Leaving Las Vegas

Well, I surprised myself at the number of posts that I was able to pull together about my recent trip to Las Vegas and the side trip to Death Valley.  But all good things must end, and today will be the last post on that topic. By the way, press play on the video above while you read this post, if you'd like some ambience.

These days, and dating back to the early '90's, it's my preference to get an aisle seat on a plane. I'll go to great lengths for that position; mind you, it doesn't offset legroom, but the liberty for just one of my shoulders in the confined space of a flight is worth it. But I put aside that objective for part of the return home from Vegas - the relatively short flight from Las Vegas to Denver - and took the window seat I was assigned. That decision turned out to offer something of a treat.

My view was to the northwest of our flight path, and since we were flying in the late afternoon the sun's rays were not so bright in the cabin. I opened the shade periodically to check progress - I guess I snapped an iPhone photo every 15 to 20 minutes - they are shown here in order. The first is of part of Lake Mead, just outside of Vegas, then they track Nevada and Utah, ending with the snowcapped 14-er in Colorado.

(Note - the blogspot photo interface is giving me fits today. Sorry about the disjointed text layout!)

In particular, as I was flying over Utah, I realized that I was seeing landscapes I drove through once, down I-15 from the Rockies to the Los Angeles basin.  It was amazing, the sense of recognition I had for the views and geology.

On that trip, I had stayed overnight at a Motel 6 in Green River, Utah, with the plan to drive all the way in to Los Angeles the next day. I had car trouble in the southwest corner of that state - after six years of weekends only use the radiator coolant in my Oldsmobile had calcified, and the car was not up to the heat of desert driving. After consulting with AAA (and giving Mary a healthy scare back in DC), they referred me to a 24-hour service station on the Strip in Las Vegas, so for the rest of that Sunday afternoon I limped into the Bright Lights City, driving until the red light came on and then pulling over until it went off.

I got a room in the Motel Six just off the Strip, as it happens only a block away from where I stayed this time.  The service station replaced my radiator overnight (I spent most of the day in the MGM Grand sports bookwatching the ponies); my car was ready by 11am, and I was on the road at noon.  The charge was around $400, very reasonable for what they had to do and for my my circumstances.  They even called Mary a week later to check in and make sure I had gotten where I was going.

By the way, that service station is long gone now, it stood approximately where the Bellagio fountains are now.  But I do remember that experience as among the best adventures I've had, not to mention one of the best customer service experiences I've ever witnessed.

A few years later as I was visiting my grandparents, I had occasion to remember all this when I saw the postcard I had sent them from Green River, Utah on their refridgerator. Grandma said that when they first retired, about 15 years earlier, they had also stopped for a while in Green River - they were car camping though.  That campground was only two blocks from the Motel 6, so it's very likely we saw the same things.

Well, with the photo of the 14-er coming up here, I'm reaching the end of my tale.  I had a great trip to Las Vegas and out west.  If you've never been, it's well worth it. 

Death Valley: Badwater Salt Flats

Visiting here, the baby boomer of my generation feels some vague connection to that old television show Death Valley Days, and the Borax commercials with the twenty mule teams – all of them part of the history of the place, but it is the glowing white stretch of old sea bed, the Badwater Salt Flats, that first comes to mind when I think of when I think of Death Valley.

I arrived here and realized that I had caught up with the tour buses I’d seen earlier over at Zebriskie Point. I recognized one group as Germans, both from the language and because of the naturalist behaviors they immediately fell into once they got out into the salt flat proper – wearing shorts and sandals with wool socks, the men immediately took their shirts off for their walks.

After leaving the parking lot, there is a boardwalk to start the visit. This part of the area needs that protection – there was standing water in the pools, clearly building those little salt formations I’d seen earlier at Devil’s Golf Course.

After getting my picture taken for the Tech-watch Geek post I made last Friday, I decided to walk on out into the desert on the trail surface. However it was done, there is a salt layer that is a couple of inches thick that is smoothed out from the traffic – either the footsteps of thousands of tourists or some kind of construction vehicle had prepared the surface for hiking. There was residual moisture on the surface, making a sort of greasy solution that left footprints, belying what appears to be a glassy smooth area from a distance.

Back to the German tourists for a moment: the salt flats are very much like a snow-covered ski slope, with all the glare. Fortunately the trek out is only a mile each way, maybe less, and I’m sure the bus kept a tight schedule, so sunburn was minimized, even with shirts doffed. Considering this, there was another point of amusement for me with the Germans encountering this environment – so much curiosity and exploration – one fellow knelt on the boardwalk to reach down into the salt water, and brought his hand back to his mouth for a taste!

