🏷️ hiking

We went to Zoar Valley yesterday fpor the afternoon. It was nice but the water was way too low to raft, we forgot our water shoes and my allergies were insane because I had ran out of claritin. Other than that it was awesome.

Here is @terry at the confluence


People have build this giant rock tower on the far side of the island. This is the biggest one of these structure I have ever seen.



On the way home we got pulled over which was strange because we were not speeding. I wrote the following quote while it was happening in case we got dragged off to jail

We are being pulled over by the police near the jail in gowanda on the way home from Zoar Valley.

We couldn't figure out why they were tailing us. The police pulled up alongside us on the wrong side of the road and drove parallel to us for a bit before pulling us over.

Turns out we matched the described of someone they are hunting for.

We are free now!

After that we went to red lobster in the McKinley Mall. It was the first time I got to use the GPS on the iphone which is pretty greta. We were sucessfully able to travel 28 miles and go through 2 detours. Once i even saved us when were turned totally the wrong way.

That suburb byt he mall is bumping with businesses. It kind of makes amherst look old and lame. If I was to move to a suburb it would be on that side of downtown.


After a busy weekend of eating an exercise, I now weigh 155 without clothes for the first tim ever.

Hiking On thursday Night
I have been complaining to @terry about him playing warcraft so much - so today after work he surprised us by whisking us off on a short hiking excursion to 18 Mile Creek in Hamburg. It was nice to get outside and run around. I brought only the iphone. Neither @matthew nor I had a real camera with because it was so spur of the moment.



The iphone takes the shittiest close ups and sadly there was the cutest froggy I ever saw. It was like the size of a small raisin.


In general the rest of the pics are nice. It does fine in perfect light from about six feet away or more.

So that does not include these cute little blueberries. @hodown - do you remember eating these?


Okay so for the not close up pics.

What are thes epurple bug study things about. I keep seeing them everywhere. What bugs are they catching and who is doing the study?


At the top of the waterfall


Walking along the creek was so beautiful. Its amazing that this place is only a 20 minute drive from home.




What kind of animal is this


I call this tortoise rock.


here is @matthew catching some frogs.



Evidence of the iphones

There were these awesome patterns in the shale at the edge of the creek. I thinki t looked much cooler in real life.



@terry and @matthew having fun near the water



Afterwards, we came home and I went to the gym for a good workout and the eye candy. Then after that I cooked some rack on lamb on the grill using my new smoke box filled with pear wood chips from one of the dead pear trees we cut down. It gave it a really nice flavor.

I looked up what @jim was talking about and here is the beatle itself. Its kind of pretty. I am sure they are bad.

Yesterday, in lieu of setting up the refrigerator we decided to chop down some dead trees in the backyard and go hiking at the Gorge. Today, after some seriously axing yesterday morning - my hands are killing me.



Here is @matthew climbing in the tree and breaking off branches before we cut it down.


Basra is a bit obsessed with getting his face in the sprinkler from the sprinkler system. It is so cute, I should have taken a video.



On the way to the Gorge, @james got all crumbtastic with some yum yums from the coop.



Like they throb a ton and I can't even hold the toothbrush right when brushing my teeth. Thanks to my stupid crohn's I never take pain meds which should make our canoe trip today fun. At least I will be outside.





Once we got down there, @matthew threw a rock at my head. Luckily, I survived.


Just kidding, it is a rust puddle. @terry love to perch on rocks


and he also loves caves. So finding this river cave was like a dream cme true for him.






@james and @terry




What I want to know is, who the fuck is Kyle?


These pictures of Sea Weed remind me of the "painting with light" pictures I used to do @paul,/32329 with the nokkia 7710 with the slow shutter speed.

There are all these awesome little pools filled with water.


@terry love being on the most dangerous edges.


After the hiking trip we went to One Eyed Jack's in Lockport. Their smoked wings are awesome. On the way there we stopped at Smoking Joe's to get gas. It is not much cheaper than the $4.01 in America.

We went hiking at Niagara Gorge on Sunday. It was s o nice to get outside in a teeshirt and run around. Here it is from the top, we hiked down to the bottom.


It was cool to touch the ice when you are all hot and sweaty from hiking in the sun. If only it felt like that in the winter.


Apparently, they are having some issue with New Zealand Mud Snails


We were with a guy who had a broken arm and walked with a cane. I don't know who thought it was a good idea to take him on a frozen cliff path hike. I guess he survived so it was good.



The water was so pretty.


Check out the waves


We finally got down to the shore


At one point we found the last pieces of ice and chucked them in the water to take out our winter aggression.

