Painting with Light in Lake Tahoe

Tahoe, originally uploaded by ParsecTraveller.

I was standing in the water when I took this picture.

With my phone on maximum brightness, I painted the word "Tahoe" in air during a 30-second exposure with my camera. This is the end result...and the best one out of at least a dozen attempts!

More Deer

Here you can see three deer in the grass. At the corner of the wall just beyond the deer on the walkway, by the tall tree is where they jumped over the wall to go meandering down through the meadow.

Regarding Mercedes

While going through my grandmother's papers (again) this weekend, I found this picture, probably taken on the same day as the one at the bottom of this post.

Mae was the adopted daughter of William James Dunfee and his wife, Mary Elizabeth Walker. Jane is my grandmother's sister, Hazlette is my grandmother, and Mercides is the object of my quest in unraveling a little mystery. It's a guess, but I'd say the picture was taken about 1918-1920.

And, another clue, which just goes to show that it pays to look at all of those little scraps of paper! The problem is though, that I don't know when the note was written, but from what I can tell, it was in the late 1960s or early 1970s that Grandma started working on her genealogy. I'm pretty sure that the ACPL (Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne) has some Detroit City Directories. One of these days I'll get to the library...

The note reads:

This is Mercedes
Name & address
Mrs. A. Vinet
13822 French Rd
Detroit 34 -

A Superior View

Well, the fall colors are taking their dear sweet time showing up this year. That doesn't mean, however, that you shouldn't get out and enjoy nature! There are still beautiful views to be enjoyed even without the colors of autumn. The view shown here is along the Middle Falls Trail in Grand Portage State Park. The trail crosses over a ridge and this is one of two magnificent views that are available from the top of the ridge. This view overlooks Lake Superior and the Susie Islands and is always beautiful no matter what time of year it is. Over the past year, CCM (Conservation Corps Minnesota) crews have been hard at work making improvements to the trail. Stairs have been constructed on the steepest portions of the trail and benches have been constructed in strategic locations where visitors can rest and appreciate the spectacular views of the Minnesota north woods. Although the fall colors are slow to appear this year, the leaves are changing and before long this view will be even more magnificent as the greens change to yellows and oranges!

Honoring Those Who Served

Leavenworth National Cemetery, Leavenworth, Kansas May 6, ..

Today is Memorial Day, The Day in which we honor those Veterans who have given their Lives for our Freedom.



Thankfully, I've had only a few ancestors who actually died while serving their country, but (also thankfully) I've had a lot of ancestors and family members who have served in the military.



I've written a bit about them before so here are the links to those previous posts:



The Veterans in my Family ~ Immediate family members and ancestors who have served from before Vietnam to the Revolution.



More Veterans in my Family - Part One~ Siblings of ancestors who were Veterans of the War of 1812 and the Civil War



More Veterans in my Family - Part Two~ Spanish American War and World War I Veterans who are related to me in some way.



More Veterans in my Family - Part Three~ Veterans from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. A few of these I actually have met!



To all of the men and women now serving in the United States and around the World to protect our Freedom, I say Thank You! And to all those young men and women who have given their lives while serving our country, Thank You is not enough, but I say it anyway! Thank You.

Assateague Island :: More Wild Ponies

Stopped traffic was a common sight whenever ponies were spotted along the roadside. I wasn't immune to their allure either, almost always stopping when I saw a group. This day I was riding my bicycle out to the bridge, which was a little over 3 miles from my campsite. This is at the intersection to the main road out to the Island.

Rutland Round 7 - Whissendine to Braunston

With Marta. Started grey and drizzly, but after Langham (11 am) it cleared up for the rest of the day. Still some mud underfoot, views good. 11.7 miles approx. A few hilly bits.





We set off from Whissendine around 9 30, and walked up past the church, turning right on to Foxhills, and following the road round as far as Number 21. The footpath runs alongside this house to a field, where we turned left. There's a gateway on to the the road, but the path turns right and follows the hedge for a short distance before joining the road at a stile. We turned right along the road as far as a left hand bend. At this point we continued straight ahead, on a bridleway leading to Langham.



By now we were both wearing waterproofs as the drizzle persisted. The hedge was on our left for a while, but at the summit of the track it changed to being on our right. The views here are said to be excellent, but the mizzle made them a little hazy today. We used John Williams' book and the OS map and found the path without problem. At one or two points along the way the waymarks have faded or become overgrown.



There is a junction of bridleways at the end of the field, and here we turned right, with the hedge on our left. In the next field the path goes over a stile after a gap in the hedge on the lef. We followed the path alongside a deep ditch on our left. We crossed a plank bridge and then turned right when a hedge blocked the way, turning left over a briidge in a short while cutting off the corner of a field before following the hedge and waymarkers to reach Manor Lane in Langham, via a stile.



We turned right then left into Orchard Road, then at the end of Orchard Road, right then left into Bridge Street. Just after the bridge we turned right before the Noel Arms.

5 stars for the welcome coffee!

Well, to be truthful we were delighted to be able to buy an early coffee in the pub - the landlord took pity on our drowned rat appearance.

Ms Wet Anorak ?

The rain gods smiled on us and by the time we left twenty minutes later the rain had stopped.









At the end of Church Street we crossed the main road, turned right for a short distance before taking the bridleway towards Braunston, which leads off to the left. The path climbs up hill following the left hand hedge and turning right to walk around the small wood near Mill Hill.




At the end of the wood we turned slightly right and continued up to Manor Lane, a small road which leads into Barleythorpe.

Rutland Water in the distance

We walked down into Barleythorpe, and to the road, then turned right, along a pavement until a stile led into a playing field on our right. After this we walked along the edge of Catmose College, and through Rutland Care Village, before coming out close to the level crossing near Oakham Station.





We had our lunch stop at the Castle Café in Oakham - a very good broccoli and stilton soup. It was still a little cool and damp for sitting out, so we went inside.

Outside the Castle Café, Oakham

We left Oakham on the road towards Uppingham and Kettering.

Floral peacock

Swooning Bridge, from where you would once have seen the gallows at the top of the hill.

Shortly after the bridge our path turned off to the left towards Egleton, crossing muddy fields which could have been a lot worse! Of course, since the 2000 edition of the booklet, and the publication of my OS map, the bypass has been built. It's on the newer maps, and doesn't complicate the route.



Through Egleton, we turned right along the road to the A 6003. We crossed over the road and then the railway line to a path which leads up hill with a hedge on the left.







At the second gateway we cut across the field slightly, joining a track past Brooke Covert East. Soon after this the track bears right, but we took the route through a gate to the left. The path goes downhill over a small bridge and past Bridge Farm into Brooke.

Brooke Church

We walked through Brooke, turning right at the junction. We passed some earthworks on our right, and a dovecote in the grounds of Brooke Priory - a house on the site of a 12th century priory.

Earthworks at Brooke

The dovecote

We took a footpath in the field opposite the priory, and walked alongside the stream, the Gwash. After a few hundred yards the path crosses a footbridge to a bridleway. We went across the bridleway through a gateway and over a field diagonally tot he left hand hedge. The path is clearly marked into Braunston.

The last few steps of the Rutland Round

with a little more decorum

and a sense of achievement.

And here is Braunston Church again




65 miles of very enjoyable walking, done on seven separate days.









A couple of pics from a walk in the same area in April