This is an area where the drama of the extremes is truly evident. As I mentioned in the earlier post, this is the lowest elevation on the continent of North America, officially 280 feet or so below sea level. The sheer cliffs that rise from just beyond the parking lot reach to more than 5,700 feet; across the valley, they reach 11,000 feet, and they are still rising from geologic forces.

I was in the park on a fall day. I’m reading in my guidebook that during the summer, when air temperatures exceed 100 degrees, the ground temperature – those salt flats underfoot – can exceed 180 degrees. And those Germans were wearing wool socks!

The visit to Badwater was my final stop in the valley, as I needed to begin heading back to Las Vegas to return the car. I guess I walked four miles or so all totaled, but the elevation changes were negligible and I’d kept hydrated, so I didn’t feel tired. Quite stimulated by the new environment, one I’d never seen before. There’s quite a list of sights I didn’t make it to – perhaps next time I’m in Vegas.

Death Valley: Natural Bridge and Devil’s Golf Course

These were my next two stops during my drive through Death Valley. There is a hike in the Best Easy Day Hikes book for the Natural Bridge stop; for Devil’s Golf Course, it’s simply a two mile drive out into the Salt Flats where you can look across a landscape like no other I’ve ever seen: desolate and treacherous, totally uninviting.


The book describes the hike to Natural Bridge as a walk through a gently sloped canyon with a climb totaling 520 feet. It’s listed as a two mile hike round trip, but I probably only did half of that, and I certainly didn’t partake of the whole climb. The bridge appears early in the canyon; there are quite a few other geologic features here to explore, culminating in a “dryfall,” which marks an area that turns into a waterfall when it rains enough.

The kiosk at the trailhead explains all of the geologic phenomena that hikers encounter here, including different kinds of faults and arches, and mud drips. The view over the salt flats from the parking lot is awesome and intimidating at the same time…I found that I was amazed enough at the view and experience that I was more exuberant than some of the other tourists could take. I wonder whether they would enjoy a hike with me on my home turf in Shenandoah National Park.

These mud drips were particularly interesting. Bigger flash floods have done the bulk of the work carving out the canyon and the natural bridge, but the mud drips emphasize the ceaseless erosion that is happening here. When there is enough rain above, it drains from the higher surfaces into the canyon, leaving tracks of sediment on the walls as the water evaporates to a trickle – and frequently doesn’t even reach the canyon floor. I took a close look and touched one of them – the mud tracings are like wax, shiny and translucent – and then stepping back, you see that the whole canyon wall is etched with them. Beautiful.

Getting back to the car, I took a break for some refreshment and then headed to Devil’s Golf Course. That involves a drive along a gravel road out to a cul de sac, where there are some interpretive signs about the landscape, which begins abruptly off the shoulders of the road. Thankfully, few people walk out into the area here, so the landscape is close enough to natural for all to enjoy.

The salt flats periodically fill with water after heavier rains, so the runoff pools in basins and then soaks into an ancient lake bed. It becomes a solution with the residual mineral salts, carrying them to the surface when the water evaporates. There the minerals adhere to sand and rocks, crystallize, and then build rough, irregular formations.

It would be difficult to walk very far here because the structures are fragile and would quickly take their toll on ankles and knees. A fall would leave you bruised and bleeding, stinging from the salt that would grind into the scrape wounds.

Yet, wildlife flourishes here, with specially adapted species (1,000 of them, according to the NPS handout) living here and elsewhere. I figured that was another good reason not to venture far out into this area. Taking a look from the safety of that little cul de sac in the desert was enough for me!

Death Valley's Golden Canyon Interpretive Trail

As advertised in the Best Easy Day Hikes book (Amazon link at the end of the post) the route for this hike follows a sand and rocky wash trail through a canyon for about a mile, and covers about 250 feet of elevation change. There is an option for a longer hike of about 6.5 miles, with 960 feet of elevation change, which goes back into the Zabriskie Point area. I chose the short route, since I knew I had a couple of additional stops to make while I was visiting Death Valley.


There is a story about the rocky wash. Apparently there was a road up into this canyon at one point, but a sustained rain in the ‘70’s dropped more than two inches of precip here, and the old road washed out. Now the route is restricted to ped’s, but it is a very interesting route.

A key point of interest is what’s happening here, in a canyon that is estimated to be only 3 million or so years old. That’s young by geologic standards (during my trip to the Grand Canyon, I recall that the exposed rocks near the river are billions of years old – half the age of the earth). You can see the rock layers, also called the Furnace Creek Formation, that have been carved out by wind and water, and then traces of seismic activity, so it’s almost like the earth is changing right in front of you.

