Annual Appalachian Trail monitoring

Spent a few hours off trail in the Appalachian Trail Corridor yesterday. Needed to burn off that Thanksgiving Turkey and boy, I sure did. Bushwhacking through hill and dale, swamp and brush was fun. The weather was great too.

To learn more about the AT Monitoring project, visit this site.

GIS Day at Westfield State

four thousand plus views in Panoramio

A couple years ago I started archiving my pictures on Panoramio and linking them to Google Earth. In part is has been a private task of highlighting some of my travels, but I have found that it also provides a quick and easy way to grab a photo for some teaching need.

I mean, PowerPoints can be dull, and what better way to liven up the presentation than to display some picture. Any way, this picture of Neptune's Rock, Puerto Plata is nothing special, but I suspect it has achieved 4000 + views is based on the location in the Dominican Republic.

See for yourself at this link.

Clarksville Cave, NY

I asked my friend Mike to lead a trip to the Clarksville Cave in NY and today, we ventured over to it (about 2 hours west of us). An expedition of 6 took on the fun challenge, and all survived!

Visit this site for more info on the Clarksville Cave.

" Clarksville cave is a popular horizontal cave in Albany County, NY. With about 4800 feet of passage and three entrances, Clarksville is surely the best-known and most-visited wild cave in the Northeast.

The cave is open from 7AM to 11PM to the general public. The preserve includes a changing area and informational kiosk."

U.S. Travel Abroad Declined Two Percent in 2010

The overall U.S. outbound market totaled 60.3 million in 2010, down two percent compared to 2009. Travel to overseas regions declined* six percent, while travel to Mexico and Canada were up three percent and one percent, respectively.

The top five destination countries in 2010 for U.S. visitors were: Mexico (20.0 million), Canada (11.7 million), the United Kingdom (2.4 million), Dominican Republic (1.8 million), France and Italy (both 1.8 million). Six of the top 10 destinations visited by U.S. travelers posted increases in 2010. PRC moved ahead of Japan as the most visited Asian country.

For details, see:
http://www.tinet.ita.doc.gov/outreachpages/outbound.general_information.outbound_overview.html

Free Webinar on Teaching Outdoors

Green Teacher 2011 Webinar Series
greenteacher.com

Dr. Brad Daniel of Montreat College will help participants become better outdoor educators by presenting a variety of mistakes made by those who teach in the outdoors. After a short video illustrating many of these mistakes, a comprehensive list will be compiled and solutions to each one will be presented and discussed.

Free National Parks next weekend

In celebration of Veterans Day, there will be no admission fees at National Parks or at Bureau of Land Management areas from November 11-13, 2011.

So if you need a break from clearing the broken trees off your property, head on out to the Parks. Find one close to home by visiting this link.

Crazy Halloween Wx

Freaky nor'easter hits us this past Saturday dumping up to 2 feet of wet white stuff on trees with leaves.

Typical snow hits New England later in November after the fall foliage season. Well, I am looking at my yard right now, trees with green leaves, snow on the ground and a mountain of branches scattered around the property.

IMHO this is worse than Hurricane Irene or the 1 June 2011 tornado.

We have it pretty bad. Three hundred thousand homes and businesses still without power. Westfield State University is closed for the week (yippee), and that gives me the time to catch up on school work in between cleaning up the yard.

Since many gas stations are without power, lines of impatient drivers remind me of the gas crisis days of the Seventies and early Eighties.

Who needs to go to the gym when you got a yard.