A lost Exit78 post, recovered from Internet Archive WayBackMachine; March 2011

This is the longest that I’ve been away from home in 30 years. Back then, I’d be gone for three months and home for three months…, and so on. But that was when I was in the service and out to sea.

The longest we’ve been gone traveling before was just over a month, back in 2001. Back then, the bad thing about going home after being gone that long was the dread of going back to work.

This time, while I’d like to stay gone longer, going home is okay, too. There’s no work to dread.

The timing for going home is somewhat tied to Karen’s doctor appointments that have been scheduled for some time shortly after we get back. Nothing of concern — just normal appointments for her.

I’m not sure when we’ll be heading out again. I’ve got a lot of things to get done at home. We’ll probably have a few short local trips and may make a fast trip out east sometime to visit family — without the camper.

We’re taking it easy going home, traveling about 5 hours each day, then setting up the camper and relaxing for the evening. We’re currently in Gallup, New Mexico. Tomorrow, we should be near Tucumcari, and the day after that, Oklahoma City, then home. This place didn’t have wireless, so we are using our own system to go on line.

I’ll be posting photos from Canyonlands National Park and Arches National Park soon on my Haw Creek Out ‘n About blog.

Comments on "We’re heading home after being gone for 6 weeks…" »

September 26, 2007

Opal Tribble @ 5:00 am

That was a nice vacation. I used to dread that about vacations also now I don’t since I work for myself. I’m good at regularly taking breaks.

If Only I had…. @ 5:15 am

[…] Goad of Exit 78 wrote a post titled We’re heading home after being gone for six weeks made me remember how much I hated going back to work after being on […]

The last couple of days have been travel days, yesterday a short one with a run to Walmart to get a prescription and laundry day. We went from Hoback Junction to Rock Springs, both of them in the great state of Wyoming.

Today was a longer day. Our destination was Moab, Utah, and I had a choice of two routes. Naturally, I chose the harder one — not my intention. I did try to find information on the route on the internet, but my searches kept turning up garbage that didn’t help. (It’s not like I’m a newbie on searches! Some times all you can get on a search is crap!)

The road was winding for a good part of the day and we ended up going from nearly 5000 feet up over 8000 feet and back down to 6000 feet and then up to 9000 feet — and there was one more drop and climb that I can’t remember the elevations on.

There was one stretch going down with 10 switchbacks and a 5% to 9% grade. The recommended speed for trucks over 10,000lbs was 30 mph. Our truck and camper are well over that. We went down in first gear at less than 30 mph. It was slow, but I didn’t need the brakes except to slow for a hairpin curve or two and I only needed a light touch on the brakes then. No smoking brakes like last time!

We left Rock Springs at 8:15 and got into Moab around 4. The other route would have got us here earlier — but we sure did see some pretty country steep roads and some great country.

A lost Exit78 post, recovered from Internet Archive WayBackMachine; March 2011

We’re heading south a few hours today. We’ve seen a lot in the Yellowstone area, but you just can’t see and do it all in a week. We’ll be back again!

I’ve posted photos from the week on Haw Creek Out ‘n About, except for yesterday, which I’ll do later.

Individual Travel Journal pages:

• September 11th – Yellowstone!
• September 12th – From Madison Junction to West Thumb — Day 2 in Yellowstone
• September 13th – Yellowstone — The Northern Loop
• September 14th – Back to Old Faithful Inn — for dinner
• September 15th – Yellowstone Southern Loop
• September 16th – A little drive into Idaho

We’re heading south a few hours and will be back on line later today.

Read how I got this photo of this female Bighorn below in this article.

Today was our last trip into Yellowstone, at least for this year.

Our plan was to go over to Tower Falls and hike down to the base and then go over to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Along the way, I thought we’d check out Norris Geyser Basin.

Once we got to Norris, we decided to take the Back Basin Trail, which is a 1.5 mile loop. The air temperature was just above freezing, but I was comfortable in a sweatshirt. The steam rising from all of the springs in the cold air was really pretty, though it obscured the the details of individual pools, springs, geysers, and mud pots. There was several spots where I was able to compose some really great landscape shots that had clouds in a blue sky with white steam rising against backgrounds of either green forest, a stark landscape of dead soil, or both. There several good shots of gnarled remnants of trees killed by the thermal activity. It was a good photographic hike.

After we left Norris, we headed toward the Canyon Village junction. Along the way, I saw the road to Virginia Cascades, which we had not been on. It’s a relatively short 1-way road that parallels the main road, with views, of course, of Virginia Cascade. Shortly after we got on the road, I went to take a photo of some fall color, I believe, and noticed a message on the LCD screen on the back of the camera. It said that the camera didn’t have a memory card in it.

Needless to say, it upset me more than just a little bit. None of the great images that I had snapped in Norris Geyser Basin had been captured. The camera works just like always — sounds just like always — whether there is a card in it or not, and there isn’t any message that pops up in the viewfinder warning that the card isn’t in the camera — though I’d probably ignore it if it did. I’m generally looking at composition and focus and don’t pay any attention to any of the other indicators in the viewfinder unless I’m operating in other than full automatic. I always use the camera’s viewfinder and seldom look at the LCD screen, so didn’t see the warning message until I had snapped quite a few nonexistent photos.

