Gene Hikes the Appalachian Trail

Tag: photography

  • Finders Keepers

    I’ve been walking around outside this year far more than at any time in my life. Honestly, it feels like I’m walking aimlessly outside more than anyone has ever walked. I averaged over 11000 steps a day last month and am looking to beat that this month. With all this walking around, I have found quite a few cool items hanging out on the ground waiting to be picked up. This seems like as good a time as ever to share some of my best finds so far.

    I want to start with this food bag I found one day near North Lamar Transit Center. There is some community outreach in the area that works with homeless people and newly released felons. One thing the organization does is hand out these bags with snacks in them. I guess the people that get the help think they are too good for it or something, because I see bags like this left on the ground nearby frequently. I am never one to look a gift horse in the mouth so I happy grabbed up this one.

    The bag itself was cool to the touch when I picked it up despite this being early afternoon. That meant it must have been dropped recently. I was already hungry when I happened on the bag, so I quickly devoured the Cheez-Its, string cheese, and oranges. I gave the unopened apple juice away to some kid and brought the sunflower seeds home.

    I had never heard of Neuro mints before I found an unopened package of twelve sitting on a park bench covered in graffiti. These Sleep & Recharge mints use the power of melatonin and chamomile to help you fall asleep fast. You pop one in and suck it like a Tic Tac or a Mentos and it helps put you out in 20 minutes.

    I used one when I needed to get up crazy early one day. I popped it in and played some silly YouTube video about an ancient civilization or the science behind black holes or some such. Within ten minutes I was out. I tried it again a few weeks later when I needed to hit the sack early and it worked again. I guess I’m sold. Neuro makes more mints to promote concentration, memory, and calmness. If I find any of those on a park bench I’ll try them too.

    For those of you who do not believe in an all-knowing and benevolent God, I ask you to explain this next set of pictures.

    Alright, admittedly some context may be necessary here. At the beginning of this summer I got a fruit fly infestation in my apartment. I’m not one hundred percent certain how it happened. One must have gotten in and laid some eggs in my trash or something. Anyways, due largely to my refusal to actually clean my kitchen and take out the trash like a normal person, a few flies became a lot of flies a few days later. Those flies expanded their nascent empire from the kitchen to include the bathroom in a few more days.

    By that point I was fully invested in doing everything to end the outbreak. I was cleaning up after myself like a normie. I poured apple cider vinegar and ammonia down my drains. I maniacally tossed out any trash as soon as I created it. None of it had any lasting effect on the situation. I briefly considered throwing in with the invaders and becoming Lord of the Flies. But then I realized they didn’t need me at all. I would just be Jester of the Flies if anything.

    While I was at my most desperate was when I found this Zevo behind a dumpster. I truly believe the Lord himself left it there for me to find. The box had one electronic trap with three cartridges. I plugged it in overnight and awoke to dozens of those things dead in the trap. The tide had finally turned. Through perseverance, continued hygienic practices, and efficient use of all three Zevo cartridges I was able to lick the incursion.

    Outside of the supermarket one day I found two cans of Zoa. Zoa is the energy drink from The Rock. The Brahma Bull, The People’s Champion. The most electrifying man in sports entertainment. Normally I don’t drink this sort of stuff, but they were free so I took them home and stuck them in the fridge.

    When I drank them the next day they were pretty much exactly what I, a non-fan of these sorts of drinks, expected. The fruit punch taste was okay but was overpowered by a tinny aftertaste and that “too sweet” taste you got from artificial sweeteners. I can only complain so much because they were free, but I wouldn’t ever pay for one of these. In order to improve the product, what I think…

    … okay, I’ll shut up and move on.

    Yes I will address the elephant in the room. A lot of these treasures I discovered have been food. It makes sense that I would notice food above everything else, I am a very food motivated individual. Coming out of the library I found this collection of jerky strewn about on the ground. I rounded them up into a small pile before taking the first picture.

    I tossed these into my backpack and kind of forgot all about them. While on one of my hikes I was dying for a snack and remembered this turkey jerky existed. They were great to get me over the finish line that day and on a few hikes since. The taste was as salty as expected and spicier than expected. I enjoyed these and would even buy more with my own money in the future.

    I found this black gardening hat less than a block from my apartment. And, yes, I washed it before I put it on. Great for keeping the sun out of my face. Big, floppy brim and easily foldable to fit in my pocket.

    As useful as this hat was it wasn’t something I needed. I already had three boonie hats so I had little need for a fourth one. After rocking this thing for a couple weeks I gave it to Goodwill. And, yes, I washed it first. I like to think some little old white lady is planting petunias somewhere in greater Austin while wearing the awesome black hat she found as a bargain at the thrift store.

