We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
From the beginning of the 1800s until WW1 (and the income tax), wealthy New Yorkers liked to build getaway estates overlooking the Hudson River. Wave Hill is one of many, including Washington Irving's charming Sunnyside (in Irvington), the Rockefeller estate, and of course the Roosevelt's Hyde Park.
Wave Hill is in Riverdale, Bronx, NYC. Rus in urba. People who rented Wave Hill to live in included Teddy Roosevelt and Mark Twain. Now it is a public garden and event site. We took my in-laws to look around last week.
When you are hiking and pond-hopping in the sandy back roads of the Cape Cod National Seashore and encounter signs like this, ignore them. Everybody does. Just go on through to a lovely isolated ocean beach. In the 1950s and 60s, it was a nude beach for the artists, writers, bohemian free-love intelligentsia from Boston and NYC, and the horny modernist architects from the US and Germany.
More random pics of the place we love below the fold -
AVI reminded us that the Cape Cod National Seashore turned 50 this week. That Sponge-headed Science Man loves the Cape as much as we do. The Farm is wonderful, but being inland has always made me feel a little claustrophobic. I like access to sea and sky.
Pic above of a stretch of South Beach, with our group of intrepid birders. We hopped down from Wellfleet to Chatham last week to catch a Mass. Audubon birding trip out to Monomoy Island (about which we posted recently). Monomoy is designated a National Wilderness. The size and shape of Monomoy is constantly in flux, as is its intermittent connection with Chatham's South Beach (which is an extension of Nauset Beach - the Cape's southern barrier island group which now reaches down towards Nantucket.
We ended up boating down to lower South Beach instead of Monomoy proper, due to tidal water depth. Our guide du jour, Ellison, an expert birder, led us on an arduous 4 mile barefoot (watch for sharp shells) hike through mud flats, soft sand, and sharp-edged marsh cordgrass - and non-stop biting marsh bugs - to check out the early migrants and the breeding shorebirds. Ya gotta be tough to be a birder.
Having taken the ferry from Uig on Skye up to Tarbert on the isle of Harris (Harris and Lewis are segments of the same large island, Harris below and Lewis on top), we got out our fleece, rain gear and hiking poles, and resumed our challenging hiking explorations of the Outer Hebrides.
On a rare lovely but cool morning, we were instructed to hike across this beautiful meadow (they are far and few between, but the wildflowers were in full bloom. This rare meadow habitat is called a Machair) and to climb that mountain in Hushinish. That was a heck of a no-trail climb, and the little plateau on top gave me vertigo.
Could you climb that without poles? No. Mrs. BD and another gal had to pull themselves up on hands and knees using heather as handles at some points to reach the peak. A good workout. This hill had a series of false summits. Sheesh, false summits are a bummer but hill walkers learn to expect them.
Label photo via Salt Water New England. She seems to like Harris Tweed. It lasts forever, except moths.
"Hand-woven in the Outer Hebrides from Scottish wool." It's still a cottage industry on Harris and Lewis. No factory. I am not sure where the garments and hats, etc. are actually constructed, though.
A Harris wool sports jacket is heavy, water-resistant, and heathery-looking, perfect for Isle of Harris summer or winter weather.
Scotland, they say, has no summer and no winter. The wool just keeps growing. Was that a mutation in sheep?
Mrs. BD and the gals forced a sports jacket on me at the Harris Tweed shop on the harbor in Tarbert. Nice lining in it. Nothing really in the tiny village of Tarbert but a ferry dock, a whiskey distillery (where they suggested coming back in 5 years when they will have something good) and the little Harris Tweed shop.
Pics of a weaver, the shop, and bustling downtown Tarbert below the fold.
The Monomoy Islands are where the the ocean longshore currents are taking the land of "lower" Cape Cod (ie, the upper part), at an average of 3' of shoreline per year. This is post-glacial shaping. Cape Cod, like Long Island, is a glacial construction - a moraine. Like all land, a permanent work in progress.
Just south of Chatham on the elbow of the Cape, reaching south towards Nantucket, the Monomoy islands are a National Wildlife Refuge. They are full of seals, nesting shorebirds, and are a busy migration resting place. Also, the fishing there is wonderful. You can even do flats-style fishing for Stripers.
You can visit these (relatively) new islands by boat from Chatham. Nice little trip. You can stay at the Chatham Bars Inn which, I admit, has gotten fancier over the years. There are plenty of B&Bs. Chatham is pleasant.
Our group of 8 assembled at the Inverness train station, and proceeded by van through the mainland Highlands to Skye.
Highlands, where they cut down all the trees centuries ago:
Like many or most of the place names in the Hebrides, "Skye" is Norse. And speaking of languages, 60% of Hebrideans speak "Gallic." That's the Scottish Gaelic. All signs are in "Gallic" and English. Luckily, they also speak a strange form of English which is possible to understand at times.
