The ***OFFICIAL*** Weekend Singles' Thread -- (June 23rd to 25th)

FreeRepublic | June 23, 2006 | Victoria Delsoul & Alberta's Child

[Alberta's Child]

As June draws to a close and we enjoy the first weekend of the Summer of 2006, let's go back and remember some of the marvelous places we've been in summers past -- especially those times from yesteryear that still evoke fond memories of sights, sounds, and smells from places all across this great land of ours.

Hope you can all find time to post some wonderful stories, photos, and music here on this weekend's thread! Victoria Delsoul and I will be serving as your hosts this weekend. Check out the descriptions and photos below from a few of my favorite corners of the world -- some beautiful places from the great American outdoors.

And thank God for summertime!

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Adirondack Mountains (upstate New York)

The Adirondack Mountains are part of the Appalachian Mountain chain in the eastern United States, covering a large region in upstate New York bordered by Lake Ontario on the west, Lake Champlain and the Hudson River valley on the east, and the Mohawk River valley to the south. Much of this region is currently incorporated in Adirondack Park, an area covering more than six million acres -- the largest state park in the U.S. outside Alaska, and larger than Yellowstone, Everglades, Glacier, and Grand Canyon National Parks combined. The park is unique in the U.S. in that it was originally created in 1892 through an act of the New York legislature, but was forever etched into the character of the state at the 1894 Constitutional Convention when the protection of the park was written into the new state constitution.

The park is dominated by dense forests, numerous lakes, and rugged mountain terrain -- particularly in its northernmost reaches in Essex County in an area known as the High Peaks region. The High Peaks are home to the tallest mountains in the Adirondacks, including Mount Marcy -- whose peak is the highest elevation in the state of New York at 5,344 feet. Three thousand lakes dot the landscape of the Adirondacks, and 36,000 miles of rivers and streams drain the region encompassed by the park boundaries.

One of the most popular destinations in the Adirondacks is the mountain resort village of Lake Placid, which hosted the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics and is currently the site of several U.S. Olympic training facilities. The village still retains much of its Olympic aura from 1980. The arena where the U.S. hockey team won the gold medal in its magical, improbable ten-day run still stands in the center of town, along with the outdoor speedskating oval where Eric Heiden won an unprecedented (and never equaled) five gold medals in a single Winter Olympics. The surrounding mountain terrain is home not only to Mount Marcy, but also the Olympic venues at Whiteface Mountain (alpine skiing) and Mount Van Hoevenberg (Nordic skiing). The pleasant summer climate makes for an ideal summer vacation, and the region’s elevation and location downwind of the Great Lakes provides heavy snowfall that has made it one of the top ski resorts in the eastern U.S.

Whiteface Mountain

Winter in the Adirondacks

Lake Placid Village

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Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (northern Minnesota)

Located within Lake Superior National Forest in northern Minnesota, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) is a heavily forested region along the Canadian border. The wilderness covers more than one million acres and has 1,200 miles of canoe routes among its hundreds of lakes, rivers and streams. As with most of the designated wilderness areas managed by the U.S. Forest Service, the area can only be entered with a Forest Service permit and is governed by very stringent regulations that prohibit all motorized vehicle access and limit the impact of visitors on the pristine wilderness through restrictions on the type of camping equipment that can be brought into the area (no plastic or glass containers, for example).

The BWCA is one part of a larger region of protected public lands along the Minnesota-Ontario border, including Voyageurs National Park to the west and Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario to the north. This region, which stretches from International Falls in the west to the shore of Lake Superior in the east, covers almost half the length of Minnesota’s northern border and is often referred to in general as the Quetico-Superior region, or simply the Boundary Waters. The area is separated into two parts by the Laurentian Divide, which marks the border between the watersheds of the Atlantic (via the Great Lakes) and Arctic (via Hudson Bay) Oceans and is one of the defining geological features of North America. The famous Iron Range -- which is actually three distinct ridges that run across northern Minnesota in an east-west direction -- is often defined as the southern border of the Boundary Waters region. Summers in this area are usually pleasant, but the winters are often brutally cold. Towns like International Falls, Crane Lake, Tower, Ely, Embarrass, Babbitt and Isabella -- which lie along the southern edge of the Boundary Waters -- are usually among the coldest places in the lower 48 states in the winter months.

