North Country Trail

 Recently got back from backpacking a new loop in the Manistee National Forest with my dad. When I was in middle school I went on a few separate occasions but have not been back since. My dad mentioned that the NCT put a new loop on the other side of the river through the forest. We decided to go check it out. The loop is just under 20 miles, we hiked in about 6 miles along the Manistee trail side Thursday afternoon and posted up camp.

Northern Adventures

   Pat and I had the opportunity of visiting Justin Cooper before moving away from Marquette

 a couple months ago. It was great to escape from the daily grind of things and all the responsibilities of life for a few days and just enjoy good company, nature, photography, no schedules or phone service, bicycles, local eateries, random adventures and overall the perfect road trip experience. Thank you Jaci and Justin for having us and look forward to the upcoming adventures also!

 

Nordhouse Dunes

Got a chance to spend some time with my dad and go backpacking at Nordhouse Dunes again. I went with Justin a few years back and have been wanting to go back since. Its a fun trail and has a wide array of terrain for such a condensed area. Definitely a fun hike and fun stay! We camped in many familiar spots and also explored some new ones. We came across a bunch of wildlife! We ran into snakes, turtles, eagles, deer, turkey, fish and a brief encounter with a raccoon. I am happy I had the opportunity to get caught up with work and go on this trip and reconnect with my dad. Friends loved ones have been passing away and also some of my friends health have been rough lately. I have not had anyone too close to me pass away yet, I have been trying to empathize with what my friends are experiencing. Although I will never know what some of those situations or circumstances are like until I go through them myself, empathizing has been helping me respect the frailty of life and time. It is helping me put aside my differences and the past to enjoy the moment that we have and enjoying the most of it. I am thankful for the time I had with my dad over the past few days.

35mm West

Pool bust

These photos were from earlier this summer but I recently was just able to get my film developed. During our little drought earlier this year when we were blessed with weeks on end of great hot weather to ride bikes I had an opportunity to check out an old spot. It was the South side pool by my moms house. I scoped it out one night by myself on a solo session and realized that the hot weather had brought down the water level about 3 ft in the deep end of the pool and there was only about 3 feet left to be drained! I went back within a few days with Mac and we began to drain the pool. Unfortunately the place had been vandalized before we got there and also the neighbors ended up calling the cops on us and made for a premature end to the day and we never were able to ride the pool again. Luckily I left with new memories and some photos.... Enjoy!

Pictorial records cognate to an unsound moment

  These old pictures of myself in their graininess, lack of color, and dismal appearance reflect the monotonous distress of my day to day lately.

Sometimes I travel.

There are just some places in this world that feel like a dream. It doesn't matter where you are. It doesn't have to be far away, in some tropical part of the world. It could be anywhere. Someplace new.
Someplace, where you don't know the names of any of the streets, and, maybe, there aren't any names for them anyway. Someplace where, maybe, they speak the same language, but the accents are a little bit different, or harder to understand. Everything is foreign, but not necessarily a foreign land. At least that's the way I feel when I travel.

I'm probably romanticizing it a bit much, but it's something close to that.

Summer, 2009

Again with the older pictures. But, like all things, I feel that they need a place to be, and this seems like a place just as good as any.

Okay. So, the first picture... It's not at an angle because I was having some sort of epileptic seizure induced fit of artistic license. On one of the days when we were up in Sagada (which is where all of these pictures were taken), we were supposed to go visit some caves, see more of the hanging coffins, and pretty much just do some more of the kind of bumming around that tourists do when they've driven two-track way up the side of a mountain and out of their sedentary, comfort-inducing surroundings.

Edit 7/01/11 ~ (Sagada is located in the Philippines, roughly, about a day and a half's worth of driving north of Manila.) 

Basically, we weren't able to go through the foot path that we needed to make in order to get to the caves because there was a ceremony that was closed to outsiders (and, if I recall correctly, it had to do with the blessing of the rice crops--but  whether or not that is a truth, is yet to be determined). While we were waiting around be the end of the roadway, just behind where the little boy is sitting, to find out why/if/when we could/couldn't pass, there were some little kids running around (presumably waiting for school--based on their backpacks and clothes).

Most of the kids were in little groups. They were running around, chasing one another, throwing rocks. Everyone. Except this little boy. Waiting patiently. Off to one side. By himself.

Mondays aren't as good as Sundays (and some stories from the past).

Monday was pretty much a worthless day. Aside from getting some new Profiles onto my bike, the rest of it was shit.

I managed to crash badly enough on my bike that I went to the hospital. I'm full of scrapes and bruises. My wrist is pretty much useless. I lost a small pump that I purchased that day. I also am pretty sure I concussed myself, and I tore a hole in the T-1 hoodie that I bought the day before.

Now I am bored. So, in light of my uselessness, here are some pictures from some time ago, and some explanations/stories for each...