Hawn State Park, 25 April 2009

On Saturday I hiked the 10-mile Whispering Pine Trail at Hawn State Park. This park is between Ste. Genevieve and Farmington Missouri. Major drainages include Pickle Creek, which is spring-fed yet stained with tannins, and River Aux Vases, a small river on the park’s far south side. This is arguably the best 10-mile trail in Missouri, including forests, creeks, and numerous formations of Lamotte sandstone.

It’s also difficult for a state park trail, with three large hills, several wet creek crossings depending on weather, and one ridiculous but short area on the south loop where your choices are essentially between stepping in the River Aux Vases or slipping on the steep, narrow band of sandstone that forms the trail beneath a small overhang. I chose…poorly…and ended up with one wet boot for the final 5 miles. I’d read that the Sierra Club (the original designers of the trail) were scheduled to work on the trail for 4 days in April. The lousy until recently weather may have kept them from doing so, but they really should re-route this area over the hill. Other than that, it’s worth the effort you’ll put into it. There’s also a 6-mile option if you only do the north loop, the 1-mile Pickle Creek Trail (which despite its short length is rocky and difficult), and the 4-mile White Oak Trail, which now connects to the Whispering Pine Trail.

The trail is open to backpackers, too. There’s several official campsites, and others that have sprung up by areas of running water. There’s a no fire rule, but fire rings are everywhere.

The pictures above include lots of piney avenues, flowing water, rock formations, and dogwoods. Also, two box turtles. They’re on the move this time of year, and they’ll hold still for a picture. I missed the wild azaleas and yellow lady slipper orchids the park is known for, although I don’t know if I was too early or too late. The sign says allow 9 hours. I did it in 5 and a half, including lunches and breaks, FWIW.

For a shorter, easier, but just as spectacular hike, try the Trail through Time at Pickle Springs Natural Area between Hawn and Farmington. It’s a two-mile trail, and much less rocky or strenous.

If hiking the 6- or 10-mile Whispering Pine Trail, bring plenty of water (I drank 100 ounces before I ran out). Take breaks. Also, bring snacks. I hiked this trail 2 years ago thinking it was no big deal and brought water but no food. About 8 miles in, after hiking to the top of Evans Knob (the steepest hill on the trail) and then down the side, I bonked, I hit the wall. I sat on a stump and literally couldn’t move for a half hour. Respect this trail.

By the way, the very last hill is about a mile from the end. It’s psychologically a pain, because you can see and hear people having fun in the park campground, while you hike up, and up, and up. It’s one of those Missouri hills–you think you’ve reached the crest, only to turn a corner and find the trail continuing up. If you were really hurting, you could wade across the creek to the campground and walk to the parking lot from there to avoid this final hill, but it is not as difficult as Evans Knob.

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I took the occasion of this hike as a chance to try out some energy bars. I normally don’t go that route, especially since I’m doing a low-carb thing, but I thought it would be a good chance to try some out. Here’s my non-scientific assessment.

The Gels:

Gu Roctane Blueberry Pomegranate: Tasted neither like blueberries or pomegranates–had the same molasses-y taste of the Clif gels. However, its energy came on astonishingly quickly.

100 calories

25 g carbs

55 mg potassium

35 mg caffeine

Clif Shot Mocha/Clif Shot Razz: Again, didn’t taste much like coffee or raspberry. These two tasted really strongly of molasses, which isn’t a bad flavor. Main ingredient is “organic brown rice syrup,” so I sort of wonder if one couldn’t cheaply replicate the whole power gel thing by putting some molasses in a squeeze bottle from a camping store. The main upside to these gels seems to be the smaller likelihood of them making a mess in your pack. The energy does come quickly, and given their light weight, if one didn’t go the molasses route, it seems worthwhile to stow a couple of these in your pack for if you ever really need a little boost.

