Carleigh's First Month

So Carleigh will be 4 weeks old tomorrow. I have uploaded a selection of photos taken over the last month.

Carleigh's First Month

Birth Photos

Well, no photos of the actual birth, but photos taken right after and when we first got home with Carleigh.

Birth Photos 11/28/07 8:51 AM

Baby Shower

This is a bit late, but I have been busy lately. We had our baby shower last month. Lots of friends and family showed up. It was really a good time. Thanks to everyone who came down for it! We drew in people from as far away as Florida; Lizz's mother, Linda from Gainesville, and Taylor all the way from Miami.



We got lots of clothes for the baby; roughly 97% pink. We were really happy to have the gender confirmed during the last ultrasound, since a boy would probably end up scarred wearing all that pink. Dan and Debbie's daughter Morgan helped Lizz with the unwrapping. She was so well behaved, and did not get jealous or anything of all the toys. We can only hope our daughter does so well. Based on her parents, I am bracing for a feral child who communicates via grunts and olfactory marking. That way I will be happy with anything more advanced.



Morgan did get to play with the awesome pedal car my parents got us. I also thought that this was just a really good picture.

Baby Face

Here is the picture we took home from the 36 week ultrasound. She definitely looks like me.



Everything checks out fine. Her weight was estimated at 6lbs 9oz. With 4 weeks to go, gaining 0.5lb per week, she is going to be a big one. The margin of error is +/- 1 lb, so at the low end she will be average sized. Lizz doesn't want to talk about the high end.

So we are getting close, two weeks until the due date. We will see how punctual she is.

Solar Shower Redux

This past weekend could not be beat for camping, clear and sunny with a high of 73F in August. The dog loved the break in hot weather more than anyone.



The solar shower I set up earlier this summer has been working well in some respects. The water heats up to a nice pleasant temperature after a couple hours in the sun, and each bag provides for about 10 minutes of water flow. It has a couple of issues, though, which I wanted to fix. The short hose that comes with each shower is made of plastic that is too pliable, and so it tends to pinch easily. Also, by hanging the shower bag from a rope, I can only get it as high as I can lift, which is not high enough to stand under and still have decent water flow.



My first improvement was to replace the existing hose with something thicker. I found this nice braided hosing at the hardware store. It is the same inner diameter as the old hose, but is far thicker and stiffer.



I also decided to replace the standard shower head with something a bit fancier. I grabbed the cheapest shower head in the store. This is the kind with a low flow restrictor than can be pulled out and tossed, which is just what I did. I combined the head with a ball valve and a barb adapter for connecting to the new hose



The valve is necessary because I planned to raise the bag far overhead, where the shutoff valve on the shower bag would be out of reach. For this, I picked up some awning hardware.



And mounted the pulley high up a tree.



Shower wand assembled, I looped the hose through the same rigging from which I used to hang the shower bags. This allows me to stand under the shower without holding it up, but also to pull the shower head down for rinsing.



And here is the full set up, read to go.



The new set up worked great. The shower stall is no longer crowded with the bag, and the shower flows steady from head to toe. It is probably as good as a shower gets when camping out in the woods.

Canaan Valley Motorcycle Trip

I am a couple of weeks late in posting this, but nursery preparations were in full swing! My old friend from college, Joe, came down from New Jersey for a weekend of camping and motorcycle riding. That would be Joe's beautiful Harley in the foreground. The more egalitarian Suzuki in the back would be mine.



Using Camp May as home base, I planned out a big figure-eight route to take us up and down the mountains of the Allegheny front. This is really some of the best motorcycling country on the east coast. Beautiful scenery, smooth winding mountain roads, and little traffic made for a great day of riding. The map above is the planned route (click itfor the full size version). We generally followed this route, with a few diversions that added on another 50 miles or so. The western extent of the route is up the Canaan Valley, so I took to calling it the "Canaan Valley Loop." For the next big trip, I would like to alter the route south, going through the Spruce Knob area and spending more time in the Monongahela Forest.



We stopped at Seneca Rocks for lunch. Those are the rocks behind us. There is a great little cafe on the second floor of a general store. They have balcony seating with a view of the rocks. The general store is the same one where Lizz and I waited several hours for a tow truck after being run off the road during an ice storm. Joe and I rode the bikes around the same hairpin turn where Lizz and I went off the road. There is now a guard rail on that turn. I feel there should at least be a plaque dedicating it to us.



