Travelogue: Table Rock, Linville Gorge

I'll begin with an apology...only well after deciding to show you these photos from atop Table Rock did I realize...I already had. Last October I had not yet fallen upon the idea of my Thursday Travelogue, but did an entry on my weekend trip for 'leaf peeping'. However, those pics were highly compressed and did not enlarge much when you clicked on them; these are much larger and make for better wallpaper shots, etc. Onward with the repetition...!

From I-40 near Morganton you can look west and see the tell-tale flat top of Table Rock, sitting to the left of the more pointed Hawksbill, both pinnacles along the east rim of the Linville Gorge Wilderness area. The above view is one of few as you approach one of several parking areas along a lengthy gravel USFS road.

If you go all the way to the terminus and picnic area, the hike up is the shortest; while it will have you heaving and marveling at how out of shape you are, it is do-able...even with my knee problems I think I could take my time and do it...as you can see from the above vista up the gorge, it's worth every step once you get up on the table.

The gleaming white metasedimentary rocks are full of character and contrast to the foliage, which was especially lit up in fall's technicolor tapestry...

There are wonderful hiking opportunities down into the wilderness area in the gorge, as well as along the rim...the shot below is looking north to the next peak, Hawksbill.

I won't go into the legend of the Brown Mountain Lights, but it is this area around Table Rock and Hawksbill they are seen along neighboring Brown Mountain ridge, 10 miles or so from Morganton. There are lots of good vantage points in the area, be it Wiseman's View on the west rim of the Gorge, to pull-offs on Highway 181, which gets you to the USFS roads leading in to Table Rock.

This is also home-base for the North Carolina Outward Bound School, and you will often see them (and many others) doing technical rock climbing in the area. While these pictures make you feel like you have the place to yourself...well, forget that ever happening. It's a popular destination...and for good reason.

So if somebody tells you to go take a hike...take 'em up on the idea and spend some time at Table Rock.

"Holdin' your tongue just right..."

Tom Higgins is a renknowned outdoor writer here in the Carolinas, and in one article (many years ago) he had gone to an Outer Banks pier to check on fishing activity...only to find most everyone empty handed except one older woman sitting on a bucket, who had a nice catch gathered for eating.

Tom went to interview her and ask her what her secret was to catching so many fish when most were catching only bug bites. She was silent for a moment, thinking the question through, then slowly and calmly drawled, "It's all in how you hold your tongue."

Amen to that. Working on live TV, you only hope you always hold your tongue just right, lest you say something on air that is worthy of much scrutiny, even if done so accidentally. And so it was Tuesday morning I created a new word for the English language, a word that just 'came out' early in a sentence...what is fascinating is both a) how quickly it all transpires, and b) how your brain slows it down into huge chunks of time for your brain to decipher and make decisions about what to do next, maybe even running a couple of scenarios through the mental cobwebs. An odd juxtaposition if not marriage of two things which run counter to each other, all in the blink of an eye.

I do 3 'live' cross-talks with an anchor, tossing to full-screen weather maps for a discussion of the day's anticipated forecast. I simply wanted to say the phrase
"isolated afternoon storms"
...that was all. Been saying it all morning. No biggee.

So imagine my surprise when I opened my mouth and instantly recombined syllables for a more concise description and called them
"assolated storms"
...boom, there it was, 'out there' before the teeth could stop it, and I immediately decided to take the Energizer Bunny way out and keep going and going and going...and making sure I didn't look at the anchor or listen to his chortling.

And maybe it played out to sleepy people getting ready for work that did nothing more than cock their heads sideways and muse, "if I didn't know better, it sounded like he just said 'assolated' storms...", going on about their day of matching up socks and packing a briefcase.

Stuff happens. Life goes on. I amused myself, and I usually do. If there is one excellent gift you can give yourself, it would be the gift of discarding your self-pride and ego so that you can laugh at yourself and your own foibles, graciously, and willingly share them with others for a good chuckle. It is wonderful medicine, and is very 'freeing', as well.