I was particular struck by the one at the beginning of the post, it is a peak of bleached out sandstone.  All along the face of it climbing out of the canyon are chimney like gulleys that have been carved into its face. There were several of them, the photo I have is the one that showed the contrasts best – the images didn’t capture the depth of these very well due to the bright sunlight.

I spent an hour up in the canyon, walking probably about a mile. Ahead there was a rock formation called the Red Cathedral, which can just be seen in one of the photos. It was right about this point that I started noticing that the polarization in my sunglasses was highlighting colors I hadn’t noticed when I took my shades off – particularly greens and violets, so I stopped for a few to examine these features more closely.

The angle of these rocks, tilting upwards to the west, is a testament to the ongoing changes. Apparently, the western mountains continue to be thrust upwards, while the valley itself continues to gradually sink.

Coming to terms with the scale of the changes and the relatively short timeframes of the events brought home the fact that human activity can have a profound impact on the planet and our environment. That’s nothing that hasn’t been said before, I know, but for me, it only served to reinforce thoughts about my own responsibilities with respect to the environment.

Here’s a link to the Best Easy Day Hikes book:

Death Valley: This is a Dangerous Place

“1904: Gold—found just east of what is now the park—sparks the last great American gold rush. The gold rush draws 10,000 people, three railroads, and a masonry, three-story bank to the district of Rhyolite.”

– From the NPS Death Valley Brochure

The photo here is of the Ashford Mill ruin, which is in the south part of the road-accessible portion of the park. Rhyolite is just out of the park to the northeast, it's a little town surrounded by several ghost towns. The sign accompanying this ruin explained that it was built as a mill, where ore containing gold was taken to be processed during these gold rushes (there were a couple, and Death Valley even has a connection to the 1849 California gold rush).

Seeing it standing there in this condition was a final reminder of how harsh this environment is. I stood there for a moment contemplating how 10,000 people could live in this heat, without ready access to potable water or food. Yet before them, essentially since the Ice Age, there has been a population of Native Americans living in this area…granted, it hasn’t always been this way – more on that when I post about Badwater.

When I bought the little Best Easy Day Hikes book at the start of my visit, I took a few minutes to leaf through as I chose my itinerary. There are three pages full of warnings in a section entitled “Play it Safe.”

Seriously, among the dangers in this park are:

• Dehydration
• Weather
• Hypothermia/Hyperthermia
• Vegetation
• Flash Floods
• Rattlesnakes, Scorpion and Tarantulas
• Mine Hazards
• Unstable Rocky Slopes

I thumbed through this section in the parking lot at Zebriskie Point. Even though I’d stopped at Target back in Las Vegas to prepare and had two liters of water handy, these warnings were enough to convince me to go to the camp store at the visitor center and pick up another gallon of water (which I gave, unopened, to the attendant when I returned the car – two liters was enough).

As far as animals and wildlife go, I did see a gecko. And there was the periodic buzzing of some insect circling me as a blood meal prospect.

But once I got back in the car after visiting the Ashford Mill ruin, I reflected on a pretty fulfilling experience. One that I survived.

Tomorrow I’ll start the posts about the day hikes.





Easy Day Hikes book link (Amazon): 

Death Valley Intro

As a person who was born and raised on the east coast, and who has lived there pretty much all of my life, with the exception of a couple of years of school in Monterey and Los Angeles – and my enlistment, which was spent in Berlin, I’ve always been fascinated by North America’s western land and seascapes. So with found time on my hands in Las Vegas last week, I sought out a suitable daytrip.

Mind you, this time I wasn’t looking for anything as dramatic as the helicopter ride into the Grand Canyon, which I did in 2009 – there are posts under the “Las Vegas” label below. But I did hope to check the box on yet another national park. Preliminary research told me that Death Valley was a two hour drive away, so I rented a car (on Priceline) and took the daytrip up.

I’d seen all the pictures of the desert emptiness. Most of the photos I had seen were focused on the Badwater salt flats, definitely a highlight as the lowest point in North America. But I wasn’t prepared for so much else that you can see in this park.

The NPS brochure that you receive after paying your visitor fees summarizes the contrasts that you can experience here:

“Great extremes haunt this hottest, driest, lowest national park. Extremes in temperature and elevation create scenic vistas and ecological niches that host startling biological diversity. This desert supports nearly 1,000 native plant species and harbors fish, snails, and other aquatic animals found nowhere else….The colorful and rugged terrain shouts tales of cataclysmic forces that thrust rock layers upward and of opposing erosional forces battling to tear them down….”

