Best of the fall photos '18

The fall was beautiful in Sewanee as usual.  One particular morning of Nov. 3 I took this photo and uploaded the time lapse video of the sunrise.  It was an amazing view of the 'alpenglow' of the morning sun on the ridge.  It was this morning that I made my last boat trip of the season on the TN River.  Second photo - click on it to see the whole view.

The following weekend, I had a great fall party, but it was much cooler.  About 30 friends showed up from Sewanee and Murfreesboro.  The deck wood stove cranked out enough heat in the 35º weather that many friends were hanging outside on the deck.  It was a fun time.

Les Alps

After winning 6 of 8 races and finishing third in two World Championship Finals at the Lyon 2015 World Masters Athletic Championships, my dad and I did a little touring.

 I wanted to see the Alps so I arbitrarily picked a town off the map... Tignes, France. What seemed like about a 3 hr drive from Lyon. It was centrally located in the heart of the French Alps near the ski town, Val d'Isère - home of legendary alpine skier, Jean-Claude Killy.

 The trip took way longer than we expected, driving almost 5 hrs, never completely sure where we were on the map, we stopped for dinner at a restaurant with a mountain view just as it got dark. After eating a spartan diet for weeks if not months, my dinner of fried fish was incredible. Finger-sized pieces of boneless perch. My dad got a huge meaty cheesy pizza... didn't look so good to me.

We finally got to Tignes around midnight or so in a thick fog. Driving through tunnels and mountains, we were deprived of the scenery in the dark. The Montana Hotel apparently has many hostels and apartments for skiers that were closed for the season and when arriving, the GPS was not real accurate and we were trying doors that were not open. Was worried we would not find a bed for the night. Finally, we found the hotel proper and checked in. I booked an extra large room, actually a room with two sections, one large bed for the adults and a set of bunks for kids. Of course my dad took the big bed and was very happy with the accommodations ... and that we even made it at all. I was very happy with the hotel and our room.

 The next day, the view of the nearby ski hill from our large sliding door was awesome ... but that was just a tiny foothill among the giant Alps. We checked out the hotel breakfast, which unlike other places, was complimentary... it was awesome. Great bread, super bean to cup coffee, pastries, potatoes, eggs, everything. Dad approved.

 We set out to explore and stopped at cafes and made it all the way into Italy over a mountain pass. I managed to find some apple pastries, and enjoyed a caprese salad with french fires and a beer. It was pretty idyllic. Interesting to see the farmers and their sheep, the ancient looking stone barns with stone roofs. The only problem was that dad is acrophobic and found the mountain roads unsettling. On the way back he just put his seat back so he wouldn't get scared.

 This place was awesome. I decided I needed to cancel my next night reservation in Paris despite the fact that I'd be charged, to stay another day and night in Tignes. It was that awesome.  The next day, more exploring and a ride up the ski gondola which was free.

Driving back to Lyon to return the car, the GPS led us onto a beautiful small road in the mountains. Turned out it was closed for paving. Wasted a lot of time, but it was a nice drive. Somewhere I got a speeding ticket, by automated devise, a camera. They sent me the ticket at home in the US... couldn't read it, it was in French. Oh well.

 I definitely want to return to Tignes. It's a hiker and mountain bikers paradise.

The winter storms of '15

Anyone who knows me knows I love weather, winter storms are no exception.  I never remember MTSU being closed 4 days in one week.  I had an unexpected week vacation in Sewanee, and the weather was beautiful ... in it's own way.

Ice storm #1 was really hard on my Murfreesboro neighborhood.   Trees and branches down everywhere but my property did ok.  Arriving in Sewanee on Friday night brought a blast of beautiful big snow flakes just around dusk in storm #2.  I'm happy that I brought my truck because driving conditions required a 4x4, especially off the main road.  After putting a new starter and battery in my truck, I'm really happy to have it.

These first three photos were taken during the magic hour of dusk during the advent of the 2/20 snow/ice storm #2  It eventually turned to sleet and rain.  The flash produced an interesting effect, reflecting off of the big flakes.  One photo was taken at my Murfreesboro house after ice storm #1.

