Project Recap [Landscape #68]

After finishing my Acadia project, I took a brief break from cross stitching until I picked my next project and could get supplies. Sometime during the summer I offered to make a few of my friends from Cornell a cross stitch of their choice if they’d like one, and by early fall I had most of the patterns confirmed. Following a field trip to Michaels, I started in on the first project, chosen because it was large enough to keep me busy for awhile and had a not ridiculous number of colors (20).

Landscape #68 (lake and trees at sunset)

Presenting: Landscape #68 (it’s a lake at sunset with silhouetted trees) by 2x2StitchArt, pattern bought from Etsy. At its widest and tallest points, it measures 130x130 stitches, for a total of approximately 13,300 stitches. It took about nine weeks from mid-September to late November to complete, so I averaged a couple hundred stitches a day, even with a trip up north in October and dealing with submitting my second paper, scheduling my dissertation defense, and actually having to write my thesis in November. Like everything else I’ve ever stitched, it’s done on 14 count Aida, again blanket stitched around the edges to stop fraying, which takes some time but works well and is more durable than tape, fray check, or pinking shears. It’s supposed to be 9.3 inches in diameter, but mine ended up 9.3 inches wide and 8.9 inches high pre washing.

I worked off a 1 page PDF meant for tablets/electronic devices with symbols superimposed over squares colored roughly to match the floss color (skein estimates provided separately). The symbols were easy enough to distinguish from each other and the pattern had almost no confetti. Because the pattern had roughly horizontal stripes I stitched it from the bottom up and didn’t have much trouble keeping my place without any sort of gridding. If there’s one thing that was lacking, it’s that the Etsy shop is one of the ones with a large number of patterns and doesn’t have a lot of stitched examples, but I’d seen some other completed patterns from this store on the cross stitch subreddit.  This one did stitch up nicely in the end, with the colors not too far from the mockup. Overall it’s a well done pattern and I’d do another one by this designer.

Mount Wachusett

Last post from my trip home to New England, then I plan to post some non-travel related things before getting into my fall trip. Perhaps to make up for the past 5 years of walking in circles in flatland Michigan and 20 months since my brother and I had been home, we did a fair amount of hiking and other outdoor activities in a relatively short time span. The last hike we took shortly before I flew back to Ann Arbor to finish up my degree was up Mount Wachusett.

This was a quick hike up the 2,006 ft. Mount Wachusett in central Massachusetts. In winter, people go to Mt. Wachusett to ski, but during the rest of the year the state reservation is open for hiking. There is a separate visitors center for hikers, but we parked at the ski area parking lot because it’s free in summer. From the parking lot, we took the Balance Rock Trail, connected to the Old Indian Trail to the summit, then came down the Loop Trail to the visitor center and used the Donbrowo Trail to get back to the ski area. This loop is about 3 miles long and can be hiked in under a couple hours pretty easily.

Balance Rock

Like most of the rest of our hikes this summer, it was rocky. The trail is wooded and relatively flat up to Balance Rock, which, as you may have guessed, is a rock balanced on another rock. From Balance Rock, the trail starts to ascend more steeply up rock fields, occasionally crossing the ski trails. Near the summit, you emerge from a wooded section at the top of one of the ski lifts, nonoperational during the summer. At the summit, there’s a fire tower with a lower platform accessible. Depending on the day’s visibility, you can see a number of the surrounding hills/mountains, including Mt. Monadnock and the Berkshires. If it’s a really clear day, it’s possible to see the Boston skyline sixty miles to the east.

Ski lift

Summit fire tower

On the way down, we took a different route, which involved crossing and walking along the summit road for a portion of the descent. This trail was steeper than our ascent, so had stone steps for most of the trail. We stopped in at the visitor center to look at some of the educational exhibits on the flora and fauna found on the mountain, then took the flat Donbrowo Trail back to the ski area. At the end of summer, the ski lodge and surrounding accessory buildings were locked and silent, the ski lifts unmoving. There did appear to be an event being set up, but we weren’t invited, so we returned to the car and picked up Chinese takeout for dinner, which we enjoyed with some Long Trail Ale, probably my favorite beer since I picked it up in a Wegmans pick your own 6 pack during college.

View from an overlook on the descent

Acadia 2021 – Day 5 and Homeward Bound

I did not forget about day 5. On day 5, we made it to the Jordan Pond House for lunch, then revisited Sand Beach and the Ocean Path on a day when we could actually see the beach and the ocean. I’ve already talked about Jordan Pond and the Ocean Path, so I don’t have much else to add but some new pictures not filled with fog and a lunch report.

Oh hello, Bubbles

Jordan Pond House

The Jordan Pond House was open, but appeared to be operating at reduced capacity and possibly also with a pared down menu. We had about an hour wait, which we spent around Jordan Pond enjoying being able to see the pond (and even the Bubbles across the pond, imagine that). When we were summoned for our late lunch, there were a few parties seated indoors, but as usual we chose to sit outside on the lawn. The Jordan Pond House is known for popovers, so we ordered popovers with jam and butter, then I had shepherd’s pie. [Made with lamb. Technically if it contains ground beef instead of lamb it’s supposed to be called cottage pie, but especially in the US and on school lunch menus it’s often still called shepherd’s pie even if it’s made with ground beef.] Lunch was good, with a good view, and following the meal we headed back to Sand Beach to enjoy the coast for an hour or so.

Sand Beach from the Ocean Path

It was a pretty relaxed day, then the following day, our last in Acadia, I dragged everyone on one last hike involving multiple bodies of water, multiple prominences, and multiple peanut butter and jam sandwiches, as chronicled in my previous post. The last day of our trip, we packed, cleaned our lodgings, and I drank most of the remaining milk straight from the carton because no one else would.

