Reliving the Past

During the past couple weeks I have been limiting my travels a bit due to a pinched nerve in my neck. While the trips I've taken had been enjoyable, I paid for them the next day.

    My friend Frank had recently found a couple pictures from a trip we had taken down to West Virginia a while ago and shared them with me. We both remembered the trip but there were a couple questions we had about it.

    We weren’t sure of when we went and we also were puzzled about the pictures themselves, since they were taken on film. We thought that we had both switched over to digital cameras when we had taken this trip.

    We knew that we had been in West Virginia, that was one clue. We also remembered a geocache we had found while on it, one that had been hidden near a mine and a furnace of some type. Another clue was my Jeep. It sat on the edge of the picture, that fact helped narrow down the time period.

    I started looking through my pictures trying to find some from that day. My collection of photos is organized by the date they were taken, not by subject or location, not much help for this! I checked through my furnace pictures, organized by name. In these photos I found a file titled “Unknowns”. Inside there was a folder titled “Unknown Furnace or kiln in WV 100702”. Ah ha! Inside I found 15 pictures of the furnace I was thinking of. Frank was in some of them also. 

    My labeling system is rather easy. The date is listed by year, (10) month (07) and the by day (02). This would mean that these pictures had been taken on July 2, 2010, about 15 years ago. So, now we had a date.

    Another question was, where are the rest of the pictures taken that day? I went to my external hard drive but those photo files only went back 4-5 years. I needed to go further back. I dug into my older shots, saved on memory sticks, camera memories and CDs. Thankfully they are in order!

    On a memory stick I found a folder entitled “100702 Trip to WV with Frank” Inside this folder was 127 pictures taken that day. Success!

    It is always fun reliving the past, so let me take you along on a trip to West Virginia.

    Stepping back into the past…

Sunrise

    Frank and I always attempt to be on the road early. Should there be a nice sunrise, we would like to be able to catch it! A short distance past Friendsville, Maryland we pulled over on the side of the road to catch the sun coming up over the mountains. We were about a 100 miles into our trip, about two hours away from my home. It was 6:05 in the morning. We had left home at just the right time!

    Moving towards the west we entered West Virginia. One of the places we wanted to visit was a section of RR track that we called West Virginia’s Horseshoe Curve. Now whether anyone else calls it this I don’t know. I’m not sure where this even is other than in WV.  It gave us a spot to aim towards. 

The “Curve”

    We found the spot about an hour and a half after sunrise. We took some pictures, found an old cemetery and waited for a train to go by. After waiting for a while, we decided to call it quits and continue on. 

House exploration

    While exploring an old, deserted house, Frank realized that he had lost his hat. It had his fishing license on it so we headed back to the RR tracks to see if we could find it. There it was, sitting on the road. Just after he picked it up…we heard a train laboring up the hill.  

The train!

Continuing up the mountain

    We caught some nice pictures of it as it passed us. There was a reason that the hat was left behind! The story of the “lost hat” is a story we tell often.  We would have never gotten a picture of the train on the curve if it hadn’t been forgotten!

A cache

Outside the mine

Inside

Cache hidden inside a mill

The Virginia Furnace

    We did some caches as we continued south including one near a limestone mine and a kiln. We stopped at an old grist mill and an old iron furnace where other caches were hidden. There was lots of history that we visited on this trip!

The Grafton Rail Yard

Leaving the yard

    We later ended up in Grafton where we took pictures of the rail yard and the turntable that sits on the edge of Three Fork Creek. We headed back towards home after that. It was almost 7 when we got back to Frank’s house, truly a long trip!

Bob and Frank’s camera

    The pictures we found brought back some good memories and answered a couple questions. We found out the date, and on one of the last pictures, what camera Frank had been using, a Pentax ME Super. He got a digital camera soon after. (Now he is experimenting with film again I’m happy to say!)

    It is always fun reliving the past by looking at old pictures. They help us (especially ME!) remember. 

An Early Sunday Morning

 Steam was rising from my coffee cup. Its dark liquid was invigorating me and keeping my hands warm as I stood outside in the early morning. The trees were just dark shapes and the sky was still attempting to brighten up. The moon cast a shadow behind me into the yard. Bright stars were still visible though they were slowly disappearing. The air was cool and refreshing, it smelled clean and fresh. There was a slight smell of dried leaves in it. It was the smell of fall and the approach of winter.

    The whirr of a furnace lent a bit of a background noise along with the soft murmuring of cars in the distance. The noises were barely noticeable in the pre-dawn.

