Pictures from outdoor exercise.
Options
Replies
-
My group has decided we're still going boating.
We snatched up some permits on another river that's about three hours east of here instead of three hours south. We'll do four days in the desert instead of five through the Coast Range. It's a river section I've never done.
There was some confusion when the person getting permits signed up. We will be skipping the last section that has most of the big whitewater. It's probably easier than the Rogue, but still more than the rest of the trip. I'm actually OK with this because as I understand it's a ridiculously busy river section as a day-trip, and our last day will be a weekend day. We will miss the schidt-show and take out above that section. I'll go back some time when I can run it on a non-weekend day.2 -
Well since you don't have pics to show, I'll post one...
As per previous posts, with my renovations done, I have sold my house in Ottawa and I'm in the midst of buying one on the east coast. We will have the house inspection tomorrow. I don't anticipate any issues but who knows? House inspectors usually find something... hopefully it's not anything fatal.
1 -
@UncleMac, I love those colors - subtle but unusual. Looks like a nice place - I hope it all works out.
Obligatory photo from today's outdoor exercise (bike ride), a bench on the Art Path.
Cat Bench should have been number nine not eight.
I heard a rumor they might open the river back up tomorrow. Too late for us. Our inertia is taking us east. And it's just a rumor.2 -
How cute is that? I love it!!@UncleMac, I love those colors - subtle but unusual. Looks like a nice place - I hope it all works out.
Obligatory photo from today's outdoor exercise (bike ride), a bench on the Art Path.
My wife likes the colours although she might want to change the red but that's another day's problem. lol0 -
The deck and pergola (maybe) in the backyard is rather charming.
1 -
Just back from a four-day river trip. It was supposed to be a five-day trip, but that river got closed because of fire. We made a quick switch and got a permit to go run a different river out in the desert.
Nice enough. It was a river trip after all. But I'm not in a rush to go back to that river. I rowed my raft without a passenger and supported four people in inflatable kayaks.
Had a very small and cute Western Rattlesnake in camp one night. It was very afraid of us. It tried to sneak out of the kitchen, but eventually decided to hole up in a nook in a tree until after we left the next morning.
Today I get to clean, clean, clean. All the things in the raft kitchen. The cooler. Dry boxes. And clothes of course. And the raft itself is filthy.
3 -
One of my morning rowing buddies, a guy who just took the learn to row class this season, bought a beautiful new-to-him old wood Hudson racing single from another club member who'd bought herself a new boat. I thought the boat geeks here, such as @mtaratoot, might enjoy seeing it. (I asked my friend if he was OK with me sharing the photo with online friends, with him identifiable in it; he was.)
This boat would be around the usual dimensions, 26 feet +/- long, 12" wide +/- at the waterline, likely something barely over the minimum competition weight of 31 pounds. Needs a little maintenance work, not much, but it's a beauty, if you ask me. (I don't aspire to own one like that. They're beautiful, but high maintenance.)
ETA: We put old socks on the gates of the boats to protect other boats from scratches when we move boats in/out of the closely-set boat racks.
1 -
@AnnPT77
Yep, that's a gorgeous hull.
I am honored you think I'm a boat geek.
A friend who has a business that sells canoes hasn't had one of his own in years. He finally bought one for himself. It's a graphite layup of a 17.5-foot boat that weighs in at 33 pounds. It was a joy to watch him paddle it. It's a little narrower than my Advantage. The main differences is it will haul more cargo, and you can "steer" it with your hips more than you can with my Advantage. He probably would have let me paddle it for an hour over our two-day trip (sorry - no pictures this time), but there was no way I was going to ask. Plus - I'd have to give up my boat to do it!1 -
I haven't been hiking in quite some time. Why? I don't know! I have the time, but I've been just taking it easy, working in the garden, and paddling canoes. I did stomp around in the woods last week one day looking for mushrooms. I found nothing, but being in the quiet forest was nice.
So yesterday I decided the time was right. It was a beautiful early Autumn day - not too hot, but sunny. There was haze in the sky from all the wildfires, but it was otherwise a nice day.
I went up to Marys Peak - the highest peak in the Oregon Coast Range. There's a bunch of trails. I got in a good habit of visiting there quite often a year or so ago and watched the progression of wildflowers. Not this year. Even without the wildflowers, it was great.
I hiked just under nine miles by starting up the East Ridge Trail, then taking the Tie Trail over to the North Ridge Trail, then to the upper parking lot and up the Summit Trail, then back down to the Meadow Edge Loop Trail before descending back down the East Ridge Trail.
Being among the quiet mature forests were great. The Meadow Edge Loop goes through a fairly rare (for this area) stand of mature Noble Fir. The East Ridge Trail does, too.
The view from the top was too hazy to see the Pacific Ocean. At times I've seen car headlights crossing the Yaquina Bay Bridge - with binoculars. On a very rare day, a person can see that AND some of the Cascade volcanoes. There was even some fall color!
I chatted with some ravens on the Meadow Edge Loop. I love doing that.
On my way back down, there was a cute little Douglas squirrel chowing down on a fir cone. He had some things to say to me too. Happy little critter...
1 -
I think the OP was soliciting nice views. Here's one from a recennt bike ride:
I like the pattern of this (it's a fish ladder, in case that's not obvious):
2 -
Lovely scenes are nice, and I soak them in, on bike rides and rows. (I rarely post photos of rows, because I don't take my phone/camera in the boat, usually). Personally, I also enjoy quirky, unexpected things that pop up during outdoor exercise. Here's one, close up & larger context, from a recent bike ride. I don't know what was in the bowl - either bowl. I didn't look. The lichens on the bridge posts are nice, too, IMO.