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Tomorrow is Thursday, which is my Travelogue posting day. I think I'll keep you in the Southeast this week, more specifically up in western North Carolina atop one of my favorite places to go: Table Rock, on the eastern rim of Linville Gorge. It was just last fall, with fall color aplenty to be had...and unlike now, relatively clear skies for nice distant views. Come back tomorrow, pull up a chair, and enjoy that beautiful destination (which is relatively easily gotten to, I might add.) You'll be safe inside your own home or office, and protected from any assolated storms...

"Of Storms And A LOLdog..."

What an unstable air mass Monday afternoon and evening...one severe thunderstorm warning after the other kept popping up like the famous "Whack-A-Mole" game at the state fair. I made some periodic home radar grabs from the Triad, as well as an afternoon grab from the Charlotte market which had a tornado warning in the mix, as well...(click to enlarge any pic)...

Above is a mid-afternoon shot from GSP radar covering the Charlotte market...the pink polygon is a tornado warning due to rotation aloft...the red polygons are severe thunderstorm cells...at the same time, well to the north through the Triad region was this image below as the atmosphere got crankin'...

...and since I had so many irons in the fire before going to bed, I left the radars up a while and made these grabs before powering down...

This one had a nicely developing cell in Forsyth County around 6pm....

..and then this image from 6:48pm...a little intensification on the outflow boundary from the Forsyth cell, eh?!...but wait, there's more...

...only 22 minutes later there was this image, where I HAD to quit watching and get some sleep...4 simultaneous warnings, and I'm sure it only got better...

(7:20pm)

And so it is we early A.M. meteorologists can only watch and go to sleep, knowing our P.M. couinterparts' tongues are dragging from the intense coverage...such is the beast of afternoon and evening weather in the Southeast some days, most without the benefit of an extra body to help back you up...

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In follow-up to yesterday's post on LOLcats, I took a picture I had of Mercy and made a LOLdog, just for your viewing pleasure...

I know, I know, don't quit your day job, Flute Boy...don't worry, friends, not yet...not yet...!

"Are The Felines Mutual?"

Back to work time again, and not led any particular direction in which to blog early this morning. Broaching the whole Paris Hilton fiasco would be like taking candy from a baby....oh, wait a minute...

...but I did 'stumble' upon what is a 'majorly big thing' in cyberspace that you should know about if you don't already, and simply from the standpoint of "yeah, I've heard of 'em" in water cooler conversation. That's about my level of knowledge and involvement, but at least after reading this we can pretend to be hip. Or not.

LOLcats. Kitty pidgin.
Basically, words added to animal pictures...but apparently more.

I'd seen examples but just not really understood the phenomenon (and still don't, really). The idea is to take a cute picture of kitty and add bad grammar to it, or more of the truncated and unique grammar found in the emailing and blogging world. In itself that is is like the Cliffs Note version as there is supposedly a 'right' and 'wrong' way to go about "lolcatting".

I won't profess to go into more detail...just figured I'd post some of the ones that made me chuckle or smile...

...which is always called for on a Monday morning...

Here's hoping you have a purrfect day, and that you don't have to put up with too many catty remarks...

"The Creative Process: Listening To Intuition"

While I'm going to talk about the above title as it relates to a 'new' flute, many aspects relate to any creative endeavor, especially when you work from a spiritual basis...even day to day life.

Intuition. Internal 'nudges'. That ol' gut feel. We want to listen to it, but do we? Sometimes? Never? Always? The more we get comfortable with it, the more we trust it, and the more you trust it, the more you 'go with the flow', and the more you 'go with the flow' the easier a lot of things transpire. Just the way things work.

And so I posted pics earlier of my Eagle flute...the original concept was altered out of the gate as I was going to make a closed-end flute with an eagle head, except my dimensions were all wrong so I cut it off...but I left the end of the flute solid for the rising sun inlay, just to be unique.

