The Great One

Like clockwork every evening as the maroon glow of sunset fades through the gates of darkness, a silhouetted Great Horned Owl swoops down from the blank, backlit sky to perch on a naked limb atop the neighborhood’s tallest oak tree.

I know of this because most evenings at this time, I’m lounging upstairs on a guest room bed at my house watching reruns of “The Rockford Files.” Out of my window, I always catch that large bird of prey‘s arrival in the tree from the corner of my eye.

With my full attention diverted from my show, I stare out my second story window to the top of my backyard neighbor’s tree. The owl always hangs out there for a minute or so while swiveling its head, identifiable in the near-dark by its large size and pointed ears.

After feeling assured of its safety, the owl launches itself out of the tree, down and across another backyard neighbor’s yard, disappearing into a tangle of smaller trees at the corner of their property.

This regular evening ritual is fascinating and exhilarating.

(Photos CC from the Interwebs)

Above and Through the Flood Zone: Part 2

 

We left foggy Portland on Tuesday morning heading roughly northwest. The Wiener mobile had left the previous day. 

 

We had toyed with lots of potential side trips for our return down the map to Roanoke. Canada, although very tempting seemed like just too much. Niagara Falls seemed too far.

 

A few years ago, I was entertaining my grandson (Number One) and found some You-Tube videos of The Cog Railway in New Hampshire. Number One always asked to see them every time I saw him thereafter. So, we decided to go there and capture the experience first-hand. 

 

A bonus for weather-geek me is that The Cog ascends Mt. Washington, the second highest peak in the eastern United States. Despite its relative modest height compared to the western mountains, it's world famous for its ever-changing extreme weather. For example, Mt. Washington held the world record for highest wind gust reliably recorded (231mph) in 1934. A gust from a cyclone near Australia topped that record about ten years ago. 

 

Here's a blurb from The Hill about a most amazing weather event this past February: 

 

"The Mount Washington Observatory recorded a new, record-low air temperature of -46.9 degrees Fahrenheit as of Saturday morning at 4:10 a.m, according to overnight summit conditions.

 

The previous record daily low of -32 degrees Fahrenheit was set in 1963.

The previous wind chill record was shattered overnight, when wind chills dropped to -108.4 degrees at different points on Friday night and Saturday morning. The previous record was -102.7 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

“Winds will also remain elevated Saturday morning, with wind speeds ranging from 100-115 mph with gusts up to 135 mph,” the observatory wrote in a summit forecast on Saturday. “Strong winds and harsh cold temperatures will continue to produce dangerously low wind chill values, with wind chill values remaining at 100 below to 110 below Saturday morning."

 

As a weather geek, visiting Mt. Washington is a bucket list item for me. So that's what we did. 

 

We headed northwest from Portland to Mt. Washington. Our path took us through towns like Gorham, Standish, Steep Falls, Baldwin, Fryeburg, Center Conway, Conway, North Conway, Very North Conway, Absolute North Conway before turning off Rt 302 just past the amazing Omni Mount Washington Resort (Think of The Greenbriar...but larger).

 

The Cog Railway was designed and built between 1859 and 1869 as a way for wealthy resort tourists to ascend the moody mountain. The whole technology was invented back then. A small, but powerful steam engine was attached to a cog that clawed its way up or down hill one cog tooth at a time. Train wheels allowed the steam-powered machine to roll smoothly up or down the mountain. The passenger cab was simply pushed uphill (unattached from the engine) or braked downhill kept from running away by the engine. The only thing different today is that the steam engines have largely been retired and replaced by bio-diesel engines.

 

Our journey up started at 11am and proceeded at a fast snail's pace for about 45 minutes to the summit. Fog encased the train cab for the last half of the ascent to 6200 feet. The temperature at the station base was about 65 degrees with light winds. At the summit, the temperature was 48 degrees with 45mph winds with gusts to 70. I was almost blown off the visitor's center roof as the most powerful gust of the day blasted through. 

