A Sunday trip out to Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge for Eagle Days found much clearer skies than the last visit out at the first of this year. Temperatures were much warmer than that journey as well, around °C. The eagles proved as sparse as the clouds too.
An opportunity to admire these raptors up close proved the best viewing. The first introduced is shown above. The Harpy is biggest and the baddest of the group. It ranges as far south from Mexico into Argentina and have held the honor of an Endangered listing since 1976.
Over the last couple of years, the cold of late December stands more successful in the field. The ongoing drought, which created dry, shallow conditions at the site, likely contributed to the scarcity of waterfowl observed at this time. Hardly any were observable from closer than a half kilometer, at best.
Setting off on the latest post-holiday adventure, our crew landed in Silver
Dollar City without incident. The remainder of the day would remain in
question. The mass of people joining this expedition proved
astounding. Later inspection of statistics outlined an amusement park at
97% capacity. It was too much.
From the moment of entry, the masses insisted on forward movement. It
did not matter in which direction, so long as it was away from the front
gates. Resistance proved futile. We persevered though, riding rode
the crest to discover the most welcoming place of sustenance that did not
already host an hour or more wait.
We plunged back into the fray, satisfied and in a better frame of mind to
handle the obtuse situation. Inspecting the variety of offerings brought
no real sense of joy. Silver Dollar City has long since sold out to
commercialism. Very little is actually made there any longer. Most
items are directly imported from China. There are a few exceptions; very
few.
Shopping proved relatively easy. Otherwise, lines were awful in every
direction, boasting a wait time of an hour or longer for even the simplest
things. Waiting for the night parade to begin, one man returned with hot
chocolate for his family, proudly declaring he had waited in line for one hour
to obtain the substance.
A portion of the expedition chose to ride the "Time Traveler" roller coaster
prior to the start of the parade. They did not return in time; instead,
standing in line for more than an hour. The parade came and went, much
to their disappointment. Those of our crew remaining, enjoyed the show,
excepting the interference of angry woman. She decided to chastise us
for choosing to sit where she was clearly reserving six spaces on a rock
wall. Her moose intervened, but decided to forgo any sort of sustained
confrontation, after hearing of her blatantly rude and antagonistic opening
remarks to the situation.
In contrast, the crowd was mostly jovial throughout the day, and our crew all seemed to have a good time of it. It was that
evening hour that things began to deteriorate. In addition to the
aforementioned situation, parents appeared drained, and the protests of
children echoed in every hollow. One woman passed, dragging her child
along, insisting they were going to have fun, as the child howled in response,
"I don't want to have fun!"
Our clan had reached a pinnacle of excitement as well, but took a little time
to wonder at the millions of lights adorning nearly every building, tree, and
orifice of the front third of the amusement complex. A man doing repairs
earlier in the day had indicated there were over 6 million lights on display
there. He followed that up with the fact that they were all torn down
after Christmas and tossed to the side for someone else to figure out.
That seemed a bit of a waste, and not entirely representative of the
"hillbilly" ideal, where nothing is ever really thrown out; rather,
repurposed.
The following day, thoughts turned towards looking about Branson a short
while. That was quickly shut down, as the town roared to life after
breakfast, seeking in earnest to reproduce the population encountered the
previous day. The road home suddenly took on the luster of a
well-polished diamond.
This turned out the best decision all around. and offered up the chance to
wander about a bit of memory lane in Warsaw. Some of our crew found more
exceptional opportunities for shopping in that little town, along with quiet
sustenance and a unique little light display at Drake Harbor. Lesson learned. Stick with the simple things.
The road home was mostly uneventful. Rain greeted our expedition as we neared the city, just after stopping at a traditional spot for a little ice cream from the home state. The blackberry cobbler is truly delicious and the price, much more satisfying than buying it at the local market for five times the same amount.
Buying a new computer is equitable to buying a new car. It is exhilarating and awful in the same breath. There are entirely too many options to filter the noise out effectively, as well as a lot of junk, too. Sometimes, it is better stick with what you know.
