Day Trips

“Cosmic Cacti”

ESPatch Aug 26, 2017 1 comment

Our third Bollywood installment also comes from Ram-Leela:

So much has happened since I last posted…

Cosmic solar eclipses, a hurricane, a trip to Canada,

Kosmik Kactus?

Wait, What…No?

“Aye, it’s no right at a’ ESPatch!”

This has gotten out of hand.

I find this obsession with tinkering and making cacti more colorful somewhat disturbing?

Why are they not picking on the succulents in the background?

Oh wait…

As if sticking in fake flowers was not enough, Kosmik Kactus have resorted to just blasting their poor plants with rather bright coloring…just to jazz up the apparently REALLY boring and natural GREEN color of the plant.

“Boldly going where no plant has gone before…”?

Borg Queen: Cacti! We used to be exactly like them. Flawed. Weak. Organic…green. But we evolved to include the synthetic…fake little flowers, spray paint. Now we use both to attain perfection to sell in the box stores. Your goal should be the same as ours.

Okay that was a stretch, moving quickly along to a recent trip to Canada…

Yes the Levwolds were once again taking to the air,

this time headed to Montreal for to compete in the North American Pipe Band Championships in Maxville with

The Silver Thistle Pipes and Drums.

At cruising altitude the window frost resembled Celestial cartography.

Coming in to land.

Time to unpack, hang up the kilt and have a quick ‘dab’ in our hotel room.

Of course I called it a ‘dub’ and got laughed at then reprimanded for apparently doing it completely wrong.

We were hoping to escape to some cooler temperatures in Montreal but unfortunately for us they were in a heatwave, of course they were.

It was hot, really hot and like Europe, not many places had A/C, fans, well, anything really.

I almost lost my mind in a store in China Town.

Hmm, okay?

Sweat was running down my nose, the air was completely still, a sweltering combination of Peking duck and raw sewage hung heavy in the air.

I felt some involuntary head movements coming on, a sure sign my tourist tolerance valve was rattling and about to blow.

Everywhere I looked was shelf after shelf of tourist tat, umbrellas that, we were told, could never blow inside out (naturally we bought 3), chopsticks, fans, jade elephants, you get the idea…I mopped my brow, eye twitching.

I finally cracked at the excruciating duration of time it was taking to pick out some Squishies and a wooden Samurai Sword.

This was an interesting find (well, for me) on a busy street in Old Montreal.

I will forever wonder if the celosia had been growing in there or if someone had dumped it in there?

He found lots of opportunities to cool down on our excursions.

One of our journeys took us to the historic district of old Montreal, to the Notre-Dame Basilica.

The church was built in the gothic revival style,

and is insanely ornate and colorful on the inside.

We passed a lot of street art installations.

This one strangely reminded me of when I used to try to protect my citrus trees from frost.

Ridiculous.

http://www.eastsidepatch.com/2010/01/carnival/

These rotating seats were an instant hit at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts:

And then there was the food.

Some traditional,

some extravagant,

and some rather challenging, well, for some people.

Escargot kids!…Dig in!

Let’s take a closer look at that middle one.

The sheer distress.

Moving along…

We headed out of a now rather blustery and wet Montreal for the hour and a half drive to Maxville to compete with another 50 or so bands in the Glengarry Highland Games.

Here is our MSR (March, Strathspey and Reel) performance.

The rain and wind really picked up at the end of the closing ceremonies making surprisingly short work of the umbrella that could not be blown inside out by quickly blowing it inside out.

Time for one last trip, this time to the Montreal botanical Garden.

Exiting the metro we had a great view of the Olympic Park. an impressive structure that would not look out of place in a Star Wars movie.

It was massive!

An elevator runs up the spine.

Entrance to the Montreal botanical Garden

Entrance to the Gardens.

Impressive sedum,

coneflowers,

lots and lots of coneflowers.

The grounds were extensive (about 190 acres of thematic gardens and greenhouses), you could spend days in here.

The grounds are also home to the Montreal Insectarium.

So many specimens.

But by far the strangest critter I encountered was this odd looking chap:

I mean,

really?

