Three Weeks

It's Sunday evening, three weeks into the New Year. This is apparently when most people have failed and given up on their resolutions. 

Sunset at Soldier's Delight

Apparently, "three weeks" is the magic time span when things that are done routinely shift into a habit. So far, my SMART goals are going pretty well. 

1) I've hiked several times already this month, including yesterday in a new-to-me place called Soldiers Delight NEA. I went kind of late in the day, so I didn't get around the entire Serpentine Trail, so I'll definitely be back. I guess the real test of this goal will come next month and the month afterwards.

2) This is my third blog post of January, so again, this will likely be tested more next month and in March. 

3) I not only finished The Queen's Weapons, but I've also read Ben Raby's 100 Things Capitals Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die and finally started on Steve Glynn's This Team is Ruining My Life (But I Love Them). I've had the latter book around since August of 2019, when I went to a RMNB-sponsored book signing and met "Dangle" himself (who is pretty cool).

Pat got this for me last year.

4) This one is about to get easier, as Centr is about to start a new six week program called "Sculpted" which is 4 days of 30 minute workouts. At this point, I've been mixing it up with Centr workouts and hiking, but I have met the goal each week.

5) This one, not so good right now. I've thought really hard about the students I plan to track, and I still need to get some information down on "paper" (pixel). With only four days of "instruction" this week, since it's the end of the marking period, I should have some time to work on this more formally soon.

6) I have put the intention out there, in multiple places. People know. I need to buckle down and get the brakes done now, so that it's ready to sell during tax return season. 

7) For the most part, I've been doing okay on this last goal. Sometimes I record it in my journal at home, and sometimes I do it in my plus/delta book at work. Sometimes both. When I'm having a mentally tough day, it's tougher to get something on paper, even if I do recognize that I've accomplished something.

This week is going to feel so long, I really do want to go back to Soldiers Delight and finish hiking the Serpentine Trail. The site is a fairly unique ecosystem (serpentine barren and oak savanna), which has a very magnesium rich soil. This results in some plants that aren't found anywhere else in Maryland. I'm thinking of seeing if I can maybe incorporate the area into some evolution/adaptation lessons, especially with my magnet biology students. 

The serpentine grassland in late January

I also need to start thinking about doing taxes and I'm hoping that I get a refund this year. With Pat's new job, maybe his withholding is correct. I haven't played hockey in a year because the refund money that helps pay for that didn't happen last year. Plus, the green terror has some significant engine issues, and I might need the refund to pay for that. 

It's almost 8PM, and Sunday sadness over going to work tomorrow is in full swing. The rain today also didn't help. Here's to hoping that this is a good week.

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So Far, So Good

Two days into the new year, and two hikes under my belt. That's making some good progress on my resolutions!

Yesterday, I did an obligatory First Day Hike in Patapsco Valley State Park, starting at the ambiguously defined Pickall Area by the CSX train tracks, then trying to meet up with the Ole Ranger Trail. The trail is very poorly marked, and I didn't find the cut-over to the trail, but I did eventually meet up with the Union Dam Trail. It was a shorter hike than I thought it would be, which is good to know for future reference. I might start at Hollofield next time so that I can take the Ole Ranger Trail to see where I'm supposed to go from Pickall. 

Maryland State Parks gave out these First Day Hike stickers

A Pontiac center cap in the mud

The CSX tracks curving to match the river's bends

A train tunnel underneath US40.

The link to the Union Dam Trail

Cold, clear river water where the Union Dam once stood

A thriving community once stood here, until repeated floods in the mid-1800s kept destroying the dams, mills and homes of those who tried to use the river for their living

I texted Pat that I was at the entrance to Hollofield, and chatted with the ranger on duty there until he arrived. Turned out that someone's car had been broken into -- rear window smashed and stuff taken -- so I was watching the response to that. The thieves were quite brazen, as the vehicle in question was easily visible from the entrance gate. 