@terry caught this one right out of the water. Yes, this is how people get swept away and die.

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Then the ice boom broke or something because all of a sudden there were a million icebergs, some of which were a good 10 feet long.



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Once we sat own in the sun, off came Terri's top. She is the most unbashful woman I ever met, I think it is cool that she exercises her right to be topless. The visitor center viewing area about 200 feet above quickly field with dude's watching her from above. It wasn't remove enough for me to take anything off - next time we will have to go to Zoar Valley, lol.


This is Dave's cousin Pat.


On the way back up, the other topless terry was playing Karate Kid.


Here are Dave and Otsi.


And @matthew, @terry and I


I took this picture for @jacob. It is the new indian casino. I thought the design was pretty cool and he would like it.


On the way home I took some pics of the river overlooking Grand Island. It looked so beuatiful. Too bad it is so disgustingly polluted. I remember working at this factory on that road for a day (as a temp computer specialist) where their primary business was burning formaldehyde to make other chemicals. The woman I worked with was covered in growths and their was a yellow line on the floor that separated the clerical staff from the workers that had protective gear on. I quit after one day despite the secretary telling me that an air purifier would help make it safe.



Then there is the oil refineries at River Road. They smell so freaking bad. That whole area should be moved somewhere more remote and away from the water.

Went to Zoar on Sunday. It was fun to run around outside even though I might have burned the top of my head a bit after the haircut. The rest of me was sun screened pretty good, I just didn't think about the top of my head.

While I did spend most of my five days off doing house work on the properties, we did end up going hiking at Zoar Valley for memorial day.

@terry hiking down the gorge


Racing through trying not to drop the camera
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The car that didn't make it down the road.


The cliffs are beautiful as always.


As is the confluence you have to cross to get to the waterfall and the island where the nudists are.


This time we crossed half the creek over a fallen tree.
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The water fall is my favorite place.



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Some guy was sun bathing at the bottom of the cliff when a rock slide happened. He didn't move fast enough and got covered in the fallout dust.




Here, you can see that tiny vanilla color spot in the pic above was a naked dude.



In the end we met up with a lot of naked people. We previously had heard rumors that you couldn't go naked there anymore. Didn't stop Dave and I. @terry and @matthew remained clothed but there are no pics of any of that this year yet.

Here I am crossing the creek on the way home
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We went hiking at Zoar Valley followed by seeing Xmen and going to sleep. Sorry @robin that I didn't see any of your messages, I thought you would still be around today. Hope everything goes good on your trip down south.

Zoar Valley was nice as usual, there were a million people to the point where there were no more parking spots in the Point Peter lot. I was so summery out, actually warm enough to swim around in the creek. I didn't bring my phone so I didn't take any pics but matt brought his camera. Hopefully, he will post some pics. I stole this one off his camera.



Afterwards we went to go see Xmen, which was the worst piece of crap movie I ever saw. I mean generlaly I hate movies but then I went to see V for Vendetta and thought it was pretty great so I decided to give Xmen a chance. What a waste of $30 for the three of us. I prefered the stupid Silent Hill movie. At least it had a plot. I would never watch another xmen movie again. Special effects do not substitute for the plot of a movie.

So after the long traffic jam we made it to Devil's Hole. You might ask, "What is the story behind Devil's Hole?" I found some info here

It was hot and we brought only a tiny bit of water but it was still fun. For anyone that hasn't been there I would suggest checking it out. It is off the 104 between the rainbow bridge and the Niagara Power project. There are two sets of stairs.


One set next to the parking lot and one further down the trail to come back. You can go right down to the water, close enough to touch it.




Right next to it is Whirlpool Gorge Park which is also pretty but much less rugged. I post some good links when I get back. Here are some images from that park.

We went hiking at Zoar for the day with dave. I think I am dying because my allergies and so freakin horrible, that my eyes keep watering and itching. I am having this dilema. Either Loratadine stopped working for me or walilitin (walgreen brand claritin) is not really the same as claritin. If it turns of claritin and Walitin are not the same, then I will never buy another generic product again. Worse yet if claritin stopped working for me, I can't imagine continuing to be alive.

It's like wegmans brand cranberry juice. Most of wegmans' brand is pretty good, but have you ever comapred wegmans healthy brand cranberry juice to the name brand. It is much lighter and looks watered down.

It was still nice to be outside naked.



Ladycroft and Joshua. Do you guys know each other off the site? Who knows who? I am so confused about everyones relation to each other.

Here is what the trip home from hiking with dave sounded like, only remixed.