One is the loneliest number ...

A lonely Santa. Santa was in a common area of a distant mall we visited today. From there, we went next door for a walk through at Bass Pro Shops. Hark! There was a Santa in there! Numerous children were in line ... I guess it's as true of Santa as with real estate investing ... it's all about "location, location, location!"

"Sauce thee on my toe man?"

No - I said "Frosty the Snow Man!" ... taken on a late-night jog. ... well, power walk anyway ...

Salem Hill

A glimpse of Salem Hill:

That time of year ...

A cold, snowy night in Hobart, Indiana:

Did you say a "There's a hog attack?"

No - I said "There's a dog in my lap!" Get your ears checked! Behold my buddy Stitch:

Speechless?

... sometimes, the photo speaks its own words ...


plate number smudged out with PSE

Bat on a Slug?

A bat on a slug? .... Noooo ... a CAT on a RUG!  Taken by my better half.  A study in earth tones and diagonals.

In the bag!

The ball's in the net. Niece bagged 2 in a row for this foul. St. Thomas Moore college's Saints won this one by a considerable margin.

Old Geezer?

No ... not old geezer ... it's NEW GEYSER! Just a little bit of water main break drama. 5 mile and Ayers road, Forestville, Ohio

Revisit Pond_39.045391,-84.126631

Today, I was going to explore 2 other ponds relatively near the Afton campground entrance's parking lot. Unfortunately, to my disappointment, it was CLOSED: the park's making some major improvements and have closed the campground for a few months. So, I decided to take a hike back the lane that leads to where, many years ago, one of my uncles used to live. (my GPS data on Google Maps.) I parked at the (usual) horsie parking lot (Afton entrance, Park Road), crossed the street, and walked back this lane ... well, it's now a trail:


At 1769 feet, the road forks. I took the fork less traveled - the one to the right. It slowly dropped down into a slight valley with a creek on the left. Soon, the creek crossed to the right, under the trail, and a hollowed fence post can be seen:


The dam (I'm sitting on in this image) is maybe 20 yards upstream behind the fence post.


Sitting on the dam, here's where the pond on Google's map would be seen if'n that gol darned dam weren't busted. The trail, which sits down from its surroundings, isn't visible from the dam and isn't marked on Google's map. I was so close to an easy hike out (below) compared to fighting through the woods. (But, in any case, it's fun exploring though!)


On the way back, i noticed this old fence post with some old woodpecker holes:

Frosty Pho-em

i am a leaf
as cold as can be
one time I lived
high up in a tree
no longer there
apparently
my friend summer
has abandoned me

wind knocked me down
and i fluttered here
once friendly weather
has now gone severe
if there's a moral
to wrap up this fable
fly south with the birds
or become frosted to a table

Lust for Living?

Close ... it's Thanksgiving!

A less than inspiring day to dip thru Kentucky to get back to Ohio.


Before:


During:


After:


Oops ... one of the desserts:

Art with feeling?

Not quite - architecture of ceiling! Shopping mall.

Is it rocket science?

No, it's not rocket science. Place the filet (or fillet, if one prefers) in the center of the bun, slap on a piece of cheese, squirt some tartar sauce on it, and replace the top bun. That's not hard is it? Noooooo ~~~~

This example of lopsided cuisine is courtesy McDonalds, Beechmont Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio. No matter how simple things are, somebody can screw it up. It is, perhaps, too much to expect for this sandwich to look like this!

Mommy, is that lipstick ... ?

"Mommy, is that lipstick on a pig?" No Johnny, it's just paint.

Pond_at_39.045391,-84.126631

From the pond in the post below, I continued on, not without some meandering caused by profuse thickets and spending more time looking down, to avoid tripping, than looking where i am going. (Map of how I got there - 1.9 miles) Eventually, I found the remnants of this pond. This pond looks kidney shaped on Google's map. In fact, it probably is/was. However, it's unlikely that this pond has more than a foot or so of water in the wet season. Consider that this is a drought year so, perhaps, with rainfall, this area might at least be damp.

There is a concrete dam that is broken and the breach is about the same height as the base of the pond.


