Ok folks, this seems to be a test element.
It’s still magnificent!
See you Thursday.
Aspens, Andes.
On The Road – Gin & Tonic – Mendoza, ArgentinaPost + Comments (17)
by Alain Chamot (1971-2020)| 17 Comments
This post is in: On The Road, Photo Blogging
Ok folks, this seems to be a test element.
It’s still magnificent!
See you Thursday.
Aspens, Andes.
On The Road – Gin & Tonic – Mendoza, ArgentinaPost + Comments (17)
by Alain Chamot (1971-2020)| 41 Comments
This post is in: On The Road, Open Threads, Photo Blogging, Readership Capture, Travel
Welcome to the new On The Road! It’s been a long time coming, and I’m excited that we’re back.
I’m still deep in the moving/unpacking process. To explain the long time this is taking – I’m moving two houses (my mother’s and mine) into my newly-purchased home. And my house has 1.5 houses worth of stuff from our inability to throw things away combined with my mother-in-law’s stuff we inherited. So it’s not as simple as “put everything in a box” – in some cases, we have three, even four, of an item, but they aren’t together. So as we pack things or reveal things to be packed, we often have to put an item aside until we can get to the other house to group similar items.
Coincidentally, I now live right near a feature called Red Rocks.
And now onto Bill!
I’ve made a couple of trips up to Red Rock to take advantage of it’s dark skies this past month. The first trip I concentrated on the Orion nebula, a wide shot of the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies, and a wide shot of the Orion nebula complex. I was quite unhappy with the later and returned to reshoot it(with a wider 30mm lens). I also wanted to shoot a narrow shot of the Triangulum galaxy but the battery on my sky tracker ran out of juice. On the way back though Mojave the CHP had blocked off the road for a truck carrying a very long, eh, something to the Mojave Spaceport.
Technical Note: The two Orion photos have the notation “LRGB Processing”, this method of processing a photo separates the luminosity and the color in a photo and processes them separately.
Star Trails at the Red Cliffs.
When I shoot at a place with an interesting foreground, I’ll set up one camera and shoot star trails. They’re easy to shoot and due to the relative lack of air traffic at Red Rock, easy to process as well.
by Alain Chamot (1971-2020)| 20 Comments
This post is in: On The Road, Open Threads, Readership Capture, Travel
Good Morning Everyone,
Today we’re finishing up HinTN’s long-lost, then re-sent submissions from an amazing trip to Utah. So far, it’s been wonder after wonder, and I know you’ll just love today’s offering!
But…this brief resurrection of On The Road is now over, and so OTR will return when the new site launches. When it does, please use the new form that will be available on the new site to make submissions. As soon as I have one, I’ll begin the new On The Road. One issue with the new form and site is that the old OTR content will not be edited to look like the new OTR stuff, so layout, etc. will be very different. It looks good and works well, clean and simple – I can’t wait for the first submission and post!
That plus my moving is why I’m fine with having a hiatus – there will be a clean break between old and new content and layout, etc. and I don’t have a lot of time for the next couple of weeks. I’m still mid-craziness, though things are getting better by the day.
Continuing the series from HinTN.
The only one from Dead Horse Point State Park.
Dead Horse Point – Colorado River View from Ryans Bench
Dead Horse Point State Park is a small slice of the hugeness that is Islands in the Sky, but it is especially beautiful in its overlooking of the Colorado River. This photograph is from the location of a bench placed in honor of a young man who loved these lands, worked at the park, and died much too young.
And then there’s Arches NP. Wow, just WOW!
The first of five from Arches National Park.
Arches – North and South Arch
This is more or less what I thought Arches was going to be about, but I was delighted to discover how much more there is to this small park.
Arches – Sand Dune Arch
Sand Dune Arch was located in an enclosed space reached by passing through a narrow defile. Sand collected in the space, creating a beach you could sink your bare feet into satisfyingly cool sand and kids could play underneath and on top of the arch itself.
Arches – Broken Arch Across the Desert
Emerging from the beach at Sand Dune, the trek across the desert to Broken Arch beckoned with this vista.
Arches – Arches in the Making Part 2
One of the most interesting aspects of being in Arches, indeed in all these parks, was the immediacy of the vastness of geologic time. Both water and wind work ever so slowly and inexorably on the seemingly immutable land. These “arches in the making” were exemplars of this work.
Arches – Landscape Arch and its Replacement
It was a brisk one hour round trip out to Landscape Arch, which in geologic time is probably not much longer for this world. Luckily, it has a replacement close to hand. If you look closely you can see how it’s growing wider.
Also too, Moab was a delightful town.
Wow, just wow. Utah has amazing geology and I’m so thankful you could share some of it with us. In the late ‘oughts, I did a couple of solo roadtrips from Colorado into Utah. Out West, I just love to drive and see, just see everything. So I went to Arches and did a couple of brief, hour hikes and took some (not so good!) photos and saw enough of Canyonlands to know I wanted to go and really explore and spend some time. Since then, I’ve learned of lots of interesting remains in Canyonlands, things left over from explorers, outlaws, hermits, Native tribes, etc. You could spend a lifetime exploring its entirety just on the geology, flora, and fauna, but with archaeology added, it really should be on folks’ “don’t-miss” list.
