Musings

Enjoying remembering this line of folks enjoying the sun on this bridge over the Liffey in Dublin in 2018. Here, overcast and rainy, and cold. No sun. No Liffey.

Posted at 6:11 PM | Comments Off on Antidote

Omicron is the dominant strain of COVID now in the US. This is what highly transmissible statistics look like.

And my sense of science indicates more variants are coming…not just variants, but variants we civilians will be talking about.

Yikes.

Posted at 7:30 PM | Comments Off on Oh, my

We watched the final episode of this season of “Succession,” and those are the nastiest folks. Every one. At the drop of an iPhone, they will connive and lie and insult, and, mostly mean it.

Posted at 8:55 PM | Comments Off on Five-star backstabbers

This was the easy one: no typical recipe details (e.g., teaspoons and whatnot) needed. Just halve grape tomatoes, skewer half, then skewer a piece of buffala mozzarella and a basil leaf, then add the other tomato half. Just before serving, drizzle with balsamic glaze (e.g., Trader Giotto’s).

Thanks to Cousin M for this….

Posted at 8:06 PM | 1 Comment »

Got more Blue Ridge vista views.

Got high-altitude clouds.

Got truly high.

Got Greenville.

And this is the view of Reedy Falls from the Freedom Bridge, above.

Posted at 9:04 PM | Comments Off on Got…

Our first notable sight, however, was a covered bridge made of blackened, tarred (?), timbers. Private. Keep your vehicle off.

Today’s headline has to be about the long views, however. Especially long from the top of Mount Mitchell. Highest peak east of the Mississippi, if you can read the fine print.

And up in that rarified atmosphere, the acid rain is killing the most susceptible species (hemlock?), and the tree skeletons are being colonized by mosses and lichens. Life goes on.

At a lower elevation, another tree skeleton, very artful.

Posted at 7:03 PM | 1 Comment »

Noting that the meteorologists predicted fabulous weather in our part of the world for the latter part of the week, we hit the road this morning headed for the mountains. First sight-seen: a fancy-painted (ok: wrapped) GooStreetView vehicle. Given how much I use that data, I’m okay with being in a few shots. I’ll remember to look in a month or two…

Our first real stop was our fave mountain bakery, just at the west end of the…

Cherohala Skyway.

Beautiful high-elevation views along most of the western Skyway. We ate the first half of our tasty bakery sandwiches here. Breezy, but sunny and not too chilly.

Stopped at Stecoah Gap to eat our second sandwich half. And I walked a good twenty-five feet along the AT.

Posted at 6:57 PM | Comments Off on Great idea

Apologies for the posting delay. I had to update my phone. Then ten minutes after the most-of-an-hour that that took, my watch alerted to needing its own update. And now, almost overwhelmingly, I can’t tell any difference from The Old Ways.

Posted at 8:54 PM | Comments Off on Updated world-let

Lucky me, I found a penny! Battered, yet I suspect still worth one cent.

Double lucky…I found blooming jonquils. Just a bit too far to lean over and inhale.

Posted at 4:52 PM | Comments Off on Luck-ified

Ta-da! First walk in a month. Two big fat miles. At faster than 20-minute miles, so healthy.

I even found the odd flower, and this ready-to-open camellia bud. Interestingly, the flowers were totally white. No pink rims, as you might expect.

Posted at 8:46 PM | Comments Off on Yay. And yay.