Fire over Water

Posted by dkrashb on June 16, 2013

The last big performance of Riverbend winds down as the crowd grows in anticipation of the fireworks

If every fireworks display were the likes of the Riverbend Fireworks, I think there wouldn’t be a shortage of explosives worldwide. That could be a good thing–fireworks are probably among the more peaceful things we do with explosives. Although I suppose there are a lot of people who would disagree that that’s the best use of explosives–a few of my friends are extremely grateful for the explosives used in their airbags, for example.

Regardless, fireworks always feel nostalgic to me. I don’t know why–fireworks displays are so much more sophisticated and reliable than they ever were when I was a kid. I think I couldn’t have been more than 7 or 8 years old when I started anticipating the success or failure of the 4th of July Fireworks based on the weather. Rain the week before the big display was a disaster. Perhaps “the fireworks got wet” was really just a euphemism adults used to explain away all the “duds” that would fail to go off with little more than a “ffftttzzz” and maybe a spark. But the children in my neighborhood grew up terrifies of rain right before fireworks because we were sure there would be lots of duds.

I remember fireworks taking an hour or more from start to finish. I remember being blown away by the finale when a dozen or more fireworks blossomed in the sky simultaneously. I remember the show leading up to the finale consisting pretty much of one, maybe two, fireworks going off at the same time or in close sequence. I remember lots of time between fireworks when the sky was simply empty. I remember the first time I ever saw a fireworks display that had been timed and choreographed with music. It was in the 1980’s. They played Lee Greenwood’s “Proud to be an American” as part of the montage. I can’t remember being to a fireworks display set to music without hearing Lee ever since. In fact, I heard it again tonight. That guy must make millions just on fireworks background music.

Things I don’t remember from the suburban fireworks display my family attended every 4th of July, sharing a blanket in the grass of a local park, include adult men without shirts on, extraordinary traffic jams, closed roads, cops with lights flashing everywhere, people packed like sardines into all available open spaces and fighting over the high spots.

Of course, the suburb that sponsored the fireworks from my childhood has all of 10,000 people living in it. While Chattanooga may not be a big city, it’s nearly 20 times the size of that. So I guess it’s unfair to compare the sweet innocence of the suburb I grew up in to the issues that arise when you take a very large number of people and put them in a very small space.

The fireworks have been over for at least 45 minute now. But sirens keep going by outside. Hopefully it will settle down soon.

Bending

Posted by dkrashb on June 15, 2013

The Walnut Street Bridge takes a wild turn

I have discovered a whole new way to have fun with my iPhone camera. Yes, more panoramics! But in this case, instead of creating a really big view of a vast landscape, I’m making a U-shape! I know, I am easily amused.

But how much fun is it to stand on the Walnut Street Bridge and take a panoramic shot that starts by looking up the bridge, then pans across the scene of Riverbend and ends looking down the bridge?

I clarifies the concept of putting a 3-dimensional landscape into 2 dimensions in a brand new way. I am starting to think of other possible uses for the panoramic capability. I will cover 240 degrees. That means I can’t quite create a circle. But horseshoe shapes? The bridge is pretty close to a horseshoe.

Bending the bridge around the Carousel in Coolidge Park

Before I get carried away on the possibilities, let me just mention that we are rapidly approaching the close of this year’s Riverbend Festival. Riverbend is a pretty big deal that takes over the river front across the river. They close the main street that runs along the river, float in a big stage, and book many bands. Lynrd Skynrd played last night. That was a bit of a shock–I thought most of the band died in a plane many years ago? I guess you can still be a band even if you’ve replaced most of the original members.

In any case, Riverbend attracts a large crowd. Supposedly, over 600,000 people descend upon Chattanooga over the course of the 2 week music festival. To put that in perspective, there are about 170,000 people in Chattanooga proper. Believe it or not, that makes Chattanooga the 4th largest city in Tennessee, and only a about 10,000 people behind Knoxville, the largest city in East Tennessee. Only Nashville and Memphis are larger.