    Coming out of the trees in the west a bright spot appeared. It wasn’t an airplane; it was a satellite with three human beings in it! Their sunrise had already happened. It was the sun shining off the surface of the ship that made it visible. This sunrise was one of many sunrises the astronauts on board see every day. It takes their space station about an hour and a half to circle the earth, so their day is filled with sunrises and sunsets.

    I watched as the space station drifted between the Moon and the planet Jupiter. Stars were getting fainter and disappearing as I watched. Unlike the stars the satellite got brighter as it moved towards the east and the approaching sun. I watched as it slipped between some trees and finally disappeared into the orange tinged horizon.

    Returning inside, I rinsed out my mug and finished my preparations for Church. Going out to the car, the trees had gone from black to a combination of dull oranges and yellows. The sky was now pale blue with a peach colored horizon. Sitting in the car as it warmed up I watched as the trees brightened, preparing for the burst of beauty that would occur when the sun first hits them and reveals their true fall colors.

    The shadows from the moon were gone and depth of the blue in the sky was increasing as I drove up the hill to Church. Sitting in the pew, the first bright beams of the newly risen sun hit the wall above the altar, and I knew that my trees at home were glowing!  I knew it was going to be a wonderful day. I returned my thoughts to the Mass and gave thanks for all the wonderful things I've been given. What a great way to start a day!

The Right Place at the Right Time

 There are times when a photographer goes out to shoot a picture or two and nothing presents itself to them. The ideas in their head just don’t evolve into what they had imagined. The weather might not co-operate or the sun is too bright. (Usually not the case, here in Pittsburgh!) The subjects are poorly lit or there might be a wrong adjustment on their equipment. It happens all the time. This should be looked at as just another bump in the road, another day of learning, learning that we don’t always get what we want!

    This simple fact becomes more and more obvious the older we get. In our youth we are pumped up, full of the knowledge we can’t wait to use. We have ideas and plans and as the years go by, we tend to realize that not all these wonderful thoughts will pan out. We are going to experience some failure on the road of life and the sooner we realize it the better. Failure helps us progress forward. “We learn from our mistakes”, we’ve all heard that quote! 

    On the other hand, sometimes the things in life all line up for us. There are times that all our rows are right where they are supposed to be and this last Wednesday was one of those days.

    Frank and I were off to find some geocaches and hopefully some pictures. Since we’re usually already up, we tend to leave early in the day. This morning was no different; we were out on the road by 6:30. We took a slow, meandering route towards where the caches were hidden while waiting for enough light to be able to search. The sky was slowly brightening and features were just starting to be recognizable when we saw a purplish glow in the east. There could be a picture hidden in the sunrise, if we could just find a place to view it from. Buildings and trees hid it from our view as we drove around the North Hills. As we looked for a good spot, the sky appeared to revert back to its normal “Pittsburgh grey”.

    I pulled into a road that was situated above a church and a convent and parked the car. I got out of the car and saw that the entire eastern sky had turned orange and red. “Red sky in the morning, astronomers take warning!” is how I believe the quote goes…this doesn’t apply to photographers!

    We both “ran” across the street with our cameras. The Church and Motherhouse were nicely silhouetted by the spectacular sky. We both started lining up our shots.

    It was then that I realized that there was a man working on the dome of the church below us! We continued taking pictures as two other workers joined him on the dome. The sky was truly fantastic and of course, the men noticed it also, how could they not? They stopped working to admire it and take a few pictures with their phones, just as we were doing behind them with our cameras. Their shots might have turned out a bit sharper and the colors might be a bit more precise, but our picture had the workers in them. We had a human element in our shots. 

    So, the shots we got that day were just a matter of being in the right place at the right time. It was all a matter of luck. We couldn’t have planned this! I’ve got a shot that will probably eventually end up on my wall and memories of a fun morning filled with excitement and adrenaline.

    We continued on to our geocaches and only found about half of the ones we were looking for but that didn’t bother us. Mainly because of the exciting start we had to our day! Yes, sometimes it pays to leave early in the morning before the sun rises. 

A Special Day

Today has always been special to me. I’ve always looked forward to it! This morning, it started out around 3:45 as my alarm rudely awakened me from a great dream. Looking out the window, I saw darkness. Opening the door and stepping outside, I was treated to a view of numerous stars in a cloud free sky.

    Oh Yes!!

    I could’ve set up the telescope but I thought watching the planets come up over the horizon might be a better, and easier, way to go. I opted for a short drive to the near-by hill top with the camera, tripod and my binoculars. The view there is always superior to my front yard.