All was copasetic with the Sitka Spruce eagle sitting on the Ironwood block...energy was good, felt right, it was all lights green...but the flute had me hooked only 85%. Lots of little things kept me from being totally comfortable with it, some I could identify and some I couldn't. Maybe the block and 4-color bands competed instead of complimented. The key waffled between E-flat and D, and I ended up making it a D...nice fundamental, played fine...but I was never fully at peace with it. Not that everything can always be perfect, mind you, but something inside kept gnawing that the flute was not yet 'finished'.

As I will often do, I allowed 'things' to just sit for a couple of weeks...I'd pick the flute up and play it, handle it, etc....leave it alone, revisit it, leave it alone...and those 'nudges' never really left. While it drew interest, there were no buyers, and I was in no rush to see it go feeling like I did.

Forward to last week where I took some flute blanks I glued up a month ago and began selectively tuning a few of them. Anymore these days, with all the weather work and squirrelly schedules, I've shifted more to quality instead of quantity with flutes...I've been taking my time to establish more perfected voices and designs, and it's working pretty well.

Then came along my first flute out of a unique board of Brazilian Cherry I've had for a year. Low E-flat. Rock solid. Dropped in the finger holes which immediately needed very little adjustments, which is not necessarily a good thing: in sanding down of the barrel the pitch can rise slightly, so you want to keep notes below pitch until you are finished sanding. Once the barrel was 90% sanded, I over-bored the finger holes to 1/2" diameter, in which I inserted 1/2" Walnut plugs...from there I selected a smaller drill bit for the centers and brought the flute up to pitch...so now I have finger holes rimmed in dark brown, a nice contrast to the golden flute color.

I always complete a flute body before ever making the specific block to go on top, an essential part of this creative process. Then, just the other morning around 1:30am (my day starts early, to say the least!), I got this overwhelming 'suggestion' to put the eagle block on this flute...and it was like the old cartoon SHA-ZAAM! (dating myself here) where two people joined the halves of their rings and all this magical power erupted...I had just mated and created the flute that was 'supposed to be'.

The look. The feel. The sound. That voice. Instant synergy, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. And because it wasn't a custom order, I exercised my right to 'dibs' and am keeping it in my personal collection. Kind of a nice right to have, though I haven't officially 'kept' a flute in a couple of years, believe it or not. I do the majority of my recording and performing with maybe a dozen older flutes that are like extensions of me, and now those select ranks have grown one more. I imagine before long I'll record with it and post a link here, but that may be a few weeks away yet.

FYI, I've taken the brown flute, cut 2" off the end, added a thin Ebony end cap, and raised the pitch to E. As I suspected, it now 'snaps' when it plays...just refinished the body, and will now see what 'nudges' I get for its new and more appropriate block...pics to come when finished...and speaking of pics, remember you can click on any pic to enlarge for better viewing.

It's Friday, and one of those days we revel in with the freeing weekend before us, even with double-shift duty today. Like a pony smelling the barn on the return trail home, it is...enjoy!

Travelogue: "Oh Give Me A Home..."

(click to enlarge pics)

I did see the buffalo roam in western South Dakota, but I can't say I saw the deer and the antelope play...there are Mule Deer there, to be sure, but I never saw them fraternizing side by side with the antelope.

I felt led to show you simple pictures of one of our western animal icons, the Pronghorn Antelope. If you want to be particular, 'true' antelopes are found only in Africa and Asia...the North American Pronghorn is a member of a related family, Antilocapridae (and its only living member, too). I knew you wanted to know that...

In line with yesterday's blog per dog intelligence, you need only to look into the dark long-eyelashed eyes of these beautiful creations to realize they must be of the same ilk (they are). Those eyes are set well back in the head, allowing them to be vigilant even when their head is down feeding...and can detect movement 3 miles away. And well they should, as they live only on open prarie habitat with no place to hide.

Their key to survival is their speed: sprint speeds hit 60mph, and they can gear down to 30mph and travel for miles...no other land animal can do that or keep up with it. While the cheetah is credited with being the top sprinter, that it its only speed, and is limited to a few hundred yards before running out of gas.

The females are rather easily distinguished from the males in two ways: while 40% of females will grow horns, they get no longer than their ears; too, females lack the black patch under and behind the eyes. Above is a healthy young female Pronghorn. Below is a male.