I gave in to the world of Apple, recently while considering options to replace my 2014 i5 with something similar to the to the Mac Mini M1. I wanted appropriate power in a small footprint. That little piece of equipment fit the bill, while the variety of comparable options in the PC world boggles the mind, with mixed reviews. Conversely, Apple's reputation for both hardware and software stood for itself.
All seemed well, at first. Learning the OS involved a lot of "how to" searches. Each left me a little more disappointed, each time. Functionality in that realm is somewhat limited or pushed to "the cloud" without any other option. That may not be entirely true, but I did not wait around long with this platform.
A lack of ability to write to NTFS drives felt crippling. There is an option out there to enable it, but often the installation requires changes to the kernel, seeming to leave doors open. Other options offer the chance to "brick" your new Mac Mini M1, attempting to open this forbidden gateway.
That was really the last straw. I packed it up and sent it back. Suddenly, there seemed very little reason to abandon the old i5. A facelift with Windows 10 made it feel new again, along with my old friend the alien head. That upgrade had been put off for entirely too long.
It did not last long and was a poor choice, ultimately leading to a new i7 nVidia supported machine running Windows 11. It is good and makes light work of photo processing and video editing.
The video editor is a love / hate situation. It lacks certain functionality, while churning out high quality product. The recommended ClipChamp turned out to be a pile of garbage, leveraging so much compression that video looked awful, even at 1080p. I hope DaVinci Resolve stands up to its name and resolves the necessity to lean on either of the aforementioned.
. . .
Further Reading
If you are a veteran Windows user, don't buy a Mac. It is not worth the trouble.
The entire thing is designed for beginners and too simplified, to the point of annoying.
A new angle of presentation materialized on the recent journey south into
north central Arkansas. It seemed it might be fun leveraging Google Earth to share these adventures. A lot of consideration ensued with that in mind, and
the road unfurled under beautiful blue skies.
The weekend lived on the backroads, a few of which were captured on the
GoPro. It all started with a detour down AR-66 in Leslie. Weary of
the view from US-65, the alternate route east along AR-66 from Leslie offered
considerably less traffic and beautifully windy roads. Turning south on
AR-263 just before arriving at Timbo took the expedition south to AR-9 at
Rushing and on to Shirley and the old Missouri & North Arkansas Railroad
bridge that crosses the Middle Fork of the Little Red River.
The crossing was assembled in 1907 and opened to travel in 1909, running until
1946. After that it received concrete makeover for motor vehicle traffic
and nobody looked back, or down for that matter. Passing through can be
somewhat hair-raising.
Ghosts and ghouls greeted the evening of arrival, through an array of
decorations for the Halloween holiday. It was quite a site.
Checking in on Mossy Bluff National Nature Trail the next day found things a
bit dryer than usual. This year had been hard on cascades and
waterfalls.
Following up on a a personal project initiated on the last visit to this
area, scouted yet another old logging trail within the Jim Kress Wildlife
Management Area. This led along a path of shedding pines dry creek
beds, leading from Warren Mountain Road to the Big Creek crossing of the
same road.
Circling around and following along a few new highways back to home base led
to yet another Big Creek crossing at Tiger B Road.
A good dinner and conversation with family and friends closed out adventures
for the day, with thoughts towards how tomorrow would unfold.
Heading north the next day found skies threatening to cloud over, but
remaining relatively dry and clear for a journey down Gunner Pool
Road. It was a good thing. Rain could have made things very
messy. As it were, the camera proved uncooperative enough in the first couple of kilometers, becoming unstuck and drifting this way and that a few times.
A peaceful and quite 150 meter descent over 2.8 km along an old fire road, now horse trail, set the day in perspective. It was not a huge task, though a little steep near the end, but nothing unmanageable. This part of the forest is usually overgrown in August and September, and typically dying back by this time of year, before the growing season begins again in March.
