Tag Archives: nature

Hurricane Sandy

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Well here I am stuck inside. Fingers crossed the power will stay on. Hurricane Sandy is pounding the East Coast with high winds, storm surge and extremely high tides helped along by the full moon.

AT SEA - OCTOBER 28: In this handout GOES satellite image provided by NASA, Hurricane Sandy, pictured at 16:00 UTC, churns off the East Coast as it moves north on October 28, 2012 in the Atlantic Ocean. Sandy, which has already claimed over 50 lives in the Caribbean is predicted to bring heavy winds and floodwaters to the mid-Atlantic region. (Photo by NASA via Getty Images)

The power went out for about 3 hours but there hasn’t been too much hard rain …at least not where I am anyway.

I don’t live right on the ocean and I’m not on the first floor. We have a lot of rivers that crisscross  our town, some are tidal rivers and we do get flooding from those sometimes but it never reaches my area of town.

(Waves roll in at Winthrop Ma)

Photo by: David Brazier, Winthrop, MA.

I have the sliders to my deck open and can hear the wind blowing and gusting but it’s very warm. If it weren’t for the drizzle you wouldn’t even need a sweater.

They say Hurricane Sandy is the biggest storm to hit the Northeast since a hurricane in the 1800’s. New York City is flooding even now and there is expected to be major  shore erosion on Cape Cod.

I wanted to go down to Beavertail State Park in Rhode Island to see if I could get some “angry sea” photos. I changed my mind when I saw pictures on the news of the waves on Narragansett Bay.

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There’s a section of the road to Beavertail that is very low with Narraganestt Bay on the left and the tidal flats on the right. I’m sure that’s underwater right now.

Photo By Steven SenneA woman reacts to waves crashing over a seawall in Narragansett, R.I., Monday, Oct. 29, 2012. Hurricane Sandy continued on its path Monday, as the storm forced the shutdown of mass transit, schools a

But here in my little corner of the world it hasn’t been as intense as Hurricane Irene which dumped torrential rains along with the winds. My neighborhood had huge trees come down during Irene. I watched them from my deck but there’s been nothing here this time. Not to say there aren’t trees and limbs down other places…just none near me.

(Taunton MA)

Danforth Area

We still have a number of hours to go and the longer the wind blows the weaker the trees will get so we may still lose a few.  Tomorrow I will venture out to see what I missed by staying inside today.

Beautiful Blue Skies

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I haven’t been doing much except working…no trips or adventures to share…but there’s still beauty all around. Take these pictures from the parking lot at work. Love the blue, blue skies of this time of year.

Taken just before sunset…the golden hour was just beginning.

Homeward Bound

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After the 100 balloon morning

and a lazy Sunday afternoon, I was rejuvenated and ready for the drive back to Massachusetts. In fact I was so rejuvenated that I decided to take the loooong way home. Instead of going south to Albany and east on the Masspike (home in 3 hours) I decided I wanted to take ride back in time and return home through Vermont. I used to drive back and forth that way all of the time when I first moved to Massachusetts. Of course back then I lived north of Boston so it made sense. Now living south of Boston this is several hours out-of-the-way. Glad it’s a beautiful day.

Sandy did not want me going north on 87 and cutting over on RT 149. She said that road has too many accidents so I put Woodstock Vt. in my GPS and took off from her house. That put me on Rt 4 right away but it wasn’t long before Rt 4 merged with RT 149 so I was on the road she wanted me to avoid anyway.

As I drove through the little villages I reminded myself that I had to come back for a photo trip. Sometimes it seemed that time really had stood still. Silos and barns dotted the landscape while black and white cows grazed peacefully in the rolling pastures. I resisted the urge to stop at every bucolic scene that was unfolding around me and kept on to my goal.

Right over the state line in Vermont I spotted a large farm stand filled with apples.

I picked up a few Cortland apples to munch on. This stand was interesting because each kind of apple had a sign with its lineage. I never knew that my favorite  apple for eating was a cross (hybrid) with the MacIntosh. I like MacIntosh for cooking but they are too tart for my taste for eating. Cortland apples are sweet with a firm but not hard flesh. Red Delicious apples are too hard. I’ve broken teeth on them so I stick with the Cortland. And these were excellent. Makes the ones you get in the grocery stores pale by comparison. If it weren’t so far away I’d be driving back for more right now!

Soon I was passing through Rutland then Woodstock and finally there was the goal up ahead…Queechee Gorge.

This was always a must stop back when I was driving this route. I love the gorge no matter what time of year. Tour busses stop here and let the passengers cross the bridge where they stop and take pictures looking down into the gorge.

I bet there are thousands of identical pictures on hundred of cameras..including mine.

Another popular photo-op but not as common as the shot from the bridge is the shot of the bridge from the gorge.

As you walk the trail down to the bottom of the gorge there are signs that warn of rapidly rising waters because of the Dam upriver.

I took my chances along with a handful of other adventurous souls and picked my way over the rocks out to the center of the gorge to capture the bridge upstream.

Satisfied with my excursion I returned to the top of the gorge where there is a gift shop, public restrooms and a snack bar. I sat at a picnic table to enjoy my lunch then it was back on the road again.

No more stops today.

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From this point on it’s all highway and I was getting homesick for Smokey and the Editor-in Chief (Rocky) . I knew they’d be waiting for me and I still had more than 3 hours left to drive from here. Time to get serious about heading home.