Brocken Harz Mountains for Valentine’s Day

** WARNING PHOTO HEAVY PAGE – PLEASE GIVE IT TIME TO LOAD! **

I’m doing a bit of catchup this week on images that really should have been edited and posted by now, but drama at work and in my personal life have been taking their toll. Let’s just say on that front – that there’s been alot of stress, and I’m not going to Dublin, unless I find something else to do (don’t know what that’ll be but pray for me that it all works out for the best, please). At any rate, this weekend, after a couple of days off / out I’m sure I’ll be feeling a bit better, and trying to catch up on my several THOUSAND image backlog. I know that I have a ton of ones from London to get through (unfortunately, one of the SD cards is completely corrupted and I’ve been trying to get them back for a couple weeks) but for now, here’s a few I got put up this week.

This is Brocken, in the Winter. (The blue is the filter / processing I was using because of the cold and brightness.) (A larger size of the panorama can be seen here) It’s the highest point in Northern Germany, and this winter was particularly harsh. The result was that the very top of the peak had over 2 meters (about 8 foot) of snow. The hard part about this trip was that Michael and I had been trying to go up here in the winter since last summer – but we wanted to go when the weather was relatively good and while there was snow on the ground so we could take the dog for a big ‘day out’. For Several weekends through January and into the first week of February, the weather just was too bad (not to mention dangerous) to even think of going up to the mountain and coming back down on foot.

The irony here is that when the weather finally cleared up enough to go – it was Valentine’s Day. We’re both single people, so it was sort of amusing that this is the day we decided to go (Notice the Irony of the name “Brocken” sounding very similar to Broken when pronounced, and it’s in the Harz – heart – mountains?) but we had a great time. It’s about an hour and a half to a two hour drive over to the base town – where we can catch a narrow old-fashioned steam train. It was running late, however, so after a little hike up a hill to the top, we had time for breakfast at the station house – and paused for a few photos while we waited:

The Station Master’s House (all snowed in with icicles)

Me & Rids, bundled up and waiting on the train

The Train Tracks & Trees

Steam Engine going the opposite way from the one we wanted

Finally – Our train Arrived – for a 20 minute ride to the top….everyone’s bundled up for winter, and several have skiis and sleds to ride down on:

We passed lots of neat things – Cross Country Skiiers (on the trail we’d be coming down on):

And signs that were so coated in Hoarfrost and steam that you couldn’t even guess what they were:

Once we got up to the top, however, and off the train, I can honestly say that both Michael and I were impressed with how deep the snow was – Cut straight through like this (on either side of the train tracks) you could really be amazed. (Michael, below, is 6 foot 2 inches tall for some idea of how high this was)

Once we were done being fascinated with the depth of the snow, I took a few pictures of the weather station, observatory, and radio tower at the top (the weather was starting to turn a bit foggy/snowy)

Brocken Weather station, Radio tower, Observatory

and we began our descent on foot. The strange thing about the descent wasn’t the trudging through the snow

— it was that I kept seeing Yeti all around me – Here’s an entire hurd of them:

Trees? What Trees? I see a troop of Abominable Snowmen.

And Yet here’s another bunch:

Finally it dawned, on me – these were the trees, covered in hoarfrost, ice, and snow and bent over into all kind of crazy shapes.

Overall, the walk was great – (minus a little twisted ankle and fall on my bum which seems to have bruised my tailbone)

and even my dog (Riddick SnowBeard) seems to have enjoyed it

You can see more photos from Brocken from this trip (and the Fall of 2006) here, and in Michael’s set – here. Special thanks to Michael who drove!

Only in Utah.. or is it Above?

When I was in the US briefly the first week of March, I made a hop on a flight between Salt Lake City and San Jose. There were about 70 people on the puddle jumper plane, and well, something that’s typical “Utah-esque” happened. During the flight, one of about 30 missionaries decided to provide us with some in flight entertainment. The thing is – had he been Moslem, people would have thought that he was going to hijack the plane… had he been anything else, he wouldn’t have been able to do this. However, he was Mormon – and Salt Lake City is the home of the LDS church – so… I provide you with photographic evidence (Thanks K for the iphone moment in time) :

in flight entertainment - aka missionary on a plane

Yes, folks, he stood up to give his testimony over the Plane’s PA.

I’ve never seen people reach up so quickly to light their “call” button to the stewardess…. and I wondered briefly if I should ask if I could go next – and then Jacqui or a few others to each testify to their own religious beliefs – to a captive audience, in a thin metal tube as it was hurling through the air. In the end, I didn’t… However, I just want to say –

There is a time and place for everything…
Welcome to Utah….

TESTIFY!

*because of the nature of this post, and the potential for offensive comments – which I don’t wish to engage in a religious debate I’ve blocked comments from this post.*

Ice Skating

On January 3, 2010, a friend of mine let me know that her daughter was going to be a part of an ice skating performance at Alexanderplatz. Since I have a camera, and I’d mentioned previously I’d love to come see M perform, I was asked if I could bring the camera and take a few shots of the kids and the show for them since, prior to the actual event, the parents are running around trying to get everyone ready and most only have small cameras. Despite the cold and frozen fingers (I forgot my gloves and it was well below zero F), I must say that I was totally impressed by these youngsters – ages 4 and up – some of whom practice 6 days a week, two hours or more a day (yes, even the under 10 year olds). They have put in a lot of hard work and absolutely left me surprised and amazed at how well they do.

A few photos are below – with more in my flickr set here.

First – the Spins…. Spins are difficult, but apparently one of the “easier” things to master as other than the first class, all ages seemed to have some variant:

Then there were the beautiful glides – whether it was with toes out, one leg up and straight out, or with one leg up behind the head – these were more complex (obviously) and starting with the young – and ending up with the older ones – they were just beautiful….