 

Fog descended and lifted in rapid succession. Above the tree line, the summit was like a moonscape but with wet, slippery rocks. We had a layover of about an hour to climb about on the rocks and explore the visitor's center/food court, and we spent that time taking shelter to warm up and darting out for views. The whole experience was desensitizing. Winds howled, air was noticeably thinner, clouds were slipping past like spooked jack rabbits. 

 

After the trip back down to base station around 2:30 Tuesday, we drove away through the flood-ravaged hellscape of New Hampshire/Vermont. Interestingly, the only water we had to deal with was on the approach road to Mt. Washington. We had to splash through about 2 feet of water that was rushing across the road. On the rest of the journey, we observed serious flat land flooding, but the Interstates were built above all of it. We pulled in to Kingston, NY at about 6pm and feasted on a Hannaford grocery store dinner. 

 

Our trip back to Roanoke down I87/83/81 was mostly uneventful except for one instance near Harrisburg, PA where a log truck was zooming in the left lane right in front of me and suddenly shed a HUGE chunk (about 1-2 yards long) of thick tree bark. I had to immediately jerk our Civic into the right lane and almost rolled. I actually felt the left side tires leave the pavement. Driving is a thrill for me. 

 

We arrived home yesterday at about 5:30. Today, we exist in a fog.

 

 

A Trip to Maine and Back: Part 1

 

 

We’ve been away since Friday on a trip through the NE of the US.

Our good friend from Portland, Maine was getting married on Saturday, so we decided to make the auto trip an adventure, one where we were continually amazed.

 

This first tranche of photos is from the up-visit to and in Portland.

We spent Friday night in lovely Dunmore, PA- between Scranton and Throop. The Sleep Inn next to I-81 looks a bit sketchy from the outside. The litter and other human debris beside the parking area suggests some type of encampment, but the hotel itself was perfectly functional with comfortable bug-free beds and a modest free hotel breakfast.

 

The wedding was scheduled to take place on a Portland Harbor cruise that departed the downtown wharf at 6pm. So we had to pray for fair seas across the interstates and toll roads through Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine. The Mass Turnpike and through Down East Maine had other ideas. Traffic was thick and boggy, but we had left early and we’re confident we’d make it to the Best Western Merry Manor Inn in South Portland in time to change for the wedding.

 

We crawled in to our hotel escorted by a thick blanket of Marine layer fog at 3:30 pm after beating the traffic wedges and invisible toll booths. I didn't realize that people don't "pay" tolls any more. Instead, tolls are assessed through some sort of decoder ring ping from your car or from some highly technical alien contraption that gawks at your car every now and then randomly assigns you with a flexible fee that is billed to your home address magically. We expect toll bombs to arrive in our mailbox over the next few weeks and months.

 

The wedding cruise in Portland Harbor was limited by the fog blanket, but we managed to cruise out to one of the lighthouses that guards the entry to the harbor and celebrated a wonderful union between two mighty fine people.

SWSNBNOFB and I arrived back to the Merry Manor to find an Oscar Meyer Wiener-mobile in our parking lot, shrouded in the mists. 

 

We spent the next couple of days (Sunday and Monday) seeking the light. For the entire time we spent in Portland, we never saw the sun. In fact, there was no hint of the sun. It's like it just disappeared. 

 

Sunday took us north from Portland past Falmouth, Yarmouth, and Bath. Near Wiscasset, we took a right of US Rt 1 and headed toward Georgetown, Maine-at the end of a small peninsula beside the Atlantic. The fog escorted us the whole way. The end of the road featured a dock with a lobster roll shack. We don't much care for seafood. But the misty waters were stunning. The Wiener-mobile was in the hotel parking lot to greet us on our return. 

 

Monday, we went south from Portland and crawled up the coast from Old Orchard Beach to Fort Williams. The fog escorted us the whole way. The sun had ceased to exist.

 

Monday morning was the dawn of a new day. One that would take us to the interior North East on the tail of their deadly flood event.