Wooly Wooly

Several months ago we went camping with our friend the Hanshaw-Fredericks (HF). Both of us had just built chuck boxes and were anxious to try em out. These things are a bit large and require trailers. The HFs had a very slick one that was built by a local builder. They got a hell of a steal on it and I drooled over it. Got the builders number and even called him a few times but he was busy and didn’t get back to me for a little while.

Last night my buddy Mike invites me out to his cottage. I had put the kids to bed and Melissa got home from seeing Harry Potter with a friend. I said “I’m headed to Mikes, I’ll be back in the morning to take Lily to day care” and off I went.

Got to Mikes cottage on a small lake outside of Lakelands/Mt Uniake. We sat on the porch; I got into some wine, I think mike was on the rum. Lit up a … … tiki-torch with citronella in it and had pretty much planned on the night going on like that. Out of the corner of the lake we see a green light, and hear a low put put put put rumble. A guy on a 25 foot hand built aluminum pontoon party boat pulls right up to the dock. “You guys wanna go for a spin?”. Hell yes we did. Mike introduced me to Brian and off we went.

My mind sort of clicked and I said “Brian… Brian what?”. He told me his last name and I said “are you gonna call me back about that trailer or what?”. We had a good laugh about it, he apologized and said that he was gonna get back to me and that he let that trailer go for an absolute steal. Not wrong there. It was a lifetime build. Note to Jeff : Brian said do not park it in tall grass, the moisture will eat it.

Anyways, the pontoon boat had a 8×8 ish flat patio roof over the wheel house and he encouraged us to go up. Lawn chairs were handed up and from there on we did a 2 hour / 3 lap cruise of the lake with gentle Mississippi blues playing on the ghetto blaster echoing off the trees. Not a cloud in the sky, a dim moon and every single star was visible. Could even see the reflection of the big dipper in the lake. All I had on me for a camera was the iPhone and you can’t see much from the video above. I posted it more for the audio, but anyways here is a picture I stole off the net of approximately what it looked like out there. Use your imagination.

You are here

Picked up a Pentax Optio W90. The propaganda for the camera says its everything proof. Today I took it on a picture taking trip on the logging roads in my backyard. Overall the camera is pretty slick; some fun features like SuperDuperMacro mode, and underwater mode. Picture quality is okay, not stellar but this is a different type of camera than a DSLR. It is what it is.

Animated Gif of Pentax Optio W90

So, on the google maps, here is where I ended up, you can follow the road back or something to see where I started from.

Photo time

This is what most of the road looks like to some degree. Tall trees on either side, a ditch and piled up logs. How Romantic.

See? More of the same but this time with hills.

My mountain bike. What's in the bag? Mattress, tarp, pillow. It was more an experiment than anything. Sleeping bag on back and I'd have an over nighter.

This is me. They call that moss "old mans beard", thus the silly pose. There was a tree behind me covered in the stuff.

On to the mushrooms. I plucked a bunch of these, but no idea what they are. NO I did not taste any of them. I smelled them, some smell likes ones we'd eat on a regular basis. The plan is to try to identify them someday.