Once over the new bridge to Skye, we took a 2-hr warm-up hike during which the weather changed from fog to drizzle to heavy rain to peeks of sun. A good intro to island weather. Not for sissies.
Scotland is a nifty, rugged place to visit if you don't need luxury hotels, if you like cool rainy weather, and if fine dining is not important to you (generally-speaking, always order the fish). People like to visit the Highlands, though, and it is inexpensive travel.
It's July in Scotland, and people wear fleece, down jackets, Barbour-type jackets, wool hats, etc. just to walk around town.
We flew into Inverness via Amsterdam, and had a day or so, on both ends of our Hebrides trip, in Inverness. It's the commercial center of the Highlands with a population around 50,000. It is slightly touristy - really more of a take-off point for the hinterlands - and pleasant, but there really isn't much there for a tourist.
The River Ness runs through it, from Loch Ness to the North Sea. Salmon and Sea Trout in that river.
On Wednesdays we usually focus on general conditioning (fitness for life) and rarely on training for specific athletic endeavors. That's for a reason.
However, tough hiking is just an extreme variant of walking. A question might be "If you had three months to prep for a ten-day backpacking hike in Denali, or the Bob Marshall, or the White Mountains, or, like us, mountains in the Highlands, what would you do?"
I should modify that a bit. "What would you do, assuming you had a day job and little free time on weekends?"
I asked an exercise expert friend, a competitive athlete who can do several reps of 300-lb deads, that question. She said, given just an hour daily, the emphasis should be on lower body endurance and intense cardio. She said she would do two days/week of the usual powerlifts, but replace her other exercise routines with an hour of stairmaster with a 20-lb weight vest, and an hour of calisthenics with a 5-10-lb weight vest. She correctly observed that hill/mountain hiking is not mostly about strength but is about stamina, agility, and endurance. A person can be very strong without good endurance (and vice-versa). She said an hour of intervals on the bike would be fine, but an hour walking on treadmill with a 20-30 -lb weight vest at a high incline would be better for the purpose.
She also said that, from her experience, daily 7-hour mountain hiking with packs over 10 days can not really be duplicated in normal life. Best approach, when actually doing the trip, would be two to three days on, alternating with one lighter day for recovery. In fact, that is roughly what our guide had planned for our mixed group - two days hard, then one day lighter, and so on. By day 6, I felt eager to tackle anything. Pumped up and ready to go. Too soon, it was time to go home.
Pic above is one of our hikes in heavy rain through the higher terrain of Scalpay along the Hebrides Way.
- I'll post a few more photos when I get my over-200 photos organized and edited (mostly taken with Gwynnie's waterproof Olympus pocket camera - man, that was necessary), but a few introductory comments with some photos - below the fold -
I have skied Mount Mansfield countless times (at the Stowe ski area) but I have never hiked it. Hiking to the top in summertime would be quite the challenge for me but I'd love to give it a shot. Or maybe not. Mansfield is the tallest peak in Vermont. New Hampshire has higher peaks.
In winter, you can get up there on skis, cruise along the ridge, and go down Madonna Mountain into the Smuggler's Notch ski area.That's really a better ski area - fewer people.
Ace posted this painting of a guy taking a leak picnic party atop Mt. Mansfield, by Jerome Thompson (1858). I wonder how they got up there with their dresses and picnic baskets but in that era nature hiking was all the rage for the gentry.
Beacon Hill is a charming 19th neighborhood in Boston, close by the Massachusetts State House. It can't really be compared with the West Village of New York because the current charming West Village was built for the poor and working class, while the Beacon Hill development was built for the gentry.
Mrs. BD and friends were visiting colleagues on Beacon Hill a little while ago. She wondered where the beacon was. I checked it, and discovered that most of the hill and its warning beacon were taken away by horse and wagon in 1811.
It is still hilly, though.
Some major urban areas still have delightful, quiet, antique neighborly enclaves, untouched by modernity or urban renewal. I'm thinking Brooklyn Heights - and large parts of Harlem. Outside the northeast, I think of the entire downtown of Savannah, GA, which was spared the devastation of the Union armies and of urban renewal.
Besides opera tix, the other Christmas present I received (besides stinky cheeses) was an island-hopping rugged hiking trip in the Outer Hebrides. Well, Mrs. BD likes remote rugged places as readers know - as long as there are cozy B&Bs at night.
I checked the weather for our trip: 40s (F) at night, high 50s (F) daytime. Some precipitation 21 out of 30 days/month in summer (more in winter). North Atlantic weather. I've done a few ship crossings in the north Atlantic and know what it's like: cool mist and drizzle, no need for sunscreen.