The pond from a different vantage point.


... and from a 3rd vantage point.


On the way back, watching for animal signs - this is probably raccoon scat. The seeds are similar in shape to the red berries shown earlier:


Some droppings - probably rabbit, on the way back to the car.


Right in here, something caught my foot and down I went!


Droppings from heaven ...


... heaven! Must be something magical about this tree.


About a hundred or so yards from the road, i saw this group of bare areas where something (see info on next image) had brushed away the leaves.


This spot, in the bare areas, had claw marks. My compass is 4" long and the black ring is about 2 1/4 inches. Thus the claw marks are about 1 1/2 - 1 3/4 inches apart. I sent the image to the wldinfo folks at the ODNR Division of Wildlife and, again in life, learned something - these claw marks are probably made from a wild turkey!

Pond_at_39.045674,-84.122747

East Fork State Park, near Afton, Ohio, my 1.9 mile excursion to a pond at GPS coordinates 39.045674,-84.122747.  Going in from the main park road, Afton Entrance, was easy.



But then I began to see lots of deadfall.


There were a number of these low plants with small red, flat, boat-shaped berries.


Behold the pond in this rather pitiful stitched pano:


... and a not-stitched not-pitiful, not-pano:


The runoff erosion from the spillway contained abandoned treasure. Note the various stems of tough wild roses and honeysuckle that made walking through this area very difficult.


En route to its neighboring pond (above), I found some fence posts the residents had cut and stacked back in the early 1970's. There were also some others resting nearby.

What rhymes with election?

Selection. Here's a selection. Be happy.

What rhymes with WHAM?

JAM - as in traffic jam!

Looking west on Rt. 32:

Looking East towards Batavia:

Whaddizit?

It's the north side of a southbound Big Boy at Frisch's Big Boy Restaurant on Victory Parkway near Hopple. We had a pleasant waitress who handled things in a professional manner in spite of the computer being down! I appreciated being forewarned before we ordered. Time was not critical, so we stayed and the food was OK and not much slower than usual.

Did you snore?

No, Elsinore! A few days ago, the wife couldn't sleep and was up nearly all knight - I mean night - because? She couldn't sleep! Watching TV, she called in for a contest on TV and WON some movie tickets. She had to pick them up today at the TV station. WCPO, on Gilbert Avenue, is in a building that once housed the natural history museum. The entrance is/was heralded with a beautiful castle-like structure whose history I do not recall and probably never knew. To hazard a guess, maybe it was a gateway to an incline up to Elsinore Street in Mt. Adams. FWIW, the plaque in the center reads Elsinore, 1883. Turns out this was once the gateway entrance to Eden Park.

How's the food?

Ahh - a break after the 2.4 mile hike through the woods finding the pond below. Stopped into Gold Star Chili in Afton, Ohio. The waitress was nice and the club sandwich served looked just like the one in the placemat photo. (Arbees should learn a lesson from that!) The sandwich tasted good too. Job well done!

Pond at 39.040991,-84.108971

Here's a nice pond at 39.040991,-84.108971 (how I got there). However, it's a little further off the trail from the horseman's parking lot from the North entrance. It was a beauty, though. Unlike most others to date, this must have steep sides because it did not look at all damaged by the drought. Many of the other ponds had proportionally extensive dried mud flats leading up to the water. Here is how I got there from the horseman's parking lot on Afton-Elklick Road

Here's the first look I had that made a decent image:



A view of the edge:



A pitiful 3-image pano:

Mommy ... what's that?

Well imagine that - it looks like a caboose! You know, once upon a time, not so many years ago, there was a caboose at the end of every train. Inside was a man we called the conductor. The conductor would often wave to people as the caboose passed by and the train rumbled and clacked off into the distance. A caboose, at the end of the train, provided a sense of closure. Ahhh. No more - now, it's just cold steel passing by. But maybe there's hope!?! This string of cars was parked, in a spur, in Sharonville, Ohio. I used to like caboosi ;) when they were painted red.

BTW: who is George Fry?

(The top image is an exercise in leading lines, rectangular shapes, mergence, and color contrasts against monochomaticity.)