utenzi

Today was another cold and windy day. As a result, what should have been a 2 hour paddle turned into nearly a 3 hour ordeal. But I did have a nice break in the middle. I turned my boat into a large inlet and explored the various streams that fed into that inlet. The above picture was the shoulder of the shore at one of the streams. At first I didn't see it, but something seemed off so I looked back again...and saw the heron. It's hard to see the heron in that picture above, but the two pictures below, taken a few yards further around the bend so that the heron can be seen in profile (and zoomed in considerably), make the heron a lot easier to see. In case you can't see the heron in the first picture, it's to the left side of center and right next to a pine on the shoreline and exactly the same height. When I was paddling, I passed no more than 6 feet from the bird. I'm amazed that it didn't take to flight. By the way, it was really cold out and so windy that I t...

I'm tired. And no, not the kind of "tired" that you see below. Those tires are there to protect sailboats from wave action at a marina, a few miles from my parent's house. I'm tired because I paddled my fishing kayak against the wind up to the sailboat marina. The fishing kayak isn't as easy to move through the water as the blue kayak and that wind was a killer. All that "wet" on me was due to the wind. My face got the spray from the paddle ends as I lifted them out of the water, my legs got the dripping water from the paddle, and my hips got the occasional wave that was higher than the sides of the kayak. And since the water wasn't much warmer than the 38 degree air, it made for a less than entertaining paddle. But that was this morning. Since then I've been laid out on the couch reading. Now I'm going to tackle a minor plumbing problem to help stay awake. Now that I've finally gotten warm, I'm getting sleepy.

Merry Christmas!

I shifted location during the wee hours of the morning. Now I'm at my parent's house in South Carolina. Xmas, and all that. I arrived here just before 7am and since there was some fog rolling off of the lake I took a little paddle out there to take some pictures. My parents thought I was crazy because they avoid the water when it's below freezing---but that's when you get the best pictures. Some people have their priorities all out of whack. Now that I've warmed up a little it's time to go do some errands and hit a used book store. You never know what you might find.

I took today off from work and went hiking instead. Tomorrow I head over to my parent's place for the start of the Xmas celebrations and this was the last bit of calm before the storm, so to speak. And calm it was. No doubt due to the cold temperatures, abundance of mud and ice, and it being a weekday---the hiking trails were deserted. These two pictures were taken at Duke Forest which was my first stop. After hiking there I went over to Hillsborough and did that mountain hike I like. I enjoy hiking much more in cold weather 'cause you just don't get all hot and sweaty. If only there were more leaves on trees in winter... it's just not as pretty when the limbs are bare.

How do you like my tree frog over there on the right? It's one of the widgets that Adam Bowman has created. They're fun to customize on his site and once installed on your blog, they're fun there too! What do you think I should name it?

I got up a little early today to go hiking in the nasty cold. It got down to the mid-20s but by the time of the hike, 10am, it was over 30. Balmy, almost. The sun was shining so strongly that the snow in the trees was melting. On us. I really wish I had worn a hat 'cause I got soaked---head and feet. I really like this picture of the log. There's snow on top, moss underneath, and below that you have fungi. What a nice layering effect! We were the first people to hit the trail today but one other couple arrived later on and we saw them near the river. Even though the trail was wet and we got our feet soaked in the near-freezing water it was a great day. The snow was so pretty in the bright sunshine. Even so, the hills were a real pain in the ass due to the slippery footing and the taxing affect of breathing hard in the cold dry air. I almost felt like going around the loop again--but instead I did a little shopping at Lowe's and Wal-mart. Xmas is just around the corner!