Harvey Pekar has Died

Nothing else to be said for it. Harvey Pekar, creator of AMERICAN SPLENDOR, has died aged 70. He was one of my favorite writers and a big influence.

It'll be sad from here on out, knowing he's not around, creating new work.

Goodbye, Harvey Pekar.

Big Butt

Being in the mountains with a limited amount of time to devote to hiking is torture for me. I have to get out and hike. However, since Carole can't handle the trails that I like I sometimes have to leave her at the trailhead while I go wandering. Since we were so close to a trail I'd wanted to hike for a few years I decided to at least hike half of it if I could. I promised Carole that I wouldn't be gone for more than an hour and a half. I was hoping that I could hike from the terminus of the trail on the Blue Ridge Parkway and make it to the main overlook and return in that time.

The trail I wanted to tackle is called The Big Butt Trail. Named, obviously, for a major Black Mountain peak called Big Butt Mountain. It's long been the butt of many a hiking joke. I'd heard that it's a very tough trail but the section that I was able to hike wasn't bad at all.

However, the most spectacular point in the trail was just too far away. When I hit my turnaround time I actually met up with the only people I saw on that trail--a couple from Houston Texas. They told me that I was the only person they'd seen on the Big Butt Trail all that day, and I can believe them. It's a great spot for solitude. I aim to go back.

So after talking to them for a bit I turned around and hauled ass back to the trailhead where Carole was patiently waiting on me, reading a book and perusing the Yellowstone maps we'd brought along. Apparently I was just fifteen to thirty minutes shy of the overlook on Little Butt Mountain and the views that I've heard are among the finest in (and of) the Black Mountains.

I'll be back.

So we started up the truck and headed to my next speed-hiking destination.

See. I wasn't lying.

Most of the trail is through thickly forested slopes and ridges. Lots of healthy spruce trees, some of advanced age.

Need I remind you that the southern Appalachians are greener than green?

Spots of color were here and there along the trail.

Mats of low-growing ferns and such. Inviting for a lie-down.

The trail was like this for much of the way up Point Misery.

This was the highest point I reached. 5700+ feet, but no view. Just thick forest.

And occasionally I saw a lingering rhododendron blooming alone in the woods.

The spruce canopy was pretty impressive.

Signs marking the edge of the 38K acre tract of land privately owned by a single family. Strictly no trespassing. Prime territory for eminent domain, I feel.

Primal.

Through the woods.

Just a nice shot of earth, rock, and Mother Nature at work. Praise Jove.

Roaming the High Country

Today here are just some various photographs I took yesterday between Bat Cave and the town of Black Mountain.

Click to enlarge this one. It's a stitched panorama of the cliffs of Chimney Rock which loom above the town of Lake Lure. This is where the final scenes from the film LAST OF THE MOHICANS was filmed. If you look on the far right, you can see the falls.

The entrance to Chimney Rock Park. For some reason that I've yet to understand, motorcyclists love this part of the state. They come here in droves. In fact, it often seems that the town of Lake Lure exists purely to cater to these folk on their noisy, farting, obnoxious machines.

This was at a spot on Shumont Mountain Road. This is a great piece of property. The people who own this land have their own sliding rock!

This amazing moth was on the cabin attracted, of course, to the light on the deck.

Because their house sits on a steep slope near the top of the ridge, it's difficult to get a comprehensive shot of the whole structure. This was from the deck that faces the gorge and Highway 9 far, far below. Bruce is an amazingly skilled craftsman and pretty much built this place by hand. He had a builder put up the shell and windows, but did everything else himself.

In the kitchen.

At Tomahawk Lake in Black Mountain. Tomorrow, details of the rest of the day spent power-hiking the mountains...

Day in the Mountains

Carole and I went to the mountains so that Carole could visit one of her friends who is currently living full-time at her cabin in Bat Cave North Carolina. (Yes, there really is a town in NC called Bat Cave, and yes there really are bat caves there, but unfortunately our bats are dying off from white-nose disease, the cause and source of which may remain a mystery as bats become extinct).

We just got back into town. We were going to stay another night and day in the mountains but decided against it. We were both just too tired (I did a lot of power hiking) and we missed the cats. So we came home tonight.

