At the Ann Arbor Folk Festival.

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Seville Day and Night

Have a taste of Seville in this video. While we didn't really explore the nightlife we got glimpses around dinner as we searched for places to eat. People were out and about having fun. Of course, during the day we saw plenty of great stuff from stunning architecture to all manner of shops great and small and much more.

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Seville, Spain

A much larger city than Granada with a wholly different feel. The Cathedral is not to be missed for its impressive size. The Alcazar feels more opulent than the Alhambra though that is likely an illusion because it is more compact and meant to be a royal palace rather than a fortress. The El Salvadore church though smaller than the cathedral is ornate. Many other things are different here than Granada. The narrow streets, barely one car wide, sport sidewalks that are just wide enough to stand. Squeeze into a doorway as a vehicle goes by or you might get clipped by a side mirror. We are hearing and seeing more birds here but far fewer dogs and cats. Photos:
My Father is standing in the Patio of Oranges outside the cathedral. It is sad to see all that fruit and understand it is sour and not fit to be eaten (sprayed to keep birds away). The Cathedral's Giralda tower rising 97 meters as seen from the entrance just outside Alcazar

One of the pools in the Alcazar. Water features play a big role in the architecture of Muslim-inspired design. Too bad many fountains were not active. The Mercury pool with several pairs of ducks. We also saw a couple wonderfully blue and green peacocks.

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** Ken **

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The Alhambra

We spent several hours yesterday walking the grounds of the Alhambra, the palace of the Nasrid Kings. Two things that really stand out for us are the gardens, especially around the Generalife; and the intricate marble and stone work. Walls are rife with designs etched into the stone. The walks are inlaid with mosaics. The gardens of shaped hedges, trees, and no doubt flowers are exquisite. Everywhere water is flowing in streams and fountains.

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** Ken **

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Tenerife Day 4

Today is our free day and we could not ask for better weather. Perhaps inland and up high it is cloudy and damp again (like yesterday was with mists shrouding our hike around Mount Negras and her lava fields) but down on the coast at Puerto de la Cruz it is clear, sunny, and warm.

We have spent the day strolling through the bustling streets of Puerto de la Cruz. This is a substantial town and it seems prosperous. The streets are clean, there are numerous shops of all types, and overall things seem very well put together. Leaving our hotel we walked once again through Taoro park (not the official name but the name I am using) and down the 186 steps past the falling water feature (see the photo with Mom and Dad) and from there down into the heart of the town. The highlight of the town has to be the sea wall that restrains the frothing surf of the aquamarine Atlantic ocean. Today as we walked along the seawall we saw a couple people swimming in the clear, probably chilly, water. We also saw some people practicing with their paragliders in a parking lot. I suppose they were learning how to control them in a somewhat controlled environment (i.e., on the ground). When we left the seaside for the streets we found them full of shops of al types, cafes and other eateries, and plenty of people that seemed, overall, well off. It is clearly a thriving town.

The photo with the small town in the distance was taken yesterday on our way to what would turn out to be our mist shrouded walk through forest and lava fields. The town is Garachico which was destroyed back in 1706 by volcanic eruption. Today the town is much smaller but it certainly looks cute enough seem from on high (about 500 meters).

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** Ken **

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#21: Deerfield Park, In Memory of Richard Bolton

On an overcast morning Andy Mytys pulled up and I hopped into his car for the drive to Mount Pleasant, Michigan to join dozens of others for the memorial service for Richard "Dick" Bolton. I was part of the small contingent of people who knew Dick through hiking activities focused on the North Country Trail and through the Great Lakes Hikes email group (hosted at Yahoo Groups as "greatlakeshikes"). We arrived not long before the service was meant to start and so were settled down in the basement (undercroft as the church pastor refers to it) amongst a couple dozen other people. The nave was full of everyone else. This modest sized, oldest continually used building, 1882 I believe was when it went up, was a fine place for the memorial service.