With that in mind, I have a series of five posts that I’ll put up about this visit this week, accompanied by some photos from my drive along Badwater Road in the park. I picked up a copy of Best Easy Day Hikes: Death Valley National Park at the visitor center to use as a guide (Amazon link below, for convenience), and picked out some accessible spots that I could easily reach (and survive!).

The photos above were taken from a view point called Zabriskie Point, which I drove right past on the way into the park via Furnace Creek Wash – there were three tour busses there and I wasn’t having any part of that. Once I got into the park and paid my entry fee at the visitor center, I decided to go back for a look (the tour busses had followed me to the visitor center, it turned out). It was a great intro to the landscape…and it turns out that one of the day hikes I took later on runs through a canyon in the field of view there.

Since the three photos form something of a panorama, I decided to string them together in that format, given that a BlogSpot blog isn’t the best format for that kind of photography.

More from Death Valley to follow – here’s the Amazon link to the Best Easy Day Hikes book.

The Tech-watch Geek Visits Death Valley

I've been in Las Vegas this week, and since I found some time on my hands I decided to make a day trip up to Death Valley National Park.  Among the things that the Park is famous for is Badwater Basin, officially the lowest point in North America, at 282 feet below sea level.

In addition to the sightseeing - I'll put up photos over the next few posts - this fact gave me the opportunity to geek out a bit with the altimeter function on my Casio Pathfinder watch. 

Plug here:  You can check out the Pathfinder on Amazon.com by clicking the add on the right.  :-) Thank you.

Last year, during my work trip to Yosemite, the Pathfinder took an altitude reading of 2,315 meters, or approximately 7,177 feet.  I took the reading at Glacier Point on one of our drives back to the hotel; the original post with spectacular photos is at  http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2010/07/yosemite-second-day-post-3.html. By the way, looking back at that post, the margin of error for that altimeter reading wasn't bad - less than 10%, which I find very tolerable for my use of the altimeter function.  I typically expect an error of up to 20%.

So with that in mind, I was looking forward to the prospect of recording a new low reading on the altimeter, and for that, Death Valley didn't disappoint. 

One of the first steps I take when geeking out with the altimeter is to find a reference altitude, which was very easy to do in Death Valley National Park.  As you come over a final ridge before arriving at the Furnace Creek Visitor Center, there is a big sign designating Sea Level - and from that spot, elevated as it is from much of the surrounding landscape, it's pretty clear you'll be spending a lot of the time during the visit to the Park at altitudes below sea level.

So I took my first reading near the sign, and recorded -45 meters, which I noted would mean an altitude of "0" for most of the day.

Driving on downhill to the visitor center, there's another sign marking 100 feet below sea level; I hastily took another reading and got -70 meters.  Adjusting that by 45 meters gives -25 meters, or -78 feet.  That's a pretty big error, but I did take the reading while driving using the auto function, so that reading could have been a few seconds old when it was recorded...

I kept the watch on the altimeter function for most of my time in the Park. I enjoyed observing the readings from time to time and watching them alternate between above sea level and below.  Finally, I arrived at Badwater Basin, my objective, as shown in the photo at the beginning of the post. 

My Pathfinder altimeter reading at this spot was -150 meters; as I mentioned, the watch has recorded this as the lowest altitude I've taken a reading at so far.  Adjusting for the -45 meters margin of error, we get -105 meters, or roughly -326 feet.  The reading was about 44 feet off, indicating that I was further below sea level than the actual elevation, and the margin of effor was off by around 15%. 

That is usually good enough for me - I mainly use the altimeter to give myself an idea of my progress on a climb or descent while hiking.  I don't expect or require precision on these readings, just need an idea of how much elevation is left to the particular effort I'm involved in.  There are other instruments to use if better precision is needed.

(I should mention that the mountains that surround Death Valley are quite high - to the west, they reach to just more than 11,000 feet above sea level.)

So, for the record, the established high and low points for my watch are:

High Point:  Glacier Point, Yosemite National Park, 2,315 meters (approximately 7,177 feet) recorded July 20, 2010.
Low Point: Badwater Basin, Death Valley National Park, -150 meters (adjusted for errors, 105 meters; translating to -326 feet), recorded October 12, 2011.

These are nominal readings, as I discussed above.  And between the highs and lows, we have all those readings in my beloved stomping grounds back at Shenandoah National Park.