On the deck of Bruce and Susan's house in Hickory Nut Gorge (taken this morning). Way off in the distance behind Carole (and shrouded in clouds) is Mount Mitchell, highest peak in the eastern USA.


Carole with our hosts Susan and Bruce (with Shumont Mountain in the background).

More photos and stuff about the trip tomorrow when we've rested and the photos are all downloaded and processed.

Too Many People

My pal Stuart Gardner linked me to this. Good, basic, logical philosophy from Mark Mothersbaugh. Read it here.

Too many people. The Earth can't tolerate this.

Too many humans!

The right amount of people in my line of sight.

Rand Paul daily proves that he's a pro-corporate right wing SACK OF SHIT.

Workin' Hard

Working hard on the novel. For some reason, now that I'm in the home stretch, I'm finding it harder to write. I don't know why. Generally the words come easier the farther along I go. Not so with this novel. Perhaps because it's the first novel that I sold based on a pitch and a plot synopsis. It's difficult to say.

My personal goal is to get very close to 'The End' by the time we leave for Yellowstone. I'm trying really hard. The blog will likely suffer as I put my shoulder to the weight, and push.

Maybe Something Good...Maybe Something Bad

The bad thing about the Internet is that it can be a time sink. I have to turn it off to get my writing done. And house chores, etc.

The great thing about the Internet is that it's packed with cool stuff.

Witness Paul Cyr's website about bear and lynx monitoring in Maine.

Baby lynxes! How cute is that?

She's so cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuute!

First Photographs

Learning to use the new SLR camera. Here are the first few photos.

This is the first photo I took with the new camera.

One of the the two hemlocks transplanted from North Mills River to my In-laws' back yard 30 years ago.

This is the first stitched photo. From two separate shots. It stitched more seamlessly than what I'm accustomed to seeing.

The storage sheds in the back yard. Our canoe on the left. The kennel on the far right. There have been no dogs in that kennel for years, now.

Took these on the Fourth, of course. The USA flag with our wonderful, precious Casita in the background. The green area beyond the Casita is where Frank used to grow his amazing vegetable gardens. If we ever move out there, Carole and I will re-start that tradition.

Advice

Every once in a while a struggling writer asks me for some advice. I don't have a ton of advice to give out and I'm especially careful about it because compared to a lot of the authors I've met I've had a very minor career as a writer. (When you've stood beside Ray Bradbury at a book signing you are bound to feel humbled.)

But here's some basic advice that I always feel confident about doling out:

Write often. My feeling is that you should write every single day. If you can't find the time to accomplish that, then write as often as you possibly can manage. But even if all you can do is jot a few notes, do it every day.

Try to sell some short stories. It's a good way to build a track record if you're aiming to become a novelist.

Don't worry about rejection. If rejection bothers you, you've no business engaging in the writing and submission process.

If you're ready to submit a novel length manuscript you'll need an agent. Search for a reputable agent, but under no circumstances should you ever pay an agent any kind of fee. An honest agent is going to earn their fee by selling your work. If they don't feel confident enough to make their livings based on a percentage of your sales, then they're probably not any good at being a literary agent.

Well, that's about it. Just a few simple things. I get a lot of questions from people who want to be writers, but those are the things that I feel should be common knowledge.

Philip K. Dick's typewriter.

Da Forf

We were busy today. Doing the whole grill out and eat thing for the holiday. No fireworks, though. I've never been a fan of fireworks. They bore me. And Carole is way too tired to head out to a fireworks show. She prefers to sleep this evening. Only Andy is going to watch the aerial displays tonight.

Anyway, here's a photo of a partially unfurled rhododendron blossom from last week.

Hobbies

Almost everyone I know has hobbies. I have a fairly unique set of hobbies, I suppose. Among these hobbies are my interests in the outdoors--Carole and I do a lot of regional traveling to go sissy-camping in our Casita trailer. We both like to go canoeing and kayaking. Most often when in our parklands and forests I can be found hiking or backpacking. Wandering around in the wilds to locate mountain peaks and waterfalls and gorges is something of which I never tire.