On the way back home, we made a stop in Portland (ME, not OR) to explore the downtown/harbor area a bit and then see the Portland Head Light, another lighthouse popular with photographers (for good reason; it’s a very photogenic lighthouse).

The Portland Head Light, completed in 1791, is Maine’s oldest lighthouse, and is likely the inspiration for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “The Lighthouse.” It’s located in Fort Williams Park, which is itself a very nice park. Besides the lighthouse, there are walking trails along the ocean, the remains of Fort Williams, grassy fields for kite flying, picnic areas, and various other recreational facilities. It was a good stop on the way home to break up the drive (which wasn’t that long – we drove from New England to Florida all the way down I-95 when I was in high school).

Portland Head Light

By the end of the trip, we ended up covering somewhere north of 30 miles on foot over six days, with a decent amount of elevation change. I’m still a little surprised I was allowed to plan all our hiking, and everyone seemed to put up with it, but I guess the real test is if I’m allowed to plan all our hiking on the next trip. During the trip, I also made up to twenty-four peanut butter and jam sandwiches, took 752 photos (currently culled to 555), and finished reading my second Jane Austen novel (Pride and Prejudice, after previously having listened to Persuasion). Overall, I’m glad I managed to make it home and (finally) do some “real” hiking for the first time in awhile.

Acadia 2021, Day 6 – a lake, a nubble, a bubble, and a pond

When planning out our activities in Acadia, I’d left an extra day free in case of bad weather or some things taking more time than expected. Because the weather mostly held, we ended up getting to everything on my list in five days, giving me a bonus day of hiking. After considering some options, we decided to explore the area north of Jordan Pond. Ideally, the plan was to drive to Jordan Pond, park there, take the Island Explorer bus to the Bubble Pond stop, and hike from there back to Jordan Pond via Eagle Lake, Conners Nubble, and the North Bubble. Fortunately, we found a parking spot at Jordan Pond, so the plan was a go.

The last time we were at Acadia, we actually tried to hike the Eagle Lake trail (also on my recommendation), but some way in it got too muddy and I we were forced to turn back. This time, we would need to make it the whole way through, mud or not, in order to get back to the car. The 1.8 mile trail starts out at the southeast corner of Eagle Lake, wraps around the southern end of the lake, and goes partway up the western shore. It starts out as a dirt trail, then as you pass the southern end of the lake the trail becomes rockier. Along the way, you get to see Eagle Lake, Conners Nubble to the west, and Cadillac Mountain to the east.

The south end of Eagle Lake.  The lump left of center should be Conners Nubble.

Eagle Lake from Conners Nubble

The Eagle Lake trail ends at the Eagle Lake Carriage Road, but shortly before intersecting the carriage road it connects to the Bubbles trail that leads to the North and South Bubbles via Conners Nubble. This is the trail we took, just as it began to rain. Fortunately, the showers didn’t last, and from Conners Nubble (588’), we got great views of all of Eagle Lake, Cadillac Mountain, Sargent Peak, and the North Bubble. From the nubble, we descended slightly back into forest before re-ascending to the North Bubble (872’). This section of the hike was about a mile and a half long and had some sustained inclines up the nubble and the bubble with a wooded relatively flat section between the two where you cross the carriage trail.

North Bubble from Conners Nubble

Jordan Pond and the South Bubble from the summit of the North Bubble

At the summit of the North Bubble, we got the view of Jordan Pond that we didn’t get when we were on the South Bubble a couple days previously, which was nice. By this time, the sky behind us was starting to look sketchy again, so we began our final descent along the Bubbles trail. Instead of taking the trail all the way back to Jordan Pond over the South Bubble, we cut around the South Bubble (to spare ourselves some climbing since we’d already been there) using the Bubbles Divide trail and the Jordan Pond Carry trail (~0.5 mi.). Once in the forest below the North Bubble, it darkened alarmingly, so we continued along somewhat hastily. The carry trail meets back up with the Jordan Pond trail at the same spot where the South Bubble trail does, and from there we had a final ~1.2 miles to the parking lot and the car. Although dark clouds hovered menacingly over the Bubbles* and there were a few raindrops and a fair amount of wind, it did not really rain on us, and we made it to the car without incident. And as we drove out of the park for the last time on this trip, we saw a rainbow over the ocean. So #blessed or something, right?

*I’m aware that the sky is very blue in most of the photos in this post. It really was quite dark in the opposite direction, I promise.

Trees

Rainbow

This hike was probably the quietest of any we took on this trip. We didn’t summit anything big, but we still got some nice views, explored a new part of Acadia, and did not get caught in a thunderstorm. It was a satisfying end to a pretty great trip.

Acadia 2021, Day 4 – Go West, Young Man

Most of the “main attractions” at Acadia – Sand Beach, Cadillac Mountain, Thunder Hole, Jordan Pond – are located on the east side of Mount Desert Island (MDI). However, after cross stitching the Bass Harbor Head Light, I had to go see it in person, and the Bass Harbor lighthouse is on the west side of MDI. While looking through the guidebook for potential hikes I also found some trails on the west side, so we decided to spend a day over on that half of the island and see what it had to offer.

We started out the day summitting the 681 ft. Acadia Mountain for views of Sommes Sound, the fjord that splits MDI into its two halves. The hiking was similar to what hiking in the northeast can often be like – wooded dirt paths on the flat, then a lot of rocks and stone steps when you’re climbing, often transitioning to bare rock at higher elevation. It was a relatively quick, if rocky, 0.7 miles to the summit, so I convinced everyone we opted to continue along the trail and loop back to the parking area instead of backtracking. The trail continues toward the sound for another quarter mile, giving more views of the fjord before descending into the forest down to Man of War Brook. From there, you can connect to the Valley Cove Trail that follows the shoreline of the sound (when it’s not closed for peregrine falcon nesting) or the Valley Peak Trail that leads up to St. Sauveur Mountain, but we took the Man o’ War Truck Road back out to where we had parked for a total loop distance of about 2.8 miles.