A panoramic that stops short of making a bend

By the time you add 600,000 people to Chattanooga, that’s enough to bump the population up to the largest city in Tennessee. Of course, they’re not all here at once. But, the extra crowd may explain the extra people hanging out in the park looking like perhaps they are camping out there. It’s hard for me to believe there are enough hotel rooms in town to house even 300,000 extra people. The building we live in has suddenly filled with extra people we don’t recognize and cars in parking spots that are normally empty.

We’ve learned that locals are not fond of Riverbend. I think people camping in the park do not help the locals lack of enthusiasm. But it’s likely the fight for parking is the bigger issue. People park anywhere they can. It’s pretty rare to find free parking anywhere in the vicinity of downtown. During Riverbend, unless you have a reserved spot, you’re pretty much out of luck.

However people feel about Riverbend, the fireworks display at the end of the festival is a big deal. We’ll see if it’s as impressive as last year tomorrow night.

Tisen cuddling with daddy

Storms

Posted by dkrashb on June 14, 2013

Tisen posing on the top of the sledding hill with the bridge over the wetland in the background

Although we seem to have largely skipped right over spring, we didn’t skip over the storms. I’m not sure if we’re still having spring storms or if we’ve moved into summer ones, but we’ve had some doozies lately.

Now days, Tisen usually sleeps through storms–provided they’re not too loud. Before we moved, the rain would hit the roof and echo through the metal sheeting, creating a drumming sound so loud that if it was raining really hard, I had trouble hearing if I was on a conference call. That is one of the perks of our new location–unless there is thunder and lightening, the rain can only be heard hitting the windows.

But there has been thunder and lightening. In fact, one day earlier this week, a storm broke loose with what seemed like almost constant thunder and lightening. Because I was on a conference call with noise-blocking earbuds in my ears, I really didn’t notice the thunder until Tisen suddenly wiggled his way between my chair and my desk and managed to wind himself around my feet. I couldn’t figure out what had come over him until I took out an ear bud and looked out the window.

Tisen hiding from thunder

I had to attempt to photograph him wound around my legs. However, it was a bit challenging with my iPhone shooting from straight above. When you look at this photo, the thing in the top left is my knee. Directly under Tisen’s nose, if you look carefully, you can see my foot with Tisen’s legs over it. Just below his nose, you can see one wheel of my desk chair. You can also see the various items under my desk like power cords, a printer, and a basket of office supplies, that Tisen wedged himself between in order to have physical contact with my foot.

I don’t know exactly what makes Tisen feel safe when he is in contact with my foot. I’m certain that if I’d been sitting on the sofa he would have been up in my lap trying to press himself against me as if he was trying to get inside my skin. However, he made due with my foot since my lap was wholly unavailable.

Tisen preparing to go out

Tisen has other ways of finding comfort. He doesn’t like to leave without a toy. Sometimes it seems he holds his toy more tightly than others. I’m not always able to figure out what exactly makes him nervous. I know large crowds make him cling to his toy more tightly, even in hot weather. But on the day I took pictures of him with Pink Elephant up on the sledding hill, I’m not sure what inspired him to carry Elephant all the way to the top.

Perhaps indicating confidence, he’s left a trail of toys lately. He dropped Moose one day and Duck the next. Two days later it was Duck again. It’s a good thing our neighbors know whose door to leave stray toys in front of!

Another pose on top of the sledding hill

Escape to the Ridge

Posted by dkrashb on June 13, 2013

The sun creeps low in the sky, beaming through the trees as we hike

I managed to go to Stringer’s Ridge twice in the same week. Not just in the same week, actually. In 2 days. It started on a whim. I can see the Stringer’s Ridge overlook from my office window. I have been watching (through binoculars) the progress on the overlook. One day, I peered through the binoculars long and hard and thought, “I think they’re done!”

