Paddling Bear Creek Lake

Posted on By Tom 2 Comments on Paddling Bear Creek Lake
Paddling, Photography
Bear Creek Lake
Bear Creek Lake

I’ve been wanting to paddle Bear Creek Lake ever since I discovered its existence. I first heard of the lake when the Western Carolina Kayaking Meetup scheduled a trip up there. I couldn’t make that trip, but the missed opportunity nagged at me. This summer on one of my photo treks I stumbled upon the landing for Bear Creek Lake. Seeing it in person made me want to come up here even more. So, when WCKayaking announced another trip, I knew I had to go.

In the 1950’s the Nantahala Power and Light Company built four lakes along the Bear Creek Valley. Bear Creek Lake is the largest of these, and is just a bit larger than Lake Cunningham near Greer. Cliff Lake, Wolf Creek Lake, and Tamassee Creek Lake round out the quartet. Cliff Lake is downstream from Bear Creek Lake, and the other two were built on tributary creeks to Bear Creek. The entire watershed feeds into the Tuckaseegee River. The lakes are now controlled by Duke Power.

Unlike Lakes Glenville and Toxaway nearby, there is not much development along these lakes. The views of the high hills and rocks remain somewhat pristine. However, I’m afraid that will change. I don’t know if there are any easements or protections in place as there are at Lake Jocassee, but I saw signs for various realtors and development. I hope they don’t destroy the lake shores as they did at Toxaway and some of the South Carolina lakes like Keowee, Hartwell, Murray, and Greenwood.

The plan was to meet at the launch at 11:00 am, a reasonable time, in my opinion. It gave me plenty of time to get up there and explore a bit first. The drive up is spectacular, winding through the highlands of South Carolina then crossing up to Cashiers, then passing the much larger Glenville Lake. The lake itself is off of Highway 281, past a farming valley formed by the Tuckaseegee River and Bear Creek.

Read More “Paddling Bear Creek Lake” »

The Kingdom of Stuff You Don’t Need

Posted on By Tom 2 Comments on The Kingdom of Stuff You Don’t Need
Local, Photography, Rambling

Pickens Flea Market-14

Yep, I made another mid-week trek over to the Pickens Flea Market. It was a beautiful day, and I headed over there just because I could. I was curious as to how the place changes on a non-summer, non-holiday Wednesday.

According to their Facebook page, the flea market is open from 4:00 am until 2:00 pm every Wednesday. I can’t imagine being here before dawn, but I guess some of the vendors need that time to get set up. I have gotten here as early as 7:30, and the vendors were still setting up. I think the “sweet spot” as far as time is from 8:00 until 11:00. By 11:00 many of the vendors are already packing up for home.

Normally I park at one end and head west. Usually I run out of steam by the time I get to the other side, so this time I parked closer to the other end. It seemed much sparser at this end on this particular Wednesday. Much of the covered area wasn’t occupied, but there were still quite a few open-air vendors. Everything seemed more spread out, with little pockets of vendors in remote corners.

I think this is the newer section. A chain link fence runs down the middle of the market, dividing it in half. It’s possible that the two halves are managed separately, but I’m not sure about that. One must pass through a rather narrow, congested gate to get from one half to the other. That may just give them the ability to open only a part of the market if necessary. (Pure speculation here.)

Read More “The Kingdom of Stuff You Don’t Need” »

In Search of Andersonville and a Retreat

Posted on By Tom 5 Comments on In Search of Andersonville and a Retreat
Photography, Rambling
Old Retreat Prebyterian Church and Cemetery-029
Old Retreat Presbyterian Church
Oconee County, SC

Stephen and I had the day open on Friday, so we decided to do a bit of photo rambling. I’ve been wanting to explore the environs of Andersonville, one of the ghost towns on my list, and from there it would be one of our typical rambles, with multiple stops along the way.

Old Andersonville is now mostly under Lake Hartwell. There is a two mile island where some of the town had been located. We didn’t expect to see much of the ghost town on this trip, but were mainly scouting access points for a future kayak trip out to the island.

I picked up Stephen at his house in Easley, then we headed down 178 toward Anderson. As with all of our rambles something catches our eye, and we have to stop. In this case it was the community around Lebanon Baptist Church. A small country store, a couple of sheds, and an old school were located in the vicinity of the church.