It’s not like this hasn’t happened to me before. A whole evening’s shoot in North Platte’s Cody Park was lost last month and back in the 80’s I shot an entire roll of film in the Ozarks before discovering the film had not engaged on the camera’s sprockets.

Karen suggested that we go back to the campground to get the card — which was still plugged into the card reader for downloading. However, that would have been a 50 mile round trip and I had another camera that had a small SD card — 256 mb — that I could use. So we continued on.

However, the day’s frustrations weren’t over.

At Tower Falls, our anticipated hike to the base of the falls was cut short when the trail ended in a barrier. It was closed due to erosion. If we had known that, we would have not driven the 14 or so miles from Canyon to Tower over narrow winding mountain roads. Oh, well.

Since we were that far and had more time than we thought we would have, we decided to drive out a ways on the road to Cooke City. Along the way, the battery in the larger camera died.

So I moved the 256mb card back over to the camera it had been in originally — which is what I used to shoot the picture of the female bighorn sheep stepping over the edge.

She was actually stepping off of a rock wall along the road and I was sitting in the drivers seat of my truck, but that shot made my day when I saw it on the computer — even after the batteries in the second camera died and I thought I had lost all of the pictures when they wouldn’t open on my computer.

When in difficulty — reboot.

It worked!

Travel Journal – September 16, 2007

Note: This “lost” Haw Creek Out ‘n About post was recovered from the Internet Archive WayBack Machine.

Sunrise this morning over Yellowstone.  We are about 6 miles west of the park and the horizon in this picture is inside the park.

The aspens and other hardwoods have really started changing colors in our week here.  These are just down the road in Idaho.

We took a scenic loop that goes over the old highway to Yellowstone.  It’s east of the highway used today and goes through some very pretty country.  Though the smoke from western fires limited visibility a bit, we could still see the west side of the Teton Mountains.  This image has been enhanced to improve the view of the Tetons.

Lower Mesa Falls as viewed from the Grandview Overlook built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps.  The falls are 65 ft tall.

Wild flowers still in bloom, despite temperatures that are resulting in fall colors in a lot of the vegetation.

Big Falls Inn – Built around 1915 by Mesa Power, company officers planned to harness the power of the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River and Mesa Falls to produce electricity. A license to produce power from the plant was never obtained and the property was eventually sold to Montana Power in 1936. It may have started as a a combination office and residence for workers, but became a popular spot along the old highway to Yellowstone. With it’s spectacular location, it also became a spot for dances and social gatherings for locals, sportsmen and tourists. After it was sold to Montana Power, it was used as a company resort. Over the years, it was also used as a restaurant and dance hall, boy scout lodge, and retreat/meeting hall. In 1986, the Forest Service acquired the lodge in a land exchange. It has since been renovated and serves now as a visitor and interpretive center.

The inside of the inn is just beautiful.

Dried flower near the inn.  Karen got some seeds, though we don’t know what it’ll look like when it blooms.

Upper Mesa Falls in a composite image created from several photos.  The falls are 114 feet high, dropping over a ledge of 1.3 million years old compressed volcanic ash.

Karen at one of the overlooks.

The falls are so large that at the overlooks, the only way that I could get it all in was to create a composite image using several photos.

The area to the falls is a Forest Service fee area.

Note: This “lost” Haw Creek Out ‘n About post was recovered from the Internet Archive WayBack Machine.

A lost Exit78 post, recovered from Internet Archive WayBackMachine; March 2011

I received the I Love Your Blog Award from Rose DesRocher on my photo blog on September 15, 2007. Since the photo blog is just for photos, I’m writing about it on Exit78.com, which I use for just about anything.

The I Love Your Blog Award is a “pass it on” type of award, with each blogger who receives it encouraged to pass it on to others who have blogs they love. You can read about the origination of the award on the last link in the list below.

I’ve traced the lineage of the award that I received from Rose.

1. Rose DesRocher to me on September 15, 2007
2. Bob Johnson from Blackholes and Astrostuff to Rose on September 1, 2007
3. kml of Photography by KML to Bob on August 29
4. walksfarwoman of Kissing the Dogwood to klm on August 29
5. Ann Clemmons of A Nice Place in the Sun to walksfarwoman
6. Christy from Christy’s Coffee Break to Ann
7. Bucky of The WVb (The West Virginia Blogger) to Christy on August 22
8. The award originated with Mike and Tish at Blogs We Love who gave it to Bucky and 9 other blogs on August 20, 2007.

Comments on “Lineage of the I Love Your Blog Award — my branch”

September 17, 2007

kml @ 1:46 pm

hi – thanks for the mention – looks like we come from a great line!

A lost Exit78 post, recovered from Internet Archive WayBackMachine; March 2011

Though I’ve been blogging for quite a while, I’ve only actually been participating in the the community of bloggers through commenting and sharing of information a fairly short while. As result, recognition by fellow bloggers is particularly sweet.