That was the day, being one of the 2 work days in a week that we don’t have a prescribed cuisine, I thought, “we should have a picnic dinner at the overlook.” And so it went. We packed up Tisen’s dinner, threw a couple of beverages in a day pack, and headed to the grocery store to pick up sandwiches and cookies.

A coniferous tree glows yellow in the light from the setting sun amongst greener brethren

We drove up to the overlook as the sun worked its way toward the horizon. We managed to eat with a spectacular view followed by a nice walk through the woods as the sun continued to set. We made it back to the car before dark feeling pretty darn good (less the bug bites).

It was so nice to get out on a Monday evening, I thought we might make a habit of it (yet to be seen).

Tisen is a great trail dog–always checking to make sure Mommy is coming if he gets too far ahead

The next day, the cleaning folks were coming and I needed a place to work where it was quiet. The cleaning crew didn’t arrive until nearly lunch. I managed to get me and Tisen out without interrupting the conference call I was on. This is perhaps one of the most amazing things about technology today. I think back to when I started my first job and felt really special because I had a terminal and a phone on my desk. Flex time meant you could set your start time between 7-9AM and leave 8.5-9 hours later, depending on how long you took for lunch.

I cannot imagine what our department head back then (who thought email could only be used to goof off) would think of a work world where you can be in the middle of a meeting, pack up your office and your dog, head down to your car, start up your own wireless network, get back online and fully participate in the call without anyone knowing you just changed location.

Tisen’s wallow

On another whim, once I got setup in the car, I headed back to Stringer’s Ridge. I drove up and parked in a shady spot, sitting in the car until the meeting ended. Then, instead of spending lunch sitting in front of my laptop working, I took Tisen for a walk through the woods. I found it doubly refreshing to get out in the woods in the middle of the day. Tisen, I think, found it rather stifling. Unfortunately, I hadn’t thought to bring him water. The first puddle we found on the trail quickly became a mud bath for Tisen who sank into it like a wallowing pig.

He made it back just fine, thankfully, just muddy.

I know I posted similar shots yesterday, but the view from the overlook is pretty cool

Half Open?

Posted by dkrashb on June 12, 2013

Downtown looks far away at 28mm

Stringer’s Ridge has had quite a facelift. It appears to be officially half-open, although I can’t tell from the information on the web. It now has official looking metal gates that cross the main trails into the park. One side still has a big orange “park closed” sign. But the other direction has no sign other than “no motorized vehicles.”

There are many mysteries about Stringers Ridge. First, there is the mystery “grand opening” that still does not seem to have happened. When I first heard about Stringers Ridge, I heard the park was going to have a grand opening in October 2012.

Next, I heard it was going to open later that winter. The only sign of progress at the park entrance was a set of new signs telling people the park was under construction and still closed. Next, it was going to open in April. Then it was going to be May. The last post I saw said it would open around Memorial Day.

102mm pulls the Market St and Walnut St bridges into view

The second mystery is what it is that they’re doing that prevents them from opening the park. I confess. I’ve been in the park. I have never seen anyone working in the park. I have, however, encountered both pedestrians and cyclists in the park, which made me think it really was open before they put up signs.

The changes I’ve noticed since last summer have been:

an improvement in the signage–especially trail markers which were numbers on pin tins until recently,
the removal of large piles of garbage that many people must have worked very hard to gather up and haul to a collection point,
the removal of some of the overgrowth,
the removal of some sculptures that I wish they would have left. There was one arrangement of logs that looked like a giant hiker climbing up a hill. I am both befuddled and disappointed that it was removed. It was clever, humorous, and appropriate to the setting,
the addition of a real overlook at the point where some trees were cleared to allow for one of the best views of downtown Chattanooga–if I am disappointed about #4, #5 makes up for it.

