Day 7.076: I ran a what?

All of these things have something in common:

They don't look very much like the route map I posted yesterday.

All but one of them were suggested (not the specific pictures - just the things) by either commenters on this blog, my Facebook friends or my running forum buddies.

If we count "licensed to carry small arms" as a T-rex vote, then that wins with three votes. Two votes went to each of aardvark, dog and kangaroo. There was a strong thread of puppets with Kermit, Sam the Eagle, Cookie Monster and Big Bird all featuring. Sherlock Holmes and The Stig round out the guesses - leaving just...drum roll...the mouse.

Yes I thought it looked like a mouse, but what do I know. I may have been influenced by the fact that one got into my desk drawer at work and tucked into a snack I'd left there over the weekend.

All of this nonsense did lead me to these people though - hat tip to ilanarama for that one!

Day 7.075: Picture a long midweek run...

Some of my Facebook friends have been trying to work out what my route from this morning's run looks like.

There is a right answer (in terms of what I thought it looked like when I designed it), but the other answers are just as much (probably more) fun so feel free to jump in in the comments!

Day 7.035: Actually, it was built in a day

I'm back home - with the rug that once housed Rug City #3 also known as Rome. The clue (as so often) was there in the post title!

So no-one got it right - but I did love the fact that The Doctor in his Raggedy Man guise was mistaken for Shakin' Stevens - you have a point.

Day 6.361: Waterworld

It was a very wet day today. With a couple of feet of snow around the place, the temperature rose to nearly 50°F with steady rain this morning. Yikes.

Tonight, the temperature will get back into the teens so I suspect it will be Iceworld tomorrow.

Here's a picture from yesterday.

Because I'm contractually obligated to do this once in a while.

Day 6.327: E5N1's alter magna (tegulas)

Somehow almost all the things E5N1 makes remind me of him - and often at his cheekiest!

Day 6.317: All play and no work

Today was my first day alone in Maine without work. I packed a few things in (including a nap and watching lots of YouTube videos!). My first adventure was a 13.5 mile run which took me over the Casco Bay Bridge to South Portland. On my way over I was passed by about 60 cyclists en peloton - the sound of that many bicycles on a steel draw bridge was quite mesmerizing for a moment.

My destination was the Bug Light - pictures here along with a huge ship and a view of Portland across the inlet.

The vast majority (9 miles) of the run was on park cycle/pedestrian trails, including the last section where I ran by this graffiti that I've seen many times in the dawn half-light.

When I saw it on my very first run, I though the first message, "Maine - don't worry - Fall is fantastic here!!" was just for me.  The rest of the artwork is really rather impressive!

Day 6.290: A surprise sculpture walk

We were forced to be out of the house for a while for a couple of viewings today. We decided to have a walk around the Beaver Tree Trail at Five Rivers. It was cold, but as lovely as usual:

Familiar though we are with the trail, we were surprised to find a piece of nature-art part way around:

and then another:

Later we spotted a less natural, but equally unexpected (and frankly baffling) piece:

We also got quite excited about this construction:

- the beavers have built their best pond-level-raising dam ever.

Day 6.285: E5N1's map of his life right now

Here's another page from E5N1's mind-dump.

On one side was a pretty good freehand map of the USA. On the other, the details that matter:

New York, with our town called out, and - with an arrow (perhaps beckoning us there?): Maine (if you don't get the relevance, you'll want to read this).  Why Utah features there, I have no idea.  Also, I have no idea why the top of the page is labelled as follows:

This Book Has Wild Animals!

No - really - I have no idea.

Day 6.266: The view from EWR

I did a lot of travelling for business in 2000 and although I'm not absolutely sure it was the first time I was there, it was that year that I first found myself in one of the gate-areas at Newark Airport from where you can look over at Manhattan.  At the time, the twin towers of the World Trade Center were the overwhelmingly recognisable part of the view.

