Squamloonland

Okay, so I guess the fact that I can create 360-degree click-and-zoom-around .mov files that work on my computer doesn’t mean that I intuitively know how to get those same cool technological marvels onto this website. So little time, so many things to do with one’s life. Guess I’ll settle for these not-perfectly stitched panoramas.

Oh, and I’d hoped for twelve in that vein, but that didn’t work out either…  like I read the other day though, there’s no sense in talking about about one’s problems: 80% of the world doesn’t care, and the other 20% are glad you have them.

So no more ado: October’s 12 of 12, originated by this guy and perpetuated in my life by these people.

Click on any of the panorama shots to get the huge version.

With the lady of the Loon off in Alaska visiting T1 and T2, I was home alone doing projects this long weekend… Sunday was such an incredibly idyllic New England fall day, though, that the deck railing went by the wayside, the cache bag and blaze orange went onto the hood of the car while I took this shot, and the SquamDogs and I went off in search of adventure.
(Someday soon we hope that that outbuilding will find its way into that dumpster so that both can finally be gone from the yard.)

This shot of the trailhead looks so cool in a 360 click-and-zoom movie thing. Oh well. Click through to see it bigger if you like, and you’ll see the SquamDogs anxiously awaiting their expedition.

Always good to look up during a hike in the woods. Especially in the fall.

This picture of the trail doesn’t mean anything unless it’s looked at in full screen, and even then it doesn’t do justice to the steepness of the hike.

So anyway it was very early on in the hike that my day changed a bit… and if there’s a theme this month, it’s that none of my shots do justice to the high and low points of a dramatic day. Anyway I fell off this rock because that sapling on the ground didn’t hold me. More here at the cache log. I’m just glad I kept going.

So here’s the incredible view from Bald Knob. As an added bonus, this was also where I recovered what has been dubbed the “Mystery Cache”, a mysterious unpublished ammo box hide that Dan found recently. Well worth reading about.

But the knob was just the beginning. The 4.5 star Beyond Bald Knob has been on my to-do list since I started caching, and the SquamDogs and I enjoyed the lengthy bushwhack.

On the route of that bushwhack were two new caches, one of which had been DNFed twice. I couldn’t find it either, so I used my BlackBerry to email adabranlog, the owner. By the time I’d finished my ascent to Beyond Bald, he’d returned my email, and I realized I’d been looking in the right place in the first place. My return bushwhack to the cache was  as gruelling as the first one… but FTF was a sweet reward.

I knew I’d seen quite a few hikers on the trail, but  I had no idea how many cars I’d see at the trailhead when I returned.

When I arrived home, I laid out the contents of the mystery cache and got to the bottom of it. I’m looking forward to the follow-up. Many thanks go to Bass_Chaz for posting the story at PodCacher, and especially to Dan for stumbling upon this strange treasure trove.

Digressing for a moment, since the lady of the Loon isn’t the movie buff that I am, the past six days of her absence were a veritable personal film festival. In order of how much I liked them (and I liked them all, except for the last one), here’s what I saw: Pan’s Labyrinth, In Bruges, a tie between The Station Agent and No Country for Old Men, Sin City, The Bourne Ultimatum, Children of Men, and Smart People.

In terms of technical achievement and style, though, Sin City was number one. And if it had ended a third of the way in, I’d've given it a higher ranking. But boy did I start asking when it was going to end…

And once it had, I decided I may as well assess the damage I’d done to my face in that fall at the beginning of the day. I have a few other shots with better color tones, but I think this one taken with a flash depicts the stark reality of the result of my stupidity. (It’s up there under my hair too.) Three days later it still hurts. Serves me right.