On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Good Morning All,
This weekday feature is for Juicers who are are on the road, traveling, or just want to share a little bit of their world via stories and pictures. So many of us rise each morning, eager for something beautiful, inspiring, amazing, subtle, of note, and our community delivers – a view into their world, whether they’re far away or close to home – pictures with a story, with context, with meaning, sometimes just beauty. By concentrating travel updates and tips here, it’s easier for all of us to keep up or find them later.
So please, speak up and share some of your adventures and travel news here, and submit your pictures using our speedy, secure form. You can submit up to 7 pictures at a time, with an overall description and one for each picture.
You can, of course, send an email with pictures if the form gives you trouble, or if you are trying to submit something special, like a zipped archive or a movie. If your pictures are already hosted online, then please email the links with your descriptions.
For each picture, it’s best to provide your commenter screenname, description, where it was taken, and date. It’s tough to keep everyone’s email address and screenname straight, so don’t assume that I remember it “from last time”. More and more, the first photo before the fold will be from a commenter, so making it easy to locate the screenname when I’ve found a compelling photo is crucial.
Have a wonderful day, and enjoy the pictures!
Today, a bit of catch-up – I’m publishing some odds and ends and will be doing further clean up for the next week or two.
And what a great way to start out the week – it looks like, after like 10+ tries over the past couple of months, Bill’s awesome pictures went through from the form to FYWP, so they’re on deck for tomorrow. In a couple of weeks, I hope to renew his Monday-Wednesday schedule, but there’s a lot of content to work through still, mostly long-ago submitted via email but also some from the form.
i.e., to all those I’ve not yet published – take heart!
And with that, let’s see what today offers:
First up on clean-up, an old picture from valued commenter Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes.
So for any who were mildly curious, we did wind up going to Mexico after all the brouhaha with middle daughter. She did fine while we were away. What I have for you is some flotsam and jetsam from earlier this fall and late summer.
Hooky Day
Taken on 2017-09-06
7th and Main, Louisville
So we decided to have a hooky day on a random Wednesday, and to start with a boozy lunch at noon while looking at our city like tourists. This was the starting point, at Hotel 21C, a block west of my office. It is the mothership of a new chain – the first did so well that it is expanding. They’ve got a great bar, a contemporary art museum on the basement and lobby levels, and this kitschy reproduction out front.
I think I published the pictures that followed long ago, or they’re lost. If that’s the case, please re-submit.
Thank you so much Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes, do send us more when you can.
Next, pictures from valued commenter SoupCatcher.
I don’t get a chance to read Balloon Juice until after work; the last time I submitted pictures – 17 August 2017 – the thread was long dead by the time I saw everyone’s comments. Those pictures, from redwood country, were taken about 200 miles (320 km) further north than these. In California, that’s less than a quarter of the length of the state. A solid commute, in other words.
4 January 2018. Samsung phone camera. Around mid-day. Almaden Quicksilver County Park. Hicks Road entrance. Wood Road to the Hidalgo Cemetery.
San Jose was, at one time, the premier city in California, back when San Francisco was a military fort surrounded by malarial swampland and Los Angeles was a few hundred people strong.
The mercury mines at New Almaden were a late edition, but still pre-date the gold rush.
Wood Road was used to bring wood to the processing facilities at the mine. According to the interpretive signage, a teamster was paid $35 a month.Heading back from the cemetery
Most of the trails in the park are well used. Because this cemetery is off on a spur, the old access road is lightly traveled.
Mt. Umunhum and Oak
That square building in the background is a local landmark: the radar tower at Mt. Umunhum. It’s visible from pretty much anywhere in the south bay.
Madrone
I love the red bark on the whole group of plants that make up the manzanita/madrone family.
Cactus and Oak
It wouldn’t be the west without some cactus.
Pyracantha
The pyracantha bushes are filled with berries this time of year. Birds love to eat them. I also think of this as purple-spotted-windshield season.
Agave and Pine
We call the plant in the foreground a century plant; it’s some member of the agave family.
Ridge Oaks
I’m a sucker for a ridge-line of oaks.
Thank you so much SoupCatcher, do send us more when you can.
Finally on this clean-up-setup-a-good-week Monday, a great picture from a while back from valued commenter cintibud.
This is me kayaking on the Upper Youghiogheny last Sept. This is a river I have paddled for many years. The special thing about this is however is that I gave a framed picture of this to my Cardiologist at my checkup Monday as I am now 2 years free of Atrial Fibrillation, which had prevented me from paddling difficult rivers like this. I included a thank you note for his work in getting me back on the river. He was quite touched.