UPDATE:  The big Sewanee snow of 2/25-26 I wasn't about to miss out on so I rescheduled some students to Friday and enjoyed some 4x4 touring in the 5" of snow we got.  Murfreesboro only got an inch.  The town of Sewanee got 3-4", less on the north side of the mountain, more on the SW facing slopes like at my place.   I got up early on Thursday and hiked around by the Sewanee Cross and plowed through virgin snow all the way to the end of Brakefield road.   So glad to have a 4x4 that takes me into these wonderful wintry scenes.  

My road was still snow covered on Sat. 2/28 while the roads around the Domain of the University were mostly dry.

Another winter storm looks likely for Wednesday night!!!!  It's your birthday present, John P.

View at dusk from Sky Castle

Sky Castle during the storm

the bluff

icy beauty

happy to have lots of well seasoned firewood left

ice storm #1 in Murfreesboro

virgin snow - Brakefield Rd.

Greens View Rd

Virginia Ave 

Soaring

On the wings of ...

woodpeckers

Lucky shot from the Sky Castle web cam on Sunday morning, 12/14. A still from the cloud video.

Fall '14 color and toward winter

It's been a whirlwind of fall guitar concerts, travel, and now winter vacation.  Finally, I am on vacation and will update here with some photos....

It was a beautiful fall ... an unexpected early cold snap on Halloween with snow on the mountain, a great fall party, and goodbye to the leaves as we come upon the winter solstice within a fortnight from now.

Here's a chronological set of photos of the fall color season -  earth, sky, and home ....

Oct. 26, Moonset

Oct. 26 - leaves beginning to fall

Oct. 26 sunset

Oct. 28 - near peak color

October freeze - the plants come in

Snow on Nov. 1 morning

Nov. 11 - the last of the leaves

Sept. 5 evening - Lost Cove

New cam

I really wish I had this new Dropcam - a high resolution streaming IP camera with web based recording - back during those epic August storms.

My Sewanee Dropcam has a few challenges as it is operating at the edge of my internet capabilities ... with only slow DSL available here and quite a distance to the router.   Nevertheless, it's seems to be working at about 98%, with only occasional screen freezes.

The Dropcam is in addition to the low resolution IP cam integrated with the weather station.  The feed is irregularly updated as it is controlled by the Weather Underground network of webcams, which really has some serious inconsistency issues.  You can view this at any time by clicking the link/photo on the sidebar of this blog.   The Dropcam has a much wider angle view than the Ambientcam weather camera.

I've decided to not make the Dropcam stream public because it has excellent audio and I would rather not have a possible public eavesdropper in my midst... but perhaps when I'm away for more than a week, I'll stream it publicly.    The great thing about Dropcam is the ability to generate timelapse recording... which I posted my first one to Youtube (below).   It was a rainy last day in August and the clouds/fog below in the cove was really beautiful.    Unfortuately, all Dropcam recordings display the Dropcam logo in the lower right of the image.

This is the beginning of sunset season where the orb of the setting sun will rotate south on the horizon and be in my full view.

Still not tired of the view.   This was the view from my deck on the last sunset of August. (Canon Powershot A2400SI)

Another tornado?

It sure looks like one...

I kick myself for not being home for this storm.   With my high resolution camera out of order, I captured this image on my low resolution weather cam just after sunset as it was transitioning to night vision, so that's why the colors are a bit weird.

Yes, definitely some ground level rotation moving through Lost Cove.   Beautiful.
Note the radar minutes before the time of the photo ... certainly looks like tornado vortex signature poised at the top of Lost Cove moving south, although very short lived.  Goes to show that small tornados can whip up in a matter of seconds at anytime during a storm and they can completely escape detection from the National Weather Service, since they are so short lived.  This one lasted a few minutes at most.

Radar at 7:46 PM - Franklin / Marion Co. TN

Mid-week storm

I was surprised that the chances of rain weren't higher this week.   Tremendous humidity levels with dewpoints over 80º in some parts of middle TN with temps in the mid 90ºs.   I knew there had to be some instability in the atmosphere.   Sure enough, a severe thunderstorm watch was issued and the fireworks began.   It wasn't as nearly as oppressive on the mountain, with temps 'only' in the mid 80ºs with a nice breeze.

Here are photos of the rotating storm cell, a very brief tornado that came out of the wall cloud, the beautiful aftermath of the storm, and the foggy placid following morning.

No, the view isn't getting old.

Approaching super cell thunderstorm

Wall cloud with brief tornado

Aftermath of the storm at sunset

The next morning - dawn on 8-21