Gwynnie lent me his waterproof Olympus.
My Mom and Dad were partial to trips to northern climes. Dad wrote the poem below to document the habit (with a photo of the poet at the farm).
Our commenters to our Hiking Footwear post were well-informed, experienced, and helpful. Appreciate all of those offerings. Lots of hikers, hunters, and some field geologists among our readers.
Two basics about boot sizing: Your dress shoe or sneaker size might be small for boots. Try the boot at the end of the day when your foot is most expanded. With the heaviest socks you might wear with them, but unlaced, check to make sure you can fit your index finger down the heel.
Here's my chance to elicit opinions from readers about hiking gear.
I'll limit the discussion to footwear for relatively rugged lengthy day hikes on uneven, sometimes wet, sometimes rocky, steep, or unstable ground with no more weight on your back than a full daypack (in other words, not real backpacking but not ordinary walking either. Something that would be good for our 9-mile urban hikes too). And I will stipulate that merino wool or wicking synthetic socks, with or without liner socks, are important for this sort of thing to prevent blisters. One blister or hot spot can ruin an outing - or a week.
I'm thinking of footwear that would be good for scrambling up Tuckerman's Ravine, for woodsy hikes through hill and dale, and for boggy spots. So I think we're in the realm ofwhat they call "Light Hiking" or "medium duty" waterproof boots with good arch and ankle support, without the weight of those monster boots designed for mountain hikes with a 40 lb pack on your back - or 60 lbs of fresh elk meat.
I've done a lot of hiking in running shoes and it's not ideal but it is blister-free. I have also done a lot of backwoods all-day hunting in things like wellies, LL Bean Maine boots, and heavy snow boots. Those things are not great for distances - at least for me, they become fatiguing to wear after a couple of hours. I guess I am more experienced with the Hunting Boot category (though I don't know why they are different from the hiking boot category except that hunting boots are higher and often insulated - here's a good hunting boot) and with the steel-toed Work Boot category than I am with the Hiking Boot category. I have worn out many pairs of Work Boots at the farm.
In my research I have seen the yuuuge variety of offerings in the general category of Hiking Boots. Capitalism with competition certainly offers us endless choices in things and they all seem to be very good. These range from heavy-duty sneakers with heavy treads to slightly lightened, or ordinary, heavy-duty mountaineering backpacking boots. Some are higher, some lower, some softer, some harder. Some leather, some suede, some synthetics. Some insulated, most not. Hard leather boots need 20-40 miles of breaking in, others not so much. Waterproof usually has some Gore-Tex in it. Gore-Tex was one heck of an invention.
Well, maybe it makes sense to have a couple of different boots for different hiking purposes but I like the idea of a versatile boot which is well-broken-in, and I have no plans to do any mountaineering with a 40-lb. pack. I have not "done" the Presidential Range, but I would like to have done the Presidential Range just so I could say I did it.
What is your experience and what are your preferences?
Photo above is a Merrell Capra boot. A few random examples of pretty good boots below the fold -
They sent us a packing list for our upcoming hiking expedition in the Outer Hebrides, between Scotland and Iceland, where it is chilly with some rain almost daily in June. Wilderness Scotland. Hiking poles? You betcha. It's rocky hills and marshy dells for 6-7 hour daily marches. If the daily reward is a little whiskey, I am game.
Mrs. BD has a thing about remote islands. Always has. And I am a pretty good sport even though generally I am more content working than traveling: Happy wife, happy life.
Few people live out there anymore. Those with any sense came to America generations ago. So did Trump's mother, who was a poor girl from Stornoway
I was too busy getting lost, turning the wrong way, and competing with professional tour guides to take any photos. I hope someone took a few, because this year's tour was a great one. With 17 people (16 who finished, a very low attrition rate, with representatives from New Jersey, Connecticut, Vermont, New York, Massachusetts, and Illinois - again!), we covered about 9.7 miles and saw many sites and sights. I'm not sure what those slow-walking people were doing - was it Tai-Chi of some kind, or perhaps a slow-moving flash mob? We stumbled on Edna St. Vincent Millay's townhouse (which reportedly also housed Cary Grant). Someone kindly purchased Magnolia Bakery cupcakes for the entire group (and they were delicious).
Mrs. Bulldog says the highlight of the trip was a visit to the Manhattan Contrarian's secret lair. It's beautiful and the location quite wonderful. His knowledge, assistance and willingness to put up with our gang were all admirable. I have to say, I always assumed magical, secret gardens existed, but now Mrs. Bulldog wants one.
I learned quite a bit more about Clement Clarke Moore and his family. The Moore farm's name is now the name of the district, Chelsea, and the Churches they oversaw (St. Peter's) or started (St. Luke's in the Fields) were both stops. Both churches are beautiful, and St. Luke's has some lovely gardens.
