I took this picture because as high as gas prices are now, I have a feeling we’re going to be looking back before long wishing for the good ol’ days of $3.99 gas. Hope I’m wrong.

1. Focus on people—their lives, their work, their dreams.
2. Every millisecond counts.
3. Simplicity is powerful.
4. Engage beginners and attract experts.
5. Dare to innovate.
6. Design for the world.
7. Plan for today’s and tomorrow’s business.
8. Delight the eye without distracting the mind.
9. Be worthy of people’s trust.
10. Add a human touch.

It took me a while but I posted some pictures from a trip to Key West, FL back in March. After driving over all 42 bridges that stitch the Overseas Highway together, I arrived in Key West to the sounds of “cock-a-doodle-dooooo” seemingly ringing out of every corner. Apparently it is against the law in Key West to harm or seize chickens and so they just hang out and multiply a lot. This could be a good or bad thing depending on whose point of view it is.

Note to self for future trips to the Keys: don’t go during spring break. It was hard to tell what there was more of, tourists or chickens. With it being the fun, easy-going, remote island that it is, I think it could be an even better place to hang out during mellower times.

Key West photos

A photo I took tonight of the "Hands Across The Merrimack" bridge. The long planned pedestrian bridge in Manchester, NH is now open! Yay for ManchVegas!

Well after a recent trip to Mount Desert Island, it was time for another journey up into Northern Maine. This one was not quite as luxurious as the previous one, but still a fun adventure at another one of the more spectacular places to visit in Maine. The plan was to spend 4 days at Baxter State Park with the primary objective being to do a winter summit of Mt Katahdin. Kathadin is the high point in Maine (5,267 feet/1,606 meters) and the end of the Appalachian Trail. We’d also try to explore whatever else we could from Roaring Brook Cabin, which was our home for 3 nights. To get to Katahdin, it is approximately 20 miles total in the winter (depending on which trail you take up to the summit ridge).

After spending the night at Hotel Terrace in Millinocket, we woke up to rapidly falling, big puffy snowflakes. This looked really nice, but once we got going it would turn the first day into a death march. We had to hike 12 miles in to Roaring Brook Cabin, as opposed to the summer when you can drive right to it and we were pulling sleds with food and gear. The snow was constant, heavy and wet which made it feel like we were doing a marathon while pulling a dead body in our sleds behind us. We got to the cabin a lot later than we anticipated and were quite spent.

The plan was to go for the summit of Katahdin on Saturday and this would have been ideal, because the forecast called for the temperatures to plummet on Sunday and Monday. The trip in the day before though eliminated the chance of that though. We didn’t have enough time do do the necessary preparation and we were still pretty exhausted. This was unfortunate, because with the arctic blast coming the next day, we knew it was our best chance.

Instead with the weather being nearly perfect, mostly sunny and not too cold, we decided to go for South Turner Mountain. It’s not a huge mountain at only 3123 feet, but because it is positioned directly across from the broad Katahdin ridge and was a steep and interesting climb, we found it to be a very worthwhile. With deep snow and the trail totally unbroken, it was also one of harder small mountains I have done in a while.

Sunday morning the Artic blast set in as scheduled. While it was still dark and -5 degrees I went to fill 9 water bottles down at the brook. This was one of those moments where you ask yourself, “I like doing this why?!”. Of course it’s actually rare that I feel like that but I think it happens to any winter hiker sometimes.

As we were setting out for the summit of Katahdin, I was pretty sure right from the start that our chances of summitting were pretty slim. At 6:45 after taking a little Vitamin I (ibuprofen), we started for Chimney Pond and it just got colder as we went. By the time we reached Chimney Pond it was -10 degrees and we could see a nasty, swirling snow plume blowing around up at the summit ridge. Even at 2900 feet, boogies and sweat were freezing on our faces. We decided it could turn dangerous a little too easily and turned around there. We probably could have made it, but if we ran into one snag we might have been looking at a dicey situation.

Even though the averse conditions prevented us from reaching our primary goal, it was still a great experience to see Baxter State Park in the winter. As usual on these winter expeditions, I learned a lot and walked away much better prepared for the next trip.

View Baxter State Park photos

I put up some pictures from a recent trip to Mount Desert Island in Maine, a.k.a. home of Acadia National Park. This was my first time there and while I had heard some nice things, it was actually much more than I imagined. I had no idea we had something of that magnitude here in New England. The island is filled with mountains with ocean views, carriage roads, stone bridges, lakes and has the only fjord on the east coast of the United States. Some of the more fun things we did while there was taking the South Ridge Trail up Cadillac Mountain and exploring Otter Cliffs.

The Cadillac hike was one of the nicest hikes I have ever done. Even though the mountain is only 1,530′, the South Ridge Trail which is 3.7 miles to the top has about half of the distance on an open ridge with spectacular views around the island and into the Atlantic Ocean. It also helped that it was sunny and not too cold. Cadillac Mountain is famous for being the first location in the United States where a sunrise can be seen. We didn’t see a sunrise, although we did get to see a striking sunset that slowly progressesed and took on different appearances as we descended the South Ridge Trail. We also had the very good fortune of seeing a rabbit scampering around on the summit. It’s usually pretty rare to see any animals on a summit, let alone on the highest point on the U.S. Atlantic coast.

I almost didn’t go to Otter Cliffs and damn would I have been missing something. With lots of different types of rock formations and cliffs hanging high above the ocean, Otter Cliffs were more like things I have seen along the West Coast than the East Coast. There were also plenty of deer roaming around very casually and because we went on a Monday in late November, it was pretty much just us and them.

View Mount Desert Island photos

I am posting this picture I took in Holderness, NH just as an observation, not as an endorsement. So far in the early days of primary season here, one of the most unexpected developments has been the amount of support for Ron Paul. Before this year I had never heard of Ron Paul. Lately though I have been noticing a suprising proliferation of Ron Paul for President signs around New Hampshire. It probably won’t mean anything since the Republican base won’t get behind him and he is just too much of an underdog, but hopefully it at the very least sends a message. I do respect some of of the things he has had to say:

“I believe that when we overdo our military aggressiveness, it actually weakens our national defense.”

“The obligations of our representatives in Washington are to protect our liberty, not coddle the world, precipitating no-win wars, while bringing bankruptcy and economic turmoil to our people.”

“Cliches about supporting the troops are designed to distract from failed policies, policies promoted by powerful special interests that benefit from war, anything to steer the discussion away from the real reasons the war in Iraq will not end anytime soon.”

Paul has also said quite a few things I disagree with but so far one of the best things about this primary season has been candidates like him and Mike Gravel who have the chutzpah to state many of the inconvenient truths the other candidates are afraid to mention. For now though, like many others voters are, I still have to do a lot more listening to all of the candidates.