Overall herd estimates in the North American Plains once numbered 40 to 50-million; by 1915, there were only 12,000 or so left, victims of the same disgraceful slaughter practices wrought upon the buffalo by the white settlers and expansionists. The overwhelming majority of Pronghorns now live in Wyoming and Montana, though you will see the occasional Pronghorn family dotting the western South Dakota landscape just about anywhere.

These photos came from the protected boundaries of Custer State Park in the Black Hills southwest of Rapid City, South Dakota.

"Finding Inner Strength..."

If you can start the day without caffeine,

If you can get going without pep pills,

If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,

If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,

If you can eat the same food every day and be grateful for it,

If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,

If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,

If you can ignore a friend's limited education and never correct him,

If you can resist treating a rich friend better than a poor friend, If you can conquer tension without medical help,

If you can relax without liquor,

If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,

Then most likely...

You are the family dog.

(my 'niece' Gracie Child)
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The above writing came from the land of forwarded emails, but warrants a "Touche'!"...the pic came from my brother, of Gracie as a pup with Hogzilla-ette...

There have been some studies recently released about our canine companions being 'more' than we realize in terms of intelligence, emotions, and learning abilities. For those of us that have long considered all of life to be related and of the same Essence, who look at the 2-legged's position as one of "steward" to this planet and not "master" of all, it comes as zero surprise, these findings.

Dog's Display of Logic and Dogs and English

To go one step further, when I'm out walking in the woods...or really anywhere for that matter...I have learned to implicitly trust them when there is a sudden change in, say, Mercy's behavior. I'm also a firm believer that dogs and animals are much more in tune with the real world than we think-too-much humans are, and that they see energy fields and other dimensions we refuse to acknowledge and see ourselves. Sure, she catches sight of a squirrel and she perks up, but on countless occasions she has stopped dead in her tracks and sensed something was not right...and I honor and defer to her knowing something I don't...and without going into details let's just say I use her as an alternate set of 'eyes' for very good reasons. I can also tell you she can pick out a jerk a mile away. Very useful 'eyes', she has.

Woof, y'all!

"Loose Ends" kind of day...

No doubt we rejoiced here in the Southeast, thanks to what was an instantaneous tropical storm Friday afternoon, Barry. The rapidity with which it went from disorganized low all the way to TS status was a bit jaw-dropping, and hopefully not a sign of how volatile such storms will form this year. Just a nice rain-maker for the Piedmont, but at least most of it fell at a steady rate ideal for soaking in and not running off. Sure, a few boomers made for locally heavy rain, but it was a nice cloudy, cool, showery, windy day that felt good to be out in. Sorta. Because my Triad market has no live body to do weather the first half of Saturdays and Sundays, yours truly gets the nod if we need to have one...which is okay from the standpoint that most days I work on my flutes outside, and if the weather is that bad, I couldn't do that anyway, and most likely my earned day off will be a nice one.

On my way home, I decided to run some errands, one of which was hitting Wal-Mart. In a word, 'mistake'. Sunday afternoon there is like an opened Pandora's Box. Just too many people, with more 'miss' than 'hit' stocking issues. I start each day swigging a giant can of V-8 juice (or off-brand), and I needed to grab some...but there were only 2 cans period, and they were severely dented (I don't buy severely dented cans - not a good idea). They are literally one half the price there compared to grocery stores, and when you buy 6 cans that's an extra $10 I can save (or pay). Bummer. It was also plain hot in that store. Nothin' like getting overheated in a crammed WalMart full of people that have lousy vision beyond the end of their noses. I suppose, though, the overwhelming feeling I came away from that visit was "What is it going to take for 'society' to understand how badly overweight and out of shape we are, collectively?". That will have to be a blog discourse for another day, I'm afraid...