100 calories

25 g carbs

30 mg potassium

The Bars:

Clif Bar Chocolate Brownie: Lost the wrapper for this one, so no vital stats. Moist, chewy, didn’t taste a lot like a chocolate brownie but instead had an almost applesauce flavor. Still, not bad.

Power Bar Chocolate Brownie: Undeniably good for you, but pretty awful tasting. Tastes a lot like sugar-free chocolate, and the texture was really dry. I needed to drink water with it.

360 calories

33 g carbs

11 g fat

30 g protein

Luna Lemon Zest: We have a winner! The best energy thing I had on the trail. Tastes like a lemony Rice Krispie Treat. Consumed with relish on the top of Evans Knob. Highly, highly recommended.

180 calories

26 g carbs

4.5 g fat

10 g protein

170 mg potassium

Friday Night Miscellaneous

Oh, it’s been a fun couple of weeks, news-wise:

• The aggressively stupid DHS “right wing extremists” memo was released
• Mr. Obama had a nice grip-and-grin with Venezuelan despot Hugo Chavez
• The Taliban advanced to within 60 miles of the Pakistani capital
• The head of the DHS revealed her ignorance on the most basic facts about the 9/11 atrocities
• We’ve decided that it’s better that thousands die than that we dunk a terrorist scumbag in water
• We’re going to release Uighur terrorists from Club Gitmo into the US, with a nice little stipend (commit jihad against the West, win the lottery. That makes perfect sense)
• We’re going to release old pictures of the abuse at Abu Ghraib next week, to further inflame the world over an issue we addressed years ago
• Oh, and there’s a new variety of influenza in Mexico that’s killed 60 people

And there’s more. All very depressing, and it makes one long for the day when the grown-ups return to the White House. Still, we’re only 100 days in, so why spend the outrage at the beginning?

That last bullet point is a little worrying. There’s not enough information in yet to form an idea of how bad it will be. The majority of people think that those who practice preparedness are panickers. It’s actually the opposite–people who are prepared WON’T panic when things are bad. They won’t be the ones at the grocery store at the last minute. They won’t be the ones clogging the way out of town after a disaster strikes. With that in mind, be prepared for trouble. At the very least, be prepared to be self-sufficient for two weeks:

• Have two weeks of any prescriptions you need
• Have two weeks of cash on hand, in case the banks close (that’s a lesson people learned after Hurricane Katrina)
• Have two weeks of water (you can store it in old 2-liter soda bottles); replace it once a year; store enough to wash with, too
• Have two weeks of food (if it’s not ready-to-eat, you’ll have to figure out a way to cook, too)
• Have a way to use the bathroom
• Have two weeks of baby and feminine supplies, as needed
• Have two weeks of first aid supplies
• Have candles and oil lamps
• Have cards and games to stave off boredom, and a wind-up radio
• As far as influenza goes, buy face masks and latex or nitrile gloves. Use hand sanitizer. Cover your coughs

On top of that, be prepared in general:

• Develop your physical fitness as best you can
• Pay down your debt
• Save money
• Always keep the gas tank at least half full

There’s not much to it. If it’s not the flu, something else will happen–a storm, an earthquake. These things happen; why not be prepared?

Which isn’t to say you’ll do everything perfectly. Exhibit A:

It’s the Great Tomato Slaughter of 2009. I’d raised them from seeds under a grow light. Now that the weather has warmed, I thought I’d put them in the windowsill to get some natural light and start hardening off.

Little did I know that the wind would be so strong. I came home to find most of them on the floor. Seven of the eight will probably survive–the stem on the eighth is broken, and I suspect it’s going to die. The plastic bin has bell peppers and echinacea, none of which are looking too hot. I’ll probably move them to the garden on Sunday and see if they make it, and start a new batch in case they don’t. Fortunately, that’s an option–if things had already gone bad, I’d be in a world of hurt.

And yes, those ARE chopsticks I’m using as stakes.

These things happen. Still, it makes you think about how you practice your self-sufficiency. I’ve been doing this for 3 years, and I still screwed up.

