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Now that the plane is fixed, I’m looking for a good time to fly to Millinocket and then around Katahdin. I’d like to get some more images of Katahdin, but now that I know a little more about the geology of the region I’d like to get some shots of Traveler Mountain as well.

So why stop at Millinocket? The GoPro batteries can not tolerate the cold flying from Brunswick to Katahdin. So I’ll land at Millinocket, put the warm batteries in, then fly around the mountain. The GoPro 8 battery will probably fail after 10 minutes but the GP 9 enhanced battery may continue to roll. I’d sure like to find a real camera that is both affordable and can tolerate cold weather.

Stopping at Millinocket will also let me visit the Baxter State Park HQ. It is only a few blocks from the airport.

But the biggest problem is finding a weather window in January that is good for both southern and northern Maine. I need clear skies to the surface and fairly calm winds. Good luck with that.

1-2 shots bourbon – I use Split Rock

1-2 tablespoons maple syrup – Find maple syrup aged in bourbon casks (Split Rock has in stock)

Or, you can use Runamok Maple Cocktail Syrup (Maple Old Fashion) to give the drink a smoky flavor.

4-6 oz hot water

2-4 spritz orange bitters or smoked citrus bitters (Split Rock)

Lemon slice garnish

one or two cloves

Stir well

1/2 small lemon or 1/3 large lemon squeezed

Adjust bourbon to pain, maple syrup to sweetness and the rest to taste. Enjoy!

Going back in time, precovid, presurgery, pre, pre, pre.

A friend of a friend said ”If you haven’t visited Versailles, you haven’t been to France”. I don’t really agree with that. To me, the Chateau is just too over the top, too much of everything including too many visitors. But, after seeing all the gilt, finery, portraits, furniture, etc. you can start to understand how the French Revolution came to be and why so much of the royalty and nobles were destroyed. Too much hunger, disease and poverty will destroy, a lesson we never seem to learn. We are once again watching highly autocratic and centralized governments seize more and more power in Russia, China, the Mideast, south and central America and indeed in the US. Gilded toilets anyone?

So, maybe to understand France you do need to visit Versailles.

I visited Versailles once before, when I was 12 or 13. I don’t remember too much about the visit, but I do remember my Dad grumbling about the long trip to the Chateau from Paris. This time we took the metro and RER train, it as still a long, uncomfortable trip. ?

We decided to wander around the Marais in Paris on our first day. Not enough energy to do much else.

The GoPro’s are fair to good, but if you want to zoom in on a subject while editing, the lack of resolution is a real problem. In this video, I first reframed the shot of the grass field and then tried to zoom in on the seaplane. Less than optimal results. Take a look.

I’m getting in shape to climb the hills and dales by foot rather than by air.

The lady slippers are out, almost everywhere you look.

I’ve been working to improve my editing chops with a Ripple Training course on Final Cut Pro. The on-line course is excellent, my old brain, not so much. But it’s fun and sometimes you can teach and old dog new tricks.

I’m only about halfway through the course, so there is much more to come.

I’m working to get a better handle on the scenes I see from the air. As I research the rivers and their contribution to human habitation, I’ve also relearned how recently the glaciers have disappeared and the first humans arrived. We are speaking of only 15,000 to 13,000 years ago. What did the landscape look like then?

Perhaps it had a similar appearance to the upper elevations of today’s Katahdin. Once the glaciers melted away, treeless tundra and plains were left behind. Maybe it looked something like this.

It seems the first humans arrived on foot, hunting game which included the Wooly Mammoth and Mastodons. Sea levels rose and fell and the forest crept in. As of approximately 9000 years ago, the tundra and plains had given way to tree and forests, impeding the easy movement by foot. Access and life along the rivers became essential.