    About 20 minutes later with a warm drink in hand I was parking the car. It was quiet and there were stars everywhere. My observing spot is fairly light free. I could see stars pretty low to the horizon and that’s tough here in Shaler!

    I set up the camera and took a couple test shots and then scanned the stars with my binoculars. The moon had set about an hour before I arrived so there were no problems with it hiding the stars.

    Jupiter had just risen above the horizon when I arrived and Venus would soon be breaking out so I concentrated on that section of the hillside. It was easy to see where it would be rising, the other three planets, Saturn, Mars and Jupiter made a straight line right to where it would be showing up.

    Venus showed up a couple minutes after its predicted time of arrival. Suddenly…there it was behind the trees and then it was shining free. It is amazing how quickly they rise when you have a reference point to compare them to! I snapped a few shots and then went back to exploring the sky with the binoculars

    As the sky brightened, the International Space Station passed off in the north. I had hoped it would be close enough to Venus to get a picture but by then the sky was too bright. Watching it in binoculars would just have to do.

    The birds were starting to wake up, soon joggers would be out and I was ready to refill my coffee cup. I made it home in time to see the sunrise.

    I said this day was special to me. It isn’t because of the stars or the planets. Not even the ISS made it special. It’s because on this day my daughter Chelsey was born!

    She just had a new son, Nico, who arrived a couple days before Mothers Day and her birthday. Yes, I’d have to say that our lives are truly blessed. It’s going to be a great day. This day always is!

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Unavoidable

In this world, for that matter, in this life, there are some things that you just can’t avoid. It is just the way life works. We run into things that we are unable to prevent from happening. We might try to thwart them by being safe, pre-thinking our activities or by being constantly on edge, but still, things happen, usually when we least expect them!

                For instance, I was going to work the other day and had stopped at a stop sign. Looking both ways I saw an approaching car starting a turn into the street I was sitting on. Cutting the corner wide the driver didn’t see me until she hit me.

                There was no way I could have known that was going to happen, no way to prepare for it. I did have my seat belt on and I had stopped at the stop sign but these things did nothing to prevent her from driving into me. Luckily, no one was hurt, other than our pocket books.

                Some things are just unavoidable and there is nothing we can do about it.

                How about the “Pandemic”? Real or not, we are still affected by it. Businesses have shut down, some for good, people have lost jobs and others have experienced pay cuts. We now live in a world of masks, social distancing and working from home. Some people are afraid to go outdoors, we couldn’t even fathom this a year ago. Sadly, it is unavoidable.

                People are effected by stress, fears and anxieties we never imagined. Who would have envisioned ever becoming sick of hearing about masks?

                The dog left me a present on the clean carpet, nicely centered in front of the TV. Unavoidable.

On a more serious note, death and the feelings of sorrow and depression after losing someone close.  We all know that life is a fatal condition but the feelings we encounter after the loss of someone is unavoidable.

The important thing to remember is, there are some things that are unavoidable which are good! Not everything unavoidable is bad!

Such as, picking up a random book and falling into its spell. Wanting to find out what happens, caring for the characters in it, knowing that this is a book you’ll read again!  This doesn’t happen all the time and because of that, the pleasure of it is that much more intense!

Love! Finding that special person that you just fit together with. When you least expect it, suddenly there they are. The happiness that comes from the relationship, we don’t plan these things, they just happen. Often if we are attempting to find them, we never do, it is when you aren’t thinking about it. Someone enters your life and you realize how wonderful your life has become! When you least expect it, it can’t be avoided!

Some other things are the wonders of chance encounters, things that cause your heart to flutter, such as coming around a bend in the road and seeing a breath-taking view in front of you.  Unavoidable. Seeing the sky painted with the colors of the rising or setting sun.  Walking down to a stream and seeing a heron waiting for its dinner to swim by, and watching it and its reflection flying away from you after he spots you. Gasping as the view in your telescope sharpens and you see something you’ve never seen before. Smiling as a person says a random nice comment to you. Feeling your heart beat as you listen to your grandson’s laughter. Our lives are filled with wonderful things which can’t be avoided.  Good and bad, our mission, (should we choose to accept it) is to concentrate on finding the good in our world and not stressing over the bad!

Granted, it is easier said than done. I am writing these things not only as a comment on today’s world, but also as a reminder to myself that there is good out there and no matter how we sometimes get depressed and under the weather, it will get better! The sun will rise again tomorrow and chances are it will be accompanied with a beautiful sky!        We can’t avoid it!