Fisheye lens!

Allison bought me a new camera accessory for my birthday. Can you guess what it is?

(My very own overly attached girlfriend.)

 

I don't actually know much about how cameras work, much less fancy things like lenses... A bunch of random plastic circles accompanied this fisheye lens. They are sitting on the kitchen table. I'll figure that out later.

This will be great for my trip to Tennessee!

birthday blues, bubble-wrapped basketballs, and the bloodmobile

My birthday isn't a big deal to me. Except that it is and I try to pretend that it isn't. That's what adults are supposed to do, right?

This year my birthday fell on a weekend, which is even worse. Weekend birthdays are horrible because they present so many possibilities yet nothing fun ever actually happens. So this year I tried to make plans by telling Allison months before that I wanted to go somewhere. But, as always, she forgot to take time off and ended up working this weekend.

Sigh.

Well, in any case, I planned to make today a laid-back, relaxing day. Unfortunately, life had other plans.

Allison asked me to pick up some basketballs for PEEC at Walmart. This should have been a ten minute task, yet through a series of escalating circumstances I was in that horrible store for over an hour. I will never recommend Walmart's site-to-store service, especially if you have a tax exempt form. As I type this post, my car is filled with twelve larger-than-necessary cardboard boxes, each of which contains one basketball surrounded by bubble wrap.

As a result of the basketball nonsense, I wasn't able to buy any groceries because there was no room in my car and I was already late for the only appointment I made today, to give blood.

Luckily, the staff in the Bloodmobile were understanding and there was still time for me to donate. Bloodmobiles appeal to me because the name reminds me of the Batmobile. Donating blood is probably the closest I will ever get to Batman.

I was the last donor of the day. The nurse who took care of me was a sassy old lady with a New Jersey accent and a cynical laugh. I learned that her son-in-law is a jerk  ("Even his five-year-old daughter hates him!"), her whole family is going to Yellowstone this summer, and she wishes the Bloodmobile had those Mr. Clean Magic Erasers to get rid of the scuff marks from people's shoes.

Oh, and apparently losing a pint of blood in five minutes is an impressive feat. The entire donation process took less than 20 minutes, and the nurse told me I was "an ideal donor." I guess I'm really talented at giving blood.

Donating blood is a weird compulsion for me - if I am presented with the opportunity to give blood, I always sign up. It just feels like there is a lot of karma involved, especially because my blood type is O positive. Giving blood is my personal way of thanking the universe for my own good health thus far in life. This weekend it feels especially full-circle; I am celebrating another year of my life by helping someone else extend theirs.

Tomorrow is my actual birthday. I don't have any plans at this point, but as long as someone else takes those basketballs out of my car, I'll be happy.

Active Shooter Training, Pioneer Trail and Hamilton Trail

Today was a pretty eventful day!

This morning, a group of us from PEEC volunteered to participate as victims and bystanders in an active shooter training with the park service. The drill took place on an unused and dilapidated summer camp (which I will not name, just in case any hoodlums decide to read this blog). The camp itself was pretty interesting because even though it was run down and abandoned, I could still feel that "camp" feeling all around.

The trainers set up three scenarios in three different buildings, and we repeated each scenario between eight to sixteen times so each officer would have a chance to respond to the situation. I should also mention for any worrywarts that the training had numerous security and safety precautions built into the program, they used air bullets, we had protective eye-wear, blah blah blah.

• The first scenario took place in the dining hall. My role, along with many others, was to run away from the "shooter" as soon as a park ranger arrived. Once got outside the building, we were able to listen to the fake standoff, as well as the moans and groans of a shooting victim who was played by one of the instructors from PEEC. 
• The second scenario took place in a bunkhouse, which had a pretty simple layout but numerous bedrooms and open doorways. Again, I was a bystander who scuttled out of the room once the officers arrived. I felt some bullet casings flying at me as I went by, but that was the extent of my excitement for this one. Although a different PEEC instructor ended up as a civilian casualty a few times. 
• The third scenario had a few different elements to it. The building, a lodge, was a bit more complex and had a few more random corners and rooms to put shooters and victims into. I was a corpse splayed out on the floor in one of the hallways. Allison got to be a wailing widow, but she wasn't crying over me - the trainer had her paired up with a male victim.

All in all, I had a great time volunteering this morning and hopefully will get to help out again next year. It was interesting to see how each ranger handles a situation - the adrenaline rush really affects everyone differently.

In the afternoon, Allison and I went out hiking on the New Jersey side of the park. Allison wanted to check out a couple of old structures before they got torn down, but we were too late, and only by a few hours! We passed a construction crew on the trail and saw the newly-demolished flat place where a house used to be. Anyway, we took Pioneer Trail, which hooked up with Hamilton Ridge Trail to make a loop back to the car.

The "beautiful" power lines. Roseland plans to make them twice as big, which means twice as much of an eye sore - ugh!

This is an ironwood tree! Allison and I were both geekily excited to see a group of these trees - neither of us have seen them in the Poconos. They look like sinewy muscles and are extremely dense. I love these trees!

This was a big-ass pine tree along the hike. Most trees in this area are relatively small - but not this one! See how tiny Allison looks in the bottom right corner of the picture. 

Near that big-ass pine tree, we saw the foundation of a large house or barn. It was buried under a great deal of grass or something, so I had trouble getting a decent picture.

 Things I loved about the Pioneer Trail:

1. You can't walk anywhere on this trail without seeing a rock wall of some sort. 
2. It meets up with the Delaware River, and could be a nice, secluded picnic spot. 
3. Ironwood trees!
4. The big-ass pine tree pictured above.

Things I didn't love about the Pioneer Trail:

1. Seven bazillion gnats swarming constantly. Although I suppose that isn't the trail's fault.

 The extent of our journey on the Hamilton Ridge Trail involved walking along an old paved road that nature is in the process of reclaiming.

Things I loved about the Hamilton Ridge Trail:

1. Walking on an abandoned road and not seeing or hearing a single person or animal is kind of cool and creepy, like being in a post-apocalyptic world. 
2. Got us to our car. 

Things I did not love about the Hamilton Ridge Trail:

1. Booooooring. 
2. Not blazed well. The only blue paint I saw on this trail was on the signpost pictured above.

After we got home, Allison did the math and apparently we hiked about four miles. No wonder I was so thirsty!

Weekend Adventures, Part Two: Crater Lake, NJ

After the cemetary, we headed down to find Blue Mountain Lake. Allison was going there on Monday for a training, and I had heard good things about it from a friend. Yet for some reason, when we found the parking area we decided to keep driving. Eventually we ended up at the end of a dirt road and at a parking lot for Crater Lake.

To get to Crater Lake, we traveled along a gravel road along a cliff, with a few scenic overlooks. 

Crater Lake

The trail overlapped a few times with the Appalachian Trail. It was not well-marked.

The water was turquoise. Absolutely beautiful!

We saw several indications that homes or cabins had existed around the lake.

 Initially we thought the buildings had been from an old summer camp, but after doing some research I found out that these structures had been summer homes around the lake. 

Weekend Adventures, Part One: Peters Valley Cemetery

Yesterday we went exploring in New Jersey for two reasons: to find a gravestone that pokes fun at the park service and to visit blue mountain.

The cemetery is right near Peters Valley, although I couldn't tell you if it has a specific name. There were some beautiful and unusual gravestones there.

Tree-shaped gravestone.

Several stones had fallen down and were slowly disintegrating.

Metal gravestone, possibly cast-iron. This one has held up much better over the years than the stone ones.

Found it! "I'd like to see the park service chase me out of here."