April 26, 2005 – 10:00 am
In the Summer of 1997, I took my first plane flight in a little Cessna piloted by a friend of mine. My friend had just gotten his Pilot’s License, and I was his first victim, err…, passenger as a result of a promise he made me to take me up for a flight when he finally got his license. It was a hazy day so these pictures aren’t of the best quality, but they do record the flight pretty well.
These photos are from a trip we took to see a rockslide on I-40 at the North Carolina-Tennessee border. It was our second flight of the day. Earlier that day, we had gone for a short flight over Oak Ridge and part of Oak Ridge Labs to be sure that I would not be sick or anything. (My friend was a bit cautious — since I had never flown before — that I might get motion sickness once we were in the air, and he wanted to be sure that we wouldn’t be far from the landing strip, just in case I freaked out.) I was so excited afterwards that we reserved the plane for the afternoon and went for a second trip. On this trip we thought to bring a camera, which we had forgotten on the first flight.
Here is a picture of me with the infamous plane. Can you believe that my first flight was in such a small plane? What was I thinking?
Read More »
Good News From Iraq, Part 26 — More good news from Iraq, via Arthur Chrenkoff
Winning the War — Victor Davis Hanson provides five guidelines in the conflict against Islamic fascism
April 19, 2005 – 12:22 pm
Rachelle, her parents and I spent Saturday afternoon in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I have posted some photographs from our day trip in my photos section.
We visited Cataloochee, which is in the North Carolina section of the park, in search of elk. In 2001 and 2002, two separate herds of elk were relocated from Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area to Cataloochee in an effort to re-introduce them to the national park. We did manage to see one of the herds.
This is not the first time Rachelle and I have seen elk. While we were visiting Yellowstone National Park in September 2003, we saw a male elk and his harem on a trail in the Old Faithful Area. We heard the elk bugle, and as we passed a wooded area between Geyser Hill and the Castle-Grand Area, we could see elk up in the trees. So we stopped and waited on the boardwalk, watching the elk through the trees. The male elk surprised us by walking out of the trees and pausing on the boardwalk for a few moments, about 12 feet away from where we were sitting.
I’d like to go back to Cataloochee in the fall to see if we can spot any elk during the rut, and to see the autumn colors. If you are planning a visit to Great Smoky Mountains, I’d suggest a stop in Cataloochee. It’s not as accessible as Cades Cove, so it’s also not as visited, but in many other respects Cataloochee and Cades Cove are very similar.
April 19, 2005 – 10:55 am
Our Not-So-Wise Experts — Victor Davis Hanson examines the policies of some of the critics of the Bush Administration’s foreign policy. (Via Betsy’s Page)
Rachelle, her parents and I decided to enjoy the recent wonderful springtime weather by driving out to Great Smoky Mountains National Park in search of elk. In 2001 and 2002, two separate herds of elk were relocated from Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area to Cataloochee in the western/North Carolina portion of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Cataloochee is a relatively isolated portion of the national park, similar to the much more frequently visited Cades Cove in the eastern/Tennessee portion of the park.
The name Cataloochee is a corruption of the Cherokee name for the area, “Gadalutsi,” which means “standing up in a row,” and could refer either to the mountains which surround the valley, or the abundant trees which cover them. Cataloochee was comprised of two separate communities, Big Cataloochee and Little Cataloochee. We spent our time in Big Cataloochee.
Just after we entered the park, we pulled over at an overlook to take in the view.
Read More »
April 18, 2005 – 11:33 am
Earlier this weekend, I turned on the new design of my blog. The biggest change is that my blogs are now powered by WordPress. Also, I have moved my blog, Abstract Musings, to it’s own subdomain, blog.robbyedwards.com. I was aggregating the content on the front page of my old blog and it seemed a bit cluttered, so I wanted to clean the layout a bit while still sharing the content from my multiple blogs on the site’s homepage. Also, through the magic of .htaccess and Apache, all the links to the old Movable Type files should automatically forward to the new WordPress permalinks.
I also added header navigation for the main elements of the site. It is included on most of the pages and should make getting around the site a bit easier. One note, the ‘Archives’ link in the top navigation points to the Archive for the particular blog you are viewing, but other than that all the links go to the same pages regardless of where you are in the site.
I still have a bit of clean up work to do in a few places, but the new designs were mostly ready to go, so I decided to go ahead and make the switch. Let me know if you encounter any problems.