Updated Blogroll

I’ve been absent for a while. More conservative stuff coming up, but in the meantime, I’ve updated the blogroll. If you’ve ever wondered what I read when I’m not here (and if you have, I can suggest a hobby ), check the bottom of the page. Conservative and libertarian blogs, two “24″ blogs, movie sites, and a site about how to survive the zombie apocalypse. Enjoy!

Bell Mountain Wilderness, 18 April 2009

Here’s the second of Missouri’s eight wilderness areas. I hike Hercules Glades with friends in February, and last weekend we did Bell Mountain Wilderness in Iron County with two friends.

One of us (*cough* me *cough*) foolishly left the tent behind when we piled into the carpool vehicle, so we didn’t get to backpack as intended. Instead, we did the point-to-point trail in a day, then got a room at an Ironton motel. Probably for the best, as it _poured_ rain all night.

It rained during the hike, too, for about an hour and a half of the six hours. Not cold or windy, just steady. That’s why there’s no pictures from the summit glade. Bell is almost as high as Missouri’s highest point, Taum Sauk Mountain, but it’s far more exposed, and therefore in weather like last weekend’s, the top is in the clouds. So, there was no view. The rest of the pictures turned out reasonably well, though.

We hiked from the upper trailhead off of the forest road, reaching the summit in about two hours. We had lunch there, in a steady rain, then started heading south to the Ozark Trail trailhead on Highway A, where we’d left another car. That area is dry as a bone most of the year, but because of the rain and the cold, wet, miserable spring we’ve had so far, the granite of the Ozark Trail was slippery as hell. Muddy, too.

It was an awesome hike, nevertheless. However, I think the Missouri Conservation Department may have spoken too soon when it declared victory over feral hogs. We never saw them, but we saw a great deal of their sign–scrapes on trees and rooted-up areas near the trail. Take care when hiking here, and keep in mind it’s an open season on feral hogs because of the damage they do to the environment.

Just How Bad Is The Bailout?

The following is from Reason TV, by way of the puppy blender. It lays out, in 2 minutes and 43 seconds, just how massive the Bush-Obama (but mostly Obama) spending increases actually are. It’ll make you want to stick a screwdriver in your face, but don’t. One, you can’t afford the screwdriver with the tax increases that are coming and two, the government needs you around to pay taxes or the Chinese will foreclose on the Statue of Liberty.

By the way, have you ever noticed about how when TOTUS or Gibbs or Geithner are questioned about this unprecedented deficit spending, they always reply that, well, the Obama administration started with an already pretty big Bush deficit? Has anyone in the media EVER followed up on this irrational line of thinking? “Well, I was already $10,000 in debt, so I decided to make things better I’d go $100,000 in debt.” Bush’s bailouts were wrong, and I said it here back then, but in his first few months as President, Mr. Obama has achieved a literally incomprehensible deficit.

Thanks, 52.

Incidentally, besides attending a tea party protest next Wednesday, there’s NOTHING you can do about this. The Democrats can force through anything they want for the next 2 years, at least. What you _can_ do is take care of yourself. The tax increases will begin next year. This year, pay down debt, build up savings, buy tangibles. You do have some control over your own situation, and it behooves you to be as self-sufficient and independent as possible.

Wilderness Trail, Meramec State Park, April 5

I had a chance to get out to Sullivan, Missouri, last Sunday to hike the Wilderness Trail at Meramec State Park. This is an easy 10-miler (as opposed to, say, Hawn State Park, which has a more difficult 10-mile trail). It is a backpacking trail with eight established camps. I day-hiked it in about 4 hours, though. It extends through glades, pine forests, bluffs, and (at least this early in the spring) numerous clear spring-fed creeks. It also passes through Copper Hollow and Copper Hollow Cave and spring (where I photographed the lush mats of watercress).