A typical foray into the Boundary Waters can be arranged through one of the many outfitters in these small towns along its perimeter, where a visitor can buy or rent just about anything one would need on a trip lasting anywhere from two days to two months. Canoes are the most popular means of travel, though backcountry hiking is also common. The summer months are busiest for these outfitters, but many of them operate throughout the year by outfitting snowshoe treks and even dogsled expeditions in the vast frozen wilderness during the winter. Visitors to this great wilderness can be sure to find plenty of the peaceful stillness that is typical of the North Country. Summer days are usually mild and nights can be cool. The lakes tend to be somewhat rougher in the daytime, but a long day of paddling is almost always rewarded in the evening by some of the most beautiful natural features in North America: calm, mirror-like lakes, the occasional howl of a wolf, and one of the most magnificent sounds of the natural world . . . the eerie, haunting cries and yodels of the common loon in the gathering dusk.

End of the Day

Twilight on the Lake

The Cry of the Loon

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Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness (Idaho/Montana)

The Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness is one of several large protected areas that straddle the Bitterroot Range of the Rocky Mountains along the Idaho-Montana border. At a size of about 1.3 million acres, the Selway-Bitterroot is one of the largest designated wilderness areas in the U.S. It includes parts of the Bitterroot, Clearwater, Nez Perce and Lolo National Forests, and is bordered to the south by the Frank Church/River of No Return Wilderness Area. The total size of the protected regions in this area of the Rocky Mountains exceeds five million acres.

The Bitterroot Range is part of a curious anomaly in American geography and history. The border between Idaho and Montana was originally defined as the length of the Continental Divide (which separates the Atlantic and Pacific watersheds in North America) through this area. However, early surveyors tasked with laying out this border mistakenly believed that the Divide was marked by the ridges and peaks of the Bitterroots. The Divide actually follows the Flathead and Anaconda Ranges further to the east. So the large section of western Montana that lies east of the Bitterroot Range and includes the small cities of Kalispell and Missoula should have been part of Idaho!

Perhaps this mistake by these surveyors is understandable, for the Bitterroots are often described as one of the more inhospitable mountain ranges in the U.S. outside of Alaska. Lewis and Clark made note of the difficulties they had crossing these mountains, and today they are marked by barren rock walls that drop from the jagged peaks to the pine forests in the valleys below. The headwaters of the Clearwater River are located in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, where it flows from the confluence of the Selway and Lochsa Rivers westward to the Snake River near Lewiston, Idaho. The Wilderness is home to large herds of elk and plenty of bighorn sheep, and is one of the areas where packs of the grey wolf are being reintroduced to the wilds of the West.

Sunrise in the Bitterroots

Trapper Peak

The Selway River

[pcottraux]

The transmission on a van is usually about as reliable as a pile of dog doo.

[pcottraux]

Hello!

[darkangel82]

LOL, at least dog doo doesn't cost hundreds of $ to clean up.

[rzeznikj at stout]

Especially Chrysler minivans--and most often, right after they hit 100k...

[rzeznikj at stout]

This is true...

[Alberta's Child]

What happened this morning -- did you have a post-birthday hangover? LOL.

[pcottraux]

We had a Dodge Caravan once. I can honestly say from years of experience that there's something wrong with vans...they break and tear-up constantly, and it's almost always the transmission.

[pcottraux]

No, I just didn't wake up until about 11 or so (church had long since started). I actually felt great when I woke up...though a little guilty about missing it.

[Alberta's Child]

How did Jimy Buffett fans get to be called "Parrotheads?"

That's a very good question -- I have no idea. Any Buffett fans out there who can answer this?

[rzeznikj at stout]

Personally, I'd rather be driving a Porsche, BMW, or an Aston Martin...

This one was my dad's...

