Blackwater NWR

Saturday, 25 July

Friday after work we headed off to Cambridge, Maryland, stopping en route for dinner at the Fisherman’s Inn, located in Kent Narrows on the Eastern Shore.  What the restaurant lacks in ambiance, it makes up for in tasty Maryland crab cakes.

The 226-mile (364 km) roundtrip drive was too long for an overnighter in the Phaeton, so we left the coach at home and opted to stay at the Comfort Inn & Suites in Cambridge instead.  At $160/night (incl. taxes) it was a bit pricey, but ‘tis still the high season in this area, so we bit the bullet.  For that rate, we got a clean, spacious room with a separate sitting area, and hi-speed wi-fi and breakfast, though we checked out too early this morning to take advantage of the latter. 

The drive to Cambridge is an easy shot on Route 50.  Though we traveled during rush
hour on a Friday, traffic was light and we didn’t hit any snags along the way.

Our destination was the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge.  We could have just driven down for the day, of course, and saved ourselves some big bucks on the hotel room, but we wanted to be at the refuge bright and early, so staying overnight in Cambridge worked out better for us.

Arriving shortly after 6:30a, we certainly made it to Blackwater NWR early, but it wasn’t bright by any stretch of the imagination.  I have no idea what happened to the sunshine that was forecasted when we made our plans, but we didn’t see one single ray the entire time we were there.  In fact, our morning was overcast with low, grey clouds and occasional sprinkles here and there.

Since the light was so dull, I didn’t take any landscape pictures of this very scenic refuge this time.  In hindsight, I probably should have taken at least a photo of the brand new observation deck that just opened on August 12.  The 200-foot (60 m) long deck overlooks the Blackwater River marshlands and is a great place from which to observe the birds and waterfowl … when they are there to be seen.  We were skunked here, but it made a nice breakfast spot for us.  And we did see a bald eagle perched in a tree far, far away.

(Scenery shots (and wildlife, of course) from our April 2008 trip are in this gallery.)

My goal on this trip was to practice with my Wimberley gimbal head and also test a 400mm prime lens I rented against my 70-200mm lens (not that I have any plans to get rid of my 70-200mm; that one’s a definite keeper).  The prime lens was nice, but no comparison to my shorter zoom lens, which is far superior and gives me the same reach with the 2x extender with no noticeable degradation of quality.

Following is a selection of photos from the Wildlife Drive.  We made two runs on this road, which we had to ourselves until around 8:00a.  Then, all of two cars drove by without stopping except to ask us if we’d seen anything interesting.  I wanted to say, “Yes, and so would you if you got out of the car and spent some time here.”  But I was nice, and just told them what we’d seen.

In addition to the usual suspects of ospreys, great blue herons, and egrets, there were some small birds, such as semipalmated plovers, yellowlegs, gulls, and terns.  But neither lens had sufficient reach for the small birds, so we focused on the big birds instead.  Mui played with whichever lens I wasn’t using, reliving memories of his days taking still photographs before he got into videography.  Hence, there’s a combination of photos from both of us.

First, some shots of ospreys …

… and some great blue herons …

... Mui playing with the 400 mm lens ...

… here’s the lone greater yellowlegs I saw; a juvenile from the plumage …

… some great egrets …

… for a change of pace, a beaver …

… one of a pair of eagles that took off just as we arrived at the stand of trees where we had our best eagle sighting in 2008 (check out the gallery linked above) …

On our second time through, we decided to use the Key Wallace Drive to exit the refuge.  We were hoping to get a closer glimpse of the blue-winged teals that are making a migratory stop here.  Unfortunately, they were too far away for any decent pictures.  The drive wasn’t without its rewards, however, as we had our closest great egret sightings before and after the end of this drive.

This egret took off from the tree it was perched on just as we came upon it.  I took the photos from inside the car; luckily Mui’s window was down …

… and this great egret was strutting about a roadside farm …

And that’s the story of our morning at Blackwater NWR.  By 10:30a, we were on the road back home.  Despite the dreary day, we stopped at the Queen Anne County Visitor Center in Kent Narrows to eat our packed lunch.  Then it was back on the road again.  There was more traffic on the trip home, but we’ve seen worse on this road, so no complaints.  And we never came to a complete stop; which is unusual for a weekend even if we were going away from the beaches!  That’s a good thing.

For those who want to see more; there’s more from this trip in my online gallery for Blackwater.

Blast from the Past: When Duty Calls

Spring 2003

As we weed through stuff to decide what stays and what goes — to the Phaeton; to storage; into the trash bin; or to the donation pile — the folders in the file cabinets are also getting scrutinized.  A lot of the paperwork is being shredded; some is being scanned to take with us.

One of the things Mui came across in a folder stuck in the back of a drawer was a quarterly magazine — the first edition, in fact — from when he worked for the IRS.  At the time, in addition to his day job, he was a US Air Force Reserve Officer.