While I was out, I saw only one other hiker, who was mushroom hunting. It was early in the spring, and the weather turned cold and windy later in the day, but it was pretty cool to see green and flowers returning to the forest after a long winter.

If you ever hike it–be sure to take “The Long Way” as the sign phrases it. Otherwise, you’ll miss Copper Hollow and a view of the Meramec River, and you’ll only skip one relatively easy hill.

The ex-armadillo was right where the shortcut spur re-connected with the main trail. Missouri has a great many dead armadillos, but I’ve never seen a live one.

I, For One, Welcome Our New Robot Caller Overlords

There’s an election coming up here in St. Louis next Tuesday.

Here’s the ballot. Notice anything missing?

Our choices for mayor are the incumbent, Democrat Francis Slay; a Green; a Libertarian; and an “Independent” (in actuality a bitter Democrat who had epic fail against Slay previously).

That’s right, boys and girls–the Republican party didn’t even bother to try to come up with a candidate.

If 100 people show up to the polls next Tuesday, Slay would get at least 80 votes. Still, you wouldn’t know it’s a foregone conclusion by the way the man campaigns. Every day, I have at least three mass mailings sent to me. I can count on campaign literature on my door at least every other day. There are campaign signs on thousands of lawns. It’s all very cruel to the environment, but at least every piece of glossy paper has the union label on it.

Then there’s the robo-calls. I get about four of those a day. Mayor Slay is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a campaign he can’t possibly lose. On the one hand, you have to admire the way Democrats campaign. On the other hand, it’s wasteful in a city that’s suffering the way this one is.

For what it’s worth, Slay has been the best mayor this city’s seen in decades, which is a sad commentary. However, I don’t vote for Democrats as a matter of principle. I’m paying their taxes and I’ll be paying off their 12 trillion dollar debt for decades, and that’s enough. Plus, one-party rule is wrong anywhere it occurs. St. Louis has had unbroken Democrat rule since 1949. The Democrats have had complete freedom to push through their agenda without any interference for six decades. This, incidentally, is why St. Louis is currently such a vibrant and prosperous low-crime city with fantastic race relations. The Republican party is ball-less and stupid for not even attempting to run a candidate, so one has to make do with the Libertarian.

Anyone who runs against the Democrat is going to lose. It doesn’t matter. You still fight. The reason the Democrats are ascendant in this country (or at least were until Mr. Obama began his incredible overreach) is that they fight every election, from dogcatcher on up. Okay, you won’t immediately get a Republican mayor. Start with a small aldermanic race or two. Build on small victories. I love this city, and the fact that conservatives have given it up to the predations of the Democrats without a fight dismays me.

This is how a third party will start (FWIW, I sympathize strongly with the Libertarians, but they’re too doctrinaire and inflexible to ever actually achieve their goals)–there WILL be people willing to take the debate to the Democrats, if the Republicans continue to abdicate. This change may coalesce around the tea party protest movement.

Somebody once said, we are the change we’ve been waiting for. It’s still your duty to vote next Tuesday, so be sure to get to the polls.

Friday Night Miscellaneous

I’m exhausted with politics. Absolutely sick of it…for tonight. I’m sitting here, with a bottle of gin, watching “Miracle,” a Disney film from a few years back about the 1980 Miracle on Ice in the Lake Placid Olympic Games. A buch of talented, hard-working college kids defeated the Soviet Union to win gold. I was just a kid then, and my family wasn’t into hockey, but we watched that, and I remember everyone screaming to wake the dead in those last few minutes. Again, I wasn’t sentient enough to be aware of how bad the 70s had been, but I knew that victory was more than just a hockey game.

I’ve found, in these long months of work-outs, that a little motivational speech helps a lot. I’m partial to the first 10 minutes of Full Metal Jacket, where R. Lee Ermey as Gunnery Sergeant Hartmann mercilessly breaks down the recruits. I don’t know why I find that motivating, but I do. However, I try to run a PG-13 site, so you’ll have to go to YouTube yourself to get it.