A month earlier would have witnessed spiders and their webs, devouring most of the insect life. The rest of the year, they cannot seem to keep up and the random assortment of insects are overwhelming.
Increasing frequency of hikers have left their trashy mark here and there, but nothing too awful, yet. The intrusion of ATV, shattering the pristine quiet of the scene suggested that "yet" may come sooner than later for this part of the abandoned.
Otherwise, it was a peaceful and quiet walk in the woods. Out and back means what goes down must come up. The hike out is no more exerting than it is going down though.
This late mid-October late morning visit, all was dry, except one of the few running horsetail falls in the Ozark National Forest this season. Most ran out of water much earlier in this dryer than normal year. A couple of nearby springs feed this one, ensuring a fairly constant flow. It would be interesting to see this one after, or during, a good rain.
The return trip to home base paused momentarily at an old "swinging bridge" over South Sylamore Creek. The wire suspension, wood deck bridge is open to two-way traffic, but be prepared for one lane of traffic. It is only about 3.5 meters wide. The structure was built in 1943 and spans 60 meters to cross the creek and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.
Later that afternoon, one more excursion into Jim Kress WMA, discovered Litaker Ridge Road, a reasonably good cut through the area. Civilization does not exist here. The wind and their passage through the pines is all that matters in the moment.
The namesake of Indian Cave State Park only recently re-opened, after having been closed for repairs for a couple of years. Flooding badly damaged walkways and access to those areas near the river. A forecast of clear and 30°C day encouraged a wandering to the local. It is impossible to say how many times it was passed on the way here or there.
A 1920's Richardson County Courthouse stood gleaming in the mid-morning sun of Falls City, encouraging the first small break from the road. Contrary to the forecast, weather made the journey soggier than expected. Gray skies shrouded the city, and passing through Weston, the clouds unleashed their fury. Crossing into Kansas improved the situation incrementally, until arriving to full sunshine in Nebraska.
Google indicated a seemingly random gravel road would prove a more expedient path and it turned out relatively well. Blue skies and wide open space unfurl above a sea of corn in every direction. Harvest is coming soon, and it looked to be bountiful in these parts.
The GoPro picked up the journey down to the cave site. Meandering through an extra bit leading down to the restored schoolhouse and general store from the old river town of St. Deroin proved too much for the device though. It decided to nap only a short distance from the cave. A couple of short hikes later, it had recharged enough to make most of the return trip.
Heading south back along the route Google had recommended, just enough battery power remained to capture the long, empty gravel road. The device gasped a final lithium breath in much shorter time, forcing the remainder of the journey to stills.
Historic structures abound in the little river town of Rulo, once an important crossing point of the Missouri River. Some stand firm and well kept, while others appear as though they might be soon swallowed by the landscape. The camp site of the Lewis & Clark Expedition stands pristine at the corner of the highway, just in front of an overgrown brush spot between the trees. I am sure things were quite different this yesterday, 218 years ago.
Avoiding the chaos of the interstate, the old river road invited much more inspiring views. At the confluence of the Big Nemaha River and the Missouri, sparrows dove and soared in a swarm, snacking on the bountiful insect life emerging from all around the waterway.
A little further along, the Point of Beginning of the Public Land Surveys of the Sixth Principal Meridian lingered at the corner of two fields and a dirt road leading towards the river. It was here that someone hammered an iron monument in the ground and began systematically measuring all of Kansas and Nebraska, most of Colorado and Wyoming, and a portion of South Dakota.
Atchison promised a few amusements, though the entire town was readying for Amelia Earhart Days and digging deeper into the distraction did not seem quite as inviting as originally imagined. Avoiding traffic enabled pause for a corner statement, and an opportunity to catalog another historic schoolhouse.
Weston stood as if no rain had ever passed. Old tobacco barns silently decay among rolling hills covered in corn. The day had turned nicely for wandering among the bluffs and fields surrounding the Missouri River.