After the service people scattered to regroup at a nearby school for a nicely put together lunch. This was where people really had a chance I think to talk and perhaps share memories of Dick. I can't say if that really happened or not but I hope it did. For those of us from Great Lakes Hikes though the highlight of the day was after the lunch. We drove over to Deerfield Park (in Isabella County) to spend a few hours wandering through a perennial favorite place of Dick's throughout the years. This was the first time I had been to this 591 acre park and that added an extra special bit of pleasure for me. I can fully see why Dick enjoyed visiting the park and strolling the few miles of trails that wander through forests of beech, oak, and pine as well as along the banks of the Chippewa River. The afternoon weather had not cleared but when within the forest none of us really noticed the breeze. It was fun to talk through the woods and past things like Bailey's Rock which all have meaning for those of us who either talked with Dick about Deerfield Park or read his numerous missives about the park.



A reminder: You can click the title of this post to see the video in 720p HD. To be sure to receive the highest resolution version of the podcast you should subscribe to the Wandering Knight podcast via the iTunes link provided on the left.

#20: Great Lakes Hikes November 2010 Gathering

Since 1999 the members of the GreatLakesHikes email group hosted over on Yahoo Groups has held a gathering in early November the weekend before modern gun (rifle) deer season starts. For a weekend we take over the Schoolhouse owned by the Western Michigan Chapter of the North Country Trail Association. The Schoolhouse is located near the town of White Cloud at the intersection of 5 Mile Road and Felch. The North Country Trail is less than a mile away and other trails like the Birch Grove Loop are even closer. It's a great place to get together for a base-camping weekend where you can enjoy the company of friends in an indoor or outdoor setting.

This year the Gathering was held the weekend of November 12-14. People started arriving in the early evening of the 12th and so the fun around the campfire was well under way by the time Andy, Elwira, John, and I pulled in just before 11:00PM on Friday. The evening was chilly but their was little wind and the fire was burning bright and hot. People were comfortable and having fun. We joined right in once we got our shelters pitched. Of course, some people were already asleep for the night but when you remember that some of those people are young, very young, kids that's quite alright. Even the diehards, including me, packed it in around 1:00AM, after all we all knew we had a long fun day ahead of us Saturday.

What really makes the Gathering shine are the people who attend. We had our usual mixed-bag breakfast before getting ourselves sorted out for the various hikes Saturday. The longest of these turned out to be about 11 miles starting at Echo Lake Road and returning to the Schoolhouse. SHorter hikes used that same basic route just starting closer to the Schoolhouse. The weather was overcast and crisp, threatening rain. A pretty typical autumn day in Michigan's woods. By the time we were closing in on the end of the hike that threatening rain began to drizzle down upon us. It wasn't a storm but it was steady. More than enough to cause us, once back inside, to stay pretty much inside. Durning the evening the on-and-off rain kept us from making a second campfire but we made up for it throughout the night with the usual good varied food, excellent conversation, and impromptu live music from Chuck and Charlotte on guitar and violin with Chuck providing gritty vocals.

Sunday dawned colder but dry. Weather that would turn out to be ideal for what we had planned to do. People helped clean up the Schoolhouse and then went their separate ways. Several others decided to join Andy, John, Elwira, and myself and hike our section of North Country Trail and help us do our fall maintenance work. That help was quite welcome as we had a dozen or so major blow down of primarily oak trees stretching across the trail. Over half of them were too big to merely drag off and required us to saw through them first. Many of those required a few hundred strokes with the bow saw to cut through: oak is tough. But with the help we got through the 7 miles of trail in about 5.5 hours of good solid work. Thanks everyone.

This was a very good Gathering and perhaps one of the best attended.

My apologies for the problems in the audio. For those of a technical bent wondering what is going on it is a side-effect of using an external microphone with an iPhone left in regular mode. The iPhone must be in Airplane mode when doing such recording to prevent any chance of interference from the radios in the phone. This is annoying, but to be fair a smartphone isn't a dedicated recording device.



A reminder: You can click the title of this post to see the video in 720p HD. To be sure to receive the highest resolution version of the podcast you should subscribe to the Wandering Knight podcast via the iTunes link provided on the left.