Welcome to Breakfast in America

I’m a Brit who unexpectedly emigrated to the USA in 2008, and this is my photo journal.

It’s an eclectic mix of things; there’s no guiding theme or topic. It is whatever catches my attention, what I’ve been thinking, doing, or piques my interest. Currently that’s mainly backpacking and clearing some of the backlog on my ‘honey-do’ list.

My favorite pictures and posts

Some selected favorites from all my favorite pictures and posts.

When did I grow old?

When did I grow old? It feels like I blinked, and suddenly I’ve aged — I was writing in my journal when I noticed how old my hands looked. I don’t feel older, but I now have my grandparents’ hands: the loose flesh, thin skin, age spots, and prominent veins. 2
A self portrait photograph of Gary Allman keeping warm in his hammock while winter camping. December 2022.

Keeping warm in my hammock

Keeping warm in my hammock — The low was 23°F (-5°C), well within the 10°F rating of my quilts. I was nice and cozy. A forecast of 20°F is my lower limit, I do this for funsies, not to prove anything.
Orange colored seventies style table lamp on a blue dresser, with hat and shotgun.

Cottage Still Life

Cottage Still Life – This photo started life as a joke picture for the girls, and then it took on a life of its own requiring a second ‘shoot’ just to put right a few of the details.

Plectranthus ‘Mona Lavender’

The soft light on a dull rainy day on these flowers Ginger picked and placed on the kitchen table caught my eye, and prompted a discovery. 2

Through the veil

Through the veil – It’s taken me a while to see the potential in this picture. I like this alternate treatment of the image.

Enjoying the view

Enjoying the view – between interludes of journaling and swimming. I even completed some camp chores.

Clouds

Clouds – I was hoping for a nice, as in flaming oranges and yellows, sunset. It didn’t happen, but this cloud formation and an otter made up for it.
Photograph of Gary Allman with his morning tea in a hammock on the Berryman Trail, Missouri.

Morning Tea

Morning Tea. Berryman Trail – Day Two, December 2020.

Frosty Morning

Frosty Morning – The predicted overnight temperatures were 30°F. It dropped to 21°F. Fortunately, I’d anticipated this and I was nice and warm in my hammock.

Grandpa

Grandpa – Grandpa and Stanley. 3

Recent Posts

  • Sunday check, clean, and oil

    Sunday check, clean, and oil. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.

    My Sig P938 got very wet while backpacking in the rain at Hercules Glades a while back. Today, I decided to give it a good cleaning and thorough inspection.

    The screws on the handgrips were secured with blue Loctite, making them tough—but not impossible—to undo. I wanted to remove the grips to check if any water had seeped in behind them, and to inspect the mainspring without having to disassemble the entire fire control mechanism.

    I also removed the safety detent to check for rust. There was none. It’s a fiddly bugger to refit, with the strong spring twice launching it into space before I succeeded in refitting it.

  • Camped on ‘Ant Hill’

    Camped on ‘Ant Hill’. Hercules Glades Wilderness, May 2025. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.

    Another day, another campsite… I’ve camped on ‘Ant Hill‘ before, but this time, I had to shift to a nearby location to avoid a dicey-looking dead tree.

  • Concrete Spring box in ‘Twin Falls Hollow’

    Concrete Spring box in ‘Twin Falls Hollow’. Hercules Glades Wilderness, May 2025. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.

    I was glad to see that the twin falls were running when I arrived and took advantage of them for an au naturel shower. The plunge pool was also quite full, but I decided that a shower was enough!

    Getting down to the creek wasn’t easy, so after my shower, rather than struggling to climb back up, I decided to hike downstream along the creek. On my way, I passed the old concrete spring box, which you can see to the right in the picture. There used to be a pipe feeding water from the spring to the spring box. It’s still there—just broken and no longer connected.

  • Scenic overlook, southwest of Lower Pilot Knob. Hercules Glades Wilderness

    Scenic overlook, southwest of Lower Pilot Knob. Hercules Glades Wilderness, May 2025. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.

    In order to take this picture, I had to clamber on top of this rock.