From 1991, when he left active duty and joined the USAFR, until his retirement from the Reserves in 2005, Mui was deployed many times in support of military operations worldwide.  This photo was taken just before he deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Mui was gone for six months when he deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

And so, piece by piece the downsizing continues … who knows what other gems are hidden in our files.

I Love My Wimberley!

Sunday, 19 August

With a nice weekend in the forecast, we decided to take a break from chores and whatnot and enjoy a bit of fresh air both yesterday and today.

Saturday, we took the Gekkos and drove 30 minutes into DC.  Parking the car at the East Potomac Park, we did a 3-hour trike ride along the Potomac River.  Good exercise; and fun too.

Scenes from along the Potomac in Washington, DC.

Today, I had a different agenda.  We plan to visit a lot of wildlife refuges when we get on the road.  That means more opportunities for BIF (birds-in-flight) photography.  So, I finally bought a Wimberley gimbal head for my tripod.  This specialized head is designed to rotate a telephoto lens around it’s center of gravity.  The movement is very fluid and I can move the camera sideways as well as up and down very smoothly.  All the better to track BIF and other wildlife in motion.

Wimberley WH-200 Gimbal Head II — I love it!

So, we headed to Huntley Meadows Park in Alexandria, Virginia this morning to practice with the Wimberley.  I can’t believe I waited this long to get this tripod head.  So smooth; so easy.  So much better than the ball head I’ve been using.  Even a really long (and heavy) prime lens would be a piece of cake to maneuver with this gimbal head.  Hmmmmmm :-)

While the Wimberley performed beautifully, the birdlife didn’t necessarily cooperate.  Just one flock of Canada geese flew overhead, and that was before I was set up for photography.  I heard a lot of chirping in the trees, but the birds were hidden by the leaves.  The small birds that were flitting about were too far for my 70-200 mm lens; even had I not forgotten the 2x extender, I still wouldn’t have been able to capture photos of them.

But I didn’t return empty handed … here’s a selection of photos I decided to keep from this morning’s outing.

The beavers were busy as … well … beavers. 
This one showed up before I had a chance to get the camera on the tripod …

… but I was ready for this one and was able to track it beautifully.

The following photos are heavily cropped … darn, where’s my extender when I need it.

Green Heron

This great blue heron is fishing; if you look really close you’ll see it has a fish in its beak.
(I kept this photo because of how it fits into the storyline that follows.)

A white-tailed deer shows up with her fawn at the only water in the park …

… and the twosome promptly joins the great blue heron …

… which turns around and …

… leads them to a trail.

OK, so that’s my interpretation of the interaction between the deer and the great blue heron.  But honest, it really did look like the great blue heron was leading the deer to this hidden trail.

The park is an oasis in the middle of a busy urban area.  These pockets of green amidst concrete jungles never fail to amaze me.  Unfortunately, the effects of the drought are quite visible at Huntley Meadows.  Except for the pond created by beaver dams and the pond pictured above, the wetlands are little more than mud flats parched and cracked by the sun.  We need rain; not the drenching downpours that pass through, but the steady kind that can soak into the land and do some good.

Flowers at Huntley Meadows: Cardinal Flower (left); Swamp Milkweed (top right);
Swamp Mallow [aka Hibiscus] (bottom right).

Today’s short visit to Huntley Meadows has exacerbated the travel itch … I wonder if we can get away next weekend?

Packing With Gusto

Friday, 17 August

Let’s face it, I don’t like to pack.  Not even a suitcase for our travels.  So, no surprise that I wanted to hold-off packing things we don’t need for daily living until October, but Mui wanted to get started now.  I eventually gave in and he’s gone at it with gusto.

As long as he consults me on what’s being wrapped and bubble-wrapped, boxed, taped, and saran-wrapped, I guess I can live with having boxes and rolls of stuff all around me for the foreseeable future.

How anyone can be happy doing this chore is beyond me!

Here’s a stack of stuff already packed.  Good thing we won’t need any of it anytime
soon; it would be impossible to get through all that saran wrap.
(OK; it’s not really saran wrap, but packer’s stretch film wrap.)

Mui’s got an interesting inventory system for what he’s packing.  He assigns a number to a box; takes a photo of the number; then takes a photo of each item that goes in the box before he wraps it.  Transcribing the inventory later will be my job.  So, see … I will be participating in the process after all :-)

104 days and counting to full-timing!

Disposable Gloves Dispenser

Tuesday, August 14

Mui uses disposable gloves to do all kinds of chores around the Phaeton.  They are especially handy when dumping the tanks.

At first, he was keeping the box of gloves in the wet bay, but that wasn’t ideal.  So, he shopped around for a dispenser he could mount on the inside of one of the basement doors.

