...
The day before, I "crashed" this "party", a big local cultural event:
https://www.halfmarathons.net/
...sort of by accident - I just happened to hear on the radio that
morning that it was happening that noon, and decided I could
"intercept" it at a strategic outcrop just above "Rocky Canyon" which
the route passes through, just to take pictures, so I parked my car
about three miles north from the start at a trailhead and took some
trails over another ridge about three miles to the vantage point, with
my 100-400mm lens as well as my usual 24-70mm. Took telephotos of the
early runners, then "scenics" of the crowd jogging and finally walking
through the canyon, then decided I would just join in and walk with
all the stragglers, after learning there would be busses taking people
back to town. Got caught in a thunderstorm while waiting for the bus.
I just finished posting photos:
https://www.muddyknees.net/201
learned I should have paid $12 to take the bus as spectator:
https://runsignup.com/Race/Rac
I'll contact them and volunteer a late payment.
A few days before that I was snowshoeing for a couple days near
Stanley in the mountains, and have been doing some snowshoeing closer
to Boise around the ski area a half hour drive above town. I also
recently took a half-week longer counterclockwise loop drive into
Montana (just short of Missoula) and then west through central Idaho
and back south, with a quick detour into the town of Elk City, which I
think Mark flew into on his crosscountry flight. Some day I'll get
around to posting the photos of that tour, showing that town in
winter.
Photography wise, I've also been trying to organize the scanned
results of the old slides and negs from high school on that I've now
mostly gotten scanned. I have about $200 worth of "credit" at
Scancafe due to a "cancelled" scanning order, that I'm not sure how I
would use up - I've been taking advantage of 40% discounted offers to
get my stuff scanned mostly via their "bulk" scanning which is sent to
Burma with a 2-3 month turnaround, while the "credit" I'll have to use
via their "standard" service. (You can search Scancafe to get more
details.) If you have anything you might want to scan, let me know
and I can arrange an address destination change to take advantage of
my credit. After reviewing all my slides and negs, I think I may be
missing a lot of negs or slides from our school days ...
(other than the snapshots of your photo albums
I took back when I visited - which I also still have to process and
post, although they were hastily-poorly copy-photographed with lots of
reflections and distortions.)
So as I hinted I might do last time I talked/emailed, I am now in
"travel mode", having moved out of the room I was renting just over a
week ago now, with all my stuff in ...storage. I quit my job, as
it so happens, a day before I learned about ... This is an
eerie coincidence - as if there was some cause-effect association.
The "reality" was that I was already planning to quit - but probably
effective about now -after easter or end of April. I had mentioned
that to my supervisor in the context of some changes that were
happening there. In fact the Friday before the Monday that I quit, I
had been reassigned to work in a different location. That Monday when
I showed up at the new location the supervisor there had no clue that
several of us were newly assigned there, and I was assigned some
really inane task, and by lunch break, I decided I would quit -
reasoning that I would not be missed, the timing was convenient. But
also, for some reason I had been feeling rather nauseous and
light-headed all evening. I guess it was the next morning that I got
your text about Ann. Ironically, had I known about ... earlier, I
probably would not have quit then like that. (I have not mentioned
this coincidence to anyone else.)
I'm not exactly sure what I will be doing. The original idea was to
hike further portions of the Idaho Centennial Trail, which I did
probably the nicest chunk of last year, on weekend trips, through the
Sawtooths, from near the town of Mountain Home north through the
Sawtooths as far as Stanley lake. The snowshoe hikes I mentioned
above were also partially on that trail, just north of Stanley Lake.
The loop drive Missoula-Elk City also included some "scouting" hikes
on the ICT, a "western option" of which which passes by Elk City. I
was planning to do portions south of Mountain Home this spring before
it got too hot in the snake plain, and I have done some "scouting" in
that area, but so far have chosen the snow over the high desert there.
I'm actually planning, finally, to do some hiking there this weekend,
probably last chance before it gets too hot.
Then I was planning to head north and explore the Idaho panhandle,
that the ICT passes through. I had in mind crossing into Canada,
maybe revisiting Banff/Jasper, inspired by my newly scanned slides
from my trip there in high school, then completing an 8 mile trail on
the Canada side connecting to the northern terminus of the PCT, that
most north-bound through-hikers do, but I had turned around at the
border, not having planned the required paperwork to cross legally a
few years ago. Ironically, speaking of paperwork, I happened to check my passport, it expires this June, and I learned that It needs to be at
least 3 months from expiration to use, so, too late, I'll have to
renew, waiting 6-8 weeks for a replacement.
Other options include a trip back to the Bay Area, visit the rest of
the family there, and finish the Bay Ridge Trail "project" that I also
started, and have only a south part of the east bay portion to do,
ideally done in spring, now essentially too late. I'm also now
considering coming back east, but my car is approaching 300,000 miles
and not sure If I should push it that far, so that would be by bus or
train, probably. I'm also thinking of continuing the Bumble Bee
monitoring I started last summer, and doing enough other volunteering
to maintain my status as "master naturalist" here in town, and make
some more social connections.
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