I’ve just received a couple of awards from bloggers that I read on a fairly regular basis. Thanks Rose and Dan!

From Rose DesRochers (Rose DesRochers – World Outside my Window) is the “I Love Your Blog Award” for my photo blog and from Dan C. Rinnert (dcr Blogs) is the “Blogging Star Award,” for this blog.

One of the nice things about these little awards is that they are “pass it on” recognition from fellow bloggers.

Now, I don’t read that many blogs, so there are very few to pick from. So I’m going to wait a while to pass them on when I have more of a chance. (We’re traveling and hiking and pretty busy right now in the Yellowstone area.)

I think I may just try to trace back the blogging lineage of at least one of these awards.

Stay tuned.

A lost Exit78 post , recovered from Internet Archive WayBackMachine; March 2011

I’ve been posting on spam I’ve been getting and the silly names of the people who have been sending the e-mail. All of the spam has had the subject of “The Pharmacy America Trusts.” I got a couple more today and decided to search the subject line on Google to see what I could find on the names and the messages.

It turns out that what appears to be innocent spam may have a more sinister side.

It appears that the spam messages are originating from Korean IP addresses and not only are they spam, they may also be connected to fraud, sales of fake pharmaceuticals, and a risk of identity theft, according to ZDNet Asia. Unfortunately, some people, especially seniors on a fixed income looking to save money on their meds, rise to the bait, which is what these messages really are.

Bottom line: don’t trust any commercial e-mail that comes from sources that you don’t know — and, even if you know the source, be wary.

Here are some of the silly names of the senders of email that I received, as well as some that I found on the internet:

1. Stardom P. Jackasses
2. Wealthiest T. Pauperism
3. Paganini J. Ouija
4. Exculpate B. Pestilent
5. Acclimates I. Hat
6. Armhole I. Ganging
7. Villain G. Semitrailer
8. Reverences G. Kerchief
9. Sunbathing S. Weakling
10. Serer V. Creosoting
11. Labeled Q. Catnap
12. Radiotherapy J. Apartheid
13. Interrelate M. Vulva
14. Monopolization E. Pianofortes
15. Mineralogist U. Unsportsmanlike
16. Creator C. Revives
17. Unmentionables I. Watchmen
18. Roam U. Irishwomen
19. Rifles Q. Speeding
20. Toadstools B. Cobain
21. Kristine E. Interest
22. Backslapper L. Henchman
23. Husband S. Danced
24. Understudies D. Coverts
25. Pastorates E. Spectroscopic
26. Lazing E. Floodgate
27. Quackery G. Parsonage
28. Allege U. Debonairly
29. Cacophonies J. Picking
30. Fever K. Patricide
31. Quad B. Flap
32. Insect A. Deduction
33. Comprehended O. Hague
34. Reheat O. Kidd
35. Martini Q. Curlicued
36. Pediment M. Brett
37. Sidekicks R. Tunnelings
38. Assault J. Dogs
39. Doused H. Fervently
40. Plowshare G. Yakima
41. Remissions T. Transposition
42. Garters S. Mobster
43. Imperils H. Lukewarm
44. Gregg I. Contender
45. Mist L. Undersigning
46. Judgment F. Fatima
47. Bluer D. Butler

Related Posts:

• More spam from people with silly names
• Spam email and silly names, and
• More spam email and silly names

This is the last post, for now, on these spam emails and the silly names of the supposed senders — though I’ll add new silly names to the end of the list as I get them.

Comments on “Stardom P. Jackasses and Other Silly Names, Spam, Fake Pharmaceuticals, and Identity Theft”

Travel Journal – September 15, 2007

Note: This “lost” Haw Creek Out ‘n About post was recovered from the Internet Archive WayBack Machine.

We headed back down to Old Faithful again on our drive around the southern loop of the park. Our stop at the inn was intended to be a restroom break, but, once we got there, we decided to walk a bit of the trails in the vicinity, including a hike up to an overlook above Old Faithful.

Looking down the Firehole River from a bridge over it.

Buffalo near the trail up to the overlook.

An elk along the trail.

Old Faithful eruption viewed from about 1/2 mile away.

Solitary Geyser. In 1915, the spring was tapped with a pipe with the idea of  putting some of the hot water in the park to use. The level dropped about 5 feet and what had been a calm spring became a geyser erupting every few minutes. The pipe was removed, but the disruption of the balance caused over 90 years ago continues today.

A raven that visited us at lunch.

Lake Yellowstone Hotel – a panorama. Click on image to see a larger image (it will open in a new window).

The hotel dining room.

The hotel’s “Sun Room,” adjacent to the lobby and overlooking the lake.

View of Lake Yellowstone from the shore in front of the hotel.

Churning Cauldron – The roiling of the water is not boiling; it’s huge bubbles of hot gases from deep within the earth.

This lady was way too close.  If these buffalo had started running, the could have been on her before she had a chance to react.  We’ve seen people who were even closer than this to buffalo.

Note: This “lost” Haw Creek Out ‘n About post was recovered from the Internet Archive WayBack Machine.