Speaking of hot, we've already had a couple of 90s days, and more ahead the end of this week...Mercy was starting to shed, and her yak of a Border Collie-mix coat, which begged to be removed...never done that to one of my pups before, not even my husky Kita years ago...but I know she feels better...even if she looks a little embarrassed! While she's not a skinny as she was running around out in the Black Hills, I was relieved to realize that a lot of her bulk really was her thick coat, as this pup eats surprisingly little . I remove my coat and, alas, I don't get similar results...

"Liquid Gold Finally Arrives!"

In to work the Sunday AM and Midday shift thanks to Barry, or rather the remnants of Barry. It's a joyous thing to finally get some rain on our parched soils. To celebrate, what better clip to watch than Gene Kelly in the classic song and dance scene:

"Singin' In The Rain"!

click and enjoy!

"The Cooper's Hill Cheese Rolling and Wake"

I was alerted to this annual rite through a story I'd heard on the BBC radio early one morning on my way to work this week...in the odd overnight hours, NPR radio often kicks over to the British Broadcasting Corporation for news and insights...and when I listened to this particular interview and article, I knew I had to research this rather unusual sounding event for myself on-line...

Basically, it's called Cheese-Rolling, and it takes place on the incredibly rough, steep but grassy Cooper's Hill in Gloucestershire, UK (the slope reaches an incline of 1 in 2 places, which means if it goes 10 feet forward, it goes down/up 10 feet, as well!). Most will agree it has been going on for hundreds of years, while some believe it to date to Pre-Roman times.

The present Master of Ceremonies Rob Seex
- dairy farmer of Upton-St. Leonards

Regardless, in each of several races, a 7-8 lb. wheel of cheese is released down the steep knoll of Cooper's Hill, with madmen and madwomen chasing in hot pursuit... doing all they can to stay on their feet but overwhelmingly failing to do so along the way, tumbling mercilessly, endlessly...first one over the chalked line wins, no matter how you get there. With the cheese hurtling up to 70 mph, it's more of a one-way demolition derby for the human body.

And what does the winner recieve? A wheel of cheese. As much as I love cheese, I do believe I'll use my debit card to get some.

For those of you looking to conquer some of Life's odd challenges, the 2008 dates is Monday May 26, high noon. Below, you'll find some video links that give you a 'taste' of what the event is all about...


News-type report (event overview): VIDEO

Good spectator footage: VIDEO

"Travelogue: Elk Mountain, WY/SD border

(click photos to enlarge)

Welcome to Elk Mountain, overlooking Highway 16 between Jewel Cave National Monument, SD, and Newcastle, WY.

In 2001, lightning-induced fire ravaged this state-straddling mountain, an area that is no stranger to fire danger. A long winding road leads from the valley to the top of this broad, linear summit, which has an active fire tower at the northern terminus.

While there is obviously new life re-establishing itself, it's one of those places you might decide to pass on, given the lack of aesthetics from the charred vertical matchsticks...


...and yet, there is the occasional pocket where the fire 'jumped' and spared the vegetation, as well. No, this is not one of those classic picturesque destinations that is a "must see", but I'm a firm believer that wherever you are, there are treasures to be found...as long as you are open to finding them.

What large boulder formations were there are still full of interest beckoning to be explored, and home to various plants in the nooks and crannies as well as protective shelters for insects and small mammals.

Compared to the rest of this region, which lies in the extreme southwest corner of the Black Hills Complex, the surrounding landscape is subtle...by all appearances it looks gently rolling, although upon closer inspection there are myriad vegetated canyons and 'draws' worth exploring and driving ('nuther travelogue for another day).

And so I began to look closer at little parts of the picture...the flowers having a hay-day in all the sunshine they now enjoy...

...watching an unidentified butterly (Brush-footed species?) relax a moment...

...catching a grasshopper before it makes a leap many times it's body length...

One of the more relaxing aspects for me was that I had it all to myself while I was there. Did climb the fire tower and speak to the ranger on duty (where I captured some of the vistas like the one below); otherwise, it was another day of relaxation, exploration...and wonderment.

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NOTE: Come back tomorrow for a look at a strange centuries-old annual tradition from across The Pond that took place just a few days ago...a case study in how to jeopardize your body's health!