Skiing Around

 

  

Things took a turn for the worse on Monday when temperatures went up above freezing.  I almost decided against skiing, but while walking Roxy, thought the snow was a nice consistency.  If you take the rail trail west from our house, it gets very little sun, so that's where I headed.

  

  It's not too far to get to Buttermilk State Park where I saw what was left of the supply of stones for the new steps on the Gorge Trail.  The bottom picture was taken in early August at the same spot as the top.

  There are a few left to send over to the other side.

  I wonder how long this rigging lasts?

   Good thing they didn't use this pine right next to the one they did use for the anchor.  Heads up...

  

  The dam that used to hold back water that formed Lake Treman.  

   Might as well call it Cane Lake now.  I'm going to get the kids from school to help me recreate the Bad Bunny Halftime Show.

   Sluice pipe below Comfort Rd bridge.

   Lick Brook is always a treat.  I had to take the skis off and walk down the trail.  But totally worth it.

   Too hungry and getting too warm to go to Treman State Park, I headed for town and visit my buddy, Jim, and hope he had something to nourish me to make it back home.  He lives right along the rail road tracks that pass between the bottom of Lick Brook and Treman.  The engineers don't like it when they come around a curve and there's a skier on the tracks.

  A flood control dike back to Big Box Land.  The hillside is most of Lower Buttermilk Park. The service road I skied up goes along Owl Creek on the left side of the hill.

  

A drainage pond from an unnamed big box parking lot.

  The Bridge to Everywhere.  I could go north to Taughannock, west on the tracks to Treman or all the way to Spencer, east to Brooktondale.  And I didn't have to take my skis off to cross the highway at the light between McDonalds and the Salvation Army. 

  For now, it's necessary to go around this NYSEG substation to get on/off the rail trail, but access is coming soon.

 

Back to the Rec Way for a couple-hundred feet to get to the top of the hill above our house.

  For a day I considered not skiing, I'm calling it a respectable 13 miles.

Skiing Adventures

   The creek skiing continued for another weekend, and my intention of skiing all the trails in one day went out the window.  Once I got on the creek by Giles Street, I just kept deciding to go on to one more landmark.  Eventually, I was standing at the end of the ice under the Middaugh Road in Brooktondale.

   My first stop was to get footage for a film I'm making to enter in the Banff Film Festival.  I think I see a grand prize in my future.

   

  I've probably skied to Potter's Falls before, but I don't remember it.  This is one of two spots I had to leave the ice to get around. Years ago, I had a near-death experience just above these falls under similar conditions.  That's part of why I do gorge awareness talks at the high school now.

 There were a couple times where water runs over the thick ice and there's slush to ski through, but the view is still good.  Little did I realize at this point that I would make it to just below that farthest hill with the bare spot on top.

   Had to go fast under Burns Rd to avoid falling concrete.  It's more dangerous than rock falls from the gorge cliffs.

   Just upstream from the city reservoir.  What percentage of its capacity is taken up by silt?  There were a few spots along the way that looked like this.

   Usually, when you hear about a hunter having an accident, they have fallen out of their stand.  You rarely hear about the tree falling.  Hope the water was deep enough that they didn't get hurt.

   The rail trail now goes from our neighborhood almost to Middaugh Rd.  I'm claiming the fame of being the first to ski all the way from town to Middaugh.

  

Plans to ski home via the Coddington Valley Rail Trail and Rec Way were set aside when Connie and Andy decided to ski it, but then decided to only go to Banks Rd, meet me, get their skis out, and change plans.  We ended up going to Ridgeway Rd to scope out another section of the CoVRT where a work party is scheduled.  We couldn't ski much of the rail bed, but the pond that is the source of Willseyville Creek was an interesting excursion.

   Nice view of Bald Hill, which is sometimes referred to as Bald Mountain because of its steepness.  I hypothesize that it is this steep because it was blasted to obtain fill to build the Cayuga and Susquehanna Rail Road in 1858. 

  

  I heard there were drifts to be found on the hilltops, so after a delicious lunch, we went back out for a little more skiing over them.  I wouldn't say this is even 8 feet high.

  

  And we didn't even have this much bare ground in the city. 

                                                                                                                                                                              I don't have an accurate estimate of the distance, but it was roughly eight hours of skiing.  Three separate stints in one day.  That's a vacation, and it was only Saturday!

 
    Connie gave me a ride home so I wouldn't have to ski in the dark.

  

  Some more creek skiing Sunday morning.  The trails can wait.

   But then I got word from Steve and Andy that they were on the CoVRT and I should head out to meet them and ski back to our house.  Much obliged, I got them off the rail trail and took them on the Big Tree Tour.  Some specimens were more impressive than others.

 

 

 

Feeling Good Again

 Gail did our taxes, and that means I take her out to dinner at a place of her choice.  There's a new Mexican restaurant in Trumansburg and not only have we not been to it, but we hadn't been to Tburg yet this year.  

  I parked on Main St across from El Amigo, in a space we used to go to hear great local music.  While I waited to cross, I wondered who all we'd run into.  The first familiar face was a young one, a student who is helping her grandmother with the restaurant who let out an exuberant, "Meeeester Joe!"  Her make up was perfect.