Las Vegas Guilty Pleasures

When I posted about the Bud in a Bag yesterday, I had no idea that I was making one of those “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” types of confessions.


There was quite a bit of commentary on my disclosure, some of it simply sarcastic, as in this case:

“Classy!!” wrote Chris, and later Mary.

Then there is the discussion from my friend Brian, who is my mentor on the use of the Glen Bacon Scale (GBS), which I used to rate the Bud in a Bag experience – and I was pretty generous, giving a rating of 8 off a 10-scale system.

Brian said, “I don't know where to begin to tell you how wrong it is to rate stupid B*dweiser an 8 on the GBS!!! It's not even a real Beer! It's made with rice, #fercryinoutloud! That's Sake in my book, not Beer!!! You have lost your GBS privileges! Glen Bacon's lawyers will be contacting you in the morning!!!”

I am still waiting for the attorneys to call, but in the meantime, we had a couple of follow-up conversations on the topic. I mentioned how I was impressed by the presentation and how the beer accompanied the Hash House’s “farm food with at twist” cuisine. Then we went into some discussion about the subjective nature of the GBS, ending up with thoughts of how a Cuban judge might have rated the experience in a way that was dissonant with the rest of a given panel.

To which Brian responded, “Fine! Give 4.9 points for presentation and zero for that swill that pretends to be Beer! Even if the Beer had been a Guinness® wrapped in a silk kimono, the 8.0 GBS is very hard to give out willy-nilly. I really doubt a Cuban Judge would be stupid enough to order a B*dweiser.”

Okay, so here we are the morning after, and in light of the clarifying lesson I am ready to reconsider my GBS for the Bud in a Bag. I’m giving it a 6.5. That’s 4.9 for presentation, .5 for size (22 oz.), .5 for icy cold temperature (we’re out here in a desert, for kriminees sake), and .6 for price ($4.95 – that’s like 1988 prices!).

But you know, the comment that hurt the most came from neighbor Dan, the homebrewer who also grows his own organic hops, as reported in my posts with the Beaver Run Brewery label.

Dan said, “I can't believe you'd admit to that one!”

He also offered some further clarifications and a sort of consolation. “Just bottled 58 pints of FlatTail IPA this past week. Used 8 ounces of homegrown Cascade for the finish. Better hurry back to the pines for a tasting. It should be acceptable to serve the week of October 24th.”

So I’ve got that going for me. In the meantime, since my departure isn’t until 7pm this evening, I think I am going to mosey on over to the Strip and have lunch at the Hash House again. All this talk about Bud in a Bag is making me thirsty.

Las Vegas Eats (and Drinks)

Let's get this straight from the beginning.  I am not here for the gourmet treatment.  This is a road trip where I luckily can mix business with pleasure. On a 30/70 ratio.

This photo is from Hash House a Go Go, linked at the end of the post.  It wasn't long afterwards that the entree followed up, a big ol' grilled ham and cheese with a slice of tomato and house romaine salad on the side.  And I was out of there for $18, including the beer and tip!

I'd found a couple of reviews about the place that settled me on this choice...keywords "locals" and "farm-fresh."

First, from the "Las Vegas" mag in the hotel room-

A locals hot spot, the eatery is known for its oversize portions of creative breakfast, lunch and dinner dishes like the HH famous roasted chicken pot pie and crispy Indiana-style hand-hammered pork tenderloin.

And from another hotel rag "Where"-

Hearty portions of award-winning, farm-fresh food that are comforting day or night.

I guess it has shown up in a few travel shows by now.  Hearty is an understatement, that's why I tried to tone it down with the grilled cheese and salad.  But who knew it would show up on Texas toast?

For lunch yesterday, one of the folks from the trade show organizer sat down next to me in the speaker ready room with a plate of BBQ.  Turns out, there was a B.B. King restaurant in the Mirage, and I wouldn't have to walk through the casino to get to it.  So after I concluded my business with my little talk, and then a walk around the exhibition, I headed off to lunch.

These days I worry about diet when I'm traveling.  Well, perhaps worry conveys the wrong impression.  Revised, that should be, "These days, I consider my diet when I am traveling."  Restaurant food is usually pretty good, but it is rich and often as not loaded with cheap calories from ingredients you don't know about.

But I can often rationalize these things, as I did yesterday, when I recalled that the walk from my hotel up the strip to the Mirage was just about 3 miles, per my GPS.

And so I thought about that a moment in B.B. King's, while I read about the pulled pork and the brisket.  I settled on a blackened mahi sandwich, proud of making the fish choice.  It came with fries AND cole slaw. And a Flat Tire pint. My table had a tribute to Elvis. 

