with a couple of her high school friends (now married to each other, and my Long After College friends) to go sledding.  Unfortunately, one of them, who shall remain nameless but has a side project called the Death Cart, shared intersecting down-slope trajectories with a couple of local pre-adolescents (entirely unharmed by his presence), and his wife decided she was done sledding for the day.  Something about how she "didn't want to run over any kids."  Go figure.  She hadn't hit anybody.

We compromised with a hike through the nearby woods, wandering aimlessly for about an hour in the hopes that the slope's population would thin itself out a little in the interim.  When we returned, she remained a conscientious objector while I took a few more downhill dives (missing every child available) until it was time to find dinner at--no joke--Rick's Cafe.  Somehow, nobody else got the reference until we arrived and saw the movie posters.  If you're interested, they have a stunning array of novel burgers, and are located in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, along with a tasteful riverside holiday light display.  (in contrast to our other holiday light display excursion, a rampant, egregious excess so outlandish that any attempted photos would have been overexposed--sadly, I can not prove this with pictures, but it did Happen.)

sights unseen

One of the reasons I started this blog was because I kept seeing things in my neighborhoods that I wanted to share with someone--anyone, really--and I needed a good place to do it.  Naturally, I usually forget my camera.  I'm getting better about that, so I'm sharing two quick views from recent walks.

I first saw these gingko leaves two weeks ago, when they were still spread across the sidewalk, glowing golden in afternoon light as I hit mile four of a run.  Then I kept neglecting to go back and shoot them, and by the time I revisited them this week, they had all blown to the side, and the light wasn't as nice, but I still liked them.

This just appeals to my sense of unconventionality, and seems to continue a trend in bumper sticker battles.

o, tannenbaum

We have two Christmas trees this year.

This is Hers.

This is mine.

distance

There was a time when my running goal was "run for an hour straight."  Despite having already completed two half-marathons by then, I felt that it was a good fitness goal because I hadn't run in a long time.

I felt it was an achievable goal because I had already finished two half-marathons, so it was easier to keep going.  There was no "there's no way I can do this" moment.  This was while I still lived in Bend, and I remember being excite the day I went for 45 minutes and still felt good enough to keep going.  I knew I was close.  Before leaving Bend, I ran two 5ks, a 10k, and my third half-marathon, in no particular order.  Most of those were in the course of a year.  I know for a real runner, that's an unimpressive pile of very small potatoes, but I'm not a real runner--I'm just some shlub who runs.

This morning, without even realizing I was doing it until I finished and looked at my stopwatch, I ran for just over an hour with no trouble at all, and remembered when I considered that a lofty goal.  It felt good.

A friend (the same one who convinced me to run the first two) got me to sign up for a half-marathon in the spring.  I think I'll be ready.

Fall foliage

On one of our Old Rag hikes, I had a really funny idea.  I've been to enough Art Fairs to see the work of dozens of photographers who apparently support themselves by taking nature pictures, framing them, and selling them to people.  Nice work if you can get it, and I'd be lying if I told you I hadn't considered a similar path for myself.  I've only gone far enough to order a couple prints of my pictures and gift them to family and friends.

But if I were going to start selling pictures, I'm sure my twisted humor would work its way in somewhere.

I find a lot of visuals really interesting.  They are not always things people traditionally like to view.  Bugs are fascinating, and their coloration and widely varied shapes always catch my attention.  Dead trees and fallen leaves are good, and I once took a dozen shots of a line of pot-bellied stoves and rusted truck bodies I found in the woods near Opal Creek.

But none of those were my funny idea.

In late September, I went home to see Dad for a couple days, and took some early-morning walks at the lake.  And some afternoon walks.  I like the lakes.  I walk there a lot.  And I got lots of good pictures for my funny idea.

Toxicodendron radicans

I wanted to get some nice pictures of these bright red leaves--they actually present across the fall-leaf-spectrum, but the bright red hue is most common--because i love the idea of people buying the pictures because they're pretty, with no idea of what's actually IN the picture.

I took some other pictures, too.  I really liked that early-morning light when I could get my camera to cooperate, and the heavy dew and fog gave me some good visuals of spiderwebs (hard to photograph) and dandelions (another pretty weed).

Taraxacum oficinale

Storeria dekayi

I didn't expect to see one so late in the year, but the dog and I also met a De Kay's Snake.

The afternoons gave me much brighter light for the bright red leaves I wanted for my private joke--despite being terrified of Poison Ivy, there's a surprising number of people who wouldn't know it when they saw it.  Too bad--it can actually be very pretty.

I also like taking pictures of fungus, but I don't have a good resource to identify it yet.

Old Rag

The Girl volunteers on Old Rag, a mountain in Shenandoah National Park.  Her group hikes the mountain every weekend during peak season (not every member--they set up a schedule and take turns), helping hikers with a range of services from being friendly and giving directions to calling a helicopter for serious rescues.  Somehow, we always missed the rescue weekends.

At least we still get to go hiking, even if we are denied flashy, dramatic rescue efforts.  We went twice this fall since the training weekend when I saw a bear(!), and had a great trip both times.  It was warm and beautiful the first weekend.  At the top, we bouldered a little, I invented a new climbing move (the "jantle") while ruining skin on my hands and chest in the process, and found time for a little quiet reflection.

We also discovered that time travelers like Old Rag.

Our second sojourn was right after Sandy pummeled the East Coast and coated West Virginia in a couple feet of snow.  We were happy to find enough snow was left on top of the mountain to allow us some artistic liberty.

I haven't had a chance to look it up yet, but we also found this very colorful character.  200 Internet Points to anyone who can correctly identify it before I can!