I read an awful lot. More than most but less than some. My passion for reading led me to become a writer. I suppose writing was initially a hobby of mine, but even when I wrote my first story as a kid of eight years I was thinking of publication. So maybe writing never really qualified as a hobby. At any rate, it ended up making me some real money, which leads me to another hobby.

When I was younger I collected books. Specifically I collected limited edition fantasy, horror, and science-fiction novels published mainly by small press outfits. Eventually I needed the money selling those books would bring me. So I sold them all off. And for a long time I didn't engage in the hobby of collecting. This was for two big reasons.

One was that I had made my living for many years by selling collectible comics and toys to the public. I traveled from Miami Florida to Albany New York to San Diego California selling everything from the latest issues of Marvel Comics to copies of very rare Golden Age books. Frankly, I couldn't afford to collect comics because I was constantly turning over my stock and they were just that to me: a commodity to be bought and traded and sold.

The second reason that I didn't collect anything for a while is that I was poor. I mean grindingly poor. We could barely pay the rent, much less afford to invest in something as frivolous as collecting rarities.

As the years passed, though, I stopped dealing collectibles for a living and went to work for the Feds. And as the years went by I found myself selling my works of prose fiction. I made more money. Nostalgia hit me somewhere along the way and I decided to start investing in old comics again. It's strictly a hobby, these days, and I sometimes treat myself to a back issue to celebrate something or other.

Recently I got a nice advance from a major publisher for a novel. So I went out and bought another comic book for my collection.

I earned it.

My latest acquisition. My set of Amazing Spider-Man is almost complete.

Moron

Bush is still a moron.

Worst President. Ever.

The filthy, stinking moron who dug us a pit so deep we may never climb out of it.

You Got Some Splainin' To Do

"U.K.! You got some 'splainin' to do!"

Excuse the possibly vague American TV reference.

But I have a question for my British readers. (I know yer out there.)

Here it is:

In the recent National Polls in the UK, the plurality went to the Conservatives. OK. I'll give them that much.

The Conservatives won 306 seats in Parliament.
Labour won 258 seats.

The Liberal-Democrats won 57 seats.

Now...the popular vote showed that the Conservatives ended up with 36.1%; Labour with 29%, and Liberal-Democrats with 23%. All understood.

However, when it came to forming a government, why did the right wing party (the Conservatives) get to head it? This makes no sense to me, at all. Both Labour and the Liberal-Democrats are supposedly left of center parties. Why didn't the left of center majority form the government while leaving out the far less popular right of center party?

I'm not saying that the stupid US so-called "two party system" is superior. Far from it. Give me a parliamentary democracy any day over this farce we have here in the States. But just explain to me why at least 52% of the population who were obviously voting for a leftist form of rule had to allow the 36% who technically came in second to form a right wing government. This makes no sense to me, especially when even the seats in Parliament went to the major left wing parties by a score of 308 to 306. Slim majority, yes, but even by that measure they have the upper hand.

Why did the Liberal-Democrats feel honor bound to form up a government that will have rightist policies when a solid majority obviously didn't want right wing policies and had voted so? This seems as if the UK parliamentary system has degenerated into as big a farce as the joke our corporate masters play on us here in the USA.

What gives?

(And, yes, I realize that there are smaller parties around--and that many of them also tend to tilt left.)

"The Conservatives? Are you daft, woman?"

Escaping the Heat Part III

After we left Carolina Hemlock we drove over to see the Black Mountain Recreation Area which is just a short drive down 80 back toward the Parkway. We've stayed there a number of times in our trailer and just wanted to take a look. It was relatively uncrowded there, despite the fact that it has a great swimming hole that is generally popular with the locals on warm summer days.

We toyed with the idea of hiking over to Setrock Creek Falls, but decided that we'd seen that waterfall so many times that we ended up passing. So we turned back toward 80 and headed for the Parkway to hike to see Crabtree Falls. We'd hiked to it once, when we were first married, but it had been well over two decades since we'd been.

As it happened, Carole decided that the trail was too rocky for her, so she turned back and returned to the parking lot while I pushed on. I was impressed with the trail--there are some impressive stands of hardwoods along the way and the forest is relatively clear because of ice and snow damage to the smaller trees during the past winter.