    This one happened just last weekend. Not long after I wrote my whole post about the twentieth anniversary of quitting smoking. If I had found three cigarettes 21 years ago I would have been overjoyed. If I had noticed that they were Marlboros, like these, I’d have done the Ray Lewis dance for a full fifteen seconds.

    What really happened is that I merely stopped and contemplated why someone would have dropped these and not gone back to pick them up, considering the price of cigarettes nowadays. Then I decided to take a couple of pictures. Then, if I’m being honest, I thought for a fleeting moment about how nice it would be to smoke one. Then I just walked away.

    Insert something profound about how the things you find actually find you.

  • Birdwatching 101

    Since I have been walking far more than usual I feel qualified to serve as an expert on being outside. Let me tell you, the outdoors has a lot of things going for it. One thing not in its favor is that it is boring as shit. When it comes to entertainment, indoors beats outdoors by KO in the very first round. Think Ronda Rousey vs Gina Carano. Inside, I have my computer with blazing fast internet access. Streaming MLB Network and full audio for all 30 teams. Xbox series X. As Jimmy Buffet would say “an air conditioner for when I’m hot, a radiator for when I’m not”. All a person could ask for.

    Outdoors has grass and sidewalks. Clouds and the relentless scorching sun and the outside of buildings that are temperature controlled only on the inside. All things that are fine the first few times you see them. But the three thousandth? Not so much. I never saw a tree that could play Disco Elysium or listened to Songs In The Key Of Life from a conch shell. The fact that being outdoors often sucks is making it tougher and tougher for me to properly train. I am in need of a solution. Something I can do outside that can compare in some small way to binge watching Abby Labar on Quick Pitch or DarkViperAU on YouTube.

    After looking over some new outdoor hobbies for all of fourteen minutes I decided to take up birdwatching. You should have been able to deduce that from my post title. As with anything new I attempt nowadays, the first thing I did after making my decision was to head over to the r/birdwatching subreddit. Those guys don’t make birding seem that hard. You go outside. You see cool birds. You photograph them. You figure out what kind of bird they are. All you need to get started is the ability to leave your house (check), a pair of binoculars (check), and a camera phone (check). I can handle this.

    So the very first thing I noticed is that birds are really fast. And jumpy. If you get close to one and then try to whip out your phone to take a picture they will inevitably get spooked and fly off at 100 mph. I searched on the internet for the best way to overcome this. I searched for things like “how to get close to birds and take pictures without them noticing you”. I found one interesting site by a British guy. It got kind of weird and pervy. Not much I could use in my birdwatching life, but maybe some pointers I can add to my everyday life as a weirdo.

    As I’ve mentioned before, I am a crappy photographer with a crappy camera on a crappy phone. It has only been since I took up birding that I realized I’ve been using my camera zoom incorrectly. The camera UI has a button that says “1X” for the zoom and when you push it the camera zooms in and it says “2X”. Push it again and it goes back to saying “1X”. Therefore, I logically assumed my camera could only zoom in 2X.

    Not so fast my friend. It turns out you can use your fingers to unpinch the camera and extend the zoom up to “4X”. There is a trade off in quality at that zoom level. Considering how poorly my pictures normally look it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize the pics I’m about to show you look like they were taken with a tiny hole cut into a shoebox. You have been warned.

    First up we have to choose the humble pigeon. The most ubiquitous of all the urban birds. I was able to get lots of shots of these guys in their natural habitat like gas stations, power lines, and big puddles in parking lots. Because of their ubiquity, you’d be excused for dismissing pigeons as uninteresting creatures. But they are actually fascinating birds with a complex social structure and unusual quirks, as shown in this documentary from last year on PBS.

    For example, both parents are able to feed their chicks a form of milk that they produce from a gland in their throat called a crop. Pigeons also are able to … WAIT, WHAT? Milk from a pigeon? I thought only mammals made milk. Do pigeons have nipples? Can Greg milk them?

    Pigeons are one of a few types of birds that produce crop milk. Both sexes secrete this fluid which contains IgA and is high in protein, just like mammalian milk. Crop milk production begins just before the chicks hatch and it looks sort of like cottage cheese. There is no proof to the rumor that raw crop milk is a nutritional panacea or that it is a great way to wash down your daily dose of ivermectin.

    These are some interesting shots I got of a white pigeon. I saw this one sitting in a doorway and expected it to fly away when I took my camera out. Far from it. This little birdie basically sat there and posed for me. They did their little turn on the catwalk and everything. I actually started to get scared that they were injured and unable to fly away. That was not the case though, as they eventually flew off after getting bored of hitting various poses.