"Bright lights city gonna set my soul on fire." Not to mention the potential for heartburn.

Final one, only because of the siren call of the neon sign across the street from the hotel.  And because of its prominence in that one scene in The Big Lebowski.  We've got your In-n-Out right over there...when I was in Barstow last May I made a stop, and since I can walk to this one...well, let's just say I knew what's for dinner on the first night.

For my friend Brian, I'll do the Glen Bacon scale for the Hash House meal:

Bud in a Bag:  8 6.5 - this unique treatment for a beer that is an ideal refreshment in this heat with all the walking probably could get a higher rating, but I don't want to inflate these things.  Seriously, I'd had a Flat Tire earlier in the day already!

***Editor's Note.  I need to explain the revised rating above, which is reported extensively in the next day's post.  As discussed there: "Okay, so here we are the morning after, and in light of the clarifying lesson I am ready to reconsider my GBS for the Bud in a Bag. I’m giving it a 6.5. That’s 4.9 for presentation, .5 for size (22 oz.), .5 for icy cold temperature (we’re out here in a desert, for kriminees sake), and .6 for price ($4.95 – that’s like 1988 prices!). Now back to the original post...

Grilled Ham and Cheese:  7 - I liked it.  But on Texas toast, it was kinda big and over the top.

Here's the link to Hash House - turns out its a growing chain:  http://www.hashhouseagogo.com/

...more than just a pretty picture...

A few months ago, after hearing for a few years about the road that climbs Balkamore Hill near Stanley, I decided to take the drive up there.  This view appears suddenly after you round one of the bends.  It's become one of my favorites.

After discovering it, I met Chris Gould, who organizes the bike races in Page County. He told me that this was also one of his favorites, only that when the riders pass it, it's at their backs - they may never even see it.

He explained some technical matters about the race course and its requisite climbs and recoveries, and how the descent and eventual turn down into Kite Hollow make this route the way it has to be for the bike race.

Their loss, but there's no shortage of great scenery for those riders!

I'm in Las Vegas this week and brought along a book for in flight reading.  I've been holding onto this one for some time:  The Shenandoah Valley, 1861-1865: The Destruction of the Granary of the Confederacy , by Michael G. Mahon (Amazon link below).  My refreshed view from Balkamore Hill over the weekend made a passage in Chapter 1, "The Daughter of the Stars - History of the Valley" strike a chord.

Quoting from Mahon-

In early times, the Valley was primarily a vast prairie of bluegrass and clover.  Forest and dense stands of timber were found only along the banks of rivers and streams in the mountain hollows.  Buffalo, deer, elk, bears, wolves, beavers, and other wildlife roamed the low, rolling countryside.

Before the arrival of Europeans, the Valley was the domain of the Cinela, Susquehanough, Senedo, and Tuscarora tribes, which resided along the rivers and streams.  Catawba, Cherokees, Shawnees, and Delawares, who lived in neighboring regions, oftgen visited the Valley.

Every year bands of young braves stalked the migrating herds up and down the Valley, always mindful to take only what they needed, thus assuring an amply supply for the future.  The Indians routinely set fire to the dry grasses every fall, preventing the forests and thick underbrush from overtaking the open prairie and ensuring that fresh grass would be plentiful in the spring.  The richness and fertility of the Valley awed the Indians; believing that it was a gift from the heavens, they named it the "Daughter of the Stars."


Of course the book moves on into the Civil War history of the Valley - from Lexington on up to Harpers Ferry.  But I found this historical description compelling.

Amazon Link:

The Norton Harvest at Wisteria

It has been grape harvesting season at our neighbors Wisteria Farm and Vineyard in Stanley, VA over the last six weeks or so.  With all the rain, despite several periods of consecutive sunny days, it's been a challenging process, but they did get the white varieties in during September.  When I checked in with Moussa a few weeks ago, he told me the reds would probably be ready about mid-month in October, so here you go - on Sunday, a team of volunteers was out picking Norton.

The Carmine was supposed to come in next week, but with the forecast, Moussa says they'll move up that to Tuesday morning.  I've got a second photo here of some of the volunteers working in the rows.

Tessie and I made a stop by to say hi to everybody and check in for the plan next Sunday, which is how I found out about the revised plan for the Carmine.  I'm traveling this week, so I'll miss the chance to get out in the vines to help.

Good luck Wisteria, I hope the harvest is bountiful!

