There was nothing to buy

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Paradise, 10x, Mt Rainier hiding.

The movement is the phone slowly melting it’s snow-stand.

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Paradise, Looking up at Panorama point.  10x.

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Panorama Point lunch and post-hike dog

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Downtown Auburn

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HOLLOW

A craft project I started this week on the side, while being annoyed with Shapeways API, is near completion.  A hollowed model.  This will save some $$$.

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My local mapserver just got a whole lot more useful.

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It's in there

Always learning, every time I come to some problem, there is already a gdal tool for that.

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I had been free-loading on a an excellent academic mapserver (noted to be freely available) while I prototyped, but it appears it might be gone for the long haul, so it is time for me to build my own.  Boring.

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How Big Is It?

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Here’s what I’ve been up to for the last couple weeks.

"mt. fuji"

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Switching trails up the mountain

I do need to go back and finish up my trip logs, but I came back with a strong urge to get moving on mountains.

I've decided I need to wrap generation in a web interface.  I think I'd eventually like to build an ember application for this, but I'm going to need a backend so I'm using this as an opportunity to finally start my own django app.

I've generally worked in the past on existing projects, I'm finding it fun to start from scratch and learn the infrastructure myself.  In addition to making it through a chunk of the django tutorial (using it as a guide for my own app progress) I played with virtualenv and pip, thinks I've used before, but only with others instructions, and south, which is soon to be replaced, but is a beautifully simple migration system.

Working from a sketch I made last week, I have basic pages that will build up a printable model, I will be filling them out with usable tools that will make building models a pleasure.  

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Port Burwell to Peacock Point.

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BBTXL Day 4: Port Burwell to Peacock Point

Century, eh? I woke to found at least 6 different species of spider under my fly. It was cool. One had a white abdomen with red lightning bolt racing stripes. Breakfast in town included gossiping about the boy recently drowned in Lake Erie. After we enjoyed more beautiful farmland highlighted with the future. After skipping a meal we should have eaten, we stopped at a winery, I had a glass of pino and a wrap. Super alternate universe meal. I made it out intact. Zooming out of lunch we spotted a loaded tourer with an America. Flag and we caught up to him miles later when he stopped for a sec. We chatted, he was 30-some days into a 50 day trans-continent, booming across at >=75 miles a day. We moved on and he followed for a while but stopped for a picture and we kept going. Later he passed as we sheltered on a porch during a thunderstorm; he stopped and we met Jason. Jason rode with us, joined us for food and beer in Port Dover and camp at a county park on Peacock Point. We watched the sunrise behind the largest coal fired power plant in North America and fought Mosquitos while the Milky Way popped out of the sky.

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BBTXL Day 3: Rondeau to Port Burwell.

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BBTXL Day 3: Robdeau to Port Burwell

80 miles

We started thinkin we might have a 59 mile day staying with a warm showers host in Port Stanley but still got an early an eager start incase we had to go further. There is no camping near Port Stanley, and as it turned out, no host.

Two highlights tied for best, the Tall Tales cafe in Wallacetown. So tasty, and Gooseberry custard pie! Also, wind turbines, so many wind turbines. I love the future.

Also wonderful, our first long haul tourer, John from California. He was 3 month in on an adventure exploring as many rail trails as possible. He took the train up to Seattle and is headed to Nova Scotia. Only after we headed off did I realize I had 1000 questions for him.

Our campsite in Port Burwell was beautiful, pine trees, a stream, and the roar of lake Erie’s wind in the tree tops.

Biking was long but pleasant. Mostly low traffic, our first climbs of the trip: several river valleys. Also the first ice cream of the trip in Port Stanley.

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BBTXL Day 2: Marine City to Rondeau Provincial Park

60 miles, cool, and very windy. The highlight of the ride was our short stop at Uncle Tom's Cabin in Dresden Ontario. The museum chronicled the life and work of Rev. Josiah Henson. A freed slaved, Underground Railroad conductor, and advocate for freed slaves now making a live in Ontario. He started an institute to help teach people skills and worked hard to find ways to monetize their resources (timber, labor) to better fund their work. We only had about a half hour before they closed, it would have been nice to spend more time. I took pictures of many of the exhibits and enjoyed then from my tent during evening. The rest of the ride was not exactly pleasant, but not horrible. The last 20 miles were on a busy no shoulder road. Drivers were mostly conscientious, but there is no way to feel comfortable in that situation. After the intense storms of day 1, it was cold today. High was jut over 60, with 25 mph winds. A mix of tail and cross winds, the cross were hard and really made lauries's life difficult with her front panniers sailing her handlebars around. Rondeau Provincial Park was a nice spot. Nice camp spots and facilities, even laundry. The park is probably 10 miles from a real town, so it was nice that there is a decent pub and camp market right at the entrance. They had everything we needed. The only thing that could have been better would be camping closer to the waves of Erie.

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BBTXL day 1: Novi to Marine City, MI