With last year’s leaves of the American beech trees still displayed behind her.
Science and Technology
Quick, deer
Trying out the new wildlife camera, hoping for a bit better than this, almost 7am on Feb 7th. But three days later about midnight we got these two at the same spot:
One of them got even closer . . .
Super blue blood moon eclipse
Couldn’t see the January 31st early-morning eclipse from our half of North America, but by bedtime the moon was again dominating our sky. A couple of weeks later I adjusted exposure and other settings in Lightroom, but left the original viewable here.
All aboard the Polar Express
Above photos by Elsp/Erin/Sandy/Tim? Below by Elspeth (1 & 3) and Sandy (2). The hot chocolate itself didn’t inspire much enthusiasm but Rhys hung onto the cup for the rest of the journey.
Cora likes making selfies
Made in Scotland
The red cast iron “K6” phone booth outside our Stafford County admin building celebrates Stafford-to-Stafford friendships. Its origin, a product of Kirkintilloch, Scotland, is as a gift to the county by the Rotary Club, after their member and our late friend Rev Joseph Kerr spotted it in an antique shop in Richmond, 80 miles away. Rotarians in Stafford, UK, helped find parts needed for its renovation. Here are Bruce H’s London “K6” phone booths, borrowed from Facebook:
Precision Paving
Wildview camera
Didn’t catch much with the Wildview camera this month, other than myself going to check the camera from time to time. Had been hoping for a fox I’d seen go this way. But just the one squirrel, barely visible, on the small tree at lower right. That’s Sandy’s barred owl nesting box at upper left, still owl-less after all these years.
Cora’s watching trains too
After supper at the Chuck Wagon in Nokesville, we went round back to wait for Amtrak train 50, the Cardinal, Chicago to New York. From the app we knew she was thirty minutes late, so we didn’t have to wait too long. Here she comes, breezing through at 50 mph.
Pittsburgh Trip
Dad and I paid a 53-year anniversary visit to the Pittsburgh Point on July 25th, remembering the 1963 visit by two young parents and four small boys. Both the Market Square and the 100-foot fountain are new since those days — this picture shows the view towards downtown, with the photographer’s back to the Point. We met three young women on bicycles there, enroute from the State of Washington to Washington DC. One of them took this photo, then another one took the shot of three of us.
Some plans for that ride assume 83 miles a day, riding 40 days and totaling 3384 miles.
Above is the end of the Allegheny River and the start of the Ohio River, flowing away from us, under the West End Bridge and then on towards the Mississippi (at Cairo, Illinois, 981 miles). Looking the other way, below, we see the Fort Duquesne Bridge followed by the identical 6th, 7th, and 9th Street bridges (the latter three now renamed for Roberto Clemente, Andy Warhol, and Rachel Carson). There are said to be 446 bridges within the city.
Dad watches the two opposing cars of the Fort Duquesne Incline, looking from the Point with the end of the Monongahela River to his left and the start of the Ohio to his right. (See pictures of our previous day’s visit to Johnstown, including a ride on an incline there.)
This old photo from 1955 displayed in the park shows the two bridges I remember being there right at the Point. They were demolished in the early 60s. It also shows the start of construction of the Point State Park and the Fort Pitt Bridge across the Monongahela River.