Have a great day, Halloween, and related holidays. I hope the Great Pumpkin is kind to you and yours.
It’s comforting that my mother died on All Soul’s Day/Dia de los Muertos. I’ve been a light collector/fan of Day of the Dead artwork, sculptures, and figurines for over 20 years now, but this year everything is packed; pre-Christmas, decorating isn’t a priority right now!
On that note, OTR shall return with the new site, take care, all!
by Alain Chamot (1971-2020)| 28 Comments
This post is in: On The Road, Open Threads, Readership Capture, Travel
Good morning, everybody and Happy Friday!
Today we continue with some fantastic submissions from HinTN that I’d lost but have been re-sent. We’ll continue Monday, and that may be it until the new site. I very much wanted to run these as the last ones before my hiatus so I’m so glad HinTN reached out and re-sent them to me – I felt horrible being unable to retrieve them, and am thankful for gracious people.
Have a great weekend, everybody!
These are from Canyonlands NP.
Canyonlands – Green River Overlook
Canyonlands NP and Dead Horse Point SP share the same space near Moab, UT Dead Horse Point is tiny; Canyonlands NP is huge. It has three contiguous but very distinct areas, all of which overlook from various elevations the confluence of the Colorado and Green Rivers. We only got to visit Island in the Sky, which shares space with Dead Horse Point State Park. The view south over the Green River is amazing because the drop from the overlook to that tableland is about 1,000 feet. Then wherever the water ran the land is just carved away into the drainage for the Green River.
Canyonlands – View through Mesa Arch
This photo looks east through the Mesa Arch, over the Colorado River to the Lasale Mountains.
Canyonlands – Jeep Trip Hammer Formation
We took a jeep trip at Canyonlands, too, and along the way we saw more of Thor’s Hammers.
by Alain Chamot (1971-2020)| 15 Comments
This post is in: On The Road, Open Threads, Readership Capture, Travel
Good morning, everybody!
This is a brief return of OTR. These are pictures I’d hoped to run a few weeks back, so I’m glad to finally be able to run them. I will continue tomorrow and Monday, and we’ll see how things stand then.
The move is going well, but slowly. It’s a complicated situation but the end is in sight and normal life should re-commence in a couple of weeks.
Without further ado, enjoy the pictures and the day!
These are a continuation from HinTN, long-overdue thanks to yours truly losing them and then access to my old email. The delay is 100% my lame-ass fault.
These are from Capitol Reef National Park.
Capitol Reef – Approach from Boulder Mountain
As you drive from Bryce to Capitol Reef NP you cross Boulder Mountain, which affords a first look at the area around Capitol Reef. It is primarily a long geologic feature called the Waterpocket Fold, a huge sandstone formation that runs north and south to the west of the Henry Mountains.
Capitol Reef – Arch in the Making
The park is so big that we took a four hour jeep ride just to try and get a sense of the land. Of course we saw a nascent arch. They are everywhere in this area when you start looking.
Capitol Reef – Petroglyphs
The park includes a very hospitable river bottom with lush grasses and fruit
I just love seeing petroglyphs, it’s an amazing way to touch mankind from ages past. Looking at them you can almost see a bare arm scratching on the walls during a smoky, boring night or rainy day.
Have a great day, everyone. We’ll return to Utah tomorrow!
by Alain Chamot (1971-2020)| 23 Comments
This post is in: On The Road, Open Threads, Readership Capture, Travel
Folks,
Today is the last regular post for a few weeks as I have to focus on packing and moving and unpacking and a bunch of related things. Our offer was accepted and things are moving fast!
I had hoped the new site would be live and the new submission function would be functional and so we’d have a bunch of content lined up, but that’s not the case and I don’t have the time to deal with email submissions right now, so please accept my apologies. I’ll try to post something here and there, but I don’t expect I’ll be back to a regular schedule until next month, unless the new site comes on before then.
Today’s picture is the view, a 5-10 minute walk from my soon-to-be front door. I’m so very excited to be so close to the river as I spent age 7-30 minus college near this same river but miles downstream. I spent countless hours along and in it, exploring, learning, fishing, partying, and in general, playing with Nature. I’m glad I’ll have such access again – being able to walk to the river from home is such a nice thing, it becomes a companion, a refuge from home and the stressors of life that you can almost stumble to, instead of having to drive somewhere and deal with all that hassle.
Looks like I can eat 1-3 fish per month (depending on species) from this part of the river, which is so much better than where I used to live downstream – fish are verboten for those who care and it always breaks my heart to see so many immigrant laborers fishing to feed their families in the late afternoons and evenings. I get it, and I love to eat fish, so I fish to eat, not just for sport, but it saddens me seeing them feed their families a significant part of their weekly protein from not-so-good waters. The fish that far downstream have heavy metals and nasty chemicals in them, but fresh, “free” protein is undeniable as is the joy of some good time outside catching dinner.
