Lisnaholic

@EPOCH6 : your trip along the Chilliwack River valley sounds great. Some spectacular photos, and those ponds must've seemed really mysterious - especially Pond#2 which seems to have some weird half submerged box in it.

@innerspace : sorry if you have difficulties leaving the house, and congrats on your "small victory."

In fact, you demonstrate that this thread need not be just about wonderful destinations, but trips that are significant to us. Rather in that spirit, I'd like to share what I did this morning; cycled 13 km through suburbs that looked like this:-

or like this:-

The scenery isn't very inspiring, but the cycling conditions could hardly be better, being quiet, flat and dry.

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"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953

The Batlord

That looks like a place you go around, not through.

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Plankton

I traveled about an hour down south on Friday to an old friends house (Wiggles, as some here may already know of him since I've mentioned that I wrote a song about him.). He lives fairly close to the Kankakee river, and there's also a Disc Golf course nearby. I've canoed this part of the river a couple years ago and spotted this course from my canoe. I've played it a couple times since then and did ok, but Friday my friend got an ace on hole #8 which made the day kind of special. Here's hole #1:



Another pic of the river from hole #1:



We got back to Wig's house and I had to snap a pic of one of the black squirrels that populate the area:



On another recent disc golf outing, we had some company following us around the course for a couple holes. The deer around here aren't shy:



Another place I go. This is the band room at my singers house. I was the DJ as well as part of the entertainment for the last St. Patricks day party a couple weeks ago:



More places I go. This pic is from the Open Mic I host at the bistro my daughter manages. I was sick as a dog and it was one of the worst experiences of my life, but it went over so well, they paid me double and booked me for a few more shows. This is one of the acts that went on after I did my thing. A very talented singer/songwriter that tours the local OM circuit:



This is from an outing to the city where my job was to evaluate a training structure that had gone way over budget and scope. This municipal property is right in the middle of a pretty bad neighborhood in Chicago:



I never even got past the gate. The structure was designed so poorly, it was deemed unsafe to enter the work area. We took a pass on it, but I did get to snicker at the structural engineers that created it.

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Plankton

More places I go. My friends place. I've been helping him restore this place for a few years now. Yesterday we pumped out some water from a dead spot on the property that was flooding.

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The Batlord

Awesome. Parts of it are gorgeous, and then others look like they have that slightly cluttered, lived-in feel that I associate with rednecks who know how to throw a backyard party. That's a compliment BTW.

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Plankton

Taken as one.

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EPOCH6

Spent Saturday revisiting the abandoned mine out in the mountains along the Coquihalla Highway, first time this year. Both the first and second levels are completely flooded now, the entrance to the lowest level either caved in or was buried by the owners of the land, completely inaccessible now without climbing down the massive caverns in the 3rd level, which would be certain death. Glad I got to explore it before it was blocked off for good. On the way back down the mountain we came across this young native guy with flowers and leaves hanging from behind his ears walking along the service road, which is a bizarre sight in itself, this place is waaaay out in the mountains far from any town, it's a 9 km hike from the side of the highway to the mine, this guy had a LONG road ahead of him.



So I pull over next to him and offer a ride, he glady vaults over the rails into the truck bed where two of my friends are lounging out. They never even got a name out of the guy but he did claim that he's an endurance hunter (meaning he persistently tracks animals through the forest on foot until they're exhausted and then takes them down with his bare hands / melee weapons). He got a real kick out of all of the bones in my truck bed, started waving around my moose antler. Didn't say much at all but stuck around for the entire ride back down to the highway where he hopped out, thanked me, walked across the highway, and entered the forest on the other side.

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The Batlord

Stupid white people. Always going into abandoned mines like they've never seen a horror movie before.

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Frownland

That sounds like another reason to go in. I'm always down for some crazy ****.

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

grindy

Seriously. At least take a black guy with you, they tend to die first.

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