For today -- the Federal holiday version of January 1 -- I decided to go to my other standby, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Towpath. I needed to stop by my mom's anyway, and I initially thought to go to Ferry Hill and from there, maybe up to Snyders Landing. Then I thought, maybe I should go to Catoctin Aqueduct? Finally, I settled on parking at Point of Rocks and heading downstream, a section I don't think I've been on before. 

Point of Rocks is at MM48.2 

The last time I'd been to Point of Rocks was just over a year ago, when my friend Andy Howe was in town. Being an engineer who designs bridges and the like, I think he wanted to see the aqueducts and locks of his 19th century counterparts. Sadly, there are no locks or aqueducts east of Point of Rocks, at least not until past Noland's Ferry. There are culverts though. 

A culvert right at Point of Rocks

Seek says these are "stinking orange oysters". The area smelled like garbage, so, yeah.

I hiked down to mile marked 46 before turning back around. I was going to be cutting it close to get back to the Crosstrek by sunset. 

As far as I went today. 

Like yesterday, the drab Winter colors in the forest made nothing stand out. That's probably why I noticed the orange oysters. The sunset was pretty, reflecting off the river, but other than that, there wasn't too much else to see. 

A larger culvert east of MM48

The sun's getting real low

One of the reasons I was really hankering to get out on a trail was because one of my holiday gifts from Pat was a new and nice pair of Merrell Moab hiking boots. They are super light compared to my old boots, and I wanted to see how well they handled muddy conditions. 

So far, so good with the boots! I know I'll be testing their waterproof-ness and more in the coming months. 

After a short stop at Mom's in Sharpsburg, it was back home to wrap up Winter break and prepare for the end of the semester.... and to think about camping and hiking and where to go next. 

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Wake Up To a Brand New Day

It's 2023. Yay. No, I'm not particularly excited about it. The last few years of societal collapse around a maniac as President and the subsequent pandemic and just decreasing lack of civility and compassion has worn me down. 

Still, I wanted to think about things I wanted to do better for this year. I mean, I make "new years resolutions" at every "new year" chapter, whether it's the start of the school year, the start of the summer or whatever, so it's really just an exercise in putting the thoughts out there, and then trying to make them manifest. 

Instead of just vague objectives though, I'm going to take a page out of my teaching book and try to make them "SMART goals" with time sensitive, measurable and attainable attributes.

1) Hike at least once per month. This one should be easy. If I can do more than once per month, that will be even better, and I want it to be a real "once per month" not an average over the year. This might work well if Pat has a resolution to fish at least once per month. If I can bundle this with camping, it would also likely help my mental health a thousand-fold.

The C&O Towpath is one of my go-to places for hiking

2) Blog here at least once per month. Yeah, that seems like a low hanging goal, but considering "blogging more" hasn't worked out too well, making this something measurable, time sensitive and attainable seems more realistic. Maybe I'll even finish the "writeup" from last year's road trip before this year's. 

3) Read at least one chapter in a book at least five times per week. Seems weirdly specific, I know. I'm very disappointed in how much I've read the last few years. So, again, I'm trying to make it measurable (one chapter) and attainable (5+ times per week). Will I read more than one chapter and more than five times per week? Maybe. Hopefully. I'm still working on The Queen's Weapons, which I bought in March of last year, and finally started just before Yule.

4) Exercise at least 20 minutes at least four times per week. Again, it may seem like an odd goal, and why not the recommended "30 minutes"? Because I am still subscribed to Centr, and some of the sessions there are 25 minutes, and not a full 30. Like the previous resolutions, I would like to do more than four times per week when I can. Hopefully, sickness doesn't derail this particular goal, as it often does; the most recent bout with COVID-19 over Thanksgiving break derailed a good run started after my "second marking period resolutions". Of course, hiking any particular day would tick off this box as well as the first one.

And now for a few more difficult ones to attain....