Above Mel’s Toilet Bowl, Upper Yough river, Maryland
Congrats, and what an amazing picture, river and story! Do share more as I’m sure many folks aren’t blessed to be near or know kayakers, and it’s a wonderful way to interact with nature and a heck of a lot of fun!
Let’s have a great week, everyone!
Travel safely everybody, and do share some stories in the comments, even if you’re joining the conversation late. Many folks confide that they go back and read old threads, one reason these are available on the Quick Links menu.
One again, to submit pictures: Use the Form or Send an Email
Sab
Great pictures. I haven’t been out west for 20 years. Makes me nostalgic. Everyone I know has been rafting on the Youghagheny and I have never even seen it. Thanks for the photos.
rikyrah
Liked all the pictures today ?
debbie
They’re all great! Interesting depiction of cellulite in that top photo. ;)
JPL
Just wonderful pictures, and your comments were so informative. Thanks.
Elizabelle
All the photos had a story. And I especially love the California ones. Never tire of its landscapes.
satby
Very nice pictures SoupCatcher! And cintibud, congratulations!
Quinerly
?
cintibud
Thanks for publishing my river pic. Here’s a little more to the story:
I have been wanting to get a good picture of me kayaking to give my doctors, but my pictures are hurried and blurred in that environment for obvious reasons, plus I need someone else to take *my* picture so I wasn’t having much luck. This particular trip was going to be my last chance for the season as I was going to see my docs in the winter. In addition, I was leading down a young friend who I consider my “river daughter” for her first time down this expert level river and I really wanted to get pictures of her to memorialize her achievement.
I was quite fortunate to spot an acquaintance who is not only an expert kayaker, but a fantastic outdoor photographer. He is also a super nice guy. I asked if he could take a few pictures of my friend, and by the way, something I could give to my Doctor as well. He readily agreed and the above is one of the results.
The trip was indeed memorable – A beautiful late Sept day with leaves just starting to turn, warm water and many friends and my friend Hannah did great! She was quite nervous before getting on the river but was nailing her lines from the start. On the flat water paddle out I asked her when she stopped being nervous and started having fun. She replied “You mean when did I start to feel that I wasn’t going to throw up?” LOL.
I will post a few more photos from that day soon, In the meantime, check out the page of the photographer. He has fantastic action shots! You will overdose on great pictures and beautiful scenery here: https://jeffmacklin.smugmug.com/
Barbara
There is a great resource for canoeing and kayaking white water: https://www.americanwhitewater.org/
Here is a sample link of the information they have by state, for the state of Maryland: https://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/River/state-summary/state/MD/
The Yough is a REALLY challenging river, so challenging that I doubt if I would consider doing it on my own without a guide! My husband and I stop at class 3 rapids. We are only there for fun.
But that’s a great picture and so glad to hear that you are able to get out on the water and enjoy it again.
cintibud
Thanks Barbara,
You might want to consider rafting the Upper Yough – it is quite intense but the guides are the best in the business. This has to be the tightest, rockiest river that is regularly commercially rafted. Tiny 4 person rafts must be used and the guests have to help, so previous experience is really helpful. The best company there is Precision, but all are very good.
J R in WV
Great pictures all, everyone!!
@cintibud:
Many years ago, before accumulated injuries began to take their toll, we had canoed or kayaked the Greenbrier and most of the New River. So seeing your friend’s photo sets of kayaking New River brought back great memories, and a yearning to return to the rough water again that I can’t fulfill, too decrepit from repeated impacts and surgical repair and the normal aging process.
But great pictures from New River, Cranberry, Elk, the storied names of WV Whitewater! Those were the days!
cintibud
@J R in WV: Sorry to hear how time has taken it’s toll on your body – I’m fighting the same thing at 62, but happy for the wonderful memories that were triggered for you! Those runs are indeed classics!
CapnMubbers
The “pyracantha” pictured is actually a toyon, native to these parts: notice the serrated margins on the leaves. Pyracantha is an introduced European species, leaves have smooth margins.
Alain the site fixer
@CapnMubbers: I love this site’s community! Thanks for the correction and do please submit pics as your area looks photogenic.
SoupCatcher
Thanks, Alain, for everything you do! Using the automatic import tool was fun.
And thanks to everyone for the comments. As a fifth-generation Californian, I try to subtly boost immigration any way I can, and I figure California hillsides with nary a snowflake in sight during February are a good advertisement. In a similar vein, Jack Smith, long time columnist for the LA Times, would write a yearly column about mid-westerners watching the Rose Parade on TV and planning their relocation.
Especially thank you to @CapnMubbers. Ever since I submitted the pictures, I’ve been doubting my classification. I drive up and down the 280 every day past Foothill College, where there’s a ton of actual pyracantha in the median, and I’ve been looking at their denser berry clusters and thinking I got the plant wrong.