Sommes Sound

The guidebook also praised the views of Sommes Sound from Flying Mountain, so we headed there next. This was another quick hike, just 0.3 miles to the 284 ft. summit. The views were nice, especially for a spot that can be reached in ten minutes, but somewhat similar to those from Acadia Mountain. Flying Mountain is further south, and it’s lower in elevation, so you do get a closer look at the area around the sound and the view out to the ocean.

View from Flying Mountain

From Flying Mountain, we continued onward in the direction of the Bass Harbor Lighthouse, making two more stops along the way. The first was the natural Seawall, featuring lots of rocks and ocean waves. It’s apparently a good spot to watch the sunrise over Great Cranberry Island or stargaze, but we just stopped by to enjoy the rocks and waves before heading on our way.

Seawall

Our second stop was Wonderland. With a name like Wonderland, how could we not stop? We made the (fortunately not serious) mistake of not actually checking how long the trail was (it looked short on the map and was wide and flat) and it turned out to be longer than it looked (0.7 miles one way), but it was fine. Wonderland is one of the main spots known for tide pools at low tide, but as usual we weren’t scheduling anything by the tides and we were there at the wrong time, though there were still a couple pools. I managed to see a few small fish, a couple snails clinging to the rocks, and a mini crab or two.

Wonderland

Finally, we made it to the destination that was the original reason for visiting this half of MDI, the Bass Harbor Head Light, just in time for the fog to roll in again. Yes, really. During the summer, the sun sets behind the lighthouse, which can produce some very nice photos, assuming the sun is actually visible. Which it was most definitely not on this day. Still, I got to see the lighthouse, and earlier in the day enjoy tide pools and a fjord, so I’m not complaining. Too much.

Bass Harbor Head Light

Acadia 2021, Day 3 – Jordan Pond

Day three of our trip took us to Jordan Pond. It was another marginal weather day, so we had planned to stop by the visitor center, then take the Island Explorer bus and try to get lunch at the Jordan Pond House. At this point in time, the Hulls Cove Visitor Center was open and requiring masks for everyone indoors, and they also had an outdoor tent station with park rangers answering questions. Inside, the visitor center had been reconfigured (as of winter 2019) since the last time we were at the park. Sadly, they no longer air the park film, which is a pity because there’s nothing quite like an educational National Park Service produced video to supplement your trip.¹ The store was moved into the old auditorium space and seems to carry fewer items, maybe thanks to online shopping and the internet. For what it’s worth, I planned out all our hikes using a physical book and map because 1) yes, I can still read a paper map (and an analog clock, for that matter), and 2) cell service in Acadia isn’t reliable once you go too far south on Mt. Desert Island.

As we were leaving the visitor center to catch the bus, we found out that the Jordan Pond House was closed for rest of the day unexpectedly, with no news on when it would reopen. They weren’t saying it, but the sudden unplanned closure pointed to Covid. We made the decision to go to Jordan Pond anyway and walk around the pond and up the South Bubble, a hike that we usually do when we go to Acadia. From the Jordan Pond House at the south end of Jordan Pond, you can either circle the pond clockwise or counterclockwise. The east side is flatter with dirt trails while the west side is more rugged with the trail either on bare rock or boardwalk. At the north end of the pond, you can connect to the hiking area around the Bubbles. The shoreline trail is about three and a half miles long, and the spur up to the South Bubble adds another ~1.2 miles.

Fog on Jordan Pond

As per usual, we set off counterclockwise up the eastern shore first. Similarly to the previous day, there were visibility issues, but at least it made for some interesting pictures. Because of its location and relative flatness, especially on the east shore, Jordan Pond is one of the busier hiking destinations in Acadia, which I found to be true, but I’ve heard about trails where there are so many people it’s like walking in a very long line, and it was definitely not that bad. At the northern end of the pond we took the trail up the South Bubble, which is also where Bubble Rock is. There were exactly zero views of Jordan Pond or anything else to be had, but we took the traditional photos of trying to push Bubble Rock over², enjoyed a snack, and headed down.

Bubble Rock (also sometimes referred to as Balance Rock)

Shadows in the fog

Back on the shores of Jordan Pond, we completed our circuit of the pond, caught the bus (free, multiple routes, masks required onboard during Covid) back to the visitor center, and got our standard photo at the park sign (which was also new). Another day at Acadia done.

More fog; the Bubbles should be visible right in the middle of the photo

¹I was in elementary school before the existence of YouTube. We watched a lot of clearly made-for-education VCR tapes on CRT TVs strapped to carts that were rolled around the whole school as required. I still know the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution thanks to the Schoolhouse Rock! song.

²Estimating the size of Bubble Rock as a rectangular prism slightly less than twice as high and wide as a person and 2-3 times as long gives a volume of 960 ft³ (~8 ft x 8 ft x 15 ft) which is 27.2 m³. Assuming it’s granite, granite is about 2.7 times as dense as water, 2700 kg/m³, for a weight of 73,300 kg, or 161,000 lb. – over 80 tons or 40-55 cars, so it’s probably not going to be pushed over by any given person any time soon.

Acadia 2021, Day 2 – Ocean Path

After hiking Cadillac Mountain on day 1 to “get it over with” (an anonymous family member’s words, not mine), I had planned for day 2 to be less strenuous, plus the weather was questionable so I didn’t want to tackle anything too ambitious. It was, in fact, raining when we made it into Acadia, but it let up enough for my family to agree to go on a walk along the Ocean Path. The Ocean Path is about 2 miles long (one way) and connects Sand Beach to Otter Point, passing by Thunder Hole on the way. It’s mostly flat, you can turn back at any time, and you get views of the ocean and coastline so it’s a good choice for people who don’t have much time in the park or aren’t interested in climbing anything.