    Colorful — even the rocks are wearing Hunter Orange. Hercules Glades Wilderness, May 2025. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
  • Wear and tear

    Wear and tear — That’s what over 100 days of backpacking will do. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
    April 2022 — just for comparison. Sig Sauer P938 & Alien Gear Shape Shift Holster. Copyright © 2022 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.

    I’ve now spent over one hundred days backpacking with the Sig and the Alien Gear holster, and both are showing some slight wear from accompanying me on my trips. Considering how often my pack, and consequently my holster and gun get dumped down on stony and rocky surfaces, I’d say they are holding up pretty well.

    The plastic holster shows numerous scratches and scuff marks, and the finish on the edges of the Sig’s slide and safety switch has worn off. Additionally, the Allen screws on the grip appear to be scratched as well. This wear and tear is not surprising, as these parts are exposed to stones and rocks on the ground whenever I set my pack down.

    The odd mark on the muzzle end of the slide is just water left over from Thursday, when I hiked for over an hour in fairly heavy rain. It wiped off, no problem. I stripped down the holster—which is just a matter of untwisting the locking toggles and sliding it apart—and dried it. In future, I’ll have to remember to check for residual water in the holster after it has been raining.

    Drying out — I ended up hiking for an hour in fairly heavy rain the other day. I stripped down my holster (undid the two locking toggles) to dry the inside. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
  • Heating water to make breakfast

    Heating water to make breakfast. Hercules Glades Wilderness, May 2025. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
    Ashes. Hercules Glades Wilderness, May 2025. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.

    I finally got around to using my Firebox Nano wood stove—it’s been ages since I last used it.

    As expected, it worked well and left only some ashes for me to disperse.

    Below is a picture of my cooking setup, all packed away. The Ziploc bag contains a couple of fire starters—just because I’m sometimes lazy when it comes to lighting the stove—They’re stored inside my Fancee Feest alcohol stove for those times when I don’t feel like starting a fire, which, to be honest, is more often than not nowadays.

    Cooking gear packed away. Hercules Glades Wilderness, May 2025. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
  • Camped above ‘Deep Hollow’

    Camped above ‘Deep Hollow’, May 2025. Hercules Glades Wilderness. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
    Camped above ‘Deep Hollow’ May 2025. Hercules Glades Wilderness. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.

    It’s the last few days of the Spring Turkey Firearms season. Hence, all the hunter orange. Either everyone had already got their quotas, or they’d given up. I heard no shots inside the wilderness, but I did hear some turkeys on my final day 🙂

  • Bathing Pool in ‘Deep Hollow’

    Bathing Pool in ‘Deep Hollow’. Hercules Glades Wilderness, May 2025. Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.

    It was too cold and too shallow for me to try out on this trip.

  • When did I grow old?

    When did I grow old? Copyright © 2025 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.

    It feels like I blinked, and suddenly I’ve aged — I was writing in my journal when I noticed how old my hands looked. I don’t feel older, but I now have my grandparents’ hands: the loose flesh, thin skin, age spots, and prominent veins.

    It’s a tad unnerving to be confronted by one’s advancing decrepitude.

    Note

    January 2007: Hands (365: 9). Copyright © 2007 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.

    I wanted to capture a picture of my hands from my perspective, similar to this January 2007 picture here. Unfortunately, I don’t have the right tripod extension to do so. Even getting a picture of my hands from above and to one side proved tricky!

    However, I am very pleased that the picture I managed to get was what I wanted, almost straight out of camera. I indulged in a few tweaks in Lightroom to remove a couple of distractions, crop it slightly, and get the exact color tone I wanted.

  • Journal: Exploring some old trails, Irish Wilderness, April 2025

    Time for a change of strategy. Reviewing my last backpacking trip (See Breakfast in America: Berryman Trail revisited, March 2025), I concluded that I’d been putting a lot more emphasis on crushing miles as quickly as possible recently and not taking the time to slow down and enjoy the wilderness. My plan for the trip was different. Besides this Whites Creek Trail, there are many trails marked on the USGS map. I dedicated the trip to exploring a couple of them, looking for water sources, and seeking another campsite overlooking the Eleven Point River.

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