09.19.07
Posted in photo, vacation at 8:53 pm by heidihoho7
So we took off early Tuesday morning to make it to Gloucester, MA by midday. The drive went fast enough for a 4 hour drive… and we made it to Gloucester with time to spare. So we decided to have some real east coast food and grabbed some really yummy lunch – bela had fish chowder and fish tacos and i had corn chowder with honey salmon on top. If you ever make it to Gloucester, head to Mag’s Diner!
After lunch, we hopped onto a Whale Watching Tour. This was one of the most amazing trips we’ve done. I’ve been on a whale watching trip before, but the activity we experienced was uncommon. We found about 5 humpbacks that would take turns diving and surfacing so that we had uninterrupted surface activity for over 45 minutes. There was a mother whale and her calf, and the calf was quite active. We saw lob tailing (bobbing its tail up and down vertically), repeated fin slapping, side breaching, and even a full breach!! This is one thing that i’ve always wanted to see in person. It was so exciting.. the breaching whale was very far off, but did it 2 or 3 times in a row and most of us got to see it in the distance. My picture is quite blurry and small – its not so easy to catch that on camera! The whales were very inquisitive, and even came quite close to the boat many times- and would even dive under the boats to go from side to side – almost like it wanted every one to have a great view. After our long session of viewing it was time to head back, so we enjoyed the sea air as we returned to town.
We enjoyed the rest of the evening right on the ocean. We took a walk on the beach in the morning and went on a house tour of Beauport in town. I’d been there before and the tour wasn’t quite as good this time but it was still awesome to see. We ended up going geocaching around the area. We hit Rockport for some more yummy seafood and to take a picture of the most famous buildings in the world (so they say). We tried one cache more on the way back, but we got sent on a wild goose chase- our gps unit had the wrong coordinates so we were almost 30 miles off! we gave up once we figured that out… we’re now back in New Paltz and looking forward to some more climbing!
Permalink
09.17.07
Posted in Climbing, vacation at 9:37 pm by heidihoho7
so we’ve come to NY for our vacation (holiday for you euros) and so far we’re enjoying it VERY much! Our flight out was uneventful as was our drive up to New Paltz from La Guardia. We passed Yankee stadium on the way, we’re pretty excited to head back for the game on sunday 
It seems that New Paltz is INSANE on the weekends, so we opted to take it easy and explore the area a bit. All of the parking lots to the climbing areas were overflowing and it cost $15 per person per day so we figured we’d be better off waiting until monday to do any climbing when we could have the cliffs mostly to ourselves. We ended up tooling around town – bought a guidebook and researched what climbs to do later. I ended up meeting an older woman who was at the deli we were hanging out at. I think she was lonely so i chatted with her a bit… she’d lived through polio, had been paralyzed or something and couldn’t move her one hand well due to falling down when she was little, she also admitted to talking quite fast, which sort of explained why i only got half of what she was saying. Bela rescued me, as he assumed it’d be hard to leave otherwise. It was a little sad, she kind of reminded me of my late grammie. But i had to give her credit she was out and about. We spent the rest of our first night enjoying doing nothing, and it was everthing we thought it would be.
On Sunday the parking lots were insane once again so we opted to go to the state park just down the road, where there was a geocache . It was a bit chilly, but we got moving to stay warm. There weren’t too many cars when we came in and we tried to stay away from the other hikers as much as possible. We really enjoyed the hike around the lake. We found some froggies and a salamander eating a moth in the water. The area had some awesome rock- tho the park didn’t allow actual climbing, but that didn’t stop us from scrambling all over hehe. We found what would have been the perfect beginner spot: big blocks and wonderful ledges, right on the lake… the hike took us past one of 2 resort buildings set atop rock cliffs in the area. This one was abandoned – the other is right by the gunks and is still in use (so we hear). It looked amazing but we’re guessing not terribly stable. Much of the area has carriage trails which are often used now as hiking/biking paths. The geocache we found was right off one of these with a lovely view of the lake where the ladies used to stop on their way to the resort. We decided to keep caching and started back to the car. By the time we got back, it was getting crazy- just about all the lots were full (we had parked in the first one that was only 1/4 full). We had timed it perfectly!
So on we went, the next cache was just up the road. We pulled off at an viewpoint, and started our way up what looked like a trail. It took us up to a ridge where we got some spectacular views of the catskill mountains off to the north. The gnats were a bit nasty so we didn’t stay long.
As is usual on our vacations we always see a movie – well if we’re near civilization we do… so when we saw that the traffic coming into town was backed up all the way out of town we thought it’d be perfect timing to hit the cinema. We grabbed a quick bite, and saw “The Brave One” with jodie foster- probably not the best choice considering the movie is about her getting attacked in central park and that’s exactly where we are heading this weekend! But it was a good movie (and don’t worry we’ll be careful- no late night excursions to the park!)
Not sure what to do next, we figured we’d do some more caching up the road a bit. we took the interstate highway but probably should have just taken back roads… the next exit was way far up and we ended up driving farther beyond the cache than where we started! so we started randomly driving using the gps to get us in the general area. after a lot of u-turns we finally found the trail they were near by parking in the local cemetary (it did tell us to!). it was pretty fun wandering around the countryside. we found the 2 caches in the area and started heading back. We noticed 2 deer in the woods just off to our side. so we stopped and just played peek-a-boo with a few moments, which apparently was when another deer was just passing behind us (a couple just up the path told us just after). On our way back, we happened upon even more deer- this time with 3 little babies! I told bela we had to turn around to try to get a pic, but the people traveling on that road are maniacs, so i only got 1 very blurry shot as a huge truck roared by and almost hit them as they ran across the road… we were just happy they didn’t get hit.
Monday morning we hit the rock. I was glad we had waited as my knee and hand were still healing from a bike accident i had had early in the week (i could finally bend my knee- which makes climbing way easier haha!) We went looking for a nice classic climb to start off with, we ended up with Minty a nice 2 pitch climb with a little exposure. Bela did a nice lead and decided to pass up the belay and just do it in 1 pitch. I followed up, and said the usual things… “he’s crazy”, “no way in Hell i’m ever leading”, even tho it was an easier climb the exposure made it feel harder in a few sections. But the climb was more than worth it- the views were just amazing.
We’d passed a really nice crack on the way to Minty, so we headed back to give it a run. Bela of course led again and sewed it up nicely. I had to follow to clean, but i had a bit of a harder time. You can see my true feelings….
Bela had a good laugh at me. That was my rest ledge- i really liked it… i also really liked the tree when i got to the top- i gave it a hug! We both were pretty tired… so we packed it up and went out for yummy seafood. We’re off to massachusettes tomorow, so we’ll have another update soon!
Happy Travels!
Heidi & Bela
Permalink
09.10.07
Posted in photo at 12:13 pm by heidihoho7
So my sisters and i went to Faeriefest in early august and it was there that we got the idea to do our own faerie photo shoot. We thought it’d be fun to have a day together as well as make me use some of my photoshop and photography skills. I’ve only just started but here are the first two that i’ve worked on… please note these are not final in any way and i’d like to make them much better (bigger/better wings etc) but they are great examples of what i’m trying to accomplish
Here is the first of me and trin…
And here is the 2nd one of Kendra:
We had a lot of fun doing these and may do another shoot again soon!
Bela and I are off to NY/MA this weekend so expect a few more updates in the next week or so, as we’ll be hoteling it and may have internet.
Permalink
