The Fall Colors Weekend Picture Thread
Fall is here, at least for you peeps with season, this is the first weekend for leaves and such so let's see some pictures!
- Ride your bike, run, or otherwise exercise all outdoors and stuff.
- Take some pictures.
- Post pictures here, with a storyorwhatever of your weekend.
- Best post (combo of pics and story) wins something shiny from PnI.
But I gotta warn ya, I'll be tough to beat this weekend. Writing this from an RV park in Bishop, CA, sitting outside listening to my Pandora Miles Davis radio station over the campground wifi. Joanne-made mocha in hand, Riley at my feet. Racing/Riding the Everest Challenge this weekend: hardest 2-day stage race on the USA Cycling calendar, 208 miles and 29k feet of gain.
I'll do my best to take pictures when I'm not using this bad boy to climb the 18-20% grades at 10k ft elevation: SRAM Apex 34-11 cassette and rear DR + SRAM Red compact, shown here next to 26-11....for scale 
http://ow.ly/i/3Wij
The gearing is VERY tasty on loonnggg 8% stuff and I hit some 16-18% stuff on Wednesday with it. Much, much better than the 26-11.
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VERMONT WEEKEND
Whirlwind trip to Cuttingsville, VT to see my oldest son, Ryan and his GF, Delilah. Wonderful visit. They just got an 11-week old Golden Retriever, and they named him Gus! A Golden puppy is just ridiculous, they’re so cute! He was picture perfect all day—getting stuck in the long grass and bunny hopping through it. Plopping down on a walk when he's just too tired. Sitting pretty to wheedle a treat. Cali, our dog, got him to go in the lake for the first time after a tennis ball—nothing like peer pressure. Too much! He and Cali romped like old friends until they dropped!
I always come away from visiting Ryan amazed at how hard he works and what he’s trying to accomplish. He's Director of the Work Program at Spring Lake Ranch—a therapeutic work community for adults with mental illness and addiction. The Ranch is the step between institution and group home. These people are very fragile—esp. when they first arrive. You see some of the residents with that 1,000-yard-stare as they walk by, tanked up on meds.
The setting is idyllic. He’s on 600 acres of pristine VT countryside with a spring fed lake. He has a darling 2-bedroom chalet-style house on the property. Part of his responsibilities—and why he wanted the job—is managing the farm and livestock. He wanted hands-on work for a few years to support his long-term goal of working in food safety/sustainability. So in addition to dealing with resident work crews with all kinds of mental illnesses, he is slowly turning the pasture land into a sustainable model—ala Polyfield Farm in Omnivore’s Dilemma. It’s fascinating how he rotates the livestock through the pastures. When the cows and sheep move to new pasture, in come the chickens in to clean it all up. The chickens, with their insect/grub eating and scratching at the earth (and in the poop), together with the sun, sanitize the land allowing good, clean forage to grow. Back go the sheep and cows, the cycle goes on, and the land thrives. It's not quite that simple, but that's the picture in general terms. His pastures are starting to look beautiful.
I do worry about how much he works, and toll on him. The romance of living on the land is tempered by the relentless, backbreaking labor, and endless hours with virtually no time off. A lot of that he put upon himself b/c of his goals above. The work projects he plans for the residents is done in collaboration with the shrinks because everything has to integrate with the therapeutic model. It’s a LOT. I gently urged him to think about keeping not only the land, but himself sustainable. Trying to explain to a 24 y/o the need to still be going strong at 40, and not be a burned out shell, is tricky business for parents.
Also, the animals on the ranch—you just fall for for them. Cow #26 was just a love—she would nuzzle right up with those big brown innocent eyes. The sheep were my favorite—so friendly and gentle. They do this little stomping thing at Gus and Cali, which was supposed to be scary, but is just funny. Great weekend. I miss seeing my boy.
Here are the pix. You will see I'm still in my running short and sneakers, and the walk was shortly after a run through the colorful Vermont hills. As I said, he's on 600 acres, and most of it with stunning vistas like this.
And because I like to win stuff, I'm throwing in these ringer pictures of Gus to round out the story of an ideal foliage weekend in New England.