118mm makes for a nice view of the aquarium

stillI can understand why they would have wanted the park closed while they were constructing the overlook. What I don’t quite understand is why they seem to be holding the park opening until all the mountain bike trails are completed. At least, I assume that’s what they’re holding for at this point. Why not just mark the trails that are closed as closed and have the grand opening? Parks have trails closed all the time.

Whatever the reason, I’m happy the park is half-open.

The new overlook has two large “boxes” in the middle that make the perfect place for dinner. It’s a really nice overlook. And the view is even better now that the overlook puts you 10 feet out over the edge of the ridge. I can’t wait until the grand opening!

Tisen caught with a mouthful of his dinner on the overlook

To Sunset

Posted by dkrashb on June 11, 2013

The fast-fading glow in the Eastern sky

No energy. That’s me tonight. I’ve barely been able to keep my eyes open since about 8PM. I hope this doesn’t mean I’ve caught something (again). It’s just as likely Tisen is the cause. He is back to scratching all night again. I feel like I did when we last had a puppy–being awakened every hour or so and finally settling down for the best sleep after taking our boy out to go potty in the wee hours of the morning, just before the alarm would go off.

The park fading into shadows

Except there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. We are trying a drug we’ve tried before that helped. We’re trying a new dose because it made him sick the last time we tried it. We’ll see if giving him less helps without the side effects. I feel guilty about this. At some point I wonder how much is about my need to sleep vs ending my dog’s suffering? Should I really be trying to give him a medication that made him sick? And which is worse for him? Scratching and chewing himself until he draws blood or a drug that makes him vomit and have diarrhea? Can’t we have a nice easy route to ending his allergies without side effects?

Only gray is left to the East

In the meantime, I’m nodding off over the keyboard yet again and wanting nothing more than a good night’s sleep tonight. I look at these photos of sunset and think that’s an apt way to describe how I feel at the moment–like the light is fading fast. But, the sun will rise again in the morning and I’ll be blinking, squinting, and, with much resistance, dragging myself back out of bed regardless of how much or how little I sleep.

A bright glow remains in the West

Going to be is far easier. Here’s to sunset!

One final shot of the glowing trail the sun has left behind

Rainbow Moments

Posted by dkrashb on June 10, 2013

Panoramic View of the North Shore and Water Front at 7:30ish

Timing is everything. I could come up with hundreds of stories of how timing made the difference between what was and what wasn’t. Of course, I suppose that is true for every moment in every day for everyone, so perhaps it’s not particularly remarkable.

But there are certain events that occur in a moment and then disappear–you either see them or you don’t–dependent on their timing and yours. Rainbows are a great example of transitory events that occur infrequently enough that most of us are still amazed whenever we happen to witness one.

On this particular day, at 7:30 PM, I had just gotten back from taking a break to walk Tisen. I’d decided to run down to a common room in our building with great views to try out the panoramic feature of my iPhone camera from the balcony.

My 24-70 mm lens just wasn’t wide enough at 8:30ish

I guess I was inspired by the sky while I was walking Tisen, but I don’t remember. The clouds were interesting enough to enhance the panoramic view, but it was too early for any interesting sunset color. So, around 7:30PM, I was out on the balcony taking the panoramic shot above.

After shooting several panoramics and deciding I liked the one above, I returned to my office and went back to work. About an hour later I got a text from my husband telling me to get down to the exact same spot I had been shooting from an hour earlier because there was a huge double rainbow.

Knowing rainbows cannot be counted on to hang out waiting for me to get my equipment together, I grabbed what I thought was my tripod bag, my DSLR with a 24-70mm lens on it. and my iPhone (of course) and left for the common room so quickly, I was half way down the hall before I realized I was barefoot. Not having time to return for shoes, I kept going.

