Archive for June, 2009
Mountain Glade
Posted on June 20, 2009 by Barak in North America | No Comments
5:30 am start up a 2,800 ascent and what would become a 14-mile race against the clock. Pausing at this glade on the trail my brother and I failed to realize we were heading down the wrong side of the mountain… which meant we would be coming back through here about 45 minutes later. Brilliant eh? Our 14-mile run ended in a 3hr, class 5 white water rafting trip followed by 18 holes of put-put golf followed by a 5hr drive home arriving at 4am in the morning. Yeah, we were intent on packing it all in on the last day.
Hypnotic
Posted on June 18, 2009 by Barak in North America | No Comments
A storm on our Smokies vacation swept through and knocked out electricity for 6 hours. It’s always fascinated me how a loss of electricity takes the busy, largely antisocial atmosphere of modern American homes and magically transforms it into an intimate gathering of family who take pleasure of a cup of coffee around candles, and engage in relational conversation. Sometime I wish the power would go out more often. Araella, normally scared of the dark, became distracted with a spinning-light-up-toy and I captured this shot.
Mt. Kenya: Rugged Paradise
Posted on June 10, 2009 by Barak in Africa | No Comments
Technically I didn’t take this photo so it really shouldn’t be listed up here. But its me in the picture, it’s a great photo, and those two things rarely come together. So I’m posting it anyway with credit to Paul Wagner for shooting it, and credit to me for the artistic touches (tinting, textures, etc). One of my best trips in a long time – three days, two nights on the side of Mt, Kenya fly fishing. Caught three nice size trout and ate them along with a huge slab of Gouda and whiskey which sustained us through two freezing wet nights on the mountain. The hammock is my own design – a bolt of heavy Thai silk with loops on the end that convert it from a sleeping bag liner to a hammock. Warm nights and lazy-day lounging.
Chameleon-On-Gouda
Posted on June 09, 2009 by Barak in Africa | No Comments
Sounds like some kind of post-modern art… This was the hunk of Gouda we lugged up Mt. Kenya and this is the chameleon that graced our table the first morning. Chameleons are fascinating and hold a certain nostalgia from my childhood days in West Africa. When going to Daystar University in Kenya, I use to keep one in my mosquito net and feed it moths at night. There are actually about 160 species of chameleon. All of them have eyes that rotate independently, prehensile tails, and tongues that extend out 1 1/2 times their body length. They change colors through specialized skin cells called chromatophores, and more than just camouflage, color reflects emotion and temperature. There is an old tribal story in Sierra Leone of how a race was held by all the jungle animals to determine who would rule them. The chameleon being wise, jumped on the cheetah’s tail. When the cheetah reached the throne and turned to sit down, the chameleon jumped off and thus became the King of the Jungle.
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