There’s three great motivational scenes in Miracle. Also, Kurt Russell is an astonishingly underrated actor.

First, Coach Brooks responds to a lackluster tie between his team and the Norwegian national team. This clip is 8 and a half minutes long, but watch the whole thing:

Then, in the Olympics, the team is down while playing Sweden, and Coach Brooks comes in to “motivate” an injured player (bad video quality, but good sound):

Finally, there’s the speech Coach Brooks gives just before the game with the Soviet Union:

From fiction to nonfiction, here’s actual footage of the Miracle itself.

It is your duty to go out and rent “Miracle” if you’ve never seen it.

Edited to add: Ever since I read “Atlas Shrugged,” I’ve been trying to think how I’d cast the film. So far all I’d come up with is that Robert Downey Jr. would be great as Francisco D’Anconia. I think I’ve got another one–Kurt Russell would be an awesome Hank Rearden.

Edited further to add: Okay, this may be crazy talk, but Nathan Fillion as John Galt? It could work…

Kelsey Grammer as “Midas” Mulligan?

Rush Limbaugh Shrugs

Rush Limbaugh has announced that due to New York State’s new crippling, regressive taxation policies, he will sell his properties there and no longer use New York as a backup studio location. Bravo!

Rush is just one man, a well-known man, but one individual nevertheless. But, just as he shrugged off being punished for his success, so too will more of the people New York needs to stay relevant. Other states will fall over themselves to make themselves attractive for such successful people to set up shop there. Just as California is dying under its poor governance, so too does New York face disaster over its policies. Still, that’s their choice. The state made theirs, and Rush made his.

As for me, I always like seeing Atlas shrug. May it occur many more times.

The Subtlety of Media Bias

I haven’t watched network news willingly since I lived in my parents’ home before college. I was a liberal then, but that half hour overview, 20 minutes without commercials and at least half of the rest fluff, just never appealed.

I watch a little Fox News now (shocka!), but mostly I read news aggregators for the stuff that interests me. I’m aware that all news is biased, but I choose what to read and think through my own conclusions.

Still, when one goes back to network news, it’s a little surprising how blatant, and yet oddly subtle the bias is.

When I was in J-school, they’d given up on the idea of objectivity and replaced it with dependency theory and the importance of changing the world, but it was still instructive to see the way the “sausage” was made. You could show bias immediately simply by your choice of stories. For example, you might find 4000 privileged hippies protesting against globalization at the G20 to be newsworthy, yet spike the story about the 4000 local folks who turned out for a tea party protest. It’s just that easy. And yes, liberal readers, that _does_ go both ways.

That’s a long set-up for this. I was in the gym today, watching Mad Money, and one of the other patrons turned on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric. I was powerless to turn away. A good third of it was about the G20 summit, which is fine. However, Ms. Couric mentioned twice the 216-point gain in the stock market and both times credited it to the trillion dollars the world ponied up to the 3rd world and the agreements reached today at the G20.

Interesting, that. The stock market had been going up for hours before any of that made the news. There was absolutely not a peep about how the Financial Accounting Standards Board had voted to relax the mark-to-market rules. This is a change that investors had sought for at least 8 months, and when it happened, it had a big psychological effect. Funny how Ms. Couric didn’t think to mention that, but instead _twice_ ascribed the sweeping transnational changes and redistribution of wealth as the reason for the market’s good showing today.

Still, the evening network news knows it’s dying. I paid more attention to the commercials than to the news, just to see what target demographic they were aiming at. Lots of ads for medicine for one’s bowels, bones, bladder, and boner. They know their audience is old and getting older, and they will never get those younger viewers back.

That doesn’t excuse indoctrination, though. Ms. Couric manufactured the news, she did not report it. In doing so, she did a disservice to hundreds of thousands of viewers. Somehow, I don’t suspect she misses much sleep over it.