Short Breaks

Quick visits, day trips, excursions, and weekends away. Anything under a day or two, that you wouldn’t count as a genuine vacation.

A change of plan — Here I am enjoying the sunset and beer on the deck at the cottage.

Lanie — Just Lanie being herself. Walk by the creek.

Early evening on an Ozarks farm road — It’s all looking very lush and green. Nowadays this road has a lot more traffic than it used to. One-minute read.

Last of the sun — The last of the sun was catching the trees behind the house.

Four deer — They were about 100 yards away and very interested in what we were doing, which just happened to be, watching them.

Journal: 2024 Total Solar Eclipse. Ginger, Lanie and I camped in Mark Twain National Forest to see this, my third and (most likely) last total solar eclipse. 1999 in France and 2017 in Missouri being the first two. Five-minute read, +12

All over — That’s it for twenty years. 2024 Total Solar Eclipse. Now for the long drive home.

2024 Total Eclipse — Not too bad for crop of a hand-held picture taken with a seven-year-old mirrorless camera, using the kit lens.

2024 Solar Eclipse — Composite — Eclipse detail merged with an image of the corona.

Doing the ‘Eclipse Dance.’ Just before the totality. 2024 Total Eclipse. Just four minutes to go…

Pre-Eclipse Shenanigans —Gary & Ginger — 2024 Total Solar Eclipse. +3

Pre-Eclipse Shenanigans — Lanie & Ginger — 2024 Total Solar Eclipse. Notice how the light in the background is already fading.

2024 Solar Eclipse Camping — Eclipse Day, and the weather is looking wonderful. Warm with clear skies. We spent the morning chatting before breaking camp around midday. Two-minute read, +1

2024 Solar Eclipse Camping — Sunday. Two-minute read, +1

Journal: Three days hiking the Big Piney Trail, Paddy Creek Wilderness, March 2024. I spent three days on a hike of the sixteen-mile loop of the Big Piney Trail in Paddy Creek Wilderness which I managed to extend to twenty-two miles. I also managed to break some more gear and at the end of the hike needed to call out a tow truck to get me home. Ten-minute read, +45

Trip: Destination — The Texas Gulf Coast. We are back on the road on the second of our shakedown trips in advance of some more serious travel next year. We are headed back to Texas. Beaumont, Texas to be precise, where we plan to work for five days, and then spend some time on a Texas Gulf Coast beach before returning home. Trip write-up: Eight-minute read, +30

Norfork Lookout Point. Overlooking the North Fork River, Arkansas.

Norfork Lookout Point. Overlooking the North Fork River, Arkansas

Norfork Lookout Point. Overlooking the North Fork River, Arkansas.

Norfork Dam, Arkansas. Dam number two in our Double Dam Day. It is not a very photogenic dam, and rather uninspiring. To its credit there is a campground downstream, which seems to be popular with the fishing fraternity. +1

White River at Allison, Arkansas.

Bridge over Sylamore Creek, Allison, Arkansas.

Greers Ferry Dam on the Little Red River, Arkansas, and a change of plan.

Sunset, Pine Bluff, Arkansas — Ginger insisted that we stop to watch the sunset. I’m glad we did. It was a good one! Note: the cloud lines were straight, but this extreme wide-angle (180+°) view makes them curved.

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