I manage to capture the rainbows with the panoramic feature on the iPhone, but the 2nd rainbow is faint

I got to the clubroom, and immediately realized the bag I’d grabbed was not my tripod bag. Rather, it was a bag of lighting stands. For those of you who are not into photography, lighting stands are not at all helpful when what you need is a tripod–at least not if you need it quickly. Perhaps with enough time and ingenuity, a lighting stand could be rigged into a temporary tripod. But a rainbow is not the time to try this.

So, handholding my DSLR, I took a few shots of the huge double-rainbow visible end-to-end in the sky and realized my second problem–24mm wasn’t wide enough. I couldn’t fit the double rainbow into the frame.

While I got out my iPhone and started taking more panoramics, my husband kindly ran back to our place to grab my tripod and 16-35mm lens for me. He returned in record time. By the time I switched my lens, there was only one strip of rainbow still visible. Maybe next time.

At 16mm, I might have gotten both rainbows, but it’s hard to say for sure

Last Look and Eating Badly

Posted by dkrashb on June 9, 2013

My favorite view from the easily accessible overlooks at Cloudland Canyon

These are the last of the photos I will share from a week ago when we went to Cloudland Canyon (I promise). The sad truth is that that was the last time we did anything physical. Well, other than my Friday morning yoga class and walking Tisen–the last vestiges of exercise in my life at the moment.

Tisen poses pretty well for me for the 2nd time in the same day

I was thinking about an article I read a long time ago where health researchers looked at evidence from anthropology findings about the life style of hunter-gatherers. The theory went that since humans were hunter-gatherers for the majority of our history, our bodies are most likely geared towards that type of lifestyle and, therefore, for optimal health, we should emulate the variety in diet and level of exercise from that time in our history. The one key difference was that they speculated that while there were periods of famine for our ancestors, the findings (based on other studies) suggested that our bodies response to starvation, while allowing us to survive, is contrary to long-term health, but that’s another discussion.

The canyon walls on the other side of the creek

The point I am (slowly) getting to is that research suggested that hunter-gatherers spent most of the daylight hours walking, climbing, picking, and, well, gathering. There were occasional springs and jogs, but most of the time our ancestors were in gentle motion. I compare this to my lifestyle of spending 10-12 hours in front of a computer at a desk five days a week. The only thing that could possibly be further from our ancestors lifestyle would be to sleep for 20 years straight, Rip Van Winkle style.

Closer look at the end of the canyon ridge

It strikes me as rather ironic that through all our progress and technology, we have jobs that keep us from doing what makes us healthy and we struggle to find time to get the exercise we need because we’re so busy working, but if we spent our day gathering food instead of making money to buy food, we’d get all the exercise we need. Mind you, I’m not suggesting I want to go back to a hunter-gatherer world. I’m not that fond of famine, ice ages, disease, and all the other things that kept life expectancy down to something like 30. I guess that’s the big flaw in assuming that our bodies are honed to that lifestyle–the hunter-gatherers didn’t life long enough to have a lot of the diseases we struggle with today.

Vertical view

I contemplated all of this, of course, as I was eating a large hunk of a baguette slathered in about two tablespoons of Irish butter. I found myself wondering why I am able to still tell myself “tomorrow I’ll eat better” and shove a week’s worth of saturated fat into my belly and think it’s OK. The thought crossed my mind that it’s like committing suicide slowly. I did a little googling, but I couldn’t find any “I’m about to eat badly” hotline numbers. Then I went and dished up some ice cream.

iPhone panoramic from the second overlook

Second Look

Posted by dkrashb on June 8, 2013

Tisen demonstrating he really does know how to pose

Getting from the first overlook at Cloudland Canyon to the second overlook is an easy walk. The path is mostly asphalt and smooth and easy. Since we’ve had a very late spring here, we even got to enjoy some late-blooming Hawthorn trees along the way.

I tried to get Tisen to pose for me as we made our way down the trail. I need to do some more intentional dog training with him. He’s really quite easy to train, but I have found I am very happy with our relatively casual relationship vs needing him to walk exactly where I want or constantly work to figure out my next command. However, whenever Pat is walking him and I want to take his picture, I wish I had taught him a “pose” command.