The Acadia coastline

We started out at the Sand Beach parking lot. The beach, shockingly enough, was not filled with sunbathers and children building sandcastles but a small crowd wearing raincoats, carrying umbrellas, and gazing desultorily out at the waves. After walking up and down the beach to admire the sand and surf, we headed off on the Ocean Path. We explored the rocks along the coast as we went, and eventually made it to Thunder Hole, about a mile from the beach. Thunder Hole is a rock inlet where the waves are supposed to rush in, make loud booming noises, and create lots of spray. It’s best visited as the tide is coming in (and during bad weather, but if it’s too bad the park rangers close off access), and we were there an hour after high tide, so there was no thundering, but there was some gurgling.

The Beehive (I think) from Sand Beach

Thunder Hole

From Thunder Hole we continued down the Ocean Path. Most of the time the path follows the Park Loop Road, the scenic road in Acadia that passes by most of the major attractions in the park, but there’s a wooded part further from the road in this section, which is also where the fog really started rolling in. By the time we made it to Otter Point, we’d more or less lost any view of the ocean. Better this day than when we were hiking Cadillac, I guess. At this point, we hiked back to Sand Beach, got into the car, and drove off to get lobster for dinner, because what’s a trip to Maine without at least one lobster dinner?

Fog on the Ocean Path

Acadia 2021, Day 1 – Cadillac Mountain

Before it became trendy for the Instagrammers¹ and hipsters and bandwagon outdoorspeople to pack up their iPhones, $300 backpacks, and brand new hiking boots and take to the hills and dales, my family was enjoying hiking and camping because it was cheap. And fun. I’m absolutely not judging who is or isn’t a “true” hiker, but do it because you like it, not because you want social media clout or because everyone else is doing it. And please, please, do some research and don’t do something like show up to climb Katahdin at 2 pm wearing crocs and carrying a single 8 oz. bottle of water that belongs in an elementary schooler’s lunch box.² With that said, on to the actual subject of this post.

Part of my trip home was a family vacation to Acadia National Park, in Maine. Acadia is the only national park in the northeast, and even the last time we were there in 2013, the park rangers were already saying that attendance was rapidly increasing. Thanks to social media, covid, and probably some other factors, when we were there this time, it was downright crowded (in certain areas; others weren’t too bad). Still, we had a good trip, and I think I’m happy with my new wide angle lens.

I (somehow?) was allowed to be in charge of planning our hiking excursions, but because I know not everyone’s idea of a good time is hiking all day, every day, we didn’t do anything too crazy. At least in my opinion. Our first hike was up Cadillac Mountain, at 1,528 ft the highest point on Mount Desert Island. Due to the increased crowds, you now have to reserve a parking pass to drive up Cadillac, but hiking doesn’t require a permit. Previously, we hiked Cadillac via the Gorge Trail (up) and the North Ridge Trail (down). We got caught in the rain and got views of nothing but clouds from the summit. This time, we were about to tackle Cadillac from the South Ridge Trail, which is longer but less steep.

We parked by the trailhead, I made everyone peanut butter and jam sandwiches, and we headed off on our adventure of the day. The first mile+ is wooded and (comparatively) gently sloping. For the next ~two miles, the trail is on rock surrounded by shrubs and small trees. First you follow a long ridge with lovely views on either side (the Atlantic Ocean to the right/east and further into the park on the left/west) and the summit ahead. That’s followed by a short descent down to a little pond called the Featherbed, then an ascent back up to another rock slope. The final half mile returns to the trees (what, you thought any of these little east coast peaks would get above treeline?) and roughly parallels the summit road close enough that you can both hear and see cars, which is a little annoying, but the earlier views more than made up for it.

 

Ascending Cadillac on the South Ridge Trail

The Featherbed

When we made it to the summit area, we found a spot to enjoy the view and lunch. As per usual, the vistas looked better and the meal tasted better because we hiked to get there.³ After eating, we walked around the summit to get the views of Champlain Mountain and Bar Harbor, then headed back down the mountain the same way we came up. At seven miles roundtrip, the South Ridge Trail is longer than your average casual “hey, let’s go for a hike” kind of hike, but the views really are quite delightful.

There were a couple sections that I would consider truly steep; other than those brief segments it’s mostly just a continuous climb with a little down and up around the Featherbed in the middle. We had pretty good weather, clear skies, a little hazy, not too hot, not too many bugs; the trail itself wasn’t too crowded (the summit was busy, and the store was pretty packed); and all in all it was a great start to our Acadia vacation.

Views from the summit

Bar Harbor, Bar Islands, and Champlain Mountain

Descent, looking out to the Atlantic

¹Welcome to 2021, where Instagrammers is a word according to spell check and prefactor and rheometry aren’t. At least the opposite is true in the OED.

²Katahdin takes 8-12 hours to hike, is known for being rough on hiking boots (so just imagine what it would do to soft rubber shoes), and it’s recommended to bring half a gallon of water per person. Baxter State Park also requires every hiker to have a flashlight that’s not your phone and another of the items on their packing list is an emergency blanket in case you get stuck on the mountain overnight. So no, you don’t just waltz right up for that cool money shot on the Knife Edge.

³I’m pretty sure this is a proven scientific fact.

Isolated Hill of Bedrock

From the Encyclopedia Britannica, an “isolated hill of bedrock standing conspicuously above the general level of the surrounding area” is a monadnock.¹ The name “monadnock” comes from a Native American word for a mountain higher than and separated from the land around it, such as Mount Monadnock in Jaffrey/Dublin, New Hampshire, our latest adventure on my trip home. Monadnock is said to be the second most climbed mountain in the world, with an estimated 125,000 hikers summitting each year, only behind Mt. Fuji and its approximately 300,000 summitters per year. Its popularity likely stems from its proximity to Boston and a large part of the Northeast in general, its accessibility, and because it can be climbed in less than a day without too much technical ability. No need to drive for hours through wilderness, backpack in, or learn how to use an ice axe. At 3,165 feet it’s not an epic peak² rearing into the clouds, but its location and vistas make it an attractive destination for New Englanders.