 

  The food was fantastic, and a parade of Tburgers we were thrilled to see came through the door and chatted briefly.  They'd come from some music-and-snacks event down the street.  When it came time to pay, I had a moment of thinking I hadn't brought any money or a card, and wished I'd cashed the retro paycheck I got last week on the way.  But when I reached into my pocket I had three 20s and a ten.

   We walked into Sundries and right away I saw several familiar faces, and saw/heard our neighbor, Hank Roberts, playing cello.  When I caught his eye, he broke out into a grin.  Then I saw who was playing with him, and my grin got a lot bigger.  Ti Ti Chickapea first played, to my knowledge, as a backing band for Jenny Stearns in the '90s.  They put out one CD and backed Kevin Kinsella on a reggae CD of his songs.  They do about one or two gigs a decade on their own.  What a treat to stumble upon it when so many good friends are there as well.  

This vacation had me feeling good again.  And this story has already been told. 

 

 

World Radio Day

 

  Every year, UNESCO designates February 13 as World Radio Day.  WVBR wanted to honor it with 24 hours of live DJs.  Well, many of them were live when they recorded a special show for the day.  As the new Salt Creek DJ, I didn't expect to get to do the hour we were granted.  But before it was revealed people didn't have to be live, I had offered to go in from 5-7 a.m. thinking no one else would want that slot.  In the end, I was on live for an hour starting at 5.  Management encourages the Now Playing function be used, and I enjoy it even if I sometimes race against the end of the song to post it.  It didn't get turned off when I was finished so this is what the website looked like for the next two hours.  Anyone streaming would have had Now Playing: Nancy Griffith Listen to Your Radio displayed.  No better advice. 

Except for my intro, where I talked a little about World Radio Day, and the 63-year history of the Salt Creek Show, I played this song before I remembered to start recording.   

Listen to 57 minutes here:   World Radio Day: Salt Creek Hour   Or just read the set list in a few seconds: 

Setlist: World Radio Day    2/13/26    5 a.m.-6 a.m. Host: Joe McMahon

Radio Boogie    Hotrize    Satellite Radio    Steve Earle    Border Radio    Dave Alvin    One More Song the Radio Won't Like    Kathleen Edwards    Far Away Eyes    The Rolling Stones    Around the Dial    The Kinks    Heard It On the X    ZZ Top    Spirit of the Radio    Rush    Do You Remember Rock and Roll?    The Ramones    Talking Reality Television Blues    Todd Snider    Clap for the Wolfman    The Guess Who    Turn Your Radio On    John Hartford    Listen to the Radio    Nancy Griffith

John Simon and Gregory James came into the studio in the evening, representing another weekend specialty shows that's been on WVBR since about the day radio was invented: Rockin' Remnants.   You can listen to their hour too.  Check out their blog.

 It was a white, male dominated show, but I couldn't find some songs I'd hoped to play; lots of Canadians though.  There were a few songs I left off because I knew the other weekend DJs would include in their hour.

 

  Still got home with enough time to walk the dog, eat, and walk to work.  That's when I had this wormhole experience and found myself walking down the street behind myself from 35-years-ago.  Of course, I would have had a hat on, and no one used a backpack in the 80s, but he pretty much nailed the socks on this 8 F morning.

  

  Being the last day before vacation, I took some time to check out a display of work from an art class in the school.  This painting caught my eye but I didn't get the name of the creator.  Probably No Socks from the morning.
 

Not All Snow Is Equal

  While I always want more snow to ski on, I also want property owners to clear it off their sidewalks.  And after they clear it, and the city plows more back on so there's parking for all the precious cars, I want it cleared again.  This is one of the several properties along my commute that were ticketed when I submitted pictures to the Building Department.  The Streets and Facilities Department didn't get ticketed for our uncleared sidewalks, nor did they clear private properties and bill the owners as it says in the city code they will do.  But at least the streets are clear and there's plenty of parking.

  I bet when Carl Sagan lived here, he shoveled diligently.  The Upstate scrap metal tycoon can't be bothered now that he owns it.  I've started throwing all the scrap metal I find on my commute over his wall.

  City sidewalk.  Free parking, difficult walking.

  

City sidewalk.  At least you can drive 30 mph before hitting a pedestrian on the sharp curves at both ends of the stretch.

  There used to be a day when hanging shoes on power lines meant something.  Now, the students take it as their right to discard worn out footwear.  The utility companies don't take them away with the lines when they put a new one up.

    

Did this tire look like this before the car was embedded in a snowbank, or did they try the Long Island School of Driving technique to get your car unstuck by burning the tire until all the snow is melted.

    

Stewart Avenue was passable.

  

More salt in five feet of sidewalk than I've used this winter on the two properties I clear.

Update:

  Seems like enough people got on the Building Department and Streets and Facilities to get some action.  I even got confirmation that there were some tickets issued.  It was an agenda item at the last common council meeting, with department heads in attendance, but I was on the radio and then dinner was on the table.  They heard enough from me already.