Took pictures that weekend but completely forgot about this until now. Since IMC I had been taking it easy, spending lots of time with the family, drinking lots of beer and running every couple days to stay sane. My major bike project had been finally teaching all three of my kids to ride two wheelers (7 yo boy, 5 yo boy/girl twins). This tends to lead to inadvertent and frequent wind sprints. A few weekends ago was the first time all 3 were up at once (apologies for the picture quality - I was running backwards at ~50mph):
I am a person of few words, at least in the forums, but the past two week I have averaged over 140mi each week. Taking advantage of the supa warm weather, I gone out every other day. Last week we ahd soem EN'ers out for 30mi. April (my wife) was the hero with home made rolls and kishe:
This morning Bill and I got together for a 40mi. Its the longest ride he has done since July. Hes going to be sore tomorrow. We stopped for at 20 mi for McDonalds and had a blast. We added a 'Whats on my Bike' bit as well.
Craig, "fall"? You crack me up! But I love seeing kids learn to ride!
Josh- that spread is amazing!
Here's my weekend story w/pics. Joe and I headed out to the Mt Pisgah Wilderness Forest in the Blue Ridge Mountains this past weekend for 3 days of hiking including one overnight camping trip. Living on OBX, I had completely forgotten that October was considered Fall season and was pleasantly surprised to see the peak colors at the upper elevations of the mountains. Climbs went up to the 6000 ft range and temps ranged from low 70's during the day down to low 30's at night (frost on the ground and tent in the morning, brrrrrr). It was a blast, and I can thing of no better way to work my glutes and core during this post-IM down time! Waaaaaay better than bridges, squats, or lunges! So here are the pics with a few stats:
Power to weight ratio = 2.4 watts/kg
Avg Speed= 2.5mph
HF (Happiness Factor)= 100%
Home Sweet Home and my personal chef for the weekend. Note, camp food need not be boring! We enjoyed Butter Croissants with carrots, mushrooms, broccoli sprouts, and pepper jack cheese for lunch followed by black bean, roasted corn, red onion, and cheese quesadillas for dinner (with s'mores for dessert of course) and finally scrambled eggs with mushrooms & cheese, bacon(for Joe), grits, and fresh roasted & ground coffee for breakfast.
The Cliff bars we brought just in case never saw the light of day!
And yes, although I packed up the tent, Joe carried his own fare share too!
And for some reason, that's all the pics I can post
There's so many more beautiful pics to share! You'll just have to trust me, it was amazing!
OK- Looks like the max pics issue has been fixed! So here are a few more
Day 1 hiking was not an overnight tour, so my pack was significantly smaller. The views however were still amazing:
The views from the top seemed to go on forever. The pictures simply don't do it justice in terms of the scale. Stuff in the distance that looks like a field of grass is really a field of giant rhododendrums that towered over our heads. It was like walking through a hedge maze.
And finally, a few close up pics of the various things that were flowering in the middle of all this beautiful autumn color
This is the road up the mountains a few weeks ago. The colors are awesome, the warmth and sunshine are amazing!
This is a week later. Winter in coming!!
This is a contest, and I'm not saying anything nice about anybody's pictures including adorable kids, great friends, cool trekking locations, and mist-filled, heavenly vistas. Nope, not saying anything.
Or adorable puppies?
Here's one from this morning.
Chuck - I hope you have the heat tape on your roof plugged in!
And I'm not saying how funny the snow picture is either.
@al - heat tape not plugged in yet. I still have a short "get ready for winter" to-do list to get done. The tape is on the list, as well as getting the patio furniture put away and sweep the chimney. This stuff will melt and I'll get it done.
From the front porch (it was a lovely 80 degrees yesterday...)
(What the heck is heat tape
)
Heat Tape? On the roof? Yeah, I'm stumped too. Isn't that the stuff you put around the plumbing so it doesn't freeze? In any case, snow in October isn't funny, it's plain old sad!!!!
OK, this past weekend we stayed close to home, but that doesn't mean we didn't have fun enjoying fall weather. The Nags Head Woods is a maritime forest here on the island, and while there may not be a LOT of trees, there are a few doozies! We did a bunch of hiking and exploring and ran across this old oak tree
I'll spare you the pictures of us sailing on the sound with crystal blue skies in the background
Thanks Nemo, I really appreciate that... nice of you.
Heat Tape, yep on the roof (I have also seen it in the gutters to keep the gutter from freezing full of run off water). It keeps the snow from accumulating by melting it and letting it run off into the gutters or the side of the metal roof. You plug it in and it heats up, much like a heated blanket except like thick electrical tape. I never heard of it either until I moved here, works though.
OK- that settles it, I'm never moving to Wyoming! Any place that requires a heating blanket for the roof of the house is off my list for sure!
First one is of my house a few weeks ago, second is from the Alligrippie trail in Pennsylvania, third one is on the LVT in Victor on my cyclocross bike.
Nathalie