For a second I thought I shot this at 70mm or so, but it was shot at 24mm–the other side of the gorge is close!

I would like to be able to say, “Tisen, Pose!” and have him turn towards me, doing something cute like stick out his tongue and tilt his head or pick up his favorite toy, and then freeze. As it is, Tisen walks down the path ahead of me with daddy. I call to them to stop. Pat, my accommodating husband, stops, turns, smiles and waits. Tisen, however, continues to face the opposite direction.

Looking out of the canyon and into lookout valley

I, of course, call Tisen to try to get him to turn around. He invariably turns around, looks excited that I want to see him with his tail wagging like mad, and then tries to walk over to me. Pat then tries to get him to come back to him to keep him in position. This, predictably, causes Tisen to turn back around so his back is facing me once more. And so it goes in this constant tug-of-war trying to get Tisen to both face me and stop moving.

Another view of the canyon

Every once in a while, Tisen will pause just long enough for me to get a rapid-fire series of shots off. Usually, in a series of 8 shots, I’m lucky if he’s holding still in one of them. The rest will have various parts of his head blurred. On this particular walk, he managed to pause for me in near perfect position in a puddle of Hawthorn blossoms. He looks so happy; it makes me smile.

Vertical version

On the way to the second overlook, I was teased by a Pine Warbler who, I believe, was following just behind me, singing enough bars to get me to get my long lens in place and then fly just out of sight when I turned around to photograph him. This happens a lot when I happen to have a camera with a long lens on it handy. It’s one of the reasons I often leave the long lens at home.

The second Overlook is my favorite. You can see down both sides of the gorge and off into the distance between the peaks that surround the canyon. The sky usually does interesting things as a bonus–even in mid-afternoon.

Tisen almost walking out of the frame

The First Overlook

Posted by dkrashb on June 7, 2013

Panoramic view taken with the iPhone

This is going to be a short post. I’m writing at 11:15PM on Thursday night. I just finished my “day” job 15 minutes ago (I guess that makes it a “day-and-night” job) and if I try to write my usual 500 words, I’m likely to end up writing this post in my sleep (yes, I’ve done that before–check this out).

Cloudland Canyon is one of those must-see places if you’re anywhere in the area. They have nice facilities including campgrounds, a picnic area with restrooms, an interpretive center, a spectacular view, and lots of great trails, including backcountry trails.

Looking the opposite direction down the gorge

That said, if you are having a low-energy day, there’s also the leisurely walk around the mostly flat path along the cliff top. There are several nice overlooks that always make me feel like the $5 parking fee was well worth it even when the path around the cliff top is the only path I walk that visit.

Looking up the gorge at a rolling valley covered in dense green you can hear a distant waterfall

All of the images in this post were shot from what I think of as the first overlook. It’s only the first overlook if you start with this one. 🙂 I like to park at the far end of the cliff top path and walk uphill around the rim. I don’t know why I like this, but it might be because even when the park is really crowded, there are usually still parking places in this end of the parking lot.

The other reason is because it’s a short walk from the car to the first overlook, so there’s a quick payoff. One drawback is that the restrooms at that end are often closed, so stopping at the first set of newer facilities (in a concrete block building) may be imperative, depending on your situation.

Rocks and trees along the cliff top

A short walk down a dirt path followed by a steep descent down metal-mesh steps takes you to a panoramic view up one leg of the gorge. I, of course, was standing there with my 5D Mark III and my husband’s T4i with a 70-200mm lens on it (don’t ask) hanging around my neck while I stood on the overlook creating panoramics with my iPhone. I sometimes think I should get my husband to take a picture of this with his iPhone just so I can see how ridiculous it looks!

Tisen does not like metal-mesh steps

nomadicmainstream

Combining living on the road with a mainstream lifestyle

Category Archives: Chattanooga