This visit was not our first time at Mt. Monadnock; we climbed it three years in a row from 2000-2002 when my brother and I were much smaller, and once more recently. On this trip, despite my campaigning, compromise led us to leave home in the mid/late morning and arrive at Monadnock just in time to hike during the hottest, sunniest, most crowded hours of the day. We parked at the main headquarters where the majority of hikers begin their climb. Because Monadnock is so popular, it’s recommended to reserve your parking in advance, especially for weekends and holidays, though when we were there on a weekday the parking lot was only mostly full.

From HQ, the white dot trail ascends almost 1,800 feet to the peak in a little under two miles. The first ~half-mile section is wide with stone and log steps built into the trail. Here, there were quite a number of other people, so when the trail forked we turned onto the quieter white cross trail, which would meet up again with the white dot trail closer to the summit. Following a short wooded section, we began ascending rock fields that would be just the first of many. After five years in flatland the Midwest, I’d forgotten how rocky hiking in New England can be. About an hour into our hike, we started getting our first views of the surrounding area.

Rocks on the white cross trail

An hour after that, as the trees thinned and we started walking across more exposed rock, we got our first look at the summit, afar in the distance. Shortly afterwards, we met back up with the white dot trail for the last 300-foot ascent to the top. Although Monadnock’s summit is below the climactic tree line, fires set in the early 1800s to create pastureland and clear out alleged wolves permanently denuded these top 300 feet of trees, generating an artificial tree line and the long barren rock slopes of the final ascent. Thanks to our late start, we arrived at the summit in time for a very late lunch (peanut butter and jam sandwich, clementines, and oatmeal raisin walnut cookies I baked the afternoon before), which we enjoyed in the presence of lovely views and the couple dozen other hikers at the top with us.

 

Summit views

Rocks to the top

On the descent, we followed the white dot trail all the way down many, many stone steps, arriving back at the now mostly empty parking lot in the early evening. The New Hampshire State Parks website estimates the white dot trail to take about 2 hours to hike (one way) and the white cross trail about 2 and a half hours, which I think is pretty accurate if you either hike at a moderate pace the whole time or go faster but stop a lot to take photos. It’s a moderately difficult hike – you don’t need much technical ability (caveat: as long as there’s no snow; Monadnock’s open year round), but the distance and elevation gain make it more than your average stroll through the park. Like, I wouldn’t really recommend the hike to someone who hasn’t walked further than their mailbox in the last year, but if you’re a reasonably experienced day hiker it should be within your abilities.

View from the summit

The descent

Snacks/lunch and water are necessary; I had a liter of water (the park recommends two), which is more than I’ve needed for longer hikes, and I never felt like I was going to run out, but I could have done with a little more. It was hot – in the 80s – and above about 2,000 feet the trail’s pretty exposed, so I’d also suggest hats and sunscreen, plus wear shoes with good traction because of all the rocks. If you hike during peak season, expect plenty of other people, but the mountain’s big enough for everyone. So yes, Monadnock’s popular, but for good reason, and I’d recommend it to anyone who doesn’t mind a lot of rocks and sweat.

¹Monadnocks are also known as inselbergs, from the German for “island mountain.”

²The U.S. Geological Survey has no official definition as to what constitutes a mountain as opposed to a mere hill, but geologists often consider prominences more than 1,000 feet higher than their surroundings mountains, the UK government uses 2,000 feet above sea level as their qualification, and the United Nations Environment Programme has a classification system based on sea level, slope grade, and local elevation.

Double Donuts

While I was at home, my list of things to do was as follows: 1) Go to Wegmans, 2) Eat cake, and 3) Attend a Revolution game. Though I did accomplish all three items on the list, this post is about item number three. The last time I was physically at a Revolution game, Bobby Shuttleworth was struggling in net, Charlie Davies had just been traded to the Union, and the team lost 4-0 to the Philadelphia Union. Since then, on the coaching front, they’ve parted ways with Jay Heaps, hired Brad Friedel, fired Brad Friedel, and lured Bruce Arena to New England; the only players still playing on the team are Brad Knighton, Matt Turner, Andrew Farrell, Scott Caldwell, and Teal Bunbury; and the team has won a single trophy – a preseason mobile mini sun cup, which was indeed mobile and mini. So considering my last Revolution game and the entirety of whatever it was Brad Friedel did for a year and a half, my only wish for this game was that they wouldn’t lose, and if they managed to score it would be an added bonus.

There was reason to hope. Bruce Arena had the team off to an 11-3-3 start through the first half of the season, and their 36 points were good to lead both the Eastern Conference and the Supporters’ Shield standings (I don’t think I’ve ever seen them on top of the Eastern Conference this late in the season, let alone leading the entire league). All three designated players were tallying up goals and assists for the stat sheets – Carles Gil and his 15 assists were on pace to beat the MLS single-season assists record, Gustavo Bou had already hit double-digit goals, and Adam Buksa had eight goals and looked good on the field after a disappointing first season in MLS. Alas, it was not (entirely) to be. The Revolution didn’t lose, but on this Wednesday night in August, they were playing Nashville SC, in the rain, with Carles Gil out injured. It was quite a slog. On the plus side, Gold Cup champions Matt Turner (and Henry Kessler) were back from their time with the USMNT, as was Canadian Tajon Buchanan.¹

 

Pregame at Gillette Stadium

When we arrived at the stadium shortly before kickoff, it was already raining. If I’d had more schedule flexibility, I would not have chosen to attend a game against Nashville SC, but here we were. Nashville plays soccer that earns them points, but it can be slightly painful to watch. Combine that with the weather² and Gil’s absence leaving a creative hole in the center of the field, and it was not a great game to witness.