Lebanon Shed
Lebanon School

Read More “In Search of Andersonville and a Retreat” »

Simple Laser Oscilloscope

Posted on By Tom No Comments on Simple Laser Oscilloscope
Music, Science

Many, many years ago I was teaching gifted and talented seventh graders. One of the units of study was “Sight and Sound.” We did cool physics-related experiments, including setting up a darkroom in the basement of the gym, building pinhole cameras, and developing our own photos (back before the days of MDS sheets and fears of lawsuits over anything chemical-related)…

img020
Pinhole Automobile

…turning an old piano into a hand bell-like instrument using popsicle sticks, fishing line and violin bow resin, building a walk-in camera obscura, and programming a Bach chorale into four old Tandy 1000 computers. In short, it explored two of my favorite things – photography and music.

One of the things we created was a simple laser oscilloscope. I had seen this at Discovery Place in Charlotte, and wanted to replicated it in my classroom. In the days before cheap laser pointers, I had bought a helium-neon laser for some of our class projects. Using that laser, an old speaker, and a music synthesizer, we were able to construct something that would work.

Fast forward 25 years or so…

Earlier this summer I was playing with our cats, using a toy laser pointer. The cats go crazy chasing the little red dot. It occurred to me that I could recreate my project from long ago with this simple pointer.

Laser Oscilloscope-002

Read More “Simple Laser Oscilloscope” »

Segway Tour of Washington

Posted on By Tom No Comments on Segway Tour of Washington
Photography, Travel

Washington DC - Segway Tour

August 16, 2013

We had missed our morning reservation for our Segway tour, but I was able to get it re-booked for an evening tour. Determined not to miss this again, I rousted Houston and Jeannie from the International Spy Museum and herded them toward the Metro. We arrived at City Segway Tours 45 minutes early. I didn’t mind getting there early – it gave me a chance to get off of my aching feet. I had been walking for three days straight, and was ready for a rest.

I wasn’t sure how many would be on this tour. The other tourists began to gather, and it looked like a fairly large group. The time came, and we first viewed a training video that showed us all the ways we could fall off of these things and get hurt. After the video we were divided into smaller groups and introduced to our guide, Christine.

Meeting Christine

Read More “Segway Tour of Washington” »

Museums, Butterflies, and Long Views

Posted on By Tom No Comments on Museums, Butterflies, and Long Views
Photography, Travel
Smithsonian Museum of Natural History
Smithsonian Museum of Natural History

August 15, 2013

In the last post I forgot to mention dinner. One of Laura’s former students, Scott Moore, is an attorney with the National Science Foundation. Once we got settled into our room we headed west on the Metro to meet Scott at his office at NSF.

Untitled

We had a fantastic meal at a local wine bistro. I had scallops and Laura had butterfish, whatever that is. It was one of the best meals of the trip, and we’ve had some good ones. Laura and Scott caught up, and Scott told us about his work at NSF.

The next morning we got up fairly early and headed to the top floor of our hotel for breakfast. The hotel restaurant had spectacular views out across the Potomac and north toward the National Cathedral. It wouldn’t be the last long view that we had today. After a good breakfast a nice view of the city we set out. Our plan was to visit some of the Smithsonian museums, and see what we could find.

I had turned on the Field Trip app from Google on my iPhone. As we approached the Rosslyn Metro station it beeped to let me know that this station’s escalator was the second longest in North America. The longest one was somewhere else in DC.

Abandon All Hope

Read More “Museums, Butterflies, and Long Views” »

Monticello and Charlottesville

Posted on By Tom No Comments on Monticello and Charlottesville
Photography, Travel
Monticello
Monticello

August 14, 2013

As rainy as it had been the day before, this morning turned out to be spectacular. Our agenda for the day was to drive over to Charlottesville and visit Monticello, then continue on to DC. We picked up Interstate 64 and headed eastward from Staunton.

On a hill next to the interstate, just around the corner from our motel, were three crosses. These were a set of Coffindaffer Crosses, placed by the Rev. Bernard Coffindaffer. My blogger friend Jacob K. recently did a post on the Coffindaffer Crosses on his blog, The Carpetbagger. I had spotted two other sets Monday, but had not stopped to take pictures. The photo below doesn’t show it because it’s backlit, but the crosses have a distinct color scheme – two white with a central gold cross.

Coffindaffer Crosses

The trip from Staunton to Charlottesville went quickly, and we found Monticello easily by following the signs. We managed to get tickets for the next tour, and 10:15 am.

Monticello Tickets

Read More “Monticello and Charlottesville” »