Have a great rest of the week, everybody!
by Alain Chamot (1971-2020)| 8 Comments
This post is in: On The Road, Open Threads, Readership Capture, Travel
Folks,
Sorry for the no-post Friday, my laptop was restoring until the wee hours of the morning and I was sound asleep.
On that note, have a great day and let’s hope this week is full of good stuff, though perhaps less crazy. Or not, maybe this is the fever we need to burn through.
For mushrooms this year, I’ve got one last set of pics and explanations.
First, to answer some questions from earlier posts, like all fungi, the king bolete(boletus edulis) fruit when the conditions are good. That set of conditions varies depending on the type of mushroom. It is often about water. This is for two reasons – wet ground is welcoming to mushroom spores and the moisture from the rain is used to make the mushrooms which are a fruiting of the fungus organism to spread spores. In the mountains of Central/Southern Colorado, temperature is also a factor as rains earlier in the summer do not produce the boletes, and the later in the year, the less likely a rain is to generate growth. These proto mushrooms usually begin underground along the mycelium strands in the dirt. With sufficient moisture and time, they will pop-up from the ground, displacing earth and otherwise forcing themselves up and out of the dark. If there was substantial rain, or if more comes, then the mushroom will keep growing. I’ve seem some (rotten!) that were close to 2 feet tall and I’ve seen pics of even larger specimens from Oregon where moisture is prevalent; the mountains I explore in Colorado are in the arid zone for the most part, only a few spots being “alpine”. The mycelium routes water from a large area to their fruit, so finding pools or areas where water flows when it rains will often be good clues to finding mushrooms.
Mushrooms are huge protein providers, so many forest animals enjoy them, even species that are toxic or distressful to humans. It’s neat to see an elk or deer snacking on a large mushroom, or to see a squirrel or chipmunk run away with one in its mouth. They are tasty and very good for you, but as I recommend, although you can eat some raw, most mushrooms have some proteins and enzymes that can cause gastrointestinal distress. These potential irritants are denatured by cooking. Never eat something unless you are 100% sure you’ve identified it correctly; this takes experience. The wrong mushroom, raw or cooked, can permanently destroy one or more organs or cause a painful, horrible death of organ failure and lingering misery.
Preserving mushrooms is a whole book, I’m sure. I usually slice them and dry them in my dehydrator or a very low-oven (very risky if you aren’t a hawk!). You can also slice them and mix them with oil and freeze with reasonably good results. You can also can them – either in water or in tomato sauce (as a jump start on pasta sauce as the boletes contribute a lot of flavor and umami). I keep dried mushrooms in glass jars and they survive fine for years if kept cool, dark, and dry.
I was asked about spore printing to identify mushrooms. What you do is cut two mushrooms of the same type and put each cut on a piece of black or white paper. After a couple of hours, it will release spores from the underside of the cap onto the paper. This print is unique to the species and so is a great tool for identification, even if it takes some time. You do white and black paper because identical-looking mushrooms (LBMs, for example – little brown mushrooms) can shoot out white or black spores or something in between, so it’s best to just spore print both paper colors unless you’re sure. I’ve not seen colored spores, but I believe that there are some neat specimens out there.
I wish I knew more; I hope to be able to spend some serious time learning more about the different species. I’ve got a few books but so much of the detail washes over me like a small wave. I have seen some amazing slime molds and non-mushroom fungus but cannot find the pictures. I expect I’ll find them some day and that will be a new post!
OK, onto the pictures. These were mostly taken in the rain.
Pushing up through the soil/litter. These are not boletes, sullus or something like that. The color is similar, and when you find mature specimens, they often confuse from the top. The dead giveaway is that the underside of the cap has gills whereas the king bolete has tubes.
Boletes soaking up the rain and getting bigger in front of my eyes! Yum yum yum.
A wet, fresh amanita muscaria.
The cap of a bolete growing at-angle. Odd.
Not too bad a mushroom! I did not cut this well – you can see the white matter/clumping stuff under and in the dirt. That is the mycelium and ideally, I’d have cut the mushroom stalk at a better angle to maximize harvest while leaving the mycelium and adjacent mushroom flesh in situ.
Yep, more amanita muscarias.
Now this is what I’m talking about – a nice group of boletes to collect. In good years, when you find one, you find a few, and when you look around when you get up from cutting and cleaning the last one, you see many neighbors within sight. It’s like a gold rush – your heart starts pumping more, the adrenaline floods, and your excitement pulses.
A large bolete and a huge bolete. That’s my foot, folks! They are young, so not so tall, which is good because less chance of flies, but bad because the white stalk is solid protein and the bulk of the edible mushroom ideally and so another 6-24 hours of growth would make for a lot more to harvest. I took them anyway.
Not quite a Fairy Circle, but darned close. Fairy Circles are “circles” of mushrooms of the same type, but this is just a run.
Nope, not a bolete, a large amanite muscaria.
My beloved mother, collecting boletes with me on a hail-covered mountain side. I miss her every day and I’m so thankful I could take up her up on an adventure I wanted to share. She was a great sport and look what she found!
Have a great day, everyone, we’ll be back tomorrow.