Tag Archives: family

Tourist Day in Pittsburgh

  By bkdunn | 19 January 2012 - 735 |
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For Thanksgiving, my brother, his wife, his two kids, and two caged dogs came to visit. The day after Thanksgiving, we did tourist activities. This is the story of those activities.

“Story” is a strong word.

First we drove out to Fort Necessity, the place where George Washington inadvertently started the French and Indian War.

Things I learned there, the veracity of which having not been verified: the French and Indian War precipitated the American Revolution, George Washington accidentally signed a document accepting sole responsibility for assassinating a French officer, his time in the area made Washington a big proponent of the US’s eventual expansion into the Ohio Valley, and most 18th century North American forts aren’t very impressive.

We then stopped at the only restaurant on Highway 40, a Pizza Hut, where there was considerable confusion about what specials were or were not offered. Then we went to Ohiopyle to see the falls:

This is Mr. and Mrs. Telkontar, btw. And the Telkitos. I talked about the falls in a much earlier post in case you feel cheated by lack of additional photos or description.

Then we went to some guy’s house:

I’d never heard of it before moving to Pittsburgh, but it’s apparently the most famous-for-architecture house in the US (Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright). We didn’t have reservations, so we were not allowed inside and were treated like dogs. The waterfalls were nice and the use of stone was kind of cool, but the preponderance of pink concrete was perplexing. Definitely better than the Biltmore Estate, though.

Then we drove back through Ohiopyle and came upon the following waterfall:

It’s named Cucumber Falls due to the prevalence of wild cucumber in the area.

It was starting to get dark, then, so we did what comes naturally to tourists in the Pittsburgh area: ride the Duquesne Incline up to Mt. Washington.

There was probably a good photo there if I could have found something to which to attach my gorilla pod.

And then we went home and debated the relative utility of creche committees.

bkd

 

 

 

Glacier Lake Fishing (Beartooths, Montana)

  By bkdunn | 16 September 2011 - 942 | ,
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It all starts looking the same. I should probably delay publication of this one for two weeks just to get a little air between this post and the last one. Fine, there, I’ve done that: an artificial two-week delay. Now maybe these photos will look exciting, fresh, or, whatever it is that they otherwise wouldn’t look.

So there’s a miraculous story here that explains how I ended up going to Glacier Lake at all. My cell phone (with Virgin) gets no reception between Minnesota and Spokane. That is to say, it doesn’t work in Idaho, Montana, or the Dakotas. When I was heading from Tacoma to Montana, I stopped in Spokane to call my brother in South Dakota to see if he wanted to join me for fishing in Montana. He said he couldn’t make it, so I figured I’d leave Montana Saturday after finishing the Lake Fork hike.

But then when I got to Butte or so, I checked my phone and it had received a text message. Somehow, *somehow*, despite being in coverage no-man’s land, my phone had gotten a text message from my brother saying he could make it after all. And then I found a pay phone and confirmed plans. Yes, they still have pay phones. Everyone who saw me using it was also surprised.

(And: I said the story was miraculous, not that it was interesting.)

Fishing at Glacier Lake was great. The guy at the hotel in Red Lodge recommended it. Good job, guy!

Garry crossing a creek.

 

Elevation: 10,000'.

Ibid.

Glacier Lake shoreline.

Fishing was, as said, good. Used dry flies trailing behind a plastic float. Mostly 12- to 15-inch cutts. Caught one 12-inch brookie. All were good fighters. Also caught this:

The largest trout I've ever seen.

Two pounds? Two and a half maybe? It was a big trout. Caught it on four-pound line and apparently my knots don’t suck. Took probably 10-15 minutes to get him ashore. He took a lot of line. Awesome fish, mad respect.

Gebrüder (I'm not really six inches shorter than him).

Emerald Lake (in Wyoming!), just below Glacier Lake.

  • This is a short hike, btw. Two miles each way.
  • But steep (ca. 1,500 feet in elevation gain).
  • And at high altitude.
  • Glacier Lake is a perfect fishing lake: no grass, plenty of shoreline, lots of places to sit.
bkd

Coyote Gulch Hike Featuring Jacob Hamblin Arch, An Overnighter

  By bkdunn | 15 May 2011 - 848 |
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  1. We set off from the Hurricane Wash trailhead and did the hike as an out-and-back overnighter, camping near the Jacob Hamblin Arch.
  2. The most inspiring scenery of the hike (the series of high-walled amphitheaters that curve overhead) is hard to photograph.
  3. Hiking to the arch and back from Hurricane Wash would be very doable as a day hike (ca. 14 miles).
  4. The first five miles of the hike are merely pleasant; the good scenery picks up after the confluence with Coyote Gulch.
  5. Hiking past the arch, there’s some cool scenery for a couple miles, but after the petroglyphs, there’s not much else on offer (we didn’t hike all the way to the confluence of the Escalante, though, so there might be something great that we missed).
  6. The campsites were all pretty amazing with great views and soft sand for easy sleeping. Don’t know that I’ve ever slept any better on a backpacking trip.
  7. You have to walk through the water in several spots, but you never have to go more than ankle deep if you don’t want.
  8. We didn’t find the fresh water sources that I’ve seen referenced in other write-ups.
  9. The problem with Mountain House isn’t that it tastes bad, it’s that it’s too much of one thing; the JetBoil is still an amazing product.
  10. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah is where this is.

Endut.

bkd

Origins: Family Photos from Before My Time

  By bkdunn | 11 February 2010 - 1747 |
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When I was back up in the Greater Seattle Area over Christmas, my dad was in the throes of a scanning-old-photos bender. So I ended up seeing a lot of old photos while I was up there. It’s interesting to see what your parents used to look like long before you ever knew them. Sort of makes the rest of the story to-date make more sense seeing what the beginning looked like.

(If anyone pictured doesn’t like having these out there, lmk and I’ll take this post private.)

Dad, Mom. I think she's putting his lieutenant bars on him, ca. 1960.

It’s weird looking at my parents like this. I mean, they just look like young, good-looking military newlyweds, right? Who knew?

My mom's family (Uncle Bill, Grandpa, Grandma, Aunt Mitzie, Mom, Uncle Jim). David was probably on his mission or something and John was probably crime-fighting on the temple grounds. Maybe.

Four generations of Dunns (great grandparents in the middle, my grandparents at bottom left and right, Uncle Bill and Aunt Kay top-right, brother Garry and cousin Jeff at bottom right).

It’s also interesting to me how close my grandparents look to how I remember them. Heck, even my older brothers:

ca. 1964?

…still kind of look sort of like this. Their faces anyway.

My dad also scanned a photo of the house they lived in in Pensacola (1960-62?):

Which I took a photo of on my roadtrip:

It was probably nicer with the trees in the front yard.

So it turns out it’s interesting to see where you come from.

bkd