Next hike is already being planned. Alien environs, otherwise known as Brooklyn. We'll start in Manhattan with a crossing of the Brooklyn Bridge, and from there we'll study hipster culture, taste local bourbon and beer, and see what life is like outside Manhattan. Looking forward to it already. If our group is half as good, or even half as large, we'll be in fine fettle.
I'd like to thank Atlas Obscura for assistance in planning our trip.
We had the privilege of birding last week with ornithologist and author Scott Weidensaul. He is a fine congenial fellow who knows everything, and while he is there he gives a splendid talk on some ornithological topic every evening after supper.
This is a photo travelogue of our second visit to Little Saint Simons Island on the Georgia coast for this year's birding week there. I'll post my bird list at the bottom of this post.
Little Saint Simons is not for everybody. It's a barrier island nature preserve, Southern Maritime Forest habitat and vast salt and brackish marshes. It's rustic and therefore not inexpensive, and you have to entertain yourself unless you partake of the planned outings (ie kayaking through the marshes, birding, fishing trips. Booze and family-style meals included. You can take a bike, kayak or motor skiff out anytime you want, or fish and swim on the ocean beach. The self-serve bar is open 24 hrs/day. There are 3 excellent naturalists available all the time for hikes. The bugs weren't too bad this year but I did donate my share of A+ blood to the cause of mosquito conservation.
Two innovations have been adding a/c to the cabins, and revamping the unheated pool with a gator-proof fence. It used to be a downer to find a 6' gator in the pool. An unwelcome innovation (for me) is the "healthy eating" trend instead of the traditional Southern fare that I love. I like to stay at least 6' away from kale, cilantro, organic produce, and veggie wraps or I break out in a bad case of annoyance.
Cool things about this very special place with photos, below...
People who move to the NYC area for good work love it, not just because of the vitality, or sight-seeing, or theater, or jazz clubs, or museums, or parks, or great food and pubs, or the smart ambitious people, but mainly because there are always very cool and unique things to do.
I will recommend, for anyone who can, visit Cuba now. On one level, it will provide a great appreciation for everything we have in the US. In addition, the food is so good (and inexpensive) you will wonder how they got so many great chefs. Finally, the culture is unparalleled, an amazing amalgamation of past and present.
Visiting Cuba provoked many thoughts about what could have been, as well as visions of the past. I will post as many as I can, but I will start with a simple travelogue. It’s the best way to introduce the country, and the city of Havana, without provoking much commentary about such a wonderful destination. Still untouched in many ways, clearly this will not be the same country in 10, and possibly even 5, years.
There is a raw beauty to Cuba. It is almost impossible to not fall in love with this country upon arrival. The people are friendly, the climate nearly perfect, while the cityscapes of Havana and surrounding country retain an air of the not-so-distant past. Bt, it is a crumbling place, the majority of exteriors falling apart, much of the infrastructure antiquated and in need of update, and modern services and conveniences (for locals who can’t afford to pay) subpar. Even tourist spots are in the process of updating. They are improving rapidly. Often, entering a building you are convinced must be a hole-in-the-wall, only to find a modern and beautiful interior with wonderful food and music.
My pic is from the mirador a good hike down and up from Alhambra, longer due to getting lost wandering through the old Muslim quarter - everybody gets lost trying to get to the mirador. Part of the fun. We linked up with a charming Turkish gal, and a German couple who were equally confused. There is always a jolly party of mostly young people up there at the mirador in the evening.
In the 700s and 800s, Spain was invaded by Moslem immigration partly from Damascus (then the center of the caliphate before it moved to Baghdad) but especially by newly-Muslim Berbers from North Africa. That immigration wave brought civilization to post-Roman Visigoth-ruled Iberian peninsula, Christian in a Visigoth way, which was a dying place where the term "Dark Ages" accurately applied. That immigration/invasion produced the first Golden Age for Spain. The Muslims brought modern irrigation, agricultural wealth, architecture, art, landscape design, education, medical knowledge, enlightened governance, and poetry to a god-forsaken corner of Europe.
The only other place where something similar happened, as far as I know, was in Sicily where the Normans kept the Muslims on the job because they knew how to run things properly and were well-educated. Those were not the Muslims who grab the news these days.
Note to all history teachers and profs: My problem with your courses is that you never seem to locate the details in the Big Picture, into the Big Timeline. Please do it - it's for the kids!
On Wednesdays we usually focus on general conditioning (fitness for life) and rarely on training for specific athletic endeavors. That's for a reason.
Beacon Hill i
Photo is the Meindl Burma 
Here's my chance to elicit opinions from readers about hiking gear.