The one-mile hike took me to the falls, which is an impressive one. It's well worth the hike if you're in the area and I recommend it, despite the fact that you won't find any solitude there. It's a good waterfall with relatively easy access, so there's likely to be a crowd there when you visit. I stayed long enough to take a number of photos and a couple of videos, then I turned around and headed back to the parking area. I showed Carole the pictures I'd taken of the falls, and in short order we pointed the truck back toward Charlotte and headed home.

Escaping the Heat Part II

On Sunday we escaped the heat of Charlotte for the high country near Mount Mitchell. One place that we had visited briefly in the past but never stopped to enjoy was the Carolina Hemlock Recreation Area. It's on NC 80 a few miles from the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was developed many years ago by the Civilian Conservation Corps, in the days when socialist programs could be enacted and put in place without too much screaming and stomping by right wing elements in the government. Those were the days, by gosh!

The main reason for this spot being placed here by the CCC boys is that this particular area on the South Toe River has a few very nice, very deep swimming holes. One of these has a set of rock stairs and a retaining wall so that it serves now as a kind of beach. When we arrived, we were the only ones there, but we knew that would change as the day progressed. So in short order we paid our $3.00 day use fee and picked out a picnic spot all to ourselves and prepared the grill with charcoal and the table with food and such. While Carole was getting the grill ready for cooking, I explored the river and searched out the various swimming holes.

Once upon a time the recreation area was green with the namesake hemlock trees. But now the only healthy hemlocks are the ones that have been treated against adelgid infestation by the application of insecticides. You can tell by the health of the various stands of trees how much money the National Forest Service had to spend at each step of the insect plague. The hemlocks closest to the bathrooms at the campsites look like hemlocks are supposed to appear--fully green with thick needles and lots of new growth. Hemlocks further out from there look sick, but perhaps in a state in which they can survive if the nicotine-based chemicals have been applied in time. And farther away than those, you can see the trees that are a lost cause, although some of them have been marked as having been treated--too late. And, of course, there are the dead hemlocks standing bare and ghostly everywhere around where no one had the funds or foresight to treat them.

After I explored a bit and we took some photos, we just relaxed and talked. In time, we cooked up some Polish sausages with sauerkraut and mustard and had potato salad with them. They were delicious. After that, we packed up our stuff and drove a few yards to the beach parking and walked down to the water's edge and jumped into the cool waters of the South Toe River. We had a great time just soaking up the sun and swimming back and forth and up and down the swimming hole. The water is deep enough so that you can safely jump and dive into the pools. As we knew, the crowds grew as the hours passed until at some point the beach was packed from end to end with families and couples doing as we were--enjoying the recreation area.

Toward 2:00 pm the numbers of people were grating on our need for solitude, so we gathered up our stuff, took a few last photos, and then headed up the road to see a couple of other places that were on our agenda. More on that tomorrow.


Minerals Museum and Blue Ridge Parkway Visitors Center at the intersection of the Parkway and NC 226. I like this spot and almost always visit it on drives along the Parkway.

The rhododendron was in full bloom. I took this shot almost as soon as we pulled in to the Carolina Hemlock Recreation Area.

My simple Canon A1100IS isn't the best camera on the market, but sometimes I can capture a nice shot or two when I'm playing around with the macro settings. This blossom was busy with these tiny black bumblebees. These are the type of bee that stung me on Wilson Creek last year and caused me to drop my camera into a waterfall.

This is the picnic pavilion at the recreation area. You can rent this for the day. The barbecue pit on the right is double sided and you could likely grill up some huge sides of beef or pork on those babies. They keep this place very clean and in good order.

Stairs leading down from the pavilion to the South Toe River.

From the river's shore looking back up at the pavilion.

Each hemlock tree that has been treated against Hemlock wooly adelgid has these little tags nailed on them. In some cases, the trees were dead anyway.

Carole roasts yellow corn for lunch! Yum!

This was our picnic spot right by the South Toe River.

Carole took this of me in the deepest pool. You can see people leaping into the water behind me, and kids sitting on a boulder in the middle of the river.

This was the big swimming hole above the official beach area.

Nice Ron Paul article for those of you still too stupid to see how evil he and his son are.