Of course, for many years it has been their absence that has been striking in the downtown skyline. Now, the WTC is, once again asserting itself as the iconic part of the view - as I saw on my recent trip:

And, just because I'm talking about 1 WTC and because it's beautiful, here is some dancing from NYC ballet on top of one of the nearby buildings at dawn recently:

Day 6.255: Envisionfest Hartford

On Saturday after lunch, we drove the two hours to Hartford, Connecticut where the Envisionfest festival was taking place. We arrived as the event was winding down but we were in time to have some unhealthy -but tasty and freshly-cooked - food-truck food and watch some strange passers-by while we ate it:

Then we walked through Bushnell Park where we saw a large bird and a friendly stone mermaid - and even witnessed an interaction between them (there's also a big arch there):

And we saw this excellent drum troupe:



It looks like the festival was a great event - even the small part we saw was thoroughly enjoyable.

Having walked the length of the park, we sat down between the high-rise of Hartford's downtown and the state capital:

and waited for the real reason we had made the trip...the last event of the festival (and I'll tell you about that tomorrow!)

Day 6.252: School (4th & 1st)

I was at the school open day for Exile #4 and E5N1 today. Exile #4's 4th grade classroom was fairly bare of photo opportunities, although it was nice to hear from her teacher. 4th grade was only just over a year ago for Exile #3, so there are no huge surprises - apart from the changes from the new state curriculum.

E5N1's 1st grade classroom had two items worthy of sharing - the first was outside in the hallway - I managed to work out who he was from amongst his classmates.

The second is on his cubby - I just love that picture!

Day 6.251: E5N1's view

E5N1 really wanted to take some photographs just before catching the bus this morning.  These are some of them:

I spared you the extreme close-ups of (thankfully clothed) backsides.

Day 6.243: Exciting and feet-expanding!

The update from the first two days of school is that everyone is doing fine.

And also this (from E5N1):

Day 6.239: A Lego treasure hunt

The kids (and maybe Exile #2) have been making some cool models out of Lego this week. I photographed a few of them (generally in fading evening light) and so did they.

Have a look at these:

Can you spot:

1. People waiting for food in a restaurant;
2. A delivery driver taking a nap;
3. A chef making Chinese food;
4. A pizza oven;
5. A grill including a s'more;
6. Some spare chef's knives?

What else catches your eye?

Day 6.234: What's hiding at the Hyde Collection?

Exile #2 has been trying to find a way to get us to the Hyde Collection in Glens Falls for some time.  The fact that the current Georgia O'Keefe exhibition is coming to an end in two weeks was the final straw that got us in the car this morning for a long-overdue visit.

The O'Keefe exhibition is impressive indeed - and the related 15 minute video about her life and collection of photographs by her husband (including several portraits of her) are a great accompaniment.  However, the rest of the museum is equally impressive.

Here are a few shots of the outside (and one of the beautiful courtyard).  The house was the private home of Charlotte Pruyn Hyde and her husband Louis Fiske Hyde.  Charlotte's two sisters lived in the next two houses and they shared an estate featuring these terraced gardens which it is hoped to restore.

From the terrace, there is evidence of the paper mill that made the sisters' father Samuel Pruyn's fortune:

We asked them, but three children were not convinced they would choose to live in such close proximity to each other once they are grown up!

The permanent collection is still arranged as in a private house - with pictures hanging in guest bedrooms and the library for instance as they probably did during Charlotte's time - but what a collection it is!  There are works by Rembrandt, Rubens (an amazing modern-looking portrait painted in 1620), Picasso, Botticelli, and Cézanne to name a few.

The kids also had fun in the "Artist's Studio" kids' corner:

as a break from the perfectly-understandable "don't touch" nature of the rest of the museum.

Day 6.228: Five Rivers (mostly by Exile #4)

Exile #2 took the kids to Five Rivers last Friday - Exile #4 had the camera most of the time and this is what they came back with:

They were pulling Eurasian water chestnut out of the pond again - I'm not sure if they are trying to control it or just to study what is going on with this invasive species.  Exile #2 took the picture in the bottom left - this remarkable-looking fly is a tiger bee fly - apparently a parasitoid of the carpenter bee - but just check-out those wings!

Day 6.217: Heldeberg (near Helderberg)

We took the opportunity to visit the Heldeberg Workshop where Exile #3 has been at art camp for the mornings of the last two weeks.  The kids all went there last year, but we didn't see more than the impressive views of from/of the parking lot then.

It's a beautiful spot underneath the Helderberg Escarpment, the kids spend almost all their time outdoors and even when they are inside, it is in these very basic open-sided shelters for the most part.  A great antidote for the classroom-bound lives they live during the school year!