Soccer in the rain

Bou and Buksa started as the forwards, but they’ve had trouble connecting with each other in the past, as ended up being true on this night. Bou got in a couple shots on goal, but Buksa in particular seems to struggle to score without Carles Gil’s service and presence on the field, though his hold up play and passing have looked significantly improved over last year. In midfield, Matt Polster and Buchanan played centrally with Wilfrid Kaptoum and Arnor Traustason on the wings. Polster was solid, Buchanan did okay for being out of position, I’m still not sold on Kaptoum, and Traustason was mostly ineffective. The defense (DeJuan Jones, Kessler, Andrew Farrell, and Brandon Bye) was somewhere between passable and pretty good (they didn’t let in any goals so I can’t say they were bad), and Turner didn’t have much to do but made his two saves that he had to. [The game ended in a scoreless draw, 0-0, so although New England couldn’t put the ball into Nashville’s goal, they at least got the shutout. You have to take the positives where you can find them, because this was otherwise a very boring game.]

Post final whistle, fans fleeing Fortress Foxborough

The Revolution had a couple okay shots on goal, but nothing that really challenged Nashville’s keeper. There was one penalty call against Nashville that was overturned (correctly) after going to VAR where it was determined that the Nashville defender didn’t actually make contact with Bou. It was very wet, though the rain finally mostly died down in the middle of the second half. The stadium looked nowhere near full, and the scoreline did not cheer up those who did attend. At least the Revolution didn’t lose, so that was an improvement over the last game I went to. Maybe next time I’m at a game they’ll manage to score, and if the stars align and Mercury is rising in the opal quarter with Andromeda in retrograde, they’ll even win.

¹Turner played all six games (3 group stage, 3 knockout), let in a single penalty kick goal, and was given the Golden Glove Award. Buchanan had a strong tournament, scored the only goal up to that point against Mexico, and won the Young Player Award. Kessler, on the other hand, was called up to replace an injured player and played the last three minutes of the US’s final game after they’d scored in added extra time, but he still got his Gold Cup medal.

²Rain + midweek = great social distancing conditions. There were allegedly 10,279 people in attendance, but even if that number is accurate, that’s six seats for every fan with Gillette Stadium’s capacity of 66,878.

On Walden Pond

So. I went home. In April, I received my first dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, and was considered to be fully immunized by the end of May. By June, there were less than 20,000 reported covid cases and 200-300 deaths per day in the US, over an order of magnitude lower than the January/February peak, so I booked plane tickets for the end of July. Of course, by August when I returned from my trip some states would be worse off than they were a year ago without the vaccine, but I appear to have escaped from my sojourns on public transportation mostly unscathed. With students still away for the summer, the Blue Bus I took to get between North and Central Campus and the Michigan Flyer from downtown to the airport were both uncrowded. My flights in either direction were fully booked, with mandatory masking that was mostly adhered to on the Michigan end and almost completely followed on the New England side.

After I arrived home, went to Wegmans, and spent several days lounging on the living room carpet, my brother also made his appearance and we started to take some family day trips, the first of which was to Walden Pond. Yes, that Walden Pond, where Henry David Thoreau went to live deliberately in the woods a whole two tenths of a mile from the road into Concord (to be fair, he directly tells the reader that in Walden, which I do own and had to read parts of during a class I took at Cornell). For two years, two months, and two days from 1845-1847, Thoreau lived in a cabin at Walden Pond on land owned by his friend and fellow transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson. Today, the Walden Pond State Reservation is managed by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation and features a beach area, hiking trails, and a replica of Thoreau’s cabin.

Walden Pond

When we arrived at Walden Pond, our first order of business, after parking, was a walk around the pond. The main path from the parking lot leads to the beach area, at the south end of the pond. From there, there’s an unpaved, but fairly flat trail around the pond that’s 1.7 miles long, part of which is a section of the Bay Circuit Trail that connects 37 towns in eastern Massachusetts. About 0.4-0.5 miles from the beach on the eastern side of Walden Pond there are signs leading to the site of Thoreau’s cabin (just the site; his actual cabin is gone and the replica is by the parking lot). Along the trail there are spots where you can access the lake shore, some with sandy areas where people were picnicking, reading, sunbathing, etc. During our circuit we encountered two or three dozen other people, so you were never very far from people but it also wasn’t crowded at all, and there weren’t any large groups blasting music and screaming, thankfully.

The site of Thoreau's cabin (cabin boundaries marked by the stone pillars on the right)

After circling the pond, we took a short walk up Emerson’s Cliff, elevation 289 feet, sadly possibly the highest hill I’d been on since before moving to Ann Arbor. From there, we got a view of nothing but trees (you might be able to see Walden Pond in winter), then descended to Heywood’s meadow, which was more marshy than meadowy. It did contain a beaver dam, and there was a potential beaver sighting, so that was a plus for the marsh meadow. By the time we returned to the parking lot, the visitor’s center was closed, so we went and concluded our visit with a stop by the replica of Thoreau’s one-room cabin. We visited on a summer weekday, and spent a little over 2 hours there. It was on the quiet side of busy, more so on the beach, less so on the trails, especially off the main pond trail. The only cost is parking, with in-state and out-of-state prices, and the parking lot can fill up on nice summer days and weekends, according to the website. Overall, recommended for anyone who wants to pair their hike and/or day at the beach with some history and vague memories of English class.

