Hello????

Here are a few "lookin' at" items I've found over the years on the web. I have a huge collection of these things, I thought I might put a few on here.



This is one of those things that are supposedly just painted on the outside of a building. This looks almost too good to be true, but it may be the real thing, I don't know.




And another of those impossible figures. Look at the bottom and it faces one direction, look at the top and it's facing the other way. I like this one...



If I remember correctly, the site I found this on said it was a restaurant somewhere. I want a house like this!!

Not much going on up here, cold and dreary. In the bleak mid-winter.... Too much work, not enough goofing off, I want to ride my motorsickle.....

February is dwindling....

We've had a bunch of turkeys hanging around the Ottertail all winter. Sometimes when you walk out the door, a bunch of huge birds will take off wildly, heading for the woods.



These photos show where some birds took flight and left the marks of their wings in the snow.....









Blow these pics up and you can see the prints a lot better.










We have had an unusual amount of ice on the roof this year. One of the corners of the lodge had a thin icicle that went all the way to the ground!! I think I may be ready for spring, eh?




One of the Ottertail staff photographers took this photo as the moon came up over Marquip early in the evening of the eclipse. That was nice enough, but who could have predicted the sight that showed up later. I stood out on the deck under under those icicles that night, leaning against the wall steadying the binoculars.



It was only -15°, so I was able to stand out there for 10 minutes at a time..... then I would go in, warm my hands (maybe have a pull on the brandy bottle) and then head back outside. I was amazed by the variety of changing colors, the intensity of some of them, the subleness of some. I was also amazed at how long the whole event took and how well I could see the moon the whole time.



It was really worth the effort and cold in order to see this amazing event. The next chance at this is December of 2010, so I hope you didn't miss this one!

I gotta go, Carlo

Flambeau frolics

A few weeks ago I talked about following the Flambeau river from Ladysmith back toward Phillips. I since have studied the map a little and began to wonder why I didn't notice the confluence of the North and South forks.... then I saw the reason.


Here's a view of the area just after they join. Anyway, the south fork meets the north in an unusual way. The south fork runs into the north in almost the opposite direction that the north fork is flowing.



That makes it almost invisible to one as they are traveling upstream, trying not to run into any trees, rocks, open water and any other hazards along the way (if you are traveling by plane, that is....).
This second view is what everything else in the area looks like once you get west of Lugerville. Trees and then some trees and other stuff, like trees.



It's quite a sight from 1000' above, and quite exiting to view it from about 20' above the ice. It's a big old meandering river that gets progressively wider as it approaches the dam at Ladysmith.



In the upper reaches, some places stay open all winter in the rapids. The snowmobile tracks stop just upstream from here. This is a good place to leave the river valley and get some altitude, as landing on the river here would be iffy, iffen ya nose watt eye meen....



What a great time it was following the river. The photos are a little fuzzy from taking them through the plexiglass windows. And you do need to double click them to see them better.



In the widest area of the river I glanced over and saw my shadow scooting along with me, so I grabbed my camera, tried to pay attention to flying and taking a photo. It took about three tries, but I finally got this one.
At Ladysmith I headed west and flew out over Christie Mountain, north of Bruce. It's a ski hill that we have been to with the Boy Scouts and they were going there Friday night. So I flew a couple circles over the ski area and then headed up to 5500' and a straight flight home to Phillips. I had a slight tailwind up there, so was cruising at 70+ mph. About 35 minutes to Phillips from the mountain. Ten miles west of Phillips I could see the end of Wilson Lake, the end of the Phillips chain farthest west. So I pulled the throttle back to 4000rpm, pitched the plane down so that I was going 60mph and slowly came down from 5500' to lake level without much adjustment. It was just like an approach to land, only much longer. I ended up skimming the ice on the chain of lakes, popping up to cross the land bridges on highway W, then crossing highway 13 to a short approach on runway 06. What fun.

I gotta go, Carlo