5) Make strides towards National Board Certification every week. This can take different forms, depending on which component I am working on, but I do need to do this, since I really dropped the ball last year and it turns out that you can't last minute this like you can a fifteen page term paper in college. I will start this right away this week when I go back on Tuesday. 

6) Sell the WRX and get a reliable new(er) car. This breaks my heart to write out, but if I don't commit to it, I don't think I will ever go through with it. I haven't driven it since April of last year because the brakes need to be redone, and while I have all the parts to rebuild the front calipers (and my brother did the work of removing the seized pistons from the calipers I have for rebuild), I just haven't sat down to do it. Part of it is fear of doing it wrong, I know, and part of it is also knowing it's a PITA to swap a caliper much less two of them. I did a caliper on the black Camaro years ago, plus I did the front calipers on the green Camaro when I upgraded to LS1 brakes after finding a pair up for grabs at the pull-a-part junkyard. Anyway, once I get the brakes done -- let's set a timeframe of "by Spring" for that -- then the car is going to be officially for sale so that I can use whatever I get for it for a down payment on a new(er) car that has a warranty and all that. 

No more road trips to the Salt Flats in this car

7) Feel like I've done something worthwhile everyday and making note of it. I don't know how else to phrase this one. Those who know me know that I suffer from depression, and a lot of that revolves around constant feelings of worthlessness. So, making strides to feel like I've accomplished something, no matter how small, and acknowledging that accomplishment in some away will be tough. I have a little journal at work that I have used off and on since autumn 2019 where I try to do this. I try to write at least one positive thing about the day, no matter how minor, and then one thing I wish I could change and how I could change it (a "delta"). The framing is important -- it's just not something bad, but something I wish had gone better and (this is the important framing part), how I might have done things differently or what I could do to change the outcome. 

I think with this last goal, it's about the negativity that permeates everything these days, and I just need to try to find the positive out there, somewhere. Oh, hey, I put together this coat rack today! Check it out, I mowed the lawn! I got out of bed and took a shower! I read that chapter in a book and hiked today! 

It's 2023. 

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Bad to the Bone

After a pause in the story, I'm back with part 4 of my road trip. You might want to read the lead up to this first (part 1, part 2, and part 3)

My little campsite in the morning; the White River is just beyond the trees in the background

After staring at the beautiful night sky well past midnight, I awoke early (for me), showered, ate a quick cheese-and-bagel "sandwich," then packed up and headed back to Badlands National Park. I didn't really plan on spending much time there, but also wanted to beat the heat. The previous day was 100F well into the late afternoon, and heat resistant though I am, it is wearying and dangerous, especially if you run out of water. 

"King Tut," a fossil turtle on display at the Badlands' Ben Reifel Visitor Center

I started by going to the Ben Reifel Visitor Center to see if there was anything new and interesting in the gift shop (and get a few post cards for friends who had expressed that they wanted to receive them), and the fossil prep lab was open. I spoke with the paleontologists there a bit, and was told that if I wanted to find a fossil, the best bet was to go off trail. I must have looked horrified -- after all, most parks stress stay on the trails to prevent ecological damage -- and she told me that because Badlands erodes so much (up to an inch a year!), staying on trails isn't as important in this park. 

After saying "hi" to Ranger Paul (who is one of this park's secret treasures; he has some great stories to tell about people asking questions like, "When do you paint the rocks?" and "So this road is currently closed? Does that mean I can't go here?), I headed back to Norbeck Pass and the Fossil Exhibit Trail end of Castle Trail. I figured I'd hike a bit down Castle Trail, then head out of the park via Sage Creek Rim Road to look for wildlife. 

Right away, I saw some bighorn sheep across a ravine in nearly the same place that Pat and I had seen them last year. Unlike last year, I had my zoom lens and Canon DLSR with me, so I could actually get some decent photos of them. 