Replica of Thoreau's cabin

Tour de Ann Arbor

When I set out to bike to all five branches of the Ann Arbor District Library in one day, I didn’t realize the Tour de France was going on at the same time, but turns out it was, so that was fitting. On the very first stage of the race, a spectator managed to step too close to the course with a sign and cause basically the entire peloton to crash, which was more or less the big news of the Tour de France. Fortunately, on my journey I was not hit by anything besides a vine that scratched my arm because I biked into it.

During the summer, I normally visit all the library branches in search of summer game points, but usually just one or two at a time. After five years in Ann Arbor, I’ve biked almost everywhere in the city, so for fun I mapped out a route that would take me through all the branches in one trip and realized it was actually feasible. The way the library branches are spread out, the most efficient route roughly circles the city and is about fifteen miles long if you start downtown. Even adding the mileage to get downtown, the whole trip is about as long as some of my rides along and around the Border to Border  (B2B) trail, so I thought, why not?

Setting out, I knew it wasn’t going to be the most pleasant ride, which proved to be true. I picked a time on the weekend when there was less traffic, but the drivers seemed worse than average. Given that during the pandemic lockdowns in Michigan traffic decreased but accidents per mile travelled increased, I wouldn’t be surprised if the drivers were actually worse than usual. Because I had a lot of ground to cover, I took the shortest routes, which included a lot of not-so-great roads for biking.

Library branches, in the order visited: Top right - Downtown, center - Westgate, bottom right - Pittsfield, bottom left - Malletts Creek, top left - Traverwood

The B2B and its connections through Parker Mill County Park and to the Matthaei Botanical Garden Trail are great. There are enough pedestrians on campus and downtown to keep traffic slow and drivers aware enough to make them fairly bikeable. Residential neighborhoods are also fine, and most of the main spoke roads radiating from the center of Ann Arbor have decent bike lanes, but outside of that the biking’s not super fun. Part of the problem is that Ann Arbor has an incomplete interior ring road. It was supposed to move cars around the city quickly, but because it’s so piecemeal it has more intersections, entries and exits (to shopping centers, housing developments, churches, schools, parks, golf courses, etc.), and traffic lights than a ring road should have. This defeats the purpose of a ring road because if you have development along it, it itself becomes a destination and it’s no longer a fast way to circumscribe the city. In fact, the not-ring road makes traffic in the city very messy, leading to the conclusion that I came to after this bike ride.

My primary problem with Ann Arbor is that it can’t decide whether it wants to cater to cars (ring roads, high speed limits, four+ lanes of traffic) or encourage pedestrians and bikers (sidewalks that don’t suck, bike lanes, not almost getting run over by a car every time you cross a street). Take, for example, the not-ring road. It has posted speed limits of 35-40 mph, which is too fast for bikes to keep up with and not fun for pedestrians to walk next to. However, the not-ring road has (not great) sidewalks because of its proximity and direct access to public services like schools and grocery stores that people without cars might conceivably need to get to. So the not-ring road sucks for pedestrians/bikers that need to access things along it because it’s noisy and terrible to walk/ride along, and it sucks for drivers because it’s riddled with traffic lights, crosswalks, and turn lanes. Overall it sucks for everyone because it’s not particularly safe for anyone.

I was on Reddit awhile ago and in some post about biking (probably related to the Tour de France crash) someone posted an interesting link to a video that addresses this topic. In the video, they define a road as a “high-speed connection between two places” and a street as a “complex environment where life in the city happens.” The problem, they argue, is “stroads,” which try to combine streets and roads but don’t properly do the job of either. Sounds a bit like the not-ring road that I had to bike on to visit all my library branches. Anyway, in the end, I got my summer game points, some exercise, and only a scratched arm, so I guess it was worth it.

The Continuing Mission

Twenty years after the Enterprise first boldly went to explore strange new worlds, Star Trek returned to the small screen with an upgraded ship, new crew, and never-before-seen adventures. The initial seasons were a little rough, but the show eventually settled into its groove. Mostly.

Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) takes place about a hundred years after the original series (TOS) aboard the flagship of Starfleet, the USS Enterprise. As a representative of the United Federation of Planets, the Enterprise is primarily supposed to be a vessel of scientific research and discovery, but no one would watch 45 minutes of plant cataloging or star mapping, let alone 7 seasons, so they also respond to a lot of distress calls and meet various unfriendly alien species. Recurring TNG antagonists include the Romulans, Cardassians, Borg, and the highly materialistic and incompetent Ferengi.

TNG aired for seven seasons (178 episodes) from 1987 to 1994. It was the second live-action Star Trek series produced but comes chronologically after Enterprise, Discovery, The Original Series, The Animated Series, and the original 6 movies. The show features an ensemble cast starring

- Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, the ostensibly-French leader of the Enterprise who drinks a lot of tea, Earl Grey, hot

- Jonathan Frakes as Commander William T. Riker, the Enterprise’s first officer who spends his time getting pulled into slime, eating worms, and mounting chairs

- LeVar Burton as Lt. Commander Geordie La Forge, chief engineer and technobabble expert

- Michael Dorn as Lieutenant Worf, the Klingon security officer who takes leisurely jogs through the Enterprise with his top notch security teams that absolutely never let anyone or anything get by them

- Gates McFadden as chief medical officer Dr. Beverly Crusher who’s kind of just . . . there

- Marina Sirtis as Counselor Deanna Troi, a half Betazoid empath who can sense others’ thoughts, except when she can’t, and likes chocolate

- Brent Spiner as Lt. Commander Data, the ship’s android second officer, who is an android

Also featuring Denise Crosby as Lt. Tasha Yar (season 1), Worf’s predecessor as head of security; Wil Wheaton as Wesley Crusher (seasons 1-4), Dr. Crusher’s (initially) very annoying teenaged son; and Diana Muldaur as Dr. Katherine Pulaski (season 2), temporary replacement for Dr. Crusher due to real life cast/crew disputes; with guest appearances by Whoopi Goldberg as bartender Guinan.

