Category: walkabout / local

rDay Five-Hundred-Eight: Unintended Consequences

This evening’s dog-stroll’s incident started with noticing that the moon was clearly visible overhead. Upon capturing that image, the next was to attempt to relate it to the markings on the field where we were walking. Then the next variation was to try to juxtapose a solitary dandelion in front of me with the moon. Even though it was fairly obvious that I didn’t have the appropriate lens for the task, I nevertheless stretched out on the grass as low as I could go to frame both the dandelion and the moon. Here’s the sequence:

That’s where the trouble began. Kim, who was walking the perimeter of the field almost exactly on the far opposite side from me apparently noticed and came running. Thinking the old guy had collapsed on the spot, I guess. When I arose, defeated by the failed photograph, she had come to within about twenty yards of me, and then could see that my prone position was deliberate.

Anyway, we did continue our walk without further complications.  And Kim brought to my attention that the whatever-it-is-flowering bush in front of the kitchen window is suddenly going gangbusters.

rDay Five-Hundred-Five

A downtown stroll and former workplace drop-in.  In excessive heat.

rDay Four-Hundred-Ninety-Eight: The Real Rinehart Canyon

Turns out that our earlier June visit only got us to the very tip of Rinehart Canyon.  We learned this from a discussion at Farmers Market with an old neighbor, an employee of the Forest Service.  So we hit the road at 7am this morning and turned off the highway at Philberg Road.  Soon the road became overgrown with brush and weeds, so we parked and hiked as far as the old bridge that crosses the Grande Ronde River.  This required nearly three hours of traversing a path that was really the old highway but varied in width from about two to ten feet.  In places the brush was dense and higher than our heads, barely allowing clearance to slip through one at a time.  In a couple of spots we had to scramble over rock slides and piles.  And of course: an abundance of birds.