...OTOH, it's better than the cruddy, rusty, and ugly Ford Taurus/Mercury Sable I had 8^)

[darkangel82]

I drive an almost 9 year old Buick, doesn't give me much trouble (and it better not, with how much I spend on it.)

[pcottraux]

Give me a good ol' Chevy any day.

I love Buicks, too, though.

[rzeznikj at stout]

Never was big on GM...8^)

[darkangel82]

I get what I can afford, which right now isn't much.

[Nowhere Man]

I guess I am just an old softie.........I am good at repaying someones bad deeds toward me..with kindness and compassion.

And I COULD have made fun of her situation-- and I have EVERY RIGHT to do so!! I could had said something like"" well-- look who is having problems with money", or "the little princess has lost her kingdom", or even-"see, if you hadn't wasted all of that money, all of those years--you would have some today"!!

But I just don't do things that way.

I guess I am from the "kill them with kindness" school.and feel that it is NOT the right thing to "kick her when she is down".........All that would probably do is cause her to have a nervous breakdown, and I do NOT want to see that!!

I know what you mean, I'm much the same way. I just cannot kick someone when he or she is down unless that person was truly evil like say a Saddam Hussein or an Adolph Hitler type. It's not my way either. I remember when I was a kid, Mom, who had been divorced for a few years so money was tough to come by had to lend her sister, my aunt, some money. My uncle and aunt, who usually did quite well, well at the time, my uncle lost his job so they came to us for money. Usually we are seen as the "poorer relations" in the family. Well we lent them oney them and they paid us back.

Another story, Mom and I lent money to my cousin in 1989, he recently gotten married, I was 23 at the time, he was 20, his wife, 17 or 18 and they had a baby. Well, soon after, days in fact, we found out he was playing around and was getting divorced, in fact, we had to take him to Georgetown where the courthouse in Williamson county (where Round Rock, Texas is) to meet up with his attorney. He was skipping out on child support and his attorney was giving him "the business" by reading him the riot act and rightly so. Well later on, he moved up here, basically abandoning his daughter (she's old as my cat, Corky, that how I remember, she's 17 now). He moved up here, got involved with another girl, had a son and then he abandoned her although I hear he sees his son from time to time. He's now 300 lbs or more, on welfare and/or SSI and living with a lady on welfare who can't have kids, Thank God. He really screwed up his life as his brother did as well, deep down I feel sorry for them an even more so for the kids, but in their case, they made a lot of bad decisions.

I know in my case, I made wrong decisions from time to time but at least I'm employed at a decent job making money. It's still tough, I'm trying to dig myself out plus with my car needing a lot of repairs, Greystone getting sick and dying, Boo getting sick but now well, I'm got a ways to dig out of the hole here but at least I'm with a good company hopefully with room to go somewhere.

Out of the males in my family my cousin from my aunt, the one we lent money to, well, he's the most successful moneywise, he's worth millions, I would be in second place though, a very distant second but I can't complain, I'm not homeless or starving so that is a great plus. B-) My other two cousins are basically losers.

She has been treating me better, lately anyway.. well before I promised to lend her the money....

Well, hopefully she will keep on treating you better, still I'd monitor the situation but yeah, I know what it is like to be in your shoes with family, although the situations are different, in many ways, they are similar too.

[rzeznikj at stout]

The only reason why I have a 1999 minivan is because I'm paying a loan to my folks for it...8^)

[darkangel82]

I got mine in 1999 too, I was 17 then. The car was only 2 years old when I got it.

[Nowhere Man]

We had a Dodge Caravan once. I can honestly say from years of experience that there's something wrong with vans...they break and tear-up constantly, and it's almost always the transmission.

Hmmm, my friend's mother had a Dodge Intrepid with the 3.3 litre engine and her transmisison was forever giving her trouble until it conked out entirely. At first until it warmed up, it would stay in first gear and sometimes reverse didn't work.

[rzeznikj at stout]

Er, not exactly.

Mine's a 1999 model year...8^)

[JamesP81]

I'm more of a Nissan and Toyota fan myself. I hate all minivans. Like you, I've never seen one that either wasn't scrapped out or well on its way.