Pictured (left top to bottom): one of Exile #3's artworks, the art hut and the pond - that Exile #4 and E5N1 were equally excited to show us after their experiences there last year; (centre): two more artworks with the locations that inspired them; (right): the parking lot as we left (with sunset over the escarpment) and as we arrived.

And yes - I did check those spellings twice.

Day 6.209: Drawn

Sometimes I need a little something to keep me interested when planning my running routes.  This is what my GPS watch recorded on a few recent runs:

Anti-clockwise from top left: jogging girl, jumping guy, face, "yes", praying mantis and Queen Victoria.

Sorry for the horrible maps - but it helped me to make them non-location specific if I started with these very basic, ugly maps.

Day 6.206: Canajoharie day-trip

We visited Canajoharie on Saturday. If you want to share the soundtrack that was in our heads - please feel free to listen here:



Here is a summary of our visit in three parts:

Day 6.206a: Wintergreen Park

We heard that there was a gorge - and a park where we could visit it - so that was our first stop.  We first parked at the park entrance where there was a sign indicating that there was  walk to an overlook.

This is what we saw along the way:

The gorge is very deep, steep-sided and close to the trail, but - certainly at this time of year - there are no really good views down into it.  Even the large wooden deck overlook only gave the view of the "upper falls" that you see in the top right above.  Still, it was a nice walk - the water tower is striking and we saw some nature along the trail:

After the walk (out-and-back totalling 1.25 miles), we wanted to see if we could access the creek below in the gorge from the park, so we returned to the car and drove into the park.  The road into the park soon winds steeply down the gorge to the bottom where there are, unsurprisingly, picnic tables and the like but also, more surprisingly No Trespassing signs on almost every other tree along between the road and parking areas and the creek.

It seems that the village has a conflicted relationship with the creek.  Unfortunately, there have been a number of accidents.  Although it seems like the board recently reviewed a plan to grant some limited access to the creek from the park, I can find no evidence that they made a decision on the plan.

We decided to keep driving and get on with the rest of our day.

Day 6.206b: Arkell Museum

The main reason for our visit to Canajoharie (♫ Ca-na-jo-ha-a-a-rie ♫) was to visit the Arkell Museum.  We managed to pick up a family pass from our library so it was even free!  There is no photography in most of the museum so here's a random selection of photos I was allowed to take:

Half of the museum is an art gallery - currently featuring some amazing Whistler sketches (and other similar works) and some very varied impressionist paintings.  The other half - the permanent exhibition - centers around Mr Arkell himself and the Beech-Nut Packing Company he founded in the town at the beginning of the 20th century.  This is an engaging and fascinating section of the museum but somewhat poignant now that the Beech-Nut company has left Canajoharie leaving it with a big hole in its employment and revenue streams.

The museum is attached to the library and somewhat spills over into that space. The library itself is very appealing and contains a few exhibits including the globe pictured above.  It is a Juvet Time Globe - one of only two 30 inch models ever made.  In common with its smaller cousins, it contains a mechanism to turn the globe at one revolution per day.  They were made in a factory in the town as a joint venture between their inventor Mr Juvet and James Arkell (I believe he was Bartlett's father) and another business partner in the 1880's.

Day 6.206c: The pot that washes itself

We had read that the name Canajoharie originates in a native American name which translates as "the pot that washes itself". This is (assumed to be) a reference to the "boiling pot" - 20 foot diameter pothole in the creek bed near the village.  We decided to find out if - despite the creek-access issues, it was possible for us to see it.  It took a little research - but it is indeed possible.  Access is from the end of Floral Ave:


View Larger Map

 but it is not signposted at all until you get there.  The sign at the top of the very short trail near a parking area is the same as the ones at Wintergreen, except that the "No Trespassing" part of the sign has been blacked-out in accordance with a year-old change of heart.

Here are some pictures from our visit to the site (the "historical plaque" is in the museum garden):

It is both striking geology and an interesting piece of history thanks to the name of the town.  We stayed dry apart from a little paddling in the shallows away from the main flow of the creek and the deep pothole, but certainly the temptation to swim in the cool deep waters of the pool on a hot summer's day is completely understandable.