As I took some photos of the rams, a couple of other hikers came by, saw me taking photos and of course started congregating where I was. So, I continued on down the trail until I found an area that enticed me to go off trail, and off trail I went. 

Beefy surveys his domain

What have we here???

Those are definitely bones

After seeing the bones, I took several photos, recorded the GPS coordinates, and headed back to the visitor center. They weren't terrible far from the trail and so obvious that I was pretty sure they'd been reported previously, and sure enough, that's what I was told. They are pre-Columbian bison bones, so between 800-1000 years old. Not quite "fossil" material, but I still got a patch for doing the right thing. 😁

If you report a finding instead of disturbing it, you get a patch and allow trained professionals to obtain information from the finding that is shared with everyone

At this point, it's later in the day than I really planned on staying in the park, and it's hot AF. 

I don't care if the humidity is low, this is not pleasant. BTW, that's 2:08 EDT, because I don't like changing the clock

It was time to go down Sage Creek Rim Road, visit the bison and the prairie dogs, and then maybe go to Custer or something. 

You get more colors in the landscape along Sage Creek Rim Road

Prairie with grazing bison

A horned lark at Roberts Prairie Dog Town

Sorry guys, I didn't bring any apples

As I approached the park exit, I started to see more and more and more bison. In fact, there was a bison in the middle of the road. 

The truck's driver said he'd been waiting about ten minutes for the bison to move when I came along. I only had to wait for a few minutes

There were a ton of bison here, kind of like when we were surrounded by bison at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in 2019 or at Custer State Park last year. I was driving super slow (20-30mph) because they were right next to the road, walking into the road, etc. and clearly some people didn't care that a collision could occur. Two trucks passed me and damn near hit multiple bison. 

This was the first of the impatient people

It looks like a fence separates us, but there was a wide open gate just up the road

Beefy is excited to see his people

This was the second of the impatient people to pass me. I'm pulled over here, because these two bison were in the road. The garbage truck barely slowed down as it approached them and fortunately, they moved

So many bison

From Wall, I decided to go up to the South Dakota Air & Space Museum in Box Elder. It's basically just outside the main gate to Ellsworth AFB. Mom and I had visited here in 2015, but this time the indoor exhibits were still closed. I'm not sure if that's because of funding, lack of staff or what. I wandered around the outdoor exhibits (which are still open) before making a reservation at the Custer/Black Hills KOA and heading that way.

Titan I 

B1-B Lancer, or as Pat says, "Bone".

VB-25J used by Gen. Eisenhower during WWII

Minuteman Missile; Ellsworth AFB is one of the bases that takes care of the silos

F105-B Thunderchief

EB-57B Canberra

F102-A Delta Dagger

The route that Waze had me take to the campground took me through Custer State Park, though since I wasn't using the Wildlife Loop or any of the trails, I wasn't charged admission. As I got into the Black Hills proper, the temperature dropped and became very comfortable, if not a little on the cool side by the time dusk came. 

After setting up camp, I went back into Custer proper to briefly meet up with Kari from #ParkChat, who was closing up shop. She's a teacher, too, and we chatted about parks, road tripping, teaching and more before she headed home and I headed to Mt. Rushmore Brewing for dinner. 

Had another quick but awesome tweetup with another fellow #parkchat friend today! 😁 @CamaroWRX, I'm so glad you could stop by and say hi amongst your adventures!! 😍 Safe travels, my friend! 🚙⛺ I know we will get together again! 😊 pic.twitter.com/CHCYhra76h

— Nature Tech Family 🏞️🚙📷 (@naturetechfam) August 3, 2022

I had an elk burger and a flight before choosing a few cans of to-go beer and going back to the campground where I got the firepit going. 

and then....

I blame Kari. She made me want a s'more.

Ursa Major (Big Dipper) from the campground; I could see more, but my phone couldn't capture all of the majesty

The morning view was <chef's kiss>

I still had no plans come the next morning, so I figured I'd go to Wind Cave. 

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