Deer Vigilance

Tessie has been with us for just a bit more than six months now, and her personality has really begun to show.  She's still a bit shy around other dogs, but she has shown a real talent for training Mary and me to do what she wants.

Consider this morning routine: at 6:30, my alarm sounds.  Immediately, a dog face rises from the floor and gets into my face.  A few quick flicks of the tongue, then some pawing, until finally I sit up.  Then its a charge downstairs to wait for me to put on my shoes, and we're off for our walk at 6:35.  I haven't moved that fast in the morning since those training instructors at Lackland AFB charged into the room throwing the big trash cans around.

Once we are on the walk, we have two main routes in the morning, and there are favorite stops along the way.  At around 6:45 these days, the daylight is beginning, and the squirrels come into view, so we have our excitement.

Back at the house by 7:00.  I take the leash off outside on the porch and open the door.  Tessie leaps inside, then gallops to the back of the house, where Mary has gotten the breakfast prepared. Nothing else happens during the 18.4 seconds it takes to eat that Taste of the Wild goodness.

Another interesting trait of hers is about the deer we often see in the yard at Hawksbill Cabin.  I'm not sure if she knows what they are, but she is intensely curious about them. 

At the moment, there is a herd of about 3 does with fawns, and a young four-point buck that are feasting on this years acorn crop.  They're out in the yard in the morning and evening, and sometimes they'll make a stop by at mid-day.

Tessie has been lucky to see them quite a few times, and when she does, she puts on the "border collie eye" and settles in to watch them.  There's no movement on her part, and there's no distracting her if you talk to her during this time.

On Saturday night, as I sat out on the brick terrace with the fire pit going, we heard some rustling in the woods on the east side of the house, where they come to within 20 feet or so.  As you can see in the picture, Tessie padded silently, cat-like, over to a vantage point to see if she was going to be able to spy on the passing deer.  She sat there are good five minutes in the crouch.

It was the buck - he did his huff-and-puff sound when he caught wind of us.  Tessie only settled more firmly into the crouch, to watch.

Teufelsberg - Berlin's "Devil's Mountain"

By coincidence, right on the tail of all those posts last week about Cold War sites in Berlin, Wired magazine's website has a post about another one. 

This location is on another rubble heap on the west side of Berlin; the heap is known as Teufelsberg (literally, the Devil's Mountain) (thanks to Werner for the spell check!  I corrected the spelling in the post title), or T-berg, as we affectionately called it.  The photo is a web image from back in the day, I think this is from the '80's - by the way, say what you want about the funny shapes (I didn't save the source - please let me know if you recognize it as yours and I will credit you).  A link to the Wired post is as follows:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/tag/teufelsberg/

I never worked there, but I had friends who did - both Air Force and Army.  My cousin, who was in the Army, actually worked here and overlapped with my time in Berlin, as a matter of fact.  The story goes that there were British Army folks working here, too.

In 1983 I was assigned to an R&D project that involved a two day orientation on what my friends were working on, but I'd be hard pressed to remember any of that now - but I do remember that their jobs were as fun as mine was at Marienfelde, and the camaraderie was every bit as strong.

Thinking about the presence of the Brits here reminds me of an anecdote.  The British Exchange sent a daily "tea wagon" up to the hill in the morning.  If I remember correctly, it was called the NAFI NAAFI Truck (if anyone has the correct spelling, please leave a comment!) (for Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes - thanks Brian!), and twice a day it offered tea and uniquely British snack foods, like crumpets and biscuits...although with an American clientele, they added donuts and the like.  In the American vernacular, we'd more likely call the vehicle a "roach coach" - except we didn't out of our vast respect for our British friends.

As NAFI NAAFI Truck time approached, work at T-berg pretty much came to a halt, while everyone organized orders and assigned who would go down to stand in line.  This usually meant two or three people would go together so they could share the load carrying back the stash.  You can imagine the long lines - even during the winter - for that truck, when it would pull in to the area just left of center where the two driveways are in the photo above.

We had no such luxuries at Marienfelde.  However, we had a prank for new people on their first midnight shift.  During the first night's work for the unsuspecting newbie, the rusty old timers would talk about the donut truck that would be around in the morning down the hill.  There would be a big deal about making an order and assigning a newbie or two to collect the list and then go down to wait. 

Needless to say, the groups that were lucky enough to have newbies during the winter midnight shifts, who could send those folks out into the cold, dark mornings...well, good times.

It's interesting that this building has been left standing in this skeletal condition.  I recall that it is visible up on that ridge from the new dome at the Reichstag. Friends and acquaintances have actually made the trip back from time to time, so the Wired article wasn't the first of the images I'd seen.