    Next up we highlight the grackle. This bird is also common in urban settings and fairly unfazed by human activity. This allowed me to get closer to these birds than any others. You’ll recognize this bird by its dark, shiny, iridescent coat and the fact that it sounds like someone started a jet-powered lawnmower in your yard. The big, dark ones are the males. Females have a more muted, brown tone and are significantly smaller.

    Here is a group shot of multiple birds I captured in a picturesque urban setting. A Valero parking lot off of I-35.

    Lastly here are some pictures of white-winged doves. If you are only familiar with these animals from Stevie Nicks lyrics it will surprise you to see that they are basically brown as dirt.

    When they are perched you can only see a very small portion of their white feathers. Once they take flight, the white pops out and creates a staggering visual. Of course, I am not yet advanced enough to get pictures of moving birds so I’ll need you to take my word for it. Actually, never mind, I can just link to some pictures someone else has taken to show you what I mean. Much easier.

    Thus concludes introductory birdwatching. I feel like I am now ready to start photographing some of the many jays, woodpeckers, and owls in central Texas. I need to continue improving in a hurry because fall migration begins as early as mid-August and should peak around October in this area. With any luck by then I will be able to apply everything I’ve learned and capture even the most elusive of birds.

    It’s Abby Labar! From that joke earlier! What a bird!

  • A Trip To Mount Bonnell

    I decided to throw on my pack with 25 pounds in it and start a hike from 38th St and Guadalupe to Mount Bonnell (one of the highest points in the city with great views of Lake Austin). For those of you unfamiliar with Austin, this meant I was looking at about a six mile round trip. The first part of the journey was uneventful, just following 38th and 35th Streets past Lamar and MoPac and Camp Mabry. Here is the one-way route: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=7804394

    As I continued to approach my goal I saw an unexpected Peacock Crossing sign. Not seeing any peacocks in the road, I continued on. Then came the Balcones Escarpment. I needed to climb a steep vertical height over a short lateral distance and it kicked my ass. Those of you who are not from the Austin area may not understand what the Balcones Escarpment is. Luckily for you, they had a pictograph on the summit that describes it perfectly.

    Unfortunately for you, I am a shitty photographer using a shitty camera on a shitty phone so you can’t really see what the above says. Allow me to type it out here.

    An escarpment is an area where the elevation of the earth changes suddenly forming a line of hills or scarps. At Mount Bonnell, you are atop the Balcones Escarpment.

    The Balcones Escarpment runs through Central Texas from Austin, southwest through San Antonio, and from there to the Rio Grande (Big River) near Del Rio. It marks the boundary between the Great Plains stretching west and the Gulf Coastal Plain to the east. The break in the landscape defines major differences in earth resources, weather and climate, soils, vegetation, and animal habitats. East of the escarpment are the prime farmlands of the Blackland Prairies; to the west are the rangelands and woodlands of the Hill Country and the Edwards Plateau. The Balcones Escarpment marks the beginning of the American West in terms of landscape, ecology, geologic processes, and human endeavors.

    After hiking up the steep escarpment along a narrow two-lane road with no shoulder, I came upon the base of Mount Bonnell. From there it was a nice easy 100-plus stair step journey to Covert Park at the summit.

    Covert Park is named for Frank M. Covert, who was the original owner of the tract of land containing Mount Bonnell. His family gifted the area to Travis County back in the 1930s. Frank Covert is famous for opening the first automobile dealership in Central Texas. The local area is still crowded with Covert locations such as Covert Cadillac and Covert Ford. Pretty much the only name you see on the side of more buildings around here is Moody.

    The view of Lake Austin from the peak is awe inspiring and my photos do not do it justice. Because, once again, shitty photographer.

    The view looking northward
    The view looking southward

    After catching my breath and eating a turkey sandwich and yogurt I had packed, I trundled back down the road home. Along the way I stopped at Mayfield House and Nature Preserve. The house itself is an 1870s cottage that I did not visit, but there were some nice short trails along the water’s edge that I did partake in. They were rather relaxing and enjoyable.

    Just as I was getting ready to leave the area I figured out why that peacock crossing sign was along the road. I real bona fide peacock hanging out near the parking lot! Ultimately, I could not coax him into revealing his plumage for my camera but took some pictures anyway.

    And after that encounter I hoofed it back home. But not before stopping at P. Terry’s for a large shake of the month, thereby undoing all the good work I had done on the day’s hike.