Joe stayed two nights in camp. This gave me a chance to try out the guest accommodations on someone. The guest house consists of an air mattress in the bed of my truck, and an adjoining, connected SUV tent to add some living space. Joe reports that the setup was very comfortable for sleeping. He expected to be curled up on our camper's tiny dinette, so maybe it was just the relative luxury that appealed to him.

It's a Girl!

Or, it is going to be a girl. We had our big 20 week ultrasound this past week. It is during this examination that we get a good look at the kid. What we got to see was ten fingers and toes, functioning organs, and the gender. Everything looks good and all the measurements are on track for an end of November arrival date. At this point, it looks like she may very well show up Thanksgiving day.



As you can see, we got a few printouts from the scan. This is my favorite one, of her little foot. We also have printouts from the 8 week and 12 week scans. I have uploaded all the ultrasound photos here.

Solar Shower

Here is a little project I took on last time up at Camp May. While our camper has a bathroom with a shower head, it is little larger than the toilet itself and not really practical. I decided I would try a solar shower. If you ever perused a camping or boating catalog, then you know what I am talking about. It is nothing more than a heavy duty black plastic bag that can hold about five gallons of water, and has some sort of simple shower head. The bag is filled with water, left out in the sun for a few hours, then suspended overhead to make for a simple warm shower.

I invested $8 at Wal-Mart one weekend to find out how well it worked. Surprisingly enough, it did make hot water after a couple hours in the sun, and the water runs for about 9 minutes. Heartened by this experiment, I set about making a decent outdoor shower area for the camp.



The first step was to find a suitable place with conveniently placed trees. I am not too worried about drainage. Even after one all night thunderstorm, our lot was drained and dry by mid morning, as if it had not rained at all. That is one advantage of the rocky soil and steep terrain. I tied a rope between two trees, with another hanging down to hold the shower bag.



It would not do to stand on the ground while showering. We are not barbarians after all. I picked up the this piece of flagstone at the home improvement store. Sure, the hill I am standing on is made of the stuff, but it is well worth the $12 for an already dug up and squared piece. I first laid the stone in place so that I could mark where I would dig.



I dug down just a couple inches, past the shallow roots, before hitting the rocky stuff. I back filled with sand and leveled it.



Well, not really level, but evened. I wanted some slope so the water would drain off the stone and in to the ground. I found this handy little bubble level in the camper.



Once the stone was set, I made a border with stones I gathered around the vicinity. I think it looks sufficiently rustic.



Here are the solar shower bags heating up in the morning. The tree canopy over the camp is too thick too heat any one spot for hours. I put the bags out on the road, where the sun is pretty brutal.



Here is the shower hanging in place. I tied a steel hook to the end of the vertical rope to hang the bag by its handle. I would like to figure out some sort of clever pulley system, but that is a project for later.



For the sake of modesty, this enclosure completes the outdoor shower. It is one of those tent structures that folds up to the shape of a pizza, and instantly unfolds to shape when you toss it in the air.

Lizz Does Something Dumb

This is a year old, but I am playing with uploading video, and this is a really good one. This is the Canyon Swing into the Shotover Canyon near Queenstown on the south island of New Zealand. Lizz and I both did it. I went first, and then filmed Lizz making her jump.



The swing involves an initial 60 meter free fall, then the swing takes hold and arcs out through another 200m. Listen for the two screams, first the loud initial scream, a slight pause, then the fainter one from the bottom. That is me providing commentary, of course.

Memorial Day

I uploaded some pictures of this year's Memorial Day get together with family at my parents' place in DC. Click the picture to go to the photo gallery.

Memorial Day 07

Toys

Truck, bike, and Weber grill. Does this look like the start of a good weekend or what?



The motorcycle made the move to its new WV home. I am looking forward to a summer of sparsely populated, and lightly patrolled, winding mountain roads.

Capon Valley Run

The weekend after the Race for Hope, we participated in another charity run. Considering that it was a 50k, through the woods, up and down mountain and stream, for this one we volunteered.



136 runners starting the race, almost all finished.



We helped man an aid station 19 miles into the course, set up where the running trail crosses the road. The runners were remarkable athletes. The first two showed up at our aid station 2 hours and 20 minutes after starting. Both passed us by without stopping, just waved and said a few cheerful words as they passed. The lead runner was the fittest person I have ever seen. He had hardly broken a sweat, was breathing normally, and basically looked like he was just jogging around the neighborhood.

Fire

Now it is a real camp.

Race for Hope

Lizz and I did the Race for Hope last weekend to benefit brain cancer research. We went as part of the Revolution Health team. This cause is a big one for Revolution, as the founder Steve Case lost his brother to brain cancer. According to interviews with Case, that experience influenced him to get involved in reforming health care and starting Revolution Health.