2 -
Exercise? Well, this is sort of cheating. There was exercise, but it wasn't my body. I'm still recovering and prohibited from heavy exertion, so no real exercise other than walking for a while.
But I did exercise my truck. I hadn't driven it in two months or so. Last time I put the battery charger on it, there was a lot of moisture under the hood and even some stuff growing on the liner under the hood. No bueno. So I determined I should get it out for a good long drive, get it fully up to operating temperature for an extended time to drive off any moisture. Ideally even get on some gravel so I could engage 4WD for a few miles to get that system warm and get lubrication on all the components. I sat in the driver seat and operated the clutch. I didn't feel pain and figured I could drive the truck on the highway but didn't want to do much in-town driving. Today was the day to do it; I took my car to the mechanic for maintenance yesterday and walked home. I actually extended the walk because it's only about 0.75 miles home from his shop. The truck is usually blocked into the driveway by the car. I just bought the car a few months ago from a friend who moved overseas. I really didn't NEED a car, but it was nice to have when I couldn't operate the clutch on the truck, it gets much better fuel economy as long as I'm doing a longer drive, and it's actually really nice to drive. And I can carry three passengers instead of one. I digress. As usual....
My initial plan was to drive to one of two little cities about 25 miles north of here for lunch. I even had a taco shop picked out in each town and a pizza shop in each town. I've been to one of each. But I have plenty of food at home, and I made a change in plans this morning. I ate lunch at home and then went south and made a loop through the wildlife refuge. There's both gravel and dirt roads for several miles, so the 4WD got its workout. I did not see any of the elk herd, but I saw lots and lots of birds. The usual suspects; marsh harriers, bald eagles, red-tailed hawks, kestrels, egrets, herons, shovelers, pintails, coots, mallards, teal, buffleheads, robins, scrub jays.... and the like. And thousands upon thousands of Canada geese.
Then I saw the Trumpeter Swans. They were close enough that I could easily tell through the binoculars they were Trumpeters not Whoopers or Tundra Swans. Very nice.
Then I drove out of the refuge and down some country back roads to another small city and back home on the other side of the river. It was probably about 65 miles. I really don't like driving just for driving's sake, but this was EXERCISE. The truck runs great. I am keeping it. I will use it when I need a truck, like towing my raft trailer. Probably some other times, and I'll go walk to the mechanic to get the car back in a few minutes.
2 -
I did a walk through the park today. There's a large park that's less than a third of a mile from my house. The boat ramp in the park is more like a half mile, but I enter the park sooner than that. There's a lot of trails. I did a little figure-eight today that was 4.0 miles. I crossed my own tracks a couple times, but other than the walk to and from the park, I never really walked the same place twice. I love this 300 acre park. It has sports fields, a riparian forest along the river, and a young forest that was planted 20 years ago as a restoration project when the City acquired the land that was previously a farm. It's been nice to watch the native trees grow.
Farther south from there is a disc golf course, a couple more fields, and a shelter people can rent for picnics plus a playground. There's a paved path that goes through that whole park, then after it leaves the park it continues through some open space that is a wetland to mitigate for a newer neighborhood and it goes out to the current City Limit. The other day I walked all the way to the City Limit and back. I added some extra neighborhood loops to make it a full 10K walk - 6.2 miles. This was shorter, and I mostly stayed in the park
On my way back, I noticed a tree I've probably walked by hundreds of times. It's in the disc golf course, and I play there. But I actually NOTICED the tree today. Something about it spoke to me, so I "brought it home to share."
Something about the butt swell near the base and the stately branches with the unusually azure sky in the background.
2 -
Yup, that's a lovely picture!! Thanks for sharing that!!0
-
A bit of a disappointment for my walk today.
I had some errands to do, so I went by a local park that has a boardwalk through a wetland. It's a "mitigation wetland," but it's still a wetland on a natural creek. There is a boardwalk. There were native plants and some birds; a few waterbirds. But it was such a short walk, I had to do two laps PLUS another loop through a neighborhood just to get 1.5 miles.
I won't plan on going back, but I'm glad I went. I've been meaning to go. There's another boardwalk through a much larger wetland far on the other side of town that I visit every year or so. I may go there soon. It was really just for a change of pace from my local park walk, so that's good. No hills of course; it's a wetland.
2 -
Still looks like a decent walk. Better than what I'm getting of late.1
-
I walked downtown to get mail today. It's a habit. I took a loop around a small natural area near a river confluence after I crossed over one of those rivers on a multi-use path.
I heard a screech, and looked up to see a Bald Eagle. Not really that unusual, but it was soaring on a clear day. Then it alit on a branch on a tree across the bigger river with another adult.
2 -
Majestic, aren't they?
When I lived in Prince Rupert, the local shops used to sell a postcard picture of a tree loaded with bald eagles... like 20 of them all over one tree. Tourists often asked where the "eagle tree" was so they could see it for themselves. We always said it was not available to the public... which was true but not to protect the eagles or the tree... it was because the tree was in the non-public area of the landfill site...1 -
They are year-round residents; at least many of them.
When I heard the screech and looked up, I thought to myself, "It's too soon for the Osprey to be back." Well, it was. And they weren't.
There's a river on the other side of the Cascades that a friend would always go paddle in October to see dozens and dozens of Bald Eagles while they were migrating. It's a pain to run that river; the shuttle is 90 minutes.1