All the walking found us a little peckish…

It had a very progressive menu, but after the escargot adventure nobody seemed too keen.

Stay Tuned For:

“Gossiping Wheelbarrows”

All material © 2017 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

“Mountains & Meteors”

ESPatch Feb 1, 2016 1 comment

I found this huge Differential Grasshopper

Melanoplus differentialis

swaying around in a patch of Gulf Muhly.

I could hear groans and one “really dad”? emanating from the back seat as I rolled effortlessly out of my truck, camera in hand, to stalk the creature in the middle of a rather public walkway on Wimberley high street.

We took a walk down the now serene Blanco River.

The habitat is still recovering from the devastating flooding of last may when the river rose 30 feet in less than three hours.

We climbed over and under lots of smaller trees that had been pushed over as the river experienced rises that exceeded 20 feet in one hour.

Most of the old cypresses had weathered the storm with only a few cuts and bruises,

though this image from last year shows some were not so lucky.

I wonder if these were cypresses?

We recently took a trip out to Marfa (west Texas) in the middle of the Chihuahuan Desert to visit friends

and play in the snow…yes snow!

She wasted no time generating a chilling family.

Marfa is situated in the high desert of the Trans-Pecos between the Davis Mountains and Big Bend National Park.

It is famous for its contemporary art scene and of course the mysterious Marfa lights which unfortunately I did not get to experience on this trip.

I hope the artist does not take offense to the title tag I placed on the image.

“Mulder, I cannot believe is was 1999 when we made that episode about the Marfa lights.”

“Just five more miniseries to go Scully.”

We took many walks and encountered plenty of interesting minimalist desertscapes, some

appeared to be an extension of the street.

Nassella trumpuissima?

After a close encounter with a Spanish Dagger,

Yucca faxoniana

and a few more snowballs in my back,

it was time for some liquid refreshment (courtesy of El Cosmico) and then up into the Davis mountains for a spot of hiking.

Eagles soared effortlessly overhead, things on the ground were a little different.

The views around this area are staggering but you had better watch where you are walking, everything in this terrain is out to get you.

Sotols,

Dasylirion texanum

grow like weeds at this altitude,

rock-face even out of rock faces!

The Chihuahuan Indians made use of the plant by fermenting sotol juice into a beer-like alcoholic beverage as early as 800 years ago. The outer leaves are removed to reveal the central core, the core can be cooked, shredded, fermented and distilled.

Photo by Phil Dering

These pulpy cores were also baked and pounded into chewy patties which could be dried and stored.

The Indians also used the straight flowering stems of the plant as lances and spears with an attached stone or metal point.

We DID tell you it was going to be cold.

An occasional high pitched squeal would give away the position of these perfectly camouflaged smaller cane cholla cacti lurking in the native grasses.

The larger ones were not so much of an issue.

At the top of the trailhead we had a glass of vino and observed and tried to identify (with the help of our very informative local field guides) lichen and scat aka: (King Richard the 3rd’s) see: http://www.eastsidepatch.com/2015/09/king-richard-iii/

Occasionally the scat was on the lichen making it unclear as to which field guide to use first.

From up hear we could see Indian Lodge,

a pueblo style lodge constructed by the CCC in the 30’s.

In the far distance we could see the McDonald Observatory.

A short car ride later and we were standing inside UT’s Frank N. Bash visitors center staring at a rather large iron meteorite that was found 15 miles northwest of the observatory by a seven year old.

It is made up almost entirely of iron and nickel.

Mountains to meteors…thanks for a great trip L & N.

Time to charge up the iPads, avoid the tumbleweeds (I had no idea how big they could get) and hit the very straight roads back to Austin just in time for my daughters birthday present.

Tumbleweed Chandelier by Jean Landry, Marfa.

Photo by Susan Simmons

She had been excited and looking forward to seeing her YouTube idol Colleen Ballinger (Miranda Sings) perform her show for months,

and tonight was the night – a sell out show at the Paramount.

She had no idea she was going to meet her!

My return home was significantly less glamorous…

Seriously?

Stay Tuned For:

“Seeds & Weeds”

All material © 2016 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.