I like adding a video of these old sites - here's one from earlier this year (2011)...you may prefer to turn the sound off if you don't like the accompanying music.  As I watched this, I remembered a little bit more about my day inside the building in 1983: it was a technical building, and there were raised floors over all those now bare concrete slabs. 

Pending Bacon

When I ran into David the other day, our second topic of conversation was the pigs.  Mary and I are sponsoring one of these guys, and David said I really needed to get over there and check on how they were doing.  "They've really grown!" he said.

So while I was tooling around checking out the last pickings for the final famers market, I also strolled over for a look at the pigs.

They have grown.  They are easily twice the size they were back in August (check out the new "Pigs" label below, that will be how I tag the past and future posts on them).

Now, there are three little anecdotes I need to share to completely catch my readers up on the status of the pigs. 

First, the title of this post, "Pending Bacon," is one I would like to ascribe to Michael Perry, author of Coop - there's an Amazon link to the right.  In the book he describes raising some pigs, and on his blog he tagged an entry with the trending topic "#pendingbacon" once - so I've adopted that as a way to refer to the pigs, too.

Next, I want to write about the pigs first few days on the farm.  They were quite small then, actually about 50 pounds each (on their way to 300 or more by February).  They spent the first night in the accessible goat pen.  The pigs were comfortable, but the goats didn't much care for the arrangement.

I have a video of the pigs emerging from the goat pen the next morning in a previous "Pigs" post.  During those adventures, they figured out they could get into the brooding house if the little door was open..  They were small pigs after all, and they didn't know they'd outgrow that space in short order.  Eventually they took to sleeping on the floor of the brooding house, all in a comfy porcine cluster below the roosting hens. 

The pigs liked it, the hens didn't mind, and most of all, the goats were happy and all the barnyard conflicts were smoothed over.  Of course, now that they are too big to get into the brooding house, they're sleeping with the goats again.  The goats are over the inconvenience of all of this, however.

Finally, the naming of the pigs.  These guys had a fluid identity going on for the first couple of weeks.  Readers may recall that I wanted to name the one (whichever it is, or ends up being) that we have adopted "Pork Chop," which should be pronounced "Poke Chop."  However, I was informed by an authority at the farm that names like that are not appropriate at this stage of the game.

In fact, this authority, David and Heather's daughter, told me about how carefully the names were to be decided, and that she was working on it.  Candidate names included:

• Pinky
• Frankie
• Seven (for the unique shape that one of the tails maintained)
• Stevie

These are all good names.  But things weren't quite settled yet - I think there is a zen element to the process, but I haven't confirmed that.

The next week when I stopped by, there was progress to report.  The name "Stevie" had been selected.

"Which one is Stevie, then?" I asked.
"All of them are named Stevie," she said.  "And the last name is 'Yum-yum.'"

So there you have it.  Four little Stevie Yum-yum's in a pen.

February's comin' though.

Farmers Market Season Comes to an End

After heading out to Luray on Thursday, hoping for good weather so I could do some painting (I’m still waiting for three days of sunshine to do some touch-ups on the exterior), I ended up running errands on Friday. I happened to run into David from Public House Produce during that, and he invited me over to check out the pickings for the last Luray-Page Farmers Market, and the pigs.


The last Saturday of the Luray-Page market was this weekend, October 1.

Here are a couple of photos of the produce, taken at the farm. There is plenty of butternut squash here, and still some tomatoes. There were some green ones, which I understand the canning folk will use for chow chow and other winter comestibles.

Later during the weekend, after the market was closed, David sent a little wrap-up note about this year’s production. I’ve copied and reproduced the info below – I’m still impressed that all of this, except for the chickens, is coming off of 6 acres.

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Since the season is officially over I have some harvest totals for the year, check'em out.

• Tomaotes 9,960 lbs
• Winter Squash 10,100 lbs
• Sweet Corn 1,875 dozen ears
• Cukes 9,000 lbs
• Onions 900 lbs
• Broc 600 lbs
• Potatoes 500 lbs
• Pasture Based Chicken - 6,500 lbs
• Eggs - not enough!

I am already thinking about what to grow next season and what crops to increase. I am pretty sure that we are going to shoot for 15,000 lbs + of tomatoes next year and many more dozen eggs!

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It’s a shame to see the season come to an end. We’ll have to look forward to next year, although we can have some fun with traditional fall and winter cooking in the meantime - I picked up a couple of those "festival" acorn squash with that in mind.