Besides TNG, I’ve only seen some of TOS and one or two of the J.J. Abrams movies, but this is easily my favorite cast. They work well together on screen and get mostly equal plotlines, with some emphasis on Picard/Riker/Data. I appreciate that the cast is somewhat diverse, especially considering other popular shows from this time period like Friends, Seinfeld, Full House, and Frasier are predominantly, if not entirely, white (determined by two minutes of googling; don’t quote me on this). After Denise Crosby’s departure, they could have benefited from another woman regularly on the bridge, as well as giving Troi a brain before the middle of season 6, though how women are treated on the ship is at least a hundred times better than in early TOS. All the Starfleet officers have the same uniform; no more mini-skirted female yeomen bearing trays with their captain’s dinner to his quarters. And although Wesley is undeniably irritating in season 1, in following seasons I like what he brought to the show, and he and Dr. Crusher had some good scenes together.

TNG was written mostly episodically, though they do sometimes reference past episodes and there are a few overarching themes and story arcs. By the time they made it to season 7, it does feel a bit like they might have been scraping the bottom of the barrel a little, but I also like that the number of episodes gave them time to do low-stakes things like go on holodeck adventures, play poker, and have poetry recitals. It’s not all evasive maneuvers, phasers, and photon torpedoes, which, seeing as the Enterprise is supposed to be a ship of science with hundreds of civilian families on board, is probably how it should be. The episodes are a good mix of everyday life in space, diplomacy, saving people, and hostile encounters, though the number of times the Enterprise is forcefully boarded or someone’s kidnapped off the ship is slightly alarming.

Overall, the show’s quest for scientific discovery, messages of equality and acceptance, and exploration of what it means to be human help TNG hold up against time. The fact that the crew doesn’t always come away unilaterally victorious, and sometimes they’re even wrong, adds depth to the show as well. The visuals aren’t crystal clear with flawlessly integrated CGI, but the acting’s solid, the score is well-suited to the show (and the main theme is instantly recognizable), and the plots are thoughtful, so I stand by putting it on my list of favorite TV shows, and it’s well worth watching.

Cicada Summer

In my latest adventure, I traverse the Border to Border trail in search of cicadas. Currently in the United States, there are 15 broods of periodic cicadas, 12 that appear every 17 years and 3 that appear every 13 years. Periodic cicadas (genus Magicicada) emerge en masse for a couple months from late April into June to mate, lay eggs, then burrow until their next appearance in 13/17 years depending on species. In contrast, annual cicadas (any of hundreds of other genera) have shorter life cycles that span 2-5 years and do not synchronize so they will come out in any given year. In 2021, Brood X, the Great Eastern Brood, was scheduled to surface across large portions of the eastern United States with concentrations in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Indiana, but reaching into southeast Michigan. Brood X is the largest of the 17-year periodic broods, and it was a once-in-17-years experience (I missed Brood VII, the Onondaga Brood, that emerged around the Finger Lakes in 2018), so I set off to find some cicadas. What else am I doing with my pandemic life?

First I headed to west Ann Arbor and the Bird Hills Nature Area where I’d heard reports of cicada mounds, which indicate their eminent arrival. I saw a bunch of cicada holes, some dead cicadas, a few cicada husks (shed by cicadas after emergence), and a single live cicada, but I might have been too late to catch the cicadas there. When I walked over to the Barton Nature Area, I possibly heard/saw a couple cicadas flying around, but mostly saw cicada wings (from cicadas eaten by birds?).

Cicada husk

A few days later, I biked in the opposite direction to Matthaei Botanical Gardens east of Ann Arbor. On the way over, I could hear the cicadas, so I had some hope of meeting some. When I made it to Mattaei, the greenhouse/conservatory was still closed, but the trails have been open throughout the pandemic. I looped up and around Fleming Creek, first saw several trees with cicada husks hanging off their leaves, then found the cicadas. They’re not scared of people (or anything else) because they’re only around ~1% of the time and rely on their sheer numbers to survive, so there were a whole bunch just hanging out on the trees, flying around, and making noise. Like the partial solar eclipse a few years ago, it was pretty cool. With that, it was mission accomplished. Until my next quest.

Cicadas on tree

Cicada on tree

And Flamingos are Too

Last year the peony garden at the arboretum was “closed” when the peonies were blooming. It’s an outdoor area, so the university couldn’t actually prohibit anyone from visiting, but they asked people not to go to avoid any sort of congregation at the garden. This was before there was a consensus on how transmissible COVID-19 was in general and how much less transmissible it would be outdoors. In addition, the rest of the university was still mostly shut down, including almost all experimental research, and the hospital was recovering from its April surge of COVID-19 patients, so it was a somewhat reasonable request that people temporarily find their entertainment elsewhere while the university sorted itself out.

This year indoor university spaces remained accessible to U-M people only but outdoors was open to all. I suspect they weren’t encouraging people to visit the peonies because they weren’t posting updates on the percentage of the garden in bloom as they had in the past, but they weren’t discouraging visitors either. I spent a couple weeks staking out the garden before getting tipped off on the Ann Arbor subreddit that it was basically in peak bloom one weekend. Once again, I set off for the arboretum on my trusty bike. It was a lovely warm and sunny afternoon, so the peony garden was busy and the river was full of drunk tubers blasting music.

When I arrived, it was too bright for really good peony photos so I decided to take a walk around the arboretum and wait for the sun to go down a bit. Even with the arboretum as busy as it was, it wasn’t too bad away from the peony garden and a couple spots along the river. After a circuit of the arboretum, the sun was still too high, but as I was scouting out shady spots, some clouds rolled in to block the sun and I got my pictures after all.

Previous years at the peony garden: 2017 2018 2019