Nothing he found really fit the bill, so he started thinking outside the box.  From a thrift store, he bought a mesh inbox — you know, the kind that you put on the desk to collect bills and whatnot — and he cut it down the middle.  A couple of snips of the cross wires on the bottom created a wider opening to make it easy to pull gloves out.  After filing down any rough edges, all it took to then install the dispenser was a couple of self-tapping screws.

Total cost: $1.  Can’t beat that.

When the box is empty, it can be slid out from the top to replace it with a full box.

The dispenser is on the inside of the basement door where Mui installed
the custom-built sewer hose storage tube.

X-Stitch: The Old Coffee Shop

Sunday, 12 August

I’ve been wanting to finish up the posts featuring my cross-stitch projects, so now I have an incentive.  Mui has started packing up things that are not essential to daily life.  That includes the few pieces of my embroidery that I opted to bring to the condo after we sold the townhome in May 2011.  It’s time for these pieces to join the ones that were packed at that time.

---

There’s something about this café scene that screams Paris to me.  But the sign on the shop says The Old Coffee Shop.  Perhaps when this piece is unpacked again someday I will see the setting in another country.

And a few close ups for detail …

“Pilli Bebek” is SOLD

Thursday, 9 August

Kept the driver, but sold …

… the Highlander Hybrid today!
[photo taken at Chapman’s Mill in Virginia, October 2011.]

For those curious, the Pilli Bebek in the title is a reference to the hybrid’s electric battery.  It means battery-powered baby in Turkish :-)

It wasn’t an easy decision to sell the Highlander.  Unfortunately, we can’t tow it four-down and storing it for the foreseeable future didn’t make sense, either.  So, off she went to a new home!  Too bad, we really liked driving this vehicle.

One more thing that was on our prep-for-fulltiming list is now taken care of.  Moving on …

And by the way, this means that as a one-car family, I’ll be working from home fulltime, borrowing the toad from Mui should my presence be required in the office on occasion.  That’s a good thing!

Kicking Things Into High Gear: Storage Rented

Saturday, 4 August

We were going to go camping this weekend.  We even had reservations.  However, when the forecast remained in the high 90F (32C+) range, and the weatherman threw into the mix high humidity and thunderstorms, we decided to cancel those plans.  After all, who wants to be out there in a 30A-site with no shade; especially if it’s going to be too uncomfortable to have fun outside.  Besides, plenty to do to keep ourselves busy at home.

We kicked full-timing prep into high gear this week.  Actually, Mui did; and I agreed it was time.  As I write this entry, our countdown clock shows us just hours from being at 117 days from retirement.

Sounds like plenty of time to get things organized.  But wait.  We have plans to visit family in October, and that’s going to shorten the prep time frame by another 21 days.  That puts us at 96 days and counting.  Definitely time to kick things into high gear.

So, the ball is rolling, and I’ll write about everything as each is completed.  For this post, I’m going to focus on what we did today — rent a storage unit for the things we want to keep for when we get off the road.  And also for things we’ll need for our non-Phaeton travels, which we’ll be continuing in parallel with our full-timing lifestyle.

This is where we’ll be storing our belongings until we’re ready to reclaim them.

After a bunch of research on Mui’s part, we decided to rent a unit in Winchester, Virginia.  We like the area and who knows, we might settle there someday.  Also, the prices are much better than they are in our immediate area — by enough to make the one-hour drive worthwhile.

Some might say that we’re jumping the gun by renting so early.  We thought of doing it later, but it turns out that climate-controlled units in the size we need are not easy to come by.  Why climate-controlled?  Well, I have all of my framed embroidery work that I simply can’t chance ruining in regular storage.  So, when this one became available, we jumped on it.  That this particular unit is on the ground floor, and has easy access for unloading stuff is a bonus that Mui’s very happy with.  The unit does not abut an exterior wall either; something that’s been on my mind since I read about the storage travails of Sue and Mo back in March 2011.

We can back in as far as the yellow pole; our unit is to the immediate right of that pole.

This should fit the bill nicely.

We did debate getting rid of everything, except my embroidery.  When we did the math, however, it became quite apparent that we’d not be able to replace the stuff we’re keeping for what it’s going to cost us to rent this space for the foreseeable future.  That we got a surprise 10% military discount off the monthly rate made the price of this unit over a smaller one more palatable.  Bonus — by paying for the first year in full, we got a month free, and the property manager waived the $18 set up fee and gave us a stainless steel, maximum security lock to secure our stuff.  Good deal, Mui!

We have plenty to bring over, but …

… this is all we stuffed into the Highlander today.

Guess who ends up doing the heavy lifting while the other one just locks up :-)

The packing has commenced, but we’ll probably just keep the boxes in the apartment unless we have occasion to come to Winchester for some reason; or we decide to do two runs in a smaller moving truck instead of one run in a bigger truck.  Either way, we will likely do the move ourselves since the ground floor unit is going to make it so much easier to unload and carry stuff.