Steve ran the race too. He ran up and jumped into the picture just as we were taking it, jumped right in front of me. Steve is the guy to the left of the sign, wearing a light blue shirt and no hat. I am the face right behind his. Lizz is the face hanging just over his left shoulder. (This picture is shrunken - click it to get the full picture). Readers from the dot com era will remember Steve as the guy who built AOL, and bought Time Warner just before it all crashed.

Hiking Camp May

The first night in Camp May was quite nice. Since we are in a valley, they are no sunsets nor sunrises. Instead, after the sun goes down behind Baker Mountain to our west, to our east North Mountain turns purple, just like the song ...above the fruited plain...



The next morning, we went on a first hike around the land. The community in which we live is crossed by a number of primitive trails, and there is an understanding that all the residents are free to hike throughout the 240 acres. We wandered about the top of our ridge and eventually found this rather obvious trail, pictured here.



This trail winds its way down the less steep side of the ridge to this stream. The water in the stream is perfectly clear, and the bottom is lined with long plates of blue slate.



We could hear a waterfall running, and worked our way up the stream a bit, thinking we might actually own a waterfall. This is the magnificent cascade we found making all the noise. Another picture shows you a dog for sense of scale.



Sammy, our dog, is a Tibetan Terrier. These dogs have been bred for a couple thousand years as companion animals. Specifically, they were intended as companions to travelers crossing the Tibetan plateau and Himalayas. Just as a herding dog loves to herd, it seems to be in his nature to hike. He always seems to be happy to go along and do whatever with us, but hiking really appears to love hiking around. He also finds it necessary to jump into any significant pool of water he can find, and this water is cold.



Working further up the ridge, in a tributary ravine to this stream, I did come upon this more promising set of falls. The steps pictured here drop about twenty feet. It was just a trickle this day; I think they need a good rain to really go, and the weather had been dry the preceding week.



We worked away back down the stream to the main stream that runs down to the Cacapon River. The steep slope runs up to where we are camped, but it is far too steep just to walk up. We ended up making a big circuit around our ridge, and coming back to Camp May along the community road.



Finally, here are some more nice shots we took along the hike back to camp.

Making Camp May

After four weeks of cold, rain, and even snow, we had our first decent weekend. Lizz and I took advantage of the nice weather to head up to West Virginia and set up camp. We have decided to call our place Camp May. The name comes from Lizz's middle name, but mainly just sounds nice.

We headed up as a two vehicle caravan: our vintage Toyota camper that we would leave for the summer and our new four wheel drive loaded with equipment. The old camper made it through the mountains just fine; the only real obstacle was the big hump to get from the private road onto our lot.



Here is a view of the hump looking from the road into the lot. There was a gravel pile on top that we smoothed out by hand, and some logs that we moved, but it was still pretty daunting. I do plan to rent some sort of land moving equipment to grade this entrance, but we were impatient to get started. I drove the camper up and over first. This maneuver involved gathering some courage, gunning the engine, and not stopping until it crested. This all happened too fast to get a picture. Which is a shame, since this was the first time I ever Lizz say, "I wish I owned a video camera."



The four wheel drive negotiated the entrance without breaking a sweat. It made me confident enough to stop and pose for a picture. Here are some more snapshots Lizz took as I crested the hump and navigated the logging trail that runs along the ridge. I posted them to preempt the inevitable comments about our buying an obnoxious 5500lb SUV. At least I do fill it with stuff and drive it off road.





The logging trail already on the land makes for a decent camp road. We only had to move some logs and branches out of the way to make it back to the end of the ridge where we wanted to camp, about 400 feet from the road.



Lizz thought this picture would look impressive. These logs were cut a few years ago and are quite dry, so they only weigh 10% of what they look like. That is Lizz's foot in the shot. She lounges as I labor.





Here is our new weekend home. We will leave the camper here until fall.



This generator is quite the nice piece of kit. It has a quiet four cycle engine, an insulated case, and an automatic throttle, which makes for a very quiet system. It proved very useful on its first weekend. We woke up Sunday morning to sub 40 degree temperatures, and it allowed us to run our electric heater and warm up the little camper. By noon, the temperature shot up to over 80 degrees. It is too early for any leaves on the trees, which made for a hot afternoon. The little generator easily ran our camper's air conditioner and cooled us down after a long hike in the woods.



My last accomplishment of the first day